Meet Sparrow, an average man passing an average life…
Saturday, October 19
My hotel uniform shirts were in a different place when I reported for duty…There’s a rack underneath the phone printer and the CD player for the music you hear in the lobby and my shirts – both old and new – are usually hung on the far right, next to Assistant Front Desk Manager Devani’s pint-sized sweater…Tonight tho, they were pushed all the way into the center to make way for dresses and tuxedos for a wedding party we have in house…I’m adaptable and pretty quick on the draw and I noticed the change before I put on a dress.
People, listen: HOLD ON MEANS HOLD ON…It’s not night auditor code for “give me more information before I’ve had time to look up your account”…247 called a bit after midnight to ask about their restaurant/bar bill…Fabulous…I’m at the desk in the back office doing something or another and I need to log into the system…This isn’t instantaneous.
Hold on, ma’am…I’ll be right with you…
I think what happened was…
One moment, ma’am…
This did not deter her…More information…Her credit card had been declined in the bar, or so she said, so the barkeep charged the bill to her room, to pass off worrying about payment to us…She added the card was declined not because she’s destitute but because her credit card company, suspicious of people racking up a two-grand bar bill with their Friday night revels, had suspected fraud.
I’d mistyped my password a couple of times so it took me a bit longer to call up 247’s folio but there it was, the bar bill successfully transferred to her room’s account…Well, we might as well see if it’s good or not…If it’s not, she can offer another credit card and Tammy will be spared a headache in the morning…So I created a second folio, transferred the room and tax charges to that and ran a payment for the bar bill remaining on folio one and BOOM payment approved, which she found a relief.
Our friend David, who I worked for back in the old Hotels A and B days and who now runs the new extended-stay hotel next door, has an ad in the paper for a part-time night auditor…Good luck with that, because even in a slow economy with people looking for work part-time night auditors are hard to find and right now with pretty much every stoned ski bum who wants a job having a job, it will be next to impossible, especially since the company he works isn’t universally known for high wages…However, with an influx of people coming in for ski season looking for temporary work, he might have some luck…Or he not…Q and I were discussing this and agreed he won’t find anyone unless he’s able to combine it with some more hours on day or swing shift.
Despite a decent nap Friday evening I hit the wall about 0200 so I wrapped up whatever project work I was doing, declared my work done and put my feet up, open to yet another nappy-poo but I was foiled because I kept getting pestered…Shouldn’t these people be sleeping???…Some loser needed a toothbrush…Two people were heralding their departure…What do I care???…Leave your key on the desk and go, for Pete’s sake…The key will tell me what room you’re in…Later in the morning, about 0500, 18 minutes before my phone alarm was set to go off, I’m bothered by these two half-wits dressed like shrubbery…They said they had been contacted by a “girl” from the front desk asking for their confirmation number…This makes no sense…Why would we need a confirmation number???…It’s right there on the reservation for Christ’s sake…I look at the reservation and they paid cash for three nights and had one in the books and everything was squared away…I smiled and told them this and they headed out to “try and outsmart some elk” and I’m still not entirely sure what anyone here wanted, tho later it hit me we probably wanted a credit card number for incidentals…Why yours truly wasn’t smart enuff to realize that when I had his folio open in front of isn’t clear, tho it might not be particularly surprising.
The Wife, for reasons I’m sure she thought good, has hung a drop light in the carport…No, I have some zero clue why either but, like every other married men since time immemorial faced with situations of this sort, I’ve long stopped wondering why wives do certain things…The Wife pointed out, in a very logical manner, that the drop light will provide valuable lighting for the carport this winter…Wisely, I thought, I declined to point out so does/did the porch light…There are some points you – in your role as husband – make and some points you do not – in your role as husband – make…As any husband who’s been married for more than, say, a week knows.
Sparrow’s Sleep Log: 0900 Saturday until 1800 Saturday…9.0 hours for the day and 49.5 hours for the week…In an attempt to rack up another 50-hour week yours truly did a complete audit of the weekly figures but no, they’d been tallied and totaled correctly and ol’ Sparrow has too much respect to fudge official Sleep Log figures…I know you to, too.
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.
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