Meet Sparrow, an average man passing an average life…
Sunday, May 31
I actually had to work tonight, the first real front desk shift I’ve put in in two months.
When I reported for duty Assistant Front Desk Manager Devani said the guest TVs were out and right after that a rather serious guy comes to the front desk saying he wished he would’ve been told the TV was out when Devani had rented him the room…Devani would later say he and his wife were part of a biker group who’d come in about an hour earlier and there were, in fact, three motorcycles parked out front in bold, manly colors like yellow, green and burgundy…By chance, I later talked with his wife on the phone and she was persnickety, too, and I left with the impression that if I were stuck in a hotel with either of them I’d want the option of television diversion, too.
I was expecting it to be out all night, but the cable guy came about midnight…I took him to where the cable TV stuff is hanging from the ceiling, in the room behind the guest laundry, and a half-hour later he returns to the front desk and says everything’s good and can we go and check some random rooms and I said sure, that’s what I’m here for…I’m very careful in these situations, tho, making sure to double-check what rooms are and are not vacant…The easiest way to do this is to print a Vacant Rooms report and then check those listed against the bucket, making sure there isn’t a registration card in the slot of a room that’s listed a vacant…This takes a modest amount of time, and this place is pretty squared away, but I’ve worked in dumps that weren’t and I’ve learned this precaution is time well spent.
As it was, the TV in the first room we went to didn’t work for some reason…So we went and checked other rooms in various parts of the hotel and those all worked and when we returned to the first room BOOM it had decided to work, probably because it didn’t want to face my wrath standing there looking at it crossly with my hands on my hips.
Not only did I have to escort the repair guy around, I had no less than three walk-ins today, my first walk-ins in two months…We are still in the final days of the lodging ban, tho – it doesn’t expire until Monday – so I had to put it was unsafe for them to leave town on the form the county makes us fill out…I gave all them attractive $99, plus tax, rates, too and tho one guy whined about it, I held firm…You need a place to stay, I have a room and the rate certainly isn’t making you taking it in the shorts and it was fun to have the principles of supply and demand work in our favor again.
Recall there is a health form we fill out when we clock in and out…It has Ys and Ns for us to circle regarding questions about our health, and there is also a space for our temperature and tonite – and I am not making this up – there was actually a thermometer there, too…The only problem is there weren’t any instructions nor was it immediately clear exactly what the hell it was
At first, I thought it was one of those deals that melts wax sticks but then I figured what would one of those be doing at the clock-in station, so I picked it up and pressed a button and made a sound and came to life and soon enuff was ready for duty, whatever that duty might be…I looked at it for a second, turned it over and then came up with the bright idea of putting it to my cheek and pressing the button where a trigger would normally be and a couple of seconds later there was another beep and the display in the read 97.2 and I gathered that was my temperature and duly logged it in the appropriate place.
In what must be considered the Upset of the Year, I voluntarily added a new night auditor duty…There was an email from GM Barbara asking us to please send an arrival letter she had written up to the day’s arrivals that had email addresses…It had some Virus Era information on it, like how all hotel personnel are sanitized head to toe three times every shift and whatnot…Well, there is no reason to make day shift worry about this, especially when they are going to be busy again here soon enuff, so I emailed everyone that this is a wonderful night auditor function and that we would be taking care of it…I didn’t have to do this, but it probably would have been assigned to me anyway and it looks good to grab the bull by the horns in this matter.
Had a productive morning before heading into the hotel…After the usual project work was done I headed out to the river and got the walk in and then came back and no less than two Sparrow For US Senate videos, one meant for party members and the other for the general public.
Sparrow’s Sleep Log: 0900 Sunday until 1600 Sunday…7.0 hours for the day and regular readers of this crap know this is a wonderful start to the sleep week because it’s been tuff getting more than four or five hours on Sundays this spring.
The weekly total for May comes in at 46.5 hours, the second-lowest total of the year, a couple of hours – more or less – lower than January’s high of 48.25 hours…The rolling three-month average is 45.79 hours/week.
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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