Tales of a night auditor

I didn't have time to cue up another episode of "Conversations with Angie" today, and not wanting to break stride, I've decided to post tales of a night auditor. You see, I'm a night auditor at a hotel. That's why I post most of my blogs at 3 AM. Anyway, I've been keeping notes in my notebook about funny things that happen, and I thought I'd share them with you. Safiyyah once said that I need to post something light every now and then, and she's almost always right about these things.

The most common thing that happens is that people will call from their room wanting a wake-up call, and this is usually how the conversation goes:

Random guest: I need a wake-up call.

Sam: What time?

Random guest: Uh...

That "uh" goes on for a while. Sometimes, it's followed by their inner thoughts, such as, "Let's see, I need to be at the meeting by eight, but I'll have to have breakfast first..." and finally they'll give me a time. What strikes me as funny about these episodes as that the people seem to not anticipate me asking them that question. They seem to be completely caught off guard when I ask them what time they want the wake-up call, like they didn't think that through before they called. Sometimes, if the "uh" lasts too long, I'll start saying things like, "How about six? How about six thirty?"

Sometimes people will come in in the middle of the night and figure since they're only staying half a night, they should only have to pay half our regular rate. That's like ordering a steak at a restaurant, eating half of it, and then saying, "Can I pay half price since I only ate half of my steak?" It's not as if the restaurant can collect the other half by selling the rest of the steak. In the same way, we can't sell the room again before it's been cleaned. Whether a person stays in a room one hour or twelve hours, the burden on the housekeeping and hotel staff is the same.

Now here's a few conversations I thought were funny enough to write down. Some of them are summarized. After all, I can't remember every word of these conversations.

This person came in to get a room, and while entering their information into the computer, this conversation happened:

Sam: Do you want smoking or non-smoking?

Woman: What's the difference?

There was a couple wanting directions somewhere, and I told them they had to take a left out of the parking lot.

Couple: How do we turn left?

Sam: You just point the steering wheel left and push the gas.

This conversation actually went on for a while, and they kept getting stuck on the apparent difficulting of turning left. I didn't get it. I thought they were crazy. In all fairness, I should say that I did finally figure out what the problem was. They thought there was a median, and they couldn't turn left for that reason.

This guy came up to me and complained that although he had the TV on FOX, the news wasn't on.

Man: Fox news is supposed to be on, but it's not on.

Sam: Do you want me to call Fox?

I just thought that was funny, because what on earth was I supposed to do about the fact that Fox didn't happen to be showing the news when they were supposed to? Did he think that was a hotel issue?

This annoying kid came in and we had this conversation:

Kid: How old are you?

Sam: 30

Kid: How old are you?

Sam: 30

Kid: How old are you?

Sam: 30

Kid: How old are you?

Sam: Do you want me to lie to you so you'll believe me?

I don't look like I'm 30, but still, that was annoying.

This next story doesn't involve stupidity; just a series of unfortunate events that seem to somehow all be related, though they couldn't be. This guy came down and complained that his TV remote didn't work. He said no matter what button he pushed on the remote, the TV would change channels. After we got that all figured out, he said he had another problem. He said he went to the coke machine, and when he pushed "Sprite" it gave him a Coke instead. That made me laugh out loud. It just didn't seem like any buttons were doing what they were supposed to be doing for this guy.

One time, I got hit on by a gay man, and our conversation lasted at least an hour, so I'm not going to reproduce the whole thing here. I'm just going to give you a little glimps of part of it I thought was funny.

Man: You're a very hansom man... Have you ever been with a man?... Somebody needs to corrupt you.

Sam: I'm not gay.

Man: I'm not either. I'm bi. I have a wife.

Good grief. It's bad enough that he's trying to corrupt me, but then to give me evidence that he's bi and not gay, he says he has a WIFE! He shouldn't have been hitting on anybody!

One night, this guy came in the hotel and lurked about in the lobby for a while, frequently looking outside. I finally asked him if there was anything I could do for him. Summarizing the conversation a little, this is basically what he said:

Dude: I'm scared. I stole my roommate's cellphone, sold it, bought some weed with the money, and now my roommate is after me.

Yup, I meet some real winners in my job.

Here's another conversation with a guest who wanted a room, and I was getting their information:

Sam: Can I get your address?

Guest: I'm not from here.

That struck me as hilarious. I mean we're a hotel! Most of our guests are not from here! That's why they're staying at a hotel!

A pizza delivery guy came in one night and he wanted to know how to get to the room he was going to, which was upstairs.

Sam: There's an elevator down the hall on the right.

Pizza guy: How do I get there?

Sam: You just go down the hall and turn to the right.

There's a couple more stories involving a guy named Glenn who works here. One night, Glenn was filling out an online personal profile, and he turned to me and asked, "How do you spell 'intellectual'?" I said, "Glenn, if you don't know how to spell 'intellectual,' then you don't need to be putting that in your profile."

Glen found my little notepad and thought he'd add one of his own. This last one is his contribution:

Woman: How old do you have to be to get a room?

Glenn: 21

Woman: So if I am 20 can I get a room?

Glenn: No.

And that's it.