Welcome to the Night Audit

A guy just walked back into the hotel after going outside for a smoke. Once in the lobby he farted. Loudly. This pretty much sums up my night. I will share with you a couple of little hotel secrets. 1) Every singe square inch of public space in a hotel is on surveillance camera. In my hotel there is a bank of cameras hidden behind the front desk. I see everything. If you scratch your ass or fall face down in one of the hallways I see it. Everything is recorded digitally and yes, when something really embarrassing happens the staff will gather and laugh at your misery. 2) Don't book your reservations on a 3rd party site. Expedia, Hotels.com (same company btw) and the like will guarantee you a cheap room. The hotel will guarantee that it's the worst room in the hotel. Hotels don't make any money off the discount sites plain and simple. They have to offer rooms to be competitive. Bottom line. In my hotel we keep a hallway full of rooms that are only rented on 3 conditions, A sports team, walk in's after 10pm and 3rd party reservation's. The rooms are un-renovated and feature a view of the parking lot. Enjoy. Now I'm not agreeing with any of these things. It is what it is. For anyone who has spent any time in public service being treated like crap comes with the territory. Consider it payback. It's not like being a waitress or bartender where I can do horrible things to your food and drinks (what did you really think that was the stuff of urban legends? remind me to tell you about the years that I spent behind the bar.) The bottom line is with any situation treat the people you come into contact with respect and it will be shown to you. Being kind to me, smiling, and saying hello will get you far. I'm likely the nicest person that you're likely to come into contact with. I will do anything for you. I will upgrade your room for free, give you a late checkout, open the pool and gym early just for you, the list goes on. Be rude to me and you can be sure I will put you next to the smoking guy with the gas problem overlooking the parking lot.

The complicated life of a public servent

I remember being a little kid. I used to move the furniture around my room to set up a makeshift retail store. Drove my mother insane since everything was made into little displays. I wouldn't allow cleaning of any kind,preferring instead to tidy my store myself. My stock rotated daily and no one ever came in to buy anything since nothing was for sale. I just enjoyed the idea of it. I held on to the notion that working in a store would be fantastic. I could shop all day and get paid for it. When I was 17 I landed my first job in a clothing store. I was in heaven. I got to operate the cash register and got a fantastic deal on the merchandise. The problem was that in all my years of playing make believe I wasn't prepared for the reality of the customer. Years would pass and jobs would change. The customer never did. I have seen the good, the bad, and the horrifying in my 25 years working with the public. I have worked in Retail, Restaurants, Hotels and Real Estate all over North America. The following is my tale.