Health&Safety: How A Ninja Handles Her Shit, Safely. Sort Of.

A few months ago, I had my first annual review at this new hotel. I walked in expecting a few slaps on the wrist, because (let's face it- when I walk around barefoot all night and take no shit from anyone, I'm bound to have a few “areas of improvement” checked off) my work doesn't like to give out 100%'s to anyone. That's fine. What I didn't expect, though, was the Health and Safety area to need improvement. What I took that to mean was “Please stop jumping on the counters to clean the shelves and shutting the doors”. What they actually meant was “Start paying attention to situations that you shouldn't handle on your own and call those fine men in the blue”. Which got me thinking. I'm a total bad ass ninja 95% of my time here. I can handle it, unless knives come out (and they have. Whats up, panic buttons? Ever want to see hot half naked construction men race to the lobby in their boxers at 3am? Pull that bitch.) but there were other times that I have been told “You should have called the cops!”

Tonight, I present to you a list of scenarios, what my boss' (or coworkers) have told me to do, and what I actually did.
Situation One: Name Calling
What Happened: Guest A had checked in before I arrived for the night. Guest A went out, got absolutely smashed. Guest B had been travelling all night, come in tired and bitchy and needed the kid-glove approach to keep her from losing her shit on everyone and anything that moved. Guest A chose this time to return back to my lobby and start hitting on me. I politely advised the guest to stfu and go to bed, but he was having none of it. Guest B was irritated, Guest A sensed it with their drunken spidey sense and pounced. Explosion of tired meets drunk meets me watching as the most outrageous fight ever happens. Guest A started calling names, Guest B threw some threats out there, it was absurd. What I Should Have Done, According To My Boss: Called the cops. Hands down. Things almost escalated to a full scaled fight and we could have been liable. Or some legal bullshit. Or I could have been hurt? What I Did Instead: Safety Sam over here, I chose instead to stand and listen to the battle of drunken vs tired wits until the threats turned serious enough. Then I stepped around the safety of my counter (!) and air guided Guest A to his room while instructing Guest B on how to get to theirs. Thankfully down a different hallway. Why: I did this because I hate calling the cops.
Situation Two: Man Sleeping In LOCKED Storage Room
What Happened: I was running behind on my audit. Typical on a Wednesday night. Whatever, don't judge- hot drunk construction men see fit to entertain me with their smiles and deep voices, I'm not going to pause that shit and do 'work'. So I was running behind and karma thought it would be funny to hide printer paper. So I walked to the other side of the hotel, far away in the middle of nowhere land, to the Storage Room. This room holds many things. Decapitated clowns, chairs that people have...um... spoiled, a fridge that has beer people leave behind,... and my audit files. It also holds things like spare printer paper, boxes and the unused cots which we have. There's a patio door that has been blocked off and every night when I do my rounds I check the door by twisting it to make sure it's not unlocked. That night, it was locked. Fast forward to 5am and I'm walking in, loudly, because I'm in the middle of no where and it was time for my daily dance off. With myself.
Sleeping.On.A.Cot.
There was a man. Fully clothed (thank fucking god) but still, nonetheless. I had thrown the door open and turned the light on so I could barge in and grab my shit and be on my way. What I Should Have Done, According To My Bosses And Everyone Who's Heard This Story: Ran. Called the cops and grabbed something to defend myself with. Woken up the restaurant owner who lives in the hotel, and had him stay with me until the po-po pranced on over.What I Did Instead: Gawked at the man while he was woken up, and when he rudely gave me shit for walking into the room (Because CLEARLY I was in the wrong here, mister) I apologised and shut the light off, locked the door and closed it quietly so's not to disturb him. Yup. And then I slowly walked back to my desk, trying to figure out what the fuck happened. Waited for my boss to call, as she does every morning, and when she flipped her shit with worry I crossed my fingers when I promised to not go back down to the room again. I went back down there after the restaurant opened, with strict instructions to assume I had been stabbed and needed help if I wasn't back up at the desk within 10 minutes. Why: I hate calling the cops. I also thought, for some ridiculous reason, that the man was supposed to be there. He was very convincing in his indignation at my intrusion. Also? I went back down there because by that point I was pissed my ninja status was in question and I wanted to kick some trespassing ass. (He was gone by the time I got back down there, but he had been kind enough to leave the cot used so I know I wasn't crazy).

And Finally,

Situation Three: Ball Hockey Bastards
What Happened: Ball Hockey weekend. Refer to previous post, if you wish. Long story short, two drunk asshats decided to see who had the bigger dick in my lobby by showing off to their friends and start a pushing and yelling drunken match that had one missed punch and LOTS of dramz. What I Should Have Done, According To My Boss: Call the cops. I could have been hurt. Supposedly.

What I Did Instead: I'm clearly the Safety Expert here. I kicked my heels off, hollered louder than the jerkholes cheering the fight on, so I startled the masses, pushed my way through and forced myself between the two drunken fools. Sweet talked one into sitting in the corner while I walked the other one to his room and told him to stay there. Why: I hate calling the cops. I'd rather risk next to anything than have to give the control over to the men in blue.


***********disclaimer:************ I DO call the cops. On things like, New Year's Eve (where there's bloody spatter or girls gone fucking crazy and I have too much to deal with), when domestics are involved (of course the po-lease take a full 40 minutes to show up, so, y'know, my domestic has time to fester into a full fledged murder...), and when people try to pull a knife on me. Anything else, I try to handle that shit on my own. But a Ninja does know her limits. Maybe. Sort of.

I'm learning, people.

I hope everyone is having a fantastic weekend, I'm going to be stretching and getting ready for next weekend, formerly known as Month End Hell, Halloween Style.

Any ideas on what I can dress up as, in a work appropriate manner?
Zombies are so last year.

It's Always One Bitch Who Kicks You In The Cooter That Ruins Your Weekend...

I don't even know where to begin.
It's been a while. I know this. I'm sorry, to my three readers and one ghost, for neglecting this blog.
I have my reasons, of course. I just moved, and it wasn't a happy go lucky move, it was a “I picked the most inconvenient time for EVERY SINGLE PERSON in my life, so I had to move everything but my dresser and bed by myself” kind of move. So I'm basically a ball of sore muscles and no sleep.
I'm writing this from work, curled up in dorky unprofessional looking clothes because I thought I'd be smart and do laundry, but, it backfires when you fall asleep for too long.

I digress.

I'm back, bitches. I promise.
I still have no idea where to begin.

Work is ridiculous. I worked last weekend, and I was attacked by 18-30 year old men with sticks and burly rawrness.

Normally that gets me all flustered and excited and primping my hair and making sure I look damn delicious, because lets face it- I only get the attention from the boys at work.*
But alas, by the Saturday night I wanted to kill every fucking person in the hotel because oh my god it was almost as bad as New Years Eve. Almost.
And then I got a complaint lodged against me.

A FUCKING COMPLAINT.

I was less than thrilled to hear about it, but I wasn't going to get my panties in a bunch. Shit happens, right? I mean, that weekend was insane and I cannot possibly be expected to keep everyone super happy and ready to expel confetti and roses over the fact they were surrounded by drunk ball hockey players. I knew I'd have some angry people to deal with on Sunday morning, and I warned the girls the best I could.

I did not realise, however, that one woman who was seemingly fine with my services and said nothing to me, would ruin my perfect streak of fantastic with her bitchy fucking comment. And I know that makes me sound bitter (I am) and petty (I don't care, I am sometimes), but I wasn't given my chance to apologise or make things better. She acted like nothing was wrong, and complained only at checkout about me.

Her complaint?
I argued with her and paid more attention to other people than her when I was checking her in. At four am. Let me assure you, at four am? There were so many drunks in my lobby, that when I interrupted myself, it was to tell them to disperse and allow me to check this woman in. I was nothing but polite to her when her credit card didn't go through, and I was as helpful as I could be to a woman who drove from America to watch her two teenage boys play in this tournament.

She did not give me any indication that she was pissed off, or upset with how I acted. For a four am check in, For a check in period, she received above standard service. I am only lax with the drunks and the assholes. She was neither. She also acted like she had no issues with me all weekend. So, I still do not see where I went wrong. Either way, her actions led to me having to defend myself on my last night of work because in this industry, the guest is generally always right and we lowly workers need to back that up and apologise for offending them prettypleasecomebackandseeusagain.

I leave you with this request, peeps. If you do not like what someone in a hotel is doing, tell them. Or at least act bitchy so we know we've got shit to handle, because nothing sucks asshole more than getting blindsided by the worst written complaint in the history of ever.

And for the record, I do not apologize for my actions. I was courteous, professional and I made sure the hallway she was down was one of the quieter ones. If I'm ever wrong, I'll admit it. I own up to that shit like no tomorrow, because it's a lot easier than trying to spin it to make me look less douchey. Everyone, at some point or another, is a douche. It happens. This was not one of those times.

Thank Baby Jesus I don't work another weekend until mid-November. All I have to worry about for the rest of the month, is Month End and Halloween. Which equals one of the shittier months, Calendar Gods... planning a drinking night on the same night as a Month End. /whining.

*That statement alone may make me sound whorey- I promise, the only thing I flash them are my pearly whites.