Rants

Right... I've just about had it. It seems to me that just about every other shift I'm working at that hotel, I find some moron sleeping on a couch in the bar or some other place. What the hell is it with me and that hotel. Are we random people magnets? Does the hotel scream: it's ok... you can sleep in a couch in here without getting disturbed, as long as you don't mind cleaning staff about you.

So this morning, it's a swedish 50 or so year old guy with plenty tattoos on hos hands and arms. The guy has even taken off his shoes for more comfort. It's about 6 in the am, and the cleaning fuckers are just loafing about. It's the second time I've experienced them not telling me when somebody's sleeping in the bar. I try to explain to them that it's important they let me know. But for some reason, they don't. Anyway, I wake him up with a shake of his leg. Not much for touching these weirdos tbh, but I gotta get him up. He's come to life, and I tell him it's go-time. He's looks a little bewildered, but acknowledges the request. My colleague tells him it's now. Not in 5 minutes. He gets up and starts putting on his shoes, while I walk towards the reception area.

I start messing around with a computer, when my colleague approaches me with the guy's credit card in hand. "Do we have any rooms.. He'd like a room", he asks me. I'm momentarily baffled. Does the guy actually have the nerve to ask for a room? I grab the card, and tell my colleague, that no, amazingly enough, we don't have any rooms for this guy. I walk over to the couch sleeper, and ask him if he understands me (seeing as I speak danish, and he speaks drunken swedish). He nods. So I tell him, either you get out of here now, or I will charge the hours you've slept on our couch, to your card. He accepts his card, and starts to walk towards the entrance. Half way there, he turns and mumbles that he's sorry. I disregard him and walk away.

So... go to a hotel and sleep on a couch for free. When you are thrown out, you ask if you can rent a room. Is it just me, or does that sound like a thief stealing a car, and when stopped by police, he says: Oh, I wanted to buy this car.. did I not mention that to the salesman? I know I was being a bit rough with this guy, but seriously. It's disrespectful to a degree where I don't understand how the hell they even think of doing it. And how do they get in? Do they have a masters degree in sneaking about? And it's all kinds of people. Had a bum sleeping in the conference rooms the other day... an elderly chap with a backpack sleeping on the couches.. two chinese girls, no more than 25-26 sleeping on a couch one night. Where do they come from? Does this happen to all hotels?

I shake my head in disbelief... it's amazing really.

It's weird really.. Have had this admin section open in a tab in FF for a few days now, been meaning to write in it a few times, but just never got around to it. Now I'm just thinking what the hey... got a few odd stories I can share, I guess. 

All the moving of my stuff is now completed, and I've left Ranc's place for good. Leaving the premise itself didn't bring out any tears of sadness, but I must admit some fun times have been had in that place. And of course, despite his everannoying meowing around mealtimes, catdaddy was a cool little furball, that will be missed... just a bit. But as I said, I won't miss the room that much. Afterall, I'm in my own place now, and despite the fact that things are a tad complicated around here, and too personal to be related here (not for me, but for my family), I'm sort of in limbo between feeling at home, and still sort of feeling like this is my mom's place. But I'm guessing that will be sorted within a few weeks. Most of my stuff is still in boxes on the living room floor. I'll unpack it all, when I'm all by myself, with shelves to put it all in. I've got my clothes in huge closets now, which is just a joy. 

Besides living in a new place and feeling absolutely splendid about it, work is as work usually is. One bad thing tho, is, we will lose our room service privilege come April first, meaning a huge chunk of cash will be yoinked from my poor innocent hands. The hotel wants to go legit, for some reason, even tho it will cost them a fuckload of money. But that's as is, I guess. Unfortunately, this means I'll lose some income, and I'm getting the feeling I will be able to notice. Perhaps I'll have to rent out a room for some time anyway. We'll see. This also means that a person will be hired to do the cooking and room servicing at night, at the hotel. That, in turn, means somebody else will be there all night long, very likely wasting my precious alone time chatting away nineteen to the dozen about random pointless topics. I don't know what I'll do. I guess I'll have to pull out the old Mr. Arrogant Prick routine, so people will eventually think I'm an asshole, and just leave me the fuck alone. There's a good chance I'll have to make use of my alter ego to scare people off. Of course, with a bit of luck, they'll hire somebody extremely interesting and funny, so my nights will be cut out for me. But they almost never hire people of that sort. Just me. But then, I'm me... nobody else can claim that. Or... hmm... Nevermind. It'll suck, I know it. I'll type out the story of the night cleaners now, and put it in a new post.

... ok so I was listening to Wild Wild West with W. Ill Smith, when I started typing out this blog entry. Is there a problem with that? No seriously, if there is a problem, let's have it out in the open. You sure? Ok, but I don't want to hear about this incident in your best man speech at my wedding, understand? HEY, look at me... do you understand? Doing that that will not end well for you. So, now that we have the finer points settled, let's move on to the topic at hand, namely fewd, or to the layman, food. 

As you may well know, I rely heavily on food in order to survive. Now, I may be going totally rogue with my assumptions, but 50 big ones in my pocket says that you do too. So we can readily assume that without food, you and me, and probably about 6 billion other human beings on this earth, would cease to exist, were somebody to remove food from life's great equation. Where are we going with this, you could be pondering to yourself right now. And I wouldn't blame you for it. In all honesty, you probably not been told anything you hadn't already read on a milk carton or something. "Why is this random moron telling me things I already know, I mean what's the point of telling people stuff they already know? It's a waste of time" is a question I'm imagining you asking yourself right now (please donate $10 to my paypal account if I was correct). Well, my shifty friend, there is a point. Read on...

Seing as I'm a sucker for food, I am greatly disappointed when the lack of said food interferes with my daily routine. I'm a poor chap, as you may well know. I've compensated somewhat by getting a job at a hotel, a place where food is in the greatest abundance. I pay X amount of monies from my salary per shift I work, in order to ensure the presence of well crafted food upon said shift. When I worked the evening shifts, food was usually served from 5pm til 9pm, and consisted mostly of some sort of potatoes with some sort of meat, very often chicken. What the hell the chefs were on back there in the kitchen, I've no idea about. Now that I'm working night shifts instead, more often than not, they have left no food whatsoever. Which, to be perfectly frank with you, is well annoying. Since I already pay for food at the hotel, and I happen to be working a lot, thus being at the hotel itself quite a lot, I've sort of based my food budget on being able to ingest the majority of my meals while working.

Hmm it's late, and I had a break of some 12 hours between the first part of this post, and now, so I'm not quite sure what the hell I was saying. Or where this whole thing is leading me. But I guess I'm at least near the end. Spend the evening with my bro, playing Civilization II, and just having a blast. Decent night, all in all. Anyway, to sum the post up, I guess I wanted to say that I'm annoyed with the chefs for not being consistent about the food making. We ordered pizza yesterday, my colleague and I. Hotel paid for it.. Or we made them pay. I guess that's ok. Just not my idea of living healthy, you know... oh well, digression is a must I suppose. Hey-ho!

Finishing off a 4 day posting streak, I decided to toss in quite a few little stories in this one. Because none of them warranted a full post by their onsies. Starting out, I'm getting these small stories from a little note I'm getting used to carry around with me all the time. That and a pen. I'm tired of having a gazillion sweet and cool ideas for stuff when I'm out and about, but as soon as I sit my ass down in front of the computer, my mind draws the proverbial blank... and nothing comes of it. However, the thing is, with little notes you leave for yourself, that when you read them days or weeks later, you've no idea what the two-three words on the paper refer to. Thankfully, I remember like 75% of the stuff I've jotted down, so I think I'll make it through this post without anybody raising eyebrows.

First off, we had a guest named Barbosa the other day. Now for the non Piraty folk out there, hearing the name Barbosa will very likely not mean a great deal to you. But for the Sparrowian lovers among us, Barbosa will of course refer to Captain Jack's nemesis (or at least one of them) and later ally, in the PotC franchise. While this particular tidbit isn't HAHAHA OMG funny, it's still somewhat nifty in my not at all humble opinion. Sadly, the guest's first name wasn't Hector. Had it in fact been, I might've had to say "You're off the edge of the map now mate. Here be monsters!". This wasn't the case tho, so I left the guest alone. Turned out he was a regular guest, and would've very likely not appreciated the gesture. In my head, as with so so much other stuff, it was funny as hell.

Had another guest who noticed I was left handed, when I wrote the room number on the little key-wallet thingy. "1 in 10, is what I've heard, sir" was what I replied. He then told me, as guests tend to do when they think I'm interested (which, in this particular case I just so happened to be), a story about his childhood, seing as he was lefthanded as well. His dad used to hit his left hand, when he wrote with it, and he had to sit on it in school. A story I've been told before, by others. It's pretty interesting actually, how long being left handed has been associated with something bad. And of course, as with almost everything else bad, it is rooted in religion. Catholicism, I'd take it, figured that since only a few people were left handed, it must have something to do with our old friend, the devil. Yup, sweet Lucifer is always around, trying to get those pesky catholics. Fuckers. Anyway, they thought it so bad, apparently, that they adapted the latin word for left, Sinister, as a word for something really mean and calous. I ended the conversation with the guest by saying: "I'm glad I wasn't...". He interrupted me by saying "Catholic?" which I found pretty humorous. "No, I was gonna say I'm glad I wasn't born in the days where stuff like that happened. But sure.. catholic too". Why can't all guests be like that guy. He was fun.

Besides the little kinks I'm writing about here, I like the hotel a lot. As opposed to other hotels I've been in, this particular one actually does feel like, however cliché it sounds, a large closely related group and/or family. Everybody knows everybody. The GM is a good guy, who isn't too high and mighty to smile, shake hands and talk to new people he hasn't seen before, when he passes through. The managers seems like they are still part of the group, instead of being these distant weird people you only know by name. It combines high quality products and service, with fun and relaxed atmosphere. I'm very impressed. Besides my little goof up, of taking all these evening shifts, instead of doing the nightshifts I so enjoy, I'm happy I joined the staff. The benefits I guess, along with the salary and the sparetime will do me oh so well. I dunno what the future will bring in terms of using the last two years of experience and bills for something constructive. But despite my wanting to play down my skills, I did in fact learn a lot of stuff.. and with a bit of effort, I can develope it to a level where I might be able to make some money off of it, freelance. Got a few gigs already, that I could potentially get something from. It's an interesting thought, for sure... I'll persue it, when I'm confident with what I'm doing now.

Weird, isn't it.. I thought I had a lot more to say, but I can't make heads or tails in the last two-three items on my little note. So I'll just toss it, and remember: I'm working in a place where stuff happens all the time. Like the screaming lady who wanted to exchange currency the other day, and was hella pissed that we didn't have euros laying around willy nilly. She wanted to exchange a 50, get 20 of them in danish kroner, and the rest back in euro. I was like: This isn't a bank, lady. She started yelling about us being an international hotel blah blah. She didn't even live here, so I considered just telling her to fuck off. But again, she did have an amusing streak to her. I told her it might be an international chain of hotels, but this was still a Danish hotel located in Denmark. And as a rule, we just didn't have currency around. End of discussion. So she settled for exchanging her 50 note, and get it all in kroner. If she had just gone elsewhere, she'd have gotten a lot more, since our rates are insanely shit (hey, a man's gotta make money, yeah?). I don't get people like her. Making a fuss over something totally pointless. But who am I to judge. At least I've got another paragraph in this post :) Catch you bastardos on the flipside.

Yes, the hotel does take up rather a lot of my time. At least it means I've got little stories to tell on here. And with my life being ridiculously dull and boring besides what I do at work, I think you all should just be happy that I'm treating you to at least something.

Anywho, today's story will revolve around the good old handshake with a folded note routine. Altho this particular case wasn't about a bribe, the move still took place, and I happened to find it pretty hillarious. On to the story at hand (pun);

I was in reception, loafing about, when a guest enters. He's immediately recognizable to me, as one of the sorta newly rich people who thinks everybody else lives to serve his needs, and that nothing is undoable as long as he keeps on asking in a friendly and sleazy manner. He tossed his Amex Gold on the desk, and informed me of his name. He had a heavy and thick smell of some deodorant or perfume (whatever the fuck the difference is), which make talking to him slightly difficult for me. After telling me his name, and showing me his Radisson membership number (conveniently written on a piece of paper, rather than on the actual membership card every member has), he asked the question asked by so many people, and denied by so many receptionists: "Do you have an upgrade for me?" I should have him stuffed and mounted.

Anywho, the upgrade request is a pretty standard part of daily hotel business. For some reason guests thinks that just because they've stayed at a hotel in the same chain once, twice or ten times before, they are somehow entitled to free stuff all the time. Why it's so important a status symbol for them, having a room 2 square feet larger, I simply cannot understand. And just asking for a free upgrade, like it was the most natural thing in the world, is downright cheek to me. I hate it, and I hate the style. So I pull out the old staff-vs-guests textbook (as mentioned in the Blamex post) and I go for the sly move that is holding the guest off for a bit, appearing to look for that elusive upgrade, while really just clicking the 'ok' button repeatedly. I spice it up a notch by telling him I've secured a slightly larger room than what was booked, and that it's the best I can do. He's asking a few details about the room, and I reply. He seems content. So I check him in. He thinks he's gotten an upgrade. In reality, he's gotten fuck all. Power of illusion I guess. So he goes up to his room, and the waiting game begins. Will he be happy? Or will he come back and ask for a larger room, to which I'd have to reply in the negative fashion.

I don't give it a lot of thought, since it's a fairly common event. But he does show up later on, going into the restaurant. On the way, he moves towards me, and extends his hand. As in Seinfeld, this plays in slowmotion in my head. I move my hand towards his, not yet realizing what is about to transpire. His hand meets mine, and we lock in, the money note folded tightly between our palms. "Excellent choice of rooms my friend", was the sentence accompanying the cash. I'm momentarily puzzled at the appearance of money in my hand, but I recover quickly, with a curtly nod and a thank you. The handshake bribe, executed to perfection. I've seen it so many times, but didn't think it actually happened.

Of course that wasn't the last I should see of the guy. He came back later on, and by now he and I were apparently on a first name basis. "Dalif... I need another room tonight. Just remembered I had a friend come by.. just a standard room with the basics... I'm paying everything". So I start the booking process up, and we enter a debate about the room. He asks the usual questions.. is it a nice room. Yes. Does it have a nice bed. Yes. Have you seen the room? No, but they are all pretty standard. Blah blah blah. He pulls the same stunt he did earlier, talking about how valued a customer he is of our hotels around the world yadda yadda yadda. I'm not impressed. Then he asks the second most common try-to-scam-cash question: Can you throw in free breakfast with the room?

Now, in this case he didn't ask, but he told me, I'd do it. "You'll throw in free breakfast right? Because I'm a valued customer". I chuckled, and said: I wish I could (a blatant lie). He wasn't chuffed with me not complying, but decided to let it go. I guess he realized it was too far out. I'm just amazed at the nerve these people have. Perhaps I'm just a naive person who is satisfied with getting what he's paying for or what he's ordered. But what the hell does he think this is? That I'm just giving away free shit left and right because he thinks he should have it? If I give him a free upgrade, I'm sure as hell gonna have to explain to a lot of angry people why I did that. And ultimately I'll have to pay for it myself, I'm guessing. If I throw in a free breakfast, I'd have explaining to do as well... and I'm sure I'd end up having to pay for that too. Besides financial consequences, I'd be labelled as a moron or someone easily bullied. Why doesn't the guy realize this? Sure I guess the old saying "It doesn't hurt to ask" could ring true here. I just think it does. I mean, he's made it into a blog post on the internet now, and he's made me think of him as an idiot. And consider, all his fucking around and being a smartass got him nowhere. I guess I shouldn't even have indulged him as far as thinking he got a better room. It encourages him. But what the hell. I guess I just wanted to get rid of him without having to go through a lot of unnecessary bullshit. God I hate people like him. If I hadn't already spent his cash on beer and food, I'd toss it in the River Styx on my way to see Hades. BaZING!