Meet Sparrow, an average man passing an average life…
Tuesday, January 21
Still relatively slow at the hotel…We were hardly sold out and while we have 40 arrivals scheduled for later Tuesday we aren’t sold out this weekend…This is modestly surprising because we’re hearing the snow on the mountain is really good…Excellent according to some, and word like that gets around amongst skiers.
So I did some research, not too difficult seeing as I’m the night auditor and see the business we’re doing on a nightly basis…The results were mixed…On the one hand, my instincts were right, occupancy is down…This time last January we’d had 85% occupancy for the month and so far we’re at 80%…The good news, tho, is revenue is up…We long ago made our nut for the month and we’re up over $10K compared to this time last year…So fewer guests are taking it in the wallet and paying more…It would be better if more guests were paying more, but this is better than fewer guests paying less.
The scratch paper pile is getting up there…I measured it tonight and it’s up to 1-and-7/8ths inches and we might have to steady-as-she-goes it for a while because this is almost up to the bottom of the monitor…Key is Front Desk Manager Brandon has been on vacation this week – someplace warm, rumor has it – and hasn’t been around to use any of it…He’s a regular user of it, constantly writing notes to himself, but without him, the pile isn’t getting much smaller…I’m trying to get Assistant Front Desk Manager Devani onboarded with this but she’s resisting, still preferring those pesky, infernal Post-It deals which I don’t understand at all.
Post-It Notes blow…One, they’re smaller than official Sparrow Scratch Sheets (SSS)…A Post-It measures, ruffly, three inches square…You can’t write squat on that…I can’t even sign my name on something three inches square and good luck getting anything a co-worker would find relevant on one…Hell, you’d need a string of them to leave instructions to throw the trash out…The SSS, however, measure a lusty 4.25 x 6.5 inches which you could put the preamble to the Constitution on if you’re so minded.
Something else to consider is how the Post It is oriented because if you’re not paying attention the note ends up upside down when you stick it somewhere…Now, with the SSS you do have to find some tape if you want to stick it somewhere, but if your workplace doesn’t have tape handy you should probably reconsider your career choice.
I went to the retailer after work…With The Wife still off in Kansas, I’m not there a whole lot but I needed some things…I got some canned chicken and some peas so I could have chicken salad at the VSO Wednesday…I am eating like crap with The Wife gone and this will keep me out of the fast-food joint or, worse, the convenience store, where breakfast pizza slices – one hell of an invention if you ask me – are only a dollar on Wednesdays…I also got some of my fave veggie breakfast sausage grillers for the hotel and some windshield washer fluid for the new ride.
In a modest surprise, there was still some washer fluid left in the reservoir because it only took about three-quarters of the gallon jug, somewhat of a bulletin because you clean your windows, both front and back, constantly up here in the winter…I got the stuff good to minus-32 degrees, just to be safe…One thing I’ve learned not to get is that Leading National Brand crap that claims to have a deicing agent that can cut thru a glacier…Don’t be fooled: the only way to get rid of anything more than a light frost off your windshield is to scrape it off.
Sparrow’s Sleep Log: 1230 Tuesday until 2030 Tuesday….8.0 hours for the day and 20.0 hours for the week.
I’ll tell you what, the great lesson of sleeping is go to bed when you start dozing off…Recall I’ve taken to reading on the couch before turning in but the cat has taken to lying on my chest while I’m reading and I hate to stir her so again I ignored the initial dozing off and soon had my second wind and I didn’t get to sleep till late again.
So I missed workout for the second consecutive Tuesday but regular readers of this crap know we don’t get back to sleep until Wednesday afternoon so the full eight hours is nice and we are not complaining too much.
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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