Last night was my last night at the hotel. It was sadder than I thought it would be to leave–I actually cried after saying good-bye to Marty. I’m such a freakin’ girl sometimes. I can’t think about it now or I’ll start crying again. So anyway… I took pictures over the last couple days. I thought I’d post some of the people I’ve talked about in my journal, so you can put a face with a name.

New-Guy-Eric
He does a lot of voices/characters, and this picture is him doing his, well, retarded guy.

Liz
I just thought this was a cute picture.  Though I won’t get to see her as often, we’re still going to hang out.  In fact, we both want to go to a New Found Glory concert in November.  That’ll be fun.

Eddie
Whether I’ve used his name or not, most of my Security Guard stories are of this guy.  He’s one of my favorites.

Mike-the-Bellman
Mike insisted that since we’ll still be hanging out I didn’t need to take his picture. Fortunately, I was able to get one anyway using stealth. It’s grainy cause it was really dark and needed lightened but a picture is a picture, and in the end he was spited.  Spiten?  Spote?  I’ll stick with spited.

Marty
"My boy," according to everyone else that worked in the hotel.  We plan on keeping in touch via e-mail and phone, but it’ll be so weird not seeing him every day.  I am really going to miss him.

Eddie took me up to the roof and I got some awesome shots. Here’s one.

And now it’s time for Operation: Black Hole of Time. I woke up yesterday at 8pm, worked, and now I have to stay up until at least 10 or 11 tonight. Cynthia’s helping–we’re going to see Halloween when she gets off work and I have an apartment to see. As long as I stay active, and drink caffeine continuously, I think I’ll be okay.

I can’t believe I don’t work there anymore.

As a lover of all things music, Lollapalooza is wonderful.  As a worker in the hospitality field, Lollapalooza is utter hell.  I will now list some of the more humorous moments.

–An ambulance was called for a guest who was jumped because he owed the wrong people some money and couldn’t pay it.  The “wrong people” were then arrested by the Chicago Police Department.
–A group of underage idiotboys trashed a large conference room Saturday night.  They knocked over tables, sprayed some fire extinguishers, and broke dishes.  They returned to the scene of the crime Sunday to do the same thing and were arrested by the Chicago Police Department.
–A guy mugged another guy right in the hotel lobby and didn’t even bother trying to escape.  He was arrested by the Chicago Police Department who were in the same lobby, finishing up with the teenage idiotboys.
–Guests in a room kept partying despite mutliple complaints and warnings.  They were not arrested by the Chicago Police Department, but the police did escort the noisy people from the building.

And the weekend’s winner:
–A guest returned to their hotel room to find an Evian bottle filled with urine.  I am not kidding.

The entire hotel is trashed from these people.  I seriously think we would have fared better had we booked the hotel full of barnyard animals. 

I worked last night by myself because Sam and New-Guy-Eric both needed the night off to go to various weddings.  Of course, last night was a bunch of sold-out craziness.

I somehow managed to screw up a guest’s account so badly that I couldn’t: add or subtract anything from the charges, record that the guest paid me cash, or check the guest out.  I finally left it as it was and waited for the three morning shift people to come in.  None of them knew a.) how I managed to do what I did, or b.) how to fix it.

In addition, I ran the audit nearly 3 hours later than I was supposed to due to the busyness, the guest from the above paragraph, and the fact that I couldn’t get anything to balance.  Extremely frustrated, I cried in front of Mike-the-Bellman, who went through everything and finally helped me balance.  He then went out and surprised me with an iced mocha to try and cheer me up.  That part was nice.  Made me cry again.  (Being a girl sucks.)

I’ll definitely get woken up today with a call from the General Manager in which he says, “Teri, you’re driving me crazy” a couple times.  It’s been a while since I had one of those.

Oh, and I also managed to crash the hotel software system.  We had to reboot all the computers before it magically came back online.  I’m kind of impressed with that one though.

[The MPAA has rated the following blog entry R for Strong Language, Brief Nudity, and Stylized Sci-Fi Violence.  Okay, really just for the language.]

Angry guests piss me off.  But there comes a point where a guest becomes so enraged that the whole situation becomes incredibly hilarious.  Take last night, for example.

A guest came down with a legitimate complaint.  His keycard wasn’t working, and he’d been to the front desk three times that day alone to get a new key made.  He was frustrated that they weren’t working, and I can understand that.  I would be too.  I made a new card and called the Engineer to meet him at his room to take a look at the door lock–pretty standard procedure.

The guest returns a moment later, surpassing pure frustration and well on his way to outright anger, saying his key still isn’t working.  I told him the Engineer is on his way and will be able to tell him better than I could what the problem is with the door lock.

Guest: “Bullshit.  You’re not doing anything.”
[New Guy Eric steps up to the front desk.]
NGE: “Sir, I’m sorry for this frustration.  The Engineer is…”
Guest: [Gives a long tirade with a lot of bad words about how crappy this hotel is and how angry he is.  I began getting mental images of a stapler bouncing off of the man's forehead and stepped away from the front desk.  I radioed the engineer again and ask him to come to the desk, instead of meeting the guest at his room.  I came back into hearing range.]
Guest: “…and then this girl here…” [pointing at me]
Me: “Excuse me?”
Guest: “You fucking knew a new key card wouldn’t do anything.  This is such bullshit.”
Me: “Sir, you don’t speak to me like that.”

The Engineer finally showed up at the desk, and he and a security guard went with the guest to his room.  Another minute later the guest was back at the desk, having graduated from anger to a full-blown childlike temper tantrum.  Sam, the manager, went out this time.

Guest: “I want to know what you’re going to do about this right now.  I want compensated for this!”
Sam: “I am only authorized to give small room adjustments.  If you want something more, you have to talk to the General Manager.”
Guest:  “This isn’t good enough!  I’m not paying for this!  All your employees here are dumbasses!  This is fucking bullshit!”
[At this point, NGE and I are in the back laughing hysterically.  Seriously, a grown man screaming and banging on the desk.]
Sam: “They are not dumbasses, sir.  They are trying to do their job.”
Guest: “I want in my fucking room!”
Sam: “I will call the Engineer and see what is happening.”
Guest: “I don’t see you calling him!  You aren’t doing anything!”
Sam: “I have to get the radio, sir.  If you’ll just let me.”
Guest: “Bullshit you’re doing something!”
[The guest continues to yell and scream and swear for several minutes.  I called the Engineer from the back to check the status.  Engineer said the door is open and good to go.  I told Sam.]

The guest stalks off and we watch, on camera, as he kicks over a planter in the lobby.  He continues to kick things, and hit some wall sconces as he walks down the long hallway back to his section of the hotel.  He goes into his elevator and perhaps ten or twenty seconds later we get a call from the room next to his, complaining that there’s a lot of banging and screaming.  The room on the floor above calls another second later to complain about the same guest.  Security goes up.

Already long story short, this guest, who wanted an adjustment on his room for the hassle he went through, has racked up several hundred dollars of damage due to the things he hit and kicked in the hallway, and the destruction he caused in his hotel room (he actually tore his room door off of its hinges and shattered the bathroom mirror, cutting his hand).  

To the best of my knowledge, the guest has now calmed down (spending an hour with the head of security might have contributed to this).  I am quite thankful that I won’t be around when this guy checks out in the morning, but us employees had a great time laughing about it tonight.  I mean, it’s a keycard.  In the grand scheme of things, it’s pretty insignificant.

I really hope that guy doesn’t have kids.