Meet Sparrow, an average man passing an average life…
Sunday, February 9
Had the satisfaction of not renting a room to a jerk this morning,..It was about 0130 and I could hear two guys farting around at the front desk clearly wanting service but not ringing the bell…Eventually, they do ring the bell and I head out and I recognize the one guy…He has a breezy and flippant attitude and announces he needs a room…He says he knows Brandon, who always takes care of him, adding that everybody in town was sold out in a manner that implied this increased the pressure on me to produce a room.
Well, we were sold out just like everyone else, too, and regular readers of this crap know it’s a pleasure to tell people of this sort we have nothing however we did have a United Airlines crew whose incoming flight was canceled not show up, freeing up three rooms that were paid for but empty…At first, I thought I couldn’t be bothered to move one to a house account and rent it to him and then, thinking quickly, I thought it would be a wonderful pleasure to rent it to this guy at a rate that would have him bending over and grabbing his ankles…I tapped some keys and looked at the monitor for show told him he was in luck, we had a no-show…I looked at him glowingly, as if I were about to ask him on a date and not soak him for a hotel room:
Three hundred and fifty dollars…Plus tax. ..Two queen beds.
This had the desired effect…His shock was total and he was pissed…Shock and anger, of course, are hardly out of the 5-star handbook and hardly what we’re looking for but in this case, it was exactly what I was looking for…He could not have been more surprised had I, well, quoted him a rate of $350, plus tax…He looked at me for a couple of seconds, saw that I was serious, simultaneously realizing there was no point in haggling with me, made a scowl, dismissed me with the wave of a hand and announced he’d be calling Brandon on this one…I wanted to add that I thought Brandon would love to talk to him, but he was already mostly out the door, so I kept quiet.
As noted here many times in the past, I do not require you to approach me on bended knee…However, at zero-dark-thirty on a weekend in ski season, please be nice…It’s cold and snowing out and you still don’t have a place to sleep…Being polite helps and some contrition wouldn’t hurt, either.
I made $5 in tips tonight, from two guests within a half-hour of each other, this after not receiving a tip for months…The first came when 159 called to report they had broken a glass in their room and could I bring something to pick it up with???…Of course, I could…The Housekeeping office is close by, so it was a simple matter to and get a broom, dustpan and a vacuum cleaner…He had three wadded up bills for me as soon as he opened the door and he insisted I leave the cleanup to him…A bit later some kid comes in to buy some yummies from the sundry stand, paid cash and gives me his $2 change…In keeping with Official Sparrow Policy (OSP), I used the $5 for a satisfying, utterly unhealthy breakfast off the value menu at the fast-food joint
Later, I was farting around closing my shift and Tammy was opening hers when an Asian woman goes up to Tammy and in very broken English requests a breakfast coupon for the restaurant…(Recall they cost $10 and have a $20 value in the restaurant)…Tammy fills one out and then accesses the lady’s account so she can ring it up and then says:
Thank you for using your reward club points for booking your stay with us!
The lady, for whom English was probably her seventh or eighth language, gave Tammy a more or less vacant stare and a “huh-huh” that was half-acknowledgment, half-question, the universal, language-independent response whenever something isn’t entirely understood…The incident led to what might well be the first Line of the Year candidate for ol’ Sparrow:
– Tammy, she didn’t understand a word you said.
– You don’t think so?
– She had trouble asking for a breakfast voucher…
– I suppose so…
– You could have thanked her for booking her room with tater tots and it would have gotten the same response.
I slept a bit longer than I’d planned (see Sleep Log below), so I only did a short workout tonight…Great strength, tho, moderately surprising because I was almost out of pre-workout powder and didn’t even get a full serving in.
Sparrow’s Sleep Log: 0930 Sunday until 1800 Sunday…8.5 hours for the day and a great start to the sleep week…I wasn’t particularly tired when I got home, so I cheated and took a shot of Zzzzz-Sleep.
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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