i just got a job working overnight at a hotel front desk

im sitting here staring at a painting of a lynx crawling past snowcovered knocked down trees out into a clearing. all of the other art in the lobby and front hallways seems to be a print of the same painting, a fuzzy oil painting of a whitecrested creek with trees with red leaves in the foreground. they're numbered prints, all of the same painting, which is called, "the red maple."

this is like that thread about being on a bus while posting but with more limited appeal

do you get a lot of people coming in? or is it dead?

it's pretty busy! it's in a touristy spot sort of in between tourist seasons but still pretty busy.

a half hour ago, i got a phone call

me: HELLO! FRONT DESK!
girl: hey... i've got a question... it's more of an opinion question but i want to know, we're playing sociables, does 'cup' rhyme with 'europe?'
me: i don't think it does, no.
girl: do you want to come up and do a shot with us?
me: i don't know if that's a good idea.
girl: can we come down and do a shot with you?
me: i suppose you can.

i think she was a very battered 25 or so, haunted eyes, but could have been younger and her friend poured me a shot of absolut from a mickey she had in her purse. they're in town doing a satisfaction survey for the local tourism board and they've got a great setup here, they said. somehow, i ended up giving her my number, but only, i think, in my role as customer service specialist dylan and not as a private citizen.

daaaaaaaang

also, i guess technically they don't rhyme, but the way i pronounce europe, it sorta does rhyme. good enough for drunken hotel rhyming imo

This is much better than I was expecting clicking on this link, was bracing myself for "abusive businessman angry that his room faces the east" or something similar.

i just had a long conversation with a guy that does factory and industrial um... deconstructions? i forget the word he used. disassemblies? he takes down entire industrial systems and reassembles them somewhere else. fiftysomething, early fifties, heavy beard, he said, "does your boss let you dip at work?" when he saw i had a dip in. we discussed that for a while. he just came back from mongolia. the whores in mongolia, you wouldn't believe it! he once called one of his girlfriends up and she said, i'll call you back later, I'M IN CLASS. he's on his way to rainbow lake, alberta.

there was just a walk-in. i always give a discounted rate--i find a random corporate rate, or in the case bereavement rate. but they always ask for a better rate. this guy asked for a truckers rate. my new strategy will be to name an outrageous amount off the bat, then let them slowly bargain me down.

a random corporate rate

wait just a 'corporate' nett rate or an actual negotiated corporate rate

sad lols @ bereavement rate

man, i don't know! i think an actual negotiated corporate rate. there are a list of discounts to choose from, mostly oil and gas companies. halliburton was on there. some of them have billing information attached and a list of people approved to use their direct billing information, but most don't.

the kitchen closes in an hour. i just called over and i've got a bison burger and fries on the way.

just an fyi: if one of those negotiated rates gets used like that too often it might get picked up at rate negotiation time and there'll be ~trouble~

alright! i'll play hardball or stick with the bereavement rate.

those girls came back, earlier than expected. the haunted greasy haired girl was out of her mind and went up to her room.
i stood outside with the other girl, pudgy native girl with a nose ring ghost white makeup, and smoked several accord reds with her. we listened to that boom boom boom song from the joe fresh commercial on her phone, then tyler the creator yonkers.
she went up to her room and she called me two minutes later to say, do you want to have another cigarette? i'll be right down.
will update soon.

now it's dead quiet and i've made progress in my translation project, sent a few emails, drank 1 and a half liters of diet coke.
nothing happens now unless there are early checkouts.
the early morning is mine.

I like this thread

I know? It's half making me want to get a hotel receptionist's job

Ace thread!

lol the girl

hopefully there is going to be some throwing-guests-out stuff to come on this thread, continuing the august ilx tradition of excellence

Where is this hotel?

pinefox you pop up at the strangest times

i don't know if i can get into another homophobe hotel special

Best thread.

love hotels

like, with heart-shaped jacuzzis and pink sheets?

pinefox: alberta-british columbia border area near wellknown national park.

yes xp

when my parents used to take me to hotels i would roam the lobbies, marble fountains

he said, "does your boss let you dip at work?" when he saw i had a dip in

What does this mean? Like, salsa dip?

dip is the new thing

I feel like this thread could only be improved if dylan has to eject an abusive hotel guest and it turns out to be HOOS

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dipping_tobacco

Oh, dip = snus! I see.

what's that song that's like i dip you dip we dip

is that a commercial

i mean, snus and dip, they're different. don't worry about it, though.

that song is "da dip" by freak nasty.

ohh

you really are front desk

i have managed to overbook the house-- i'm not sure how it happened but i feel like it wasn't my fault.

every guest that walks through into the lobby, i feel a spike of dread in my constant low level buzz of apprehension.

but i only need one no show to make it through.

villian

i'm not sure how i'll play it if every guest arrives. i'm thinking i'll just, "oh dear, we don't seem to have that reservation on file," and put on an expression of severe exasperation that will cause them to be sympathetic to my situation.

this is the night you learn what it means to work the front desk. this is the night you make that leap from ingenuous clerk to family murderer.

they'll have crying toddlers

blame the fuckups at corporate

i'm not sure how i'll play it if every guest arrives.

Can you go watch some Fawlty Towers real quick?

if two singles come in better figure out how to play matchmaker quick

exactly, i've got rooms with two beds, and even two rooms, and one person staying in them! "listen, i've got this guy down at the front desk, he really needs a room.... i was thinking... if you don't mind-- he's checking out really early. and don't worry, he's going to cover half of the cost of the room. great guy, too."

i'm also going to claim it's my first day.

gr8000, i just wanted to be sort of light on the details because i was sort of paranoid someone would pop in and ask like, "yo, do you work at the XXXXXXX?" mostly out of a sense of being embarrassed by this, partly by not wanting to get in trouble-- when i first got hired a cautionary tale was told to me about a girl that got fired for tweeting a picture of john cougar mellencamp checking in-- after hinting at or describing doing things i was specifically told not to do while working here.

i only have about five more days here.

Agreed on the Ford/Chandler vibe itt, love this stuff :)

nooo, you must continue working here! For us! xpost

oh dylan i wasn't trying to blow your spot-- just that when my brother started telling me about his honeymoon plans i was like hey wait a minute and thought of this thread

best of luck in your new endeavors; stick with writing

i know, big guy! i trust you on that. you're in the biz.

It's been 5 days.

i started doing this again. not overnight but at night.

in a different situation. it's a hostel. i want to be vague about where. pros: there's extremely limited pressure and i never ever have to wake up until the afternoon and i have time to work on projects outside work and i get to meet people from all over the world. cons: the money is poor. the lack of pressure and formalness can be very hard to handle.

it might be the first job i've ever enjoyed. my co-workers are uniformly nice and cool and the guests are teenagers from denmark and french-canadians on their way west and retired australians cycling from alaska to costa rica.

by the time i finished the last sentence i realized i didn't actually want to talk about it.

here's hoping you change your mind and write screeds.

no. i started talking about it because i'm at work and depressed as fuck and i think i was just going to solicit ilx for advice on how to solve everyday interpersonal problems.

That actually sounds really sweet

hey dylannn is it still working out for you?

yeah it suddenly got really good. sorry for reviving this for nothing. i could talk about it now.

20 years ago I did a stint as a Kitchen Porter at a novotel hotel in Sheffield for a short stretch. It never got good, no Bukowski type action at all, just a lot of taking verbal abuse. Even when the World Championship Snooker was going on nearby at The Crucible I didn't didn't even get a glimpse of any of the snooker stars staying there. I ended up getting into a shoving match with the Geordie twat head chef and walking out at a very inopportune moment for him, leaving the kitchen in chaos on a busy night. That bit was fucking good.

@dylannn, do you do any reading when it's slow? what books do you read under those circumstances? kafka?

i really want to write about being on night float for the psychiatry service but you know

love this thread btw

jim thompson's a swell looking babe is a pretty creepy book with an overnight hotel clerk protagonist

i think about this thread a lot.

http://i.imgur.com/laRrEmB.jpg

work there now

http://cf.badassdigest.com/_uploads/images/26603/shiningprequel__span__span.jpeg

dylannn?? are you serious?

about what?

i work at the hotel in that picture, yes.

it was built in 1914. it is now owned by an investment holding company based in saudi arabia.

http://imgur.com/En05SBO.jpg

http://imgur.com/6hweG4P.jpg

http://imgur.com/GmXPB2m.jpg

http://imgur.com/5Qq5OAc.jpg

wow.

looking through early century pictures, the hotel serves like the same people as it always has, modern iterations of the edmonton raw fur merchant's assocation, resource sector management and executives, various various industry types doing anything possibly associated with oil and gas, galas for syncrude in the ballroom, the ceo of xxxxx infrastructure that nobody has ever heard of but have projects in northern alberta, nigeria, bolivia, libya, trillion dollar company. lots of corporate guests traveling on discount rates.

the rest is:

lots of richest man in grande prairie-types, five nights in the big city in a suite, valet a lifted f-350 and pre-arrival checking out who's dropping a grand a night on a room and it's like, son of the guy whose dad whose grandparents came out to homestead in some town on the alberta-saskatchewan border in the 1910s and got the first ford dealership and built the biggest house in town and it cost them like fifty grand and it has a six car garage and the son now runs one of the dealerships and donated ten grand to the local dinosaur bones/old tractor museum and got a wing named after him, where they have the discovery center where field trips go to dig up plastic bones from a sandbox/the vintage snowmobile section. six figures spent in the outlets and in room dining, mostly on scotch and steaks. preparing guest resumes for them is always interesting, a century of heavy coverage in local newspapers that they now co-own.

guys down from fort mac on romantic getaways that request towel swans on the beds and chocolate covered strawberries, valet lifted f-350s.

nhl teams.

members of third world royal families. members of the british royal family.

prostitutes. invariably quebecois, cash deposits.

minor celebrities. this afternoon: david sedaris.

http://peel.library.ualberta.ca/pcimages/PC/012/web/PC012104.jpg

Fascinating; great posts; thanks for this thread.

Reminded of two photo books/ projects, Sophie Calle's "The Hotel" and Chris Shaw's "Life as a Night Porter."

Would read book of your anecdotes, fragments.

dinosaur bones/old tractor museum

i kiss u

thanks!

it's a cool place to work, actually like it's kind of like working in a time that doesn't exist anymore like there are people working there that have job names that i've only read in like prewar novels? which is what i wrote for: old books. it's like working in 1932. i have come across another like, well a class of people that are familiar with and know oldschool service. there are rich people but most of them are the abovementioned richest man in grande prairie-types or if they're in the resource sector are rich in the sense of having a great big house in a suburb of calgary toward the foothills and have boys weekends in vegas and go to hawaii with the family and work like at some deformed crown corporation or got a degree in some oil related thing and work at cenovus but basically came from the middle class and are staying there because it's the most expensive hotel in the city and they have a corporate rate and a good fitness center but it actually means something to some people even if it's owned by a company in dubai who are focused on opening airport hotels in third tier chinese cities (zhenghzhou 2016 and nanjing 2015) and central asia. i'm not sure how to put it but there are people who breeze in and know all the rules of faded prestige hoteling and have respect for the institution? like they're a cabinet minister's wife off a train from chateau frontenac on their way to banff springs, furs and sturdy luggage, actually greet you by name at the desk even if you're struggling to remember their name. they're demanding but a pleasure to serve because the culture and history of the hotel is all about people like that, old money furs and giant designer glasses and a glass of scotch ready in the lounge ready when he comes through the door and a long long list of private preferences to be prepared prior to arrival. and europeans, they're into it too.

this is the night you learn what it means to work the front desk. this is the night you make that leap from ingenuous clerk to family murderer.

― shit, cat shit, cat shit, cat shit, cat shit, cat shit, cat shit, cat (zachlyon),

lol

just catching up with this thread, great stuff. i am one of those dudes chilling in the grand sprawl of the calgary burbs.
kind of hoping the price of oil starts putting a dent in the number of people who do that annual mexico/vegas/hawaii vacation circuit. have to constantly quell my jealousy when they're walking around all sun-kissed in february, you can't even tan here in august damnit.

ŋeil diamoŋd had a lengthy list of concerns, an extensive rider, intense security. before he came and went each day, his security team did a walkthrough, posted someone at the elevator up to his suite. there are guests that generate some interest and there'll be people loitering outside. but ŋeil, not really. i think he was playing at a casino in town? even the staff who received his resume and extensive notes on his preferences and allergies and whatever seemed unable to remember him. one night, ŋeil decided to walk the short distance from the hotel to some restaurant a half block away. i was invited along for the walk. as we crossed through the park, a man seemed to recognize him. one of the two security guys with us mumbled, "professional autograph seeker" or something. the man grabbed a bike that was leaning against a bench and approached ŋeil and asked him, "how much'll you give me for this bike?"

lolol

so good

:D

i want to marry that hotel

keep thinking about this thread

Had almost forgotten it, thanks.

it's one of the best

Meh.. Just some inconsequential life through a monacle shitjob tourism with all the despair filtered out!

Didn't HOOS have a similar thread at one point?

i recall HOOS had to put someone in they place

My bartender, myself, and my general manager will not tolerate your hate speech on our property. Please leave.