(no subject)
Today it was just me and Mr. Penny.
My job consists of the following: I answer phones/questions about various hotel polices (that largely I know nothing to little about). I check people in/out of their rooms. I listen to their stories if they have any to tell, I ask them how their day is going, I tell them to let me know if there's anything I can do to make their trip better. And it feels so fucking good. I don't know why. My first thought is that I've always really appreciated friendly hotel staff, because being on a trip can be disorienting, especially if its any important one. That hotel is going to stay in your mind for a long time, like how I can remember every single hotel Me and Mike stayed in on our way to California, receiving our education in the cities of the nation as they say. Or how I remember the hotels involved with Jessica Ellington, at the Biltmore, where she worked (room 207, Tiger Suites)-- or the hotel me and Jess Emrick stayed at for Rachel's wedding, the same hotel my family stayed at when they were moving out of Daphne. The hotel I stayed with Ashley Stewart in in Calera on my first trip to visit Montevallo--that's where I stole that hotel blanket from, ya'll, the one Maggie Dog Dog later tore a hole through. Hotels are strange mile markers in terms of memory, because on the one hand each one has specific eccentricities in time and space, special to that one moment, that one memory. The hotel I stayed at visiting my great aunt for the last time in North Carolina, drinking a bourbon and coke with my Uncle at the bar, talking about money and women, probably. Then on the other hand every hotel room pretty much looks the same, unless you're booking the luxury suites, and I ain't never been bookin' the luxury suites. Every double queen bed room is arranged in one of maybe five configurations, because I suppose there's only so many ways you can flop down two beds, a tv, a chest of drawers, a table, a chair, two night stands and a bathroom into a particular space. But in a way it's like you're always coming home, or at least always re-entering familiar territory.
Also I love the feeling of drinking coca cola, poured out of a can from the machine down the hall, into one of those little tumblers full of square cubes of ice. The hotel bathroom I smoked joints in, out of sheer panic of losing love, in Chicago with Jessica's sister. The hotel we punk'd in Annapolis. Get your rocks off, get your rocks off momma.
But then, I dunno if that's why I love my job right now, exactly, even if I did have a shit night tonight, and even if it is eating up what little remains of my social life. And I've been to equally memorable restaurants and appreciated the good service. The reason remains illusive in the moment.
Mr. Penny is the bellman, and an Auburn local legend of sorts. He makes the papers on a regular basis (a fact which he is not shy to brag about). He does 3000 (yes I typed that right, three thousand!) pushups every day. He does fifty pushups whenever Auburn's football team scores a touchdown--this year he's trying to get permission from the Athletics director or whoever to do them on the field with the team. He has two gold teeth, crazy bling all the time, and a little song about himself set to the tune of Curtis Mayfield's "Pusherman"-- "I'm yo momma/I'm yo daddy/I'm that dude/in the alley/--I'm your pushup Man." Tonight me and Mr. Penny watched episodes from the first season of Breaking Bad in the back room, and he laughed throughout-- "oh man, he's gonna start cookin' again, ain't he?" Mr. Penny did not know how prescient he was.
I dunno. Can't put my finger on it, but I've never felt so fulfilled by my job, even if it is a shitty service job where I get taken advantage of half the time. There are enough people who treat me like a genuine human being, people who need me, and who I help on a daily basis, to where I feel like it IS sort of my pleasure to help them out--old people that need wheelchair accessible rooms, people who need peace and quiet because they're in town for a funeral, people who need to know where the goddamn bar is-- it is pleasurable to try and make their trip as memorable as any of the ones I named. The hotel I stayed at in Penscola with P and Grace and Cleo + Berwicks etc... The hotel I stayed at when my family moved to Bloomington, Illinois-- also the first time in my recollection seeing snow, big huge drifts of snow all over the empty Best Buy parking lot across the street.
I dunno. Sorry of this is stupid. I'm just...thinking about hotels tonight. And The Shining, but just a little bit. I do work with a bald hip african American gentleman named Doc.
My job consists of the following: I answer phones/questions about various hotel polices (that largely I know nothing to little about). I check people in/out of their rooms. I listen to their stories if they have any to tell, I ask them how their day is going, I tell them to let me know if there's anything I can do to make their trip better. And it feels so fucking good. I don't know why. My first thought is that I've always really appreciated friendly hotel staff, because being on a trip can be disorienting, especially if its any important one. That hotel is going to stay in your mind for a long time, like how I can remember every single hotel Me and Mike stayed in on our way to California, receiving our education in the cities of the nation as they say. Or how I remember the hotels involved with Jessica Ellington, at the Biltmore, where she worked (room 207, Tiger Suites)-- or the hotel me and Jess Emrick stayed at for Rachel's wedding, the same hotel my family stayed at when they were moving out of Daphne. The hotel I stayed with Ashley Stewart in in Calera on my first trip to visit Montevallo--that's where I stole that hotel blanket from, ya'll, the one Maggie Dog Dog later tore a hole through. Hotels are strange mile markers in terms of memory, because on the one hand each one has specific eccentricities in time and space, special to that one moment, that one memory. The hotel I stayed at visiting my great aunt for the last time in North Carolina, drinking a bourbon and coke with my Uncle at the bar, talking about money and women, probably. Then on the other hand every hotel room pretty much looks the same, unless you're booking the luxury suites, and I ain't never been bookin' the luxury suites. Every double queen bed room is arranged in one of maybe five configurations, because I suppose there's only so many ways you can flop down two beds, a tv, a chest of drawers, a table, a chair, two night stands and a bathroom into a particular space. But in a way it's like you're always coming home, or at least always re-entering familiar territory.
Also I love the feeling of drinking coca cola, poured out of a can from the machine down the hall, into one of those little tumblers full of square cubes of ice. The hotel bathroom I smoked joints in, out of sheer panic of losing love, in Chicago with Jessica's sister. The hotel we punk'd in Annapolis. Get your rocks off, get your rocks off momma.
But then, I dunno if that's why I love my job right now, exactly, even if I did have a shit night tonight, and even if it is eating up what little remains of my social life. And I've been to equally memorable restaurants and appreciated the good service. The reason remains illusive in the moment.
Mr. Penny is the bellman, and an Auburn local legend of sorts. He makes the papers on a regular basis (a fact which he is not shy to brag about). He does 3000 (yes I typed that right, three thousand!) pushups every day. He does fifty pushups whenever Auburn's football team scores a touchdown--this year he's trying to get permission from the Athletics director or whoever to do them on the field with the team. He has two gold teeth, crazy bling all the time, and a little song about himself set to the tune of Curtis Mayfield's "Pusherman"-- "I'm yo momma/I'm yo daddy/I'm that dude/in the alley/--I'm your pushup Man." Tonight me and Mr. Penny watched episodes from the first season of Breaking Bad in the back room, and he laughed throughout-- "oh man, he's gonna start cookin' again, ain't he?" Mr. Penny did not know how prescient he was.
I dunno. Can't put my finger on it, but I've never felt so fulfilled by my job, even if it is a shitty service job where I get taken advantage of half the time. There are enough people who treat me like a genuine human being, people who need me, and who I help on a daily basis, to where I feel like it IS sort of my pleasure to help them out--old people that need wheelchair accessible rooms, people who need peace and quiet because they're in town for a funeral, people who need to know where the goddamn bar is-- it is pleasurable to try and make their trip as memorable as any of the ones I named. The hotel I stayed at in Penscola with P and Grace and Cleo + Berwicks etc... The hotel I stayed at when my family moved to Bloomington, Illinois-- also the first time in my recollection seeing snow, big huge drifts of snow all over the empty Best Buy parking lot across the street.
I dunno. Sorry of this is stupid. I'm just...thinking about hotels tonight. And The Shining, but just a little bit. I do work with a bald hip african American gentleman named Doc.