Today’s Diary entry is with Sparrow’s compliments.
It’s Sparrow, an average man passing an average life…
Wednesday, December 15
Mark’s right cash drawer spreadsheet (CDSS) wasn’t signed!!!
I am not making that up…Sure, the day, date and amounts were highlighted with the now-standard pink highlighter in usual Mark fashion, however, but the signature line was blank…There’s more, too: the drawer was also $5 short, an unheard-of error for Mark, which may cause those of you keeping score at home to strongly suspect it was Chris that actually filled out the unsigned CDSS…HOWEVER, Mark reported that both cash drawers were “good” which usually means he counted both of them himself, so who knows what in the hell’s going on.
The big news is the weather forecast for Wednesday called for a high temperature lower than the 0600 temperature, which made for great fun doing the wake-up call greeting, with ol’ Sparrow handling it with the aplomb you’d expect:
…Currently outside it’s 28 on its way to a high today of 23…Have a good day and thank you for staying with us…
Listening back to it several times, it was plain a high temperature lower than the overnight low was handled so suavely most guests probably wouldn’t even notice it was actually going to get colder as the day progressed, always a sign a professional has done his work particularly well.
Had another call in, no show reservation this morning…About 0100 this guy calls and announces he’s all but outside the door and needs a room with two beds…Well, there’s one available and while yours truly has some zero clue what we’re asking for the night, $150, plus tax, sounds about right and he says sure, that’ll work…He adds he’d like to pay with his points, understands when I tell him that has to be done thru the rewards club and says we can sort it out when he gets here, which he implies will be within the next five seconds…He then asks if there might be some coffee available and was pleased when ol’ Sparrow said sure.
He never showed up, of course…There might be a note in the paper tomorrow about some crash that killed some guy whose last outgoing call was to the hotel, but I doubt that…What might’ve happened is he ended up at one of the two hotels you come across heading into town, or maybe he was one of those who – as we’ve noted here before – gets their jollies making phantom hotel reservations and not showing up…These situations will always remain a Wonder of the Front Desk.
It was slow at the veterans service office (VSO), hardly a bulletin for the holidays…Heck, when Christine from Adult Services called around 1400 ol’ Sparrow was so startled at the intrusion he actually pursed his lips and stared crossly at the phone for a couple of seconds.
Recall Christine had contacted me last week about a client, Mr C, whom yours truly had helped find subsidized housing after living in his trailer without running water and whose lease at the apartments may or may not be expiring…No one seems to be entirely sure, including Mr C, whom Christine has seen recently and she wanted to know what VA health benefits might be available to him…Well, Mr C is receiving a 10% disability payment for ringing in his ear(s), which means he’s enrolled in VA medical…Christine, utterly unfamiliar with the VA, had some quite reasonable questions about how it works with Medicare and Medicaid and I told her VA care is independent of everything, and a vet is free to use whichever one is in their best interest…She was curious because she feels Mr C could use a check-up and I gave her instructions on how to set this up.
That was, literally, it for the day…There were no appointments, no walk-ins and no emails to respond to…Recall there had been only eight hours of sleep the past two days and it would not have been the Upset of the Year to have seen ol’ Sparrow – pleading exhaustion – use some PTO and knock off early, but it wasn’t needed…Despite the crucial lack of his treasured sleep, ol’ Sparrow was strong the whole way, the first yawns not appearing until right after Christine called, so he went the distance today, leaving right at 1600.
Speaking of PTO, it’s not too early to start looking ahead to the Christmas and New Years’ holiday PTO hours lineup…Sometimes, depending on what days the 4th of July, Veterans Day, Christmas and New Year’s fall on there might not be enuff holiday hours for ol’ Sparrow to use because the VSO is a part-time position and it might be necessary to – gasp! – work on a normal day off…Not this year, tho, and yours truly is pleased to report both Christmas and New Year’s eves – on Fridays this year – will be able to be taken off.
The drive home was a fiasco…It had been snowing all day and traffic in town was a mess, tho once you got outside of town it was OK, the snow cleared up and the roads were recently plowed…Still tho, it was sufficiently hectic that the usual Thursday plans for coming into town for a workout and going to the next county were left pending…It might be a good day to stay home.
Sparrow’s Sleep Log: As usual for Wednesday, there wasn’t any sleep today.
———
The Diary of a Nobody is a novel. All elements are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Anything else is a coincidence.
It was inspired by the 19th-century British novel of the same name.
Gaylon’s books can also be found at The Reading Salon.
