Do you need me to hold the tissue while you blow your nose?

Working in this office is like being a college nerd, where people pay you to do the work they don’t really feel like doing.  Undesirable tasks get sent straight to me, so they don’t have to do them.  Yep, it’s just like that.  Oh, wait, except I don’t get paid anything extra to do their work.

Laziness rules here.  There is a file anyone can access.  It’s in a shared folder.  This file gets updated all day long.  At night, I’m supposed to e-mail this file to several people.  I thought to myself, “Luke [because I randomly select names to call myself, and besides, I'm a Jedi], why the hell do you need to e-mail this file when they can easily open it themselves? It’s in a shared folder!”  So, before I e-mailed the stupid file, I inquired about whether that was necessary, trying to save myself a few minutes of unnecessary work.  Later, after e-mailing the stupid file, I mumbled and grumbled my way through the rest of the day.

Another annoying task involves going through a lengthy report; picking out certain reservations, checking to see if they were cancelled within a certain amount of time; determining what the penalty (if any) will be, which involves going into individual reservations, reading extended comments and calculating the rate; entering this information into a spreadsheet so that the penalties can be charged; and presenting it to Reservations.  What do they do?  Oh, just the charging part.  Thanks, guys.  I love taking on long, monotonous chores that other people should be doing and getting absolutely zilch for it.  High five!

As you were poked, so shall ye poke

One thing that amazes me is when people start off pretty low in life, manage to succeed through hard work and perseverance, and use their success to make life better for others stuck in the same place they began.  I truly admire that. What amazes me even more is when someone succeeds in life and they end up an overpaid, annoying jerk.

We have in the hotel a professional athlete (as I said, overpaid) who apparently spoke to someone in the hotel to arrange for a limo to pick him up at a casino.  When the limo didn’t show, he called here, swearing profusely, as though the guy who answers the phone (me) has anything to do with whether or not an arranged limo shows up.  I found out later that when I transferred him to the front desk, hoping they might be able to find a record of the limo booking or provide some other option, he continued to swear at the front desk agent, proving himself to be, without a doubt, a jerk.  But just to make sure we knew, he called from his room tonight to order from room service… 5 minutes before closing.  Yes, I know, it wasn’t actually closed yet, but 5 minutes?  Jerk!

I actually see a pattern here of people complaining to–or even yelling or swearing at–totally innocent people, people who have no say whatsoever in what happens behind the scenes.  I also had someone call wanting to make a reservation on the phone.  Problem was, it was 12:30 am, and reservations was closed until 4 am.  Well, she lit into me about how the hotel was “archaic” for not having 24-hour reservations and how we were inconveniencing her because this was the only time she was up.  When I pointed out that we do have online reservations, she retorted that the phone was easier for her, that’s why she wasn’t using the online system.  So I told her she was “archaic” for using the phone instead of the internet, and she exploded into millions of tiny frowning pieces.

Well, OK, I didn’t say that.  Mostly because I’m nice.  But also because I didn’t think of it until later.

This sort of thing makes me wonder if people without a sense of humor can be adversely affected by too many pokes in the eye.  Maybe that athlete lived a tough life, with many a red eye, so now he inflicts his past pain on others.  Maybe that lady had her eye in a sling when she called and decided that what’s good for her is good for everyone else.

Or maybe they’re just jerks.