"Good Night, Honey"
Recently, I've begun working the night audit shift at the hotel. This is due to a lot of reasons, including personnel shifts, scheduling issues, and the fact that the only other girl who was doing it has gotten sick of it after a couple months and wanted to be diurnal for a while. I volunteered, because night audit has to deal with a lot fewer people (especially disgruntled guests and answering the phone) and focuses mostly on laundry and catching up with all the stuff the rest of the shifts don't have time for. Also because there was talk of being able to watch movies when the laundry's done (or in my case, apparently write blog posts, lol).
This is my third or fourth night completely on my own, and so far I'm liking it. There's less pressure and I don't have to be happy at people so much, and I have a completely valid reason for sleeping in until 3pm that nobody can argue with.
But night audit can also be a little unnerving. I'm here literally by myself from 11pm until 7am; it's dark, and we've had drunks and druggies come in. I get a bit of a kick out of scaring myself by wondering whether the zombies would be able to break the glass doors and get me if I hid in the pool room? Or would they even know I was here if I just hid in the back and watched the video cameras? Usually the Zombocalypse starts in the daytime, so that the scary scenes in the movie can be at night, but it could start at nighttime just as easily...
Zombies aside, though; I had a sort of... awkward moment tonight. We have a cameraman and his assistant staying with us who're apparently here with a band for a local film/music festival. He's been here for a couple nights and has made a habit of coming back to the hotel in the wee hours, which isn't a problem except when he walked on my newly-mopped floors. So tonight when he came back and mentioned to me that their driver was coming up with them, I didn't give a shit and just smiled and nodded.
So then around 3:30am, the driver came down to leave as I was in the process of mopping and had gone to fetch the broom from behind the desk. And as he went he told me "Good night, honey".
Honestly, I was sort of flabbergasted. It wasn't the tone of his voice per se, or even the way he smiled at me, but just specifically what he had said; calling a perfect stranger "honey" for no apparent reason. I just smiled and said good night back, but how would he think that would be okay? I would imagine he meant it perfectly innocently, but I instantly felt belittled and not a little threatened. I texted my boyfriend and said I was creeped out, I instantly thought about how close I was to our panic button, I was suddenly recalling the large silver unmarked van the guy drives. I spent most of the next hour I was mopping trying to dissect why he would say it and what exactly bothered me about it. Was it because I'm female? Because I'm obviously young? Both? Do people really exist who just call random strange front desk clerks rather familiar diminutives?
I realised that had he been old, or female, or hell, even spoken with a Southern accent it might not have bothered me. (Or rather, it would have, but I might not have felt as threatened.) Older people are practically time travelers from a different era some of the time, and maybe it was okay when they were growing up. And although I've never been to the South, I've heard some of the stereotypes of the Southern ladies calling everyone dear and I'm willing to give them the benefit of the cultural doubt. Also, I'll be honest. If I were to be attacked, I'd have a relatively better chance fighting off an older or smaller person than an adult male in his prime. But why on earth would a random guy, apparently in his 20s-30s, think "honey" was okay to toss off like that?
Maybe I'm overreacting, and I'm almost certainly spending too much time trying to dissect the experience. But that instant, knee-jerk reaction of "What do you want why would you say that to me what the hell?!" was really weird. Does this happen often (or only to [young] girls)? How in the world are people expected to handle it?
If this is the real world, I don't think I wanna play. :/
This is my third or fourth night completely on my own, and so far I'm liking it. There's less pressure and I don't have to be happy at people so much, and I have a completely valid reason for sleeping in until 3pm that nobody can argue with.
But night audit can also be a little unnerving. I'm here literally by myself from 11pm until 7am; it's dark, and we've had drunks and druggies come in. I get a bit of a kick out of scaring myself by wondering whether the zombies would be able to break the glass doors and get me if I hid in the pool room? Or would they even know I was here if I just hid in the back and watched the video cameras? Usually the Zombocalypse starts in the daytime, so that the scary scenes in the movie can be at night, but it could start at nighttime just as easily...
Zombies aside, though; I had a sort of... awkward moment tonight. We have a cameraman and his assistant staying with us who're apparently here with a band for a local film/music festival. He's been here for a couple nights and has made a habit of coming back to the hotel in the wee hours, which isn't a problem except when he walked on my newly-mopped floors. So tonight when he came back and mentioned to me that their driver was coming up with them, I didn't give a shit and just smiled and nodded.
So then around 3:30am, the driver came down to leave as I was in the process of mopping and had gone to fetch the broom from behind the desk. And as he went he told me "Good night, honey".
Honestly, I was sort of flabbergasted. It wasn't the tone of his voice per se, or even the way he smiled at me, but just specifically what he had said; calling a perfect stranger "honey" for no apparent reason. I just smiled and said good night back, but how would he think that would be okay? I would imagine he meant it perfectly innocently, but I instantly felt belittled and not a little threatened. I texted my boyfriend and said I was creeped out, I instantly thought about how close I was to our panic button, I was suddenly recalling the large silver unmarked van the guy drives. I spent most of the next hour I was mopping trying to dissect why he would say it and what exactly bothered me about it. Was it because I'm female? Because I'm obviously young? Both? Do people really exist who just call random strange front desk clerks rather familiar diminutives?
I realised that had he been old, or female, or hell, even spoken with a Southern accent it might not have bothered me. (Or rather, it would have, but I might not have felt as threatened.) Older people are practically time travelers from a different era some of the time, and maybe it was okay when they were growing up. And although I've never been to the South, I've heard some of the stereotypes of the Southern ladies calling everyone dear and I'm willing to give them the benefit of the cultural doubt. Also, I'll be honest. If I were to be attacked, I'd have a relatively better chance fighting off an older or smaller person than an adult male in his prime. But why on earth would a random guy, apparently in his 20s-30s, think "honey" was okay to toss off like that?
Maybe I'm overreacting, and I'm almost certainly spending too much time trying to dissect the experience. But that instant, knee-jerk reaction of "What do you want why would you say that to me what the hell?!" was really weird. Does this happen often (or only to [young] girls)? How in the world are people expected to handle it?
If this is the real world, I don't think I wanna play. :/