Scheduling Conflicts

Boss lady:

Coming from a family of mostly men (all with hot tempers), I can pretty much handle anything when it comes to the maintenance men I supervise at the hotel. They are both pretty hot tempered country boys and can let a lot of tension build up and then just explode at the smallest thing. Over the past few weeks, I've noticed things getting really tense and small arguments occurring but I figured they were grown ass men and could deal with it appropriately. I mean, everyone has little annoyances with coworkers once in a while. I came into work this morning and wasn't even here 10 minutes before I had a guest in my face complaining about screaming on the 3rd floor. Ok, the 3rd floor is where the maintenance office is so I was just praying and crossing my fingers the whole way up that it wasn't my two guys because I knew it would be a long day if they were going at it. I got upstairs and starting following the shouts and sure enough there was tweedle dee and tweedle dum hootin' and hollerin' like buffoons! I immediately jumped in because I know when a guy is about to swing and it looked like it was escalating to that level pretty quickly. I had idiot number 1 yelling at me about idiot number 2 and idiot number 2 shouting and swearing about idiot number 1. It took me a few minutes to get them shut up but then they'd just go right back at it. FINALLY, I got the two jackasses to sit down and shut up after threatening them with suspension and raising my voice!! When I got to the heart of the issue, it was over the fucking schedule. Are you kidding me? Two grown ass men with families are about to start swinging on each other because they don't want to work on a saturday?!?! WHAT THE FUCK? I was so mad and you better believe I got real southern and real mean real fast!! I wish I would've had my granny's cast iron spoon 'cause I would have knocked the shit out them for causing such a scene during work hours while guests were present. They just sat their quietly and I'm sure they probably had a few things to say to each other about me when I left but at least I got them to shut up and stop acting like hooligans... or so I thought! Not even an hour later, one of them came storming out of the elevator yellin', "I CAN'T WORK WITH HIM! HE'S SUCH A MOTHERFUCKER!" That was it for me!! I called both of them into my office, filled out suspension forms, told them to clock out, go home and come back in 14 days when they could act like fucking adults. This resulted in one throwing a pen and a set of keys in my office so I gladly added 7 more days to his suspension and told him one more peep would mean termination. I asked them why they were willing to risk their jobs over being lazy assholes and not wanting to work 4 hours on a Saturday. Their response: "We both wanted to go huntin'." Well, boys, now you have 3 full, unpaid weeks of hunting. I sure hope that deer tastes good!! :o))

No Pets Allowed

Dogs are not children:
People call here all the time to ask if we are a pet friendly hotel and the answer is NO. For some reason the general manager likes to make exceptions to this rule and let people bring their tiny dogs as long as they are kept in a crate and do not bark. These people are also required to sign a waiver that if anything is destroyed due to having a pet in the room, they will be charged a $200 recovery fee. Well, this weekend we have a few wedding parties staying here and I was very adamant that NO pets were allowed... not even the tiny ones. I was working check ins and I see one of the grooms come up to the desk with his soon to be wife pushing a pink stroller. Being the logical person I am, I assumed it was a baby and was trying to get a peek. There was this pink net material draped over the hood of the stroller so I couldn't really see much, but I could see enough to know that this was clearly not a baby!!! Then I heard a small bark. WTF. I began to tell the couple that we were not a pet friendly hotel and that they would have to stay somewhere else or board the dog and then the waterworks started. "We can't conceive children so it just infuriates me when people refer to Sassy as a dog. As far as we are concerned she is our daughter and we love her and treat her as such." ...What.the.fuck. I was literally speechless. The bride just kept crying and going on and on about being a barren woman when the guy finally stepped in and offered to pay  more. I apologized to him for bringing up such a sore subject (BUT HOW THE HELL WAS I SUPPOSED TO KNOW THEIR DOG WAS A SUBSTITUTE FOR NOT HAVING CHILDREN!!) and just had him sign the recovery fee waiver. It was finally over... or was it?! Every time this couple came down, they had this poor poodle in the stroller with bows in its hair or wearing some ridiculous outfit. Don't get me wrong, I have dogs. I have had dogs my whole life but at some point you have to realize just that.... THEY ARE DOGS. No matter how much you may love your dog, it's still an animal. Putting pink dresses and bows on it isn't going to make it stop shitting in the floor. Anyway, these loony toons decided to bring "Sassy" down for breakfast. WRONG!! They were immediately told that no pets were allowed in the dining area, especially during breakfast hours. Well, what do you think happened? This crazy bitch decided to start crying and making a scene in front of everyone about how she can't have children and we were not treating her dog as we would any other child. Honestly, I felt really bad for her but there's just no way I could let her keep her dog downstairs while other people ate. She got mad but finally gave in, once her embarrassed looking groom talked some sense into her. I think I felt worse for the dog and her fiance more than I did her though because they looked miserable the whole time. I'm pretty sure I saw the dog plotting a way to escape through the lobby doors more than once. Now, I'm not saying love your pets less because they aren't people, but I am saying there are boundaries. Sure, put a jersey on your dog or cuddle with them, but don't fucking put them in strollers and parade them around telling people its your daughter!! What's sad is, she could probably adopt a kid but they might not let her if she starts talking about her dog because they'll think she's fucking insane!!! All I know is, I'm glad that tonight is the last night I have to see that little pink stroller and Sassy walk through this lobby....

Grown Ups

I think when you're pushing 50 it's time to retire your middle school attitude:
I have had the WORST time trying to get along with one of my new co workers. She's a manager so it's a little trickier to deal with since I can't just write her up or fire her like I can someone on the desk or in housekeeping. She is ALWAYS late and then she leaves for hours at a time. I'm honestly not sure at all what she does other than run around in the her stupid little beetle and take her son lunch money... her 18 YEAR OLD SON, by the way!  Anyway, she got hired here and started immediately trying to act like a badass by writing people up for the stupidest shit and I told her, "Now, listen... you have to pick your battles because these people will just start quitting if you treat them like that." Of course, I was right. We've lost about 5 employees since she got here a few months ago and there's a good chance one of our other department managers is going to turn in his resignation soon because she keeps annoying him with dumb shit. Actually, I've already threatened my two weeks notice if the general manager didn't put a stop to her lack of professionalism and somewhat bullying towards everyone. For example... her shift is supposed to be 9am-5pm and she actually asked if she could get it changed to 11am-6pm (NOT EVEN AN 8 HOUR SHIFT) because she "just couldn't get up that early!" <--- What kind of grown ass woman can't wake her ass up and be at work by 9 am?? She constantly cries to everyone about her personal problems like her mom's health and her son's migraines. I understand that everyone has problems and I'm certainly not trying to be heartless but at some point, you have to learn to set that stuff aside when you come to work! And as for her son's migraines... SHUT UP!! I have a BRAIN TUMOR and I still work 40 hours a week so the fact that she won't let him drive, won't let him get a job and won't let him take full course loads at the community college is fucking ridiculous. If he has a migraine, then he should stay home but she shouldn't stop him from doing things at all because she's scared he MIGHT get one. What the hell is wrong with people?! She will come out of her office and say "Oh, I'm just going to run some lunch money over to my son," and then she leaves for 4 hours. Really?!?! It takes you 4 hours to take a grown man lunch money even though he only lives 3 minutes away. Her whole attitude at work is super sketchy and also, she is kind of crazy. She has severe mood swings and I literally don't know which one is going to come at me when I walk through the door. How 'bout this bitch put one of the front desk computers in her office because her's broke and then wouldn't give it back for us to do check ins!! I was about to reach deep inside and pull out my Warsaw, SC roots and show her what crazy actually looks like, but instead, I just walked away and came back to the situation calmly. She truly is the most unpleasant and horrible person I have ever had the misfortune of working with and if things are different within the next month, this blog may have to change it's title because I will no longer be working at a hotel! :)

We are a Smoke Free Facility....

NO SMOKING:
Ok, let me start this blog post by stating that the hotel I work at is SMOKE FREE. There are no smoking signs ALL over the building and in the rooms. It's very clear that smoking is prohibited in the building and it's even on the sheet you sign at check in. We always get those rebels that think they can just open the window and no one will be able to tell or those people that just don't care at all and smoke anyway. Of course, everyone that smokes always complains and swears up and down they weren't smoking in the rooms when they see the $200 recovery fee charged to their cards. About a week ago, there were 2 Asian men staying in a room on the second floor who had been smoking in the room. It was no secret because you could smell the cigarette smoke in the hallway as soon as you stepped off the elevator. Being the manager, I was the one that had to deal with it. The housekeeper that reported it also brought down a KFC bucket from the room FULL of cigarette butts as evidence. It was GROSS. There were literally like 60 cigarettes in the bucket and they hadn't even been there an entire day. Since the 2 guys weren't in the room and there was no Do Not Disturb sign, I had to go put the "No smoking letter" up on the desk in their room, explaining why the room had been stripped and that there would be a recovery fee charged to their card. It was almost 11pm and they still hadn't shown up so I thought I was in the clear and that I wouldn't have to deal with the yelling about the fee and trying to lie their way out of it. Like every other post, why would I think I'd be lucky enough to escape this?! They walk in at 10:58pm right before shift change. I immediately get a phone call from the room asking why there was an ionizer and why their beds had been stripped.I explained that we are a smoke free facility and that I would have to put them in a new room for the night because their old room was being deep cleaned to get the cigarette smell out. When they got downstairs they started yelling at me and the night auditor that they would never smoke in the room... IN PERFECT ENGLISH BY THE WAY...but when I brought out the bucket of cigarette butts it was like completely silent for a minute and then they pulled the "NO SPEAK ENGLISH!" Get the fuck out of here. I didn't even know what to say. I just kept showing them the picture of the Xed out cigarette because you DON'T HAVE TO SPEAK OR READ ENGLISH TO KNOW THAT MEANS NOT TO FUCKING SMOKE!!! Oh my jeeebus. I was so mad and they just kept speaking Chinese to me when less than 10 minutes ago you were speaking the same language as me, buddy!! It just went back and forth for a few more mintues and then this little asshole TRIED TO COME OVER THE DESK TO GRAB THE EVIDENCE!! The KFC bucket was just sitting on the desk and this dumbass actually tried to take it from me saying, "MY PROPERTY!" I didn't know what else to do except karate chop his hand!! I mean, no guest has ever tried to take anything from behind the desk so it scared me and I just reacted. He looked just as stunned as me because I couldn't believe I had just karate chopped a guest's arm!!! Anyway, after 30 seconds of surprise, the dickheads finally just gave up because they had clearly lost. I charged them the $200 and all was well. I did have to explain to my manager about me swatting a guest but apparently it was no big deal since the guest was the first one to act in that situation and I was just "defending myself."