h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

We've got a full hotel this week - great business at last, but the larger the group, the more likely you are to find the odd one that's a little... unhinged.

We've got a lady in that arrived today that fits the nutcase percentage perfectly. There was a leak in her bedroom just before dinner, caused by the people upstairs not having the shower curtain inside the shower. Her bed got a bit wet; fair enough, we couldn't dry it, so promised to move her.

I wandered upstairs half an hour ago, as I do, to find her in a full blown argument with my duty manager. To cut a long story short, she'd had a couple of large brandies over dinner and shared a bottle of wine with her husband, had a few more, then couldn't find her room and decided to sit down and cry in reception. When the DM went over to ask what was up, she gave him a load of vitriol. Every time she mentioned the leak in her room, she burst into more floods of tears.

To cut the whole sorry story even shorter, I tried to calm her down for about ten minutes then managed to get her and her husband in the lift, while the DM and I waited by the lift with their stuff. She attacked him, then, after we'd taken their things up, attacked him again. So he's off sleeping in another room while she sobers up. Poor bloke, he'd only had half a bottle of wine and seemed shell-shocked, while his wife just went nuts all over the place. I'm expecting a phone call in the night from staff, which will probably result in a night in a cell for the woman.

If anyone knows of any jobs involving something calmer such as counting birds, teaching kids or clearing landmines, you will let me know, won't you?

I hear that the prison service is often looking for screws. Could be less stressful.

I've kicked people like this out before. They actually thrive off the attention, and you know they'll be after a refund when they get get home despite the fact that they're the ones causing all the problems. It doesn't matter to me if they have to go to the train station and get a train home early; I've even been known to circulate their details around other hotels so they can't get in elsewhere.

I'd probably meet some nicer people as a screw, Gosho

I have put drunken men out of the pub.. but never a woman, they are too volatile. Those were causing trouble have been left for the police to deal with.

In my experience in the hotel, women are far worse, lil. The husbands normally have a resigned look about them, as if they've had this before. The worst, though, was two Welsh women who were having a 'bonding' weekend. They 'bonded' with each other to the point where we had to call the police and move one to another room, the number of which was unknown to her friend. They found each other, it all kicked off again, and when the police turned up one of them tried to 'bond' with a copper. That was another fun night...

Come the revolution people like that will be first up against the wall, along with the muppet who dreamt up the 'Do everything for the customer and treat them like royalty' brand of customer service... after I've spent a few hours with him in a locked room.

Come to think of it, you won't need the firing squad after I've finished with him.

I couldn't agree more. It might sound a little outdated that we still call our customers 'guests', but the two words have very different implications. I'll treat you like a guest as long as you behave like one. I wouldn't have these people in my home; why should I put up with them in the hotel?

You have cells in your hotel?

Blimey, that's either being very proactive on the customer security front. Or you're doing a nice sideline in 'specialty' holiday packages...

Actually, that's quite a good idea

currently being a nursary assistant, the kids aren't too much trouble

the main problem is that it is worse than a doctor's waiting room. You come out with twice the amount of diseases that you went in with!

Seriously, int he past week I've heard 7 parents say exactly the same thing

"He's been up since 4am with a cold, and he's coughing, oh and he's vomiting a bit. But I figure he'll be okay for a bit. If he get's wrose, then call me!"

yeay, share the germs why don't you!


Other less hasslesome jobs - Night security at Manchester Royal Infirmary A&E department ?

Assistant to blind night-thrower

Natalie's assistant ?

I'd prefer to work with animals than the public You're right Rich, women are much more likely to create a fuss than men. You have to feel sorry for thier long-suffering husbands. We call them the Hyacinth & Richard brigade.

My ex husband was one of those! Poor put upon man he was. I've calmed down now (must be age), but having a reasonable man trying to calm you down just makes you more annoyed. Well, it does me. Now J is doing it.

We were on holiday once (Butlins, hubby's choice), and I was so upset with the tiny room, and the filth under the bed that he went and complained until we got moved to a bigger room (actually two rooms). I think the phrase he used was 'I don't normally complain, but if I don't she's going to make my life a misery' and they moved us.

Sorry about your troubles, Rich!
I fully agree with Venus, and since I can't help it, I find kids are definitely better than grown-ups! They don't drink!

You could take a break and do some English teaching in Moscow.
It's nice here in spring...

I was staying in a hotel in Atlanta once and a sprinker went off in a wing of the hotel about 3AM...one right over my bed...the hotel was kind enough to "comp" my room after I spent two wet hours outside waiting for fire department clearance...

With all the international guests you must receive, have you ever known of a Torquay hotel with bed bug issues? I always look for blood excrement on the mattress seams, and behind the headboard and bedside credenza when I stay at a hotel...

http://www.uky.edu/Ag/Entomology/entfacts/struct/ef636.htm

OOOOOOh, Phred, what a horrendous link!

That is particularly hideous, Phred As far as international guests go, we get a few Scots in, but that's about as far afield as we get visitors from!

I really don't mind people complaining, and I'd be a hypocrite if I got upset by people being drunk. If people don't like their room, or if the maids haven't cleaned it properly, or they had a problem with a meal, that's fine, and I'm happy to sort it out. I'm good at sorting these things out, because I have an unfortunate habit of liking people until they give me a very, very good reason not to. I don't even dislike the woman from last night, in fact I feel a bit sorry for her. There's a very special sort of psychosis that comes with thirty years of alcoholism, though, that turns people into screaming lumps of idiocy. Something takes over; years of problems that they've never dealt with come flooding out, and of course when they sober up the next day they go round telling the other guests how nasty the people at the hotel are, which is completely undeserved. I don't feel that it's part of my job to sort out people's mental problems and/or relationships for them, which is pretty much what it comes down to sometimes.

That's the difference, Mina. I think I could put up with your brand of complaining - well, professionally, at least If your Butlins story had continued: 'While he was sorting that out, though, I got stuck into the cheap sherry and brandy, as it's the only way I've ever known to deal with problems. So by the time he got back, I was drunk and angry and started throwing things at him. He said he'd got things sorted out, so together we went to reception where I drunkenly screamed at the staff and punched my husband when he told me to calm down... etc...' - then I might be re-thinking the whole Devon Meet idea

Teaching in Moscow appeals, partly because its a bloody long way away

at one of the schools I was workign at, they had an exchange to Russia

at lunch, the russian teachers sat in the dining room witht he pupils then got wasted* on vodka.


*okay, the english teachers got wasted, the Russians just drunk lots of it and were fine afterwards!

Do come to Moscow, we could even arrange some bird-watching for you.

This morning:

Get up ridiculously early, drive down to Plymouth, help out as a volunteer teaching ten year olds about recycling. Play a game, help a girl with her reading. Take the kids down to a meadow that the Wildlife Trust may or may not have named after me, take them on a litter pick in the sun. Girls find tiny, pretty violets and we watch some ducks arsing about. Play a nature trail game, go back to school. Kids all happy, don't want me to go, all want to try on my hat. Arrange with a teacher for a Gambian musician I know to come and help with their class project. They ask me when I'm coming back. Drive home smiling in the sunshine, with Neil Young turned up nice and loud all the way back.

This afternoon/evening:

Go in to work. Chef pathetically tries to go above my head to get holiday for kitchen porter when I've already told him he can't have it, get angry, chef later apologises. Get hassled by woman who had leak on bed, at least she's now sober. Get hassled by coach driver who expects free beer. Get hassled by man who refuses to believe that his radiator is actually on. Hide in office with tea. Discover that waiting staff have changed mealtimes without letting me know, meaning I don't have anyone to serve dinner drinks. Serve dinner drinks. Get hassled by guest who has no dinner drink. Hassle waiting staff. Have further small row with chef. Try to catch up with work. Get interrupted to sort out problem with waiting staff. Eventually leave work in a bad mood, bloody annoyed.

I know how you feel 'rich. I have similar problems with the bar staff.

Where does it say that you can clock in at 3pm and be having your shift meal by 3.05 (or 6pm/6.05)? Where does it say that you can wander off the instant that the printers slow down, leaving your fellow bartender(s) to deal with the onslaught of new orders that come through a few minutes later? Where does it say that you can stand idly by chatting with fellow workers when the bartop is swimming in beer and soda, the ice wells are empty, the wines need restocking and there are no cups? Where does it say that you can have a *second* shift meal after the one you already had when you first clocked in, at the time when you're actually scheduled to have a meal break?

Last Thursday afternoon, me and one of the bartenders spent about two hours removing a host of blue stickers that one of the other bartenders had thought it would be good fun to plaster all over the bar. We got rid of about half of them, and I was going to get him to remove the rest. on pain of a write-up, but the little toerag quit on Tuesday without working out his two week notice, and before he left he replaced all the stickers we'd removed He better not show his face around that bar again, and not working out his notice means that he's not eligible for rehire. If he does show up there might be a recreation of that scene from Snatch: "Do you know what nemesis means?"

Anyone know where I can find some body bags and a silly fat winker (misprint) called Errol?