It’s Sparrow, an average man passing an average life…
Wednesday, June 29
Chris highlighted the amounts on his Cash Drawer Spreadsheet (CDSS) again…Recall two nights ago he highlighted everything – including his initials – and last night he highlighted squat – or didn’t highlight squat, this still confuses us – and tonite he was back to his usual, only highlighting the amounts…Thank Providence this ends the week’s CDSS instability…Mark will be back next week and I know you will be as glad to see Mark back as we will be…I checked, and next week’s schedule – almost incredibly – is already up, and Mark is on it.
We won’t be here for end of the month, and the figures with two days left to go are a mixed bag: revenue was strong, up over June 2020, though occupancy was down from 82% to 73%…This means guests were taking it in the shorts rate-wise, and this is reflected in the average daily rate (ADR; room revenue/rooms rented) of $180 vs $125 for the same month last year.
And it doesn’t look as if July is going to get off to that roaring of a start, either, because the holiday weekend is, right now, sort of ho-hum…Now, you don’t expect to be sold out mid-week, but we’re only at 65% or so for the entire weekend and if we were going to be sold out we’d probably be at 85% or so right now.
Around 0200 a woman who clearly isn’t pleased calls with a problem that regular readers of this crap know happens from time to time: she got into town late and no one was at her condo to let her in and did we have anything???…Well, no we didn’t, and tho she tried to cop an attitude with me (she was particularly successful at it) yours truly remained infernally gracious and let her vent.
Actually, we did have a no-show and odds were we could give her and her rugrats that room and not get caught because the guest probably wasn’t going to show up, but this was a corporate lodging, multi-nite account and if Mr F didn’t show up tonite, he might tomorrow and while we’re sympathetic to a mom and her kids sleeping in their car, we’ve learned over the decades knocking around front desks that it’s generally best not to roll the dice in this situation.
There was a time at the veterans service office (VSO) when there were no less than three people in the office besides me, but other than that, it was a slow day.
The first visitor was Bruce, who is the adjutant for the local VFW post for what turned out to be a rather tedious meeting…He shows up about 1000 with coffee for both of us, which can be either nice or pretentious, depending on your point of view and Bruce can be a rather tedious sort, so yours truly was of a mind to think it pretentious…One, of course, regular readers of this crap know ol’ Sparrow quit coffee a couple of months ago…Two, he brought it with cream in it, and a couple of sugar substitutes on the side…Cream???…Jesus H, we rode smoke boats in the Navy, we take our coffee like we take our women: strong and black…Still tho, it was accepted without throwing it back at him and we settled in to see what was on his mind.
Well first, off, there appeared to be an old county VSO website out there that had outdated information…This made no sense, so I ask to see his phone and the deal is it wasn’t a website, merely some information on the office…The VSO was Mike, who was Natalie’s predecessor, the address was the old office in the workforce center, and the phone number was outdated to boot…Bruce, tho, thought it was an official county website and continued to think this even after we showed the official county VSO website that’s maintained by yours truly and was dismissive when we tried to explain it wasn’t a website, merely the internet equivalent of a business card with some (inaccurate) information on it…Bruce continued to remain adamant that it was an official county website, tho, and that millions were reading it right now and he would not let go of the matter until I solemnly pledged to contact IT and get this resolved.
Then he started talking about getting some sort of phone tree going in case a veteran needs help and can’t reach me and this was tedious, too…I mean, you know, I have yet to run into a veteran who needs help right this very second, but he was intent and this was five more minutes we’ll never get back.
Then Mickey knocked on the door…He had come by a few weeks ago to arrange for transportation to the VA hospital south of here on July 7 and hadn’t heard from me…Well, he hadn’t heard from me because the Wizard Sparrow had lost his contact information…This really wasn’t a problem, tho, because the date had been blocked out and it was a simple matter to make the arrangements right there.
Then Stanko shows up looking for the receipt for the electric bill we paid for a veteran on Monday…Look, my office used to be a closet and really cannot handle four people comfortably and it certainly can’t sit all of them down…Soon enuff, tho Mickey left. Tho, and the receipt was down in the new ride so the festivities could be moved there and we left Bruce and Stanko chatting in the parking lot.
Then Jenn, my nominal supervisor at the Human Services Department (DHS) called to talk about a rather bizarre phone call she had gotten on Monday from – and this will surprise you – Bruce…(He had stopped by the office Monday while I was out and had written his name and number on the sign I’d put on the door advising I was out.)…I told Jenn Bruce had just left and she said he had whined I wasn’t in the office during posted hours and who was my boss???…Well, Jenn said, she was, sort of, and there was a department head, of course, but otherwise, ol’ Sparrow constructs his days as he sees fit…She said Bruce kept gnawing on her ear for five full minutes trying to get to the bottom of this vital matter and eventually said all he really wanted was to make sure we were referring vets to the VFW which is nonsense because there is no reason for me to refer anybody to the VFW for anything.
That was it, tho…Project work was as caught up as we wanted it to be, so a Working Holiday was declared for the rest of the afternoon…As it was, nobody bothered us, and the rest of the day was spent at leisure watching stuff and whiling away the time, something we don’t get to do all that much and was rather pleasant.
Rain is in the forecast Thursday, so maybe the lawn won’t get done, but there is some zero chance a Sparrow Day will be declared and we’ll stay at home all day because we need things from the retailer and if we’re leaving the house for that we might as well go in and workout, too.
Sparrow’s Sleep Log: As usual, there is no sleep to report today.
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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.
Coming soon! Gaylon’s books in actual book form!
