Double Dog Dare
CROSS POSTED:
Please don’t ever dare me to do anything. Do not even issue a challenge. I hate competitions and I hate them even more when I am competing with myself.
"Good evening. Thank you you for calling DCES&S, this is Sassy, how may I help you?" as I answer the phone.
"Hey Sassy, this is Bill. How are you?" the owner greats me with.
"I am wonderful, as always Bill. How are you doing?" is my customary reply whenever he calls.
"I’m doing great. Listen, how are we on occupancy?" (ever the business owner!)
"We have 6 rooms left to rent."
"Great. Great. Listen Sassy, I’ll make you a deal. You sell 3 rooms between now and the end of your shift and I will give you $100, deal?"
"Oh Bill. Are you serious?"
"Very serious Sassy. Just do your best, and if you sell 3 rooms, I’ll give you $100 cash."
"Uhm, ok, I’ll do my best. I rented one earlier but I haven’t had any traffic since then or any calls."
"Ok, great, but sell 3 more now. Call the other hotels and see what their occupancy is & tell them to send people your way. Just don’t tell anyone I’m doing this for you. I’ve never offered this to any of the other desk clerks so this will be our little secret."
"Ok Bill, I will do my best."
"Great. Have a great night Sassy and I will talk to you soon."
I hung up the phone and just hung my head. Because I knew. Bill doesn’t know. But I know. I have this little thing called "Murphy’s Law" that likes to hang around … hang around my neck like a noose. So I knew right off the bat I was doomed.
The guest I had been talking with before Bill called, asked me if I had just received bad news. I replied with, "Only for me." and then giggled. So I explained to him the phone call and we both just laughed about it.
To make a long story short, I had no traffic, no phone calls from 8:15 pm till 10:40 pm. I called my "local peeps" and they were like us, just a handful of rooms left and no traffic.
At 9 pm, I go outside for a quick smoke. Joleen (Bill’s Mom who lives on property) ca
me down to give me my "unofficial smoke break" because she doesn’t agree with the only 1 every 2 hours rule since I don’t get any true legal breaks (15 minute or lunch). Anyway, all is well, all is calm.
I come back inside, use the restroom, get a drink out of the machine, walk back around the counter and continue my conversation with the same guest as earlier when Bill called, along with Joleen.
Next thing I knew, guest were running inside drenched. I mean drenched as in they had just come out of a swimming pool, fully clothed, drenched. The hell? In less than 5 minutes since I had been outside, the skies had opened up and it was not just raining but it was raining without mercy. Next thing, the sliding doors start bowing. What the hell is going on people? Then a couple of guys come running in from the back door dripping water all over the place. Joleen was headed up to her room and informed me that I would need to mop at the back door now. I fussed at the guys for making me work (lol) and sent everyone to their rooms. So I get the mop & bucket, head to the door and start mopping my little heart out.
Only to discover that nothing is mopping up. Or so I thought. I kept wringing the mop as much as was humanly possible but when I would wring it out, and water was pouring out of it during the wringing, there was the same amount of water, if not more, still there on the floor.
Cue the light bulb being turned on …
It dawned on me that it was coming into the hotel, not just left over from the guys dripping on the floor. I tried and I tried and I tried to stay on top of it but I couldn’t so I went and called Rachel (the general manager who lives on property also) and told her what was going on. She came up and the both of us were mopping as fast as we could but it was still coming in so fast.
In the meantime, the rain is coming down so hard that it is activating the front sliding door sensor’s and keeping them wide open so the hurricane force winds are blowing rain and water all into the foyer. We ended up having to shut the doors off and use muscles to pull them open/push them closed when someone needed in or out.
I was teasing the guest who had been talking with me for over 2 hours at this point that he needed to do his special little rain dance to make it stop raining. He laughed and said he only danced with a pole. So I held the mop out to him and said, "Dance away! This is as close to a pole as you are going to get up in here." The look on his face was priceless. Once he realized I was joking, he near about peed his pants laughing so hard.
Rachel is still trying to adjust to my sense of humor and the fact that I am so friendly with the guests. After numerous compliments and praises on my behalf, she’s quit telling me to "tone it down a little". Damnit! I’m from the South and we don’t know how to tone it down!
So anyway, the freak storm the blew in, blew on out and the floors dried up, after an ungodly amount of time mopping! We got a few complaints about rain coming in around the AC units in a couple of rooms. But they were all good sports about it, thanks to my uncanny ability to unruffle feathers.
So, even though I knew as soon as I hung up the phone with Bill that I would not be getting the $100 bonus, I couldn’t help but day dream about the "possibility" and how many school uniforms I could buy, how much in school supplies I could spend, with the extra $100.
At 10:40 the apartment complex behind us called asking if we had any rooms. One of their tenants had an emergency situation (from the freak storm that blew in) and the complex was having to put the tenant up in our hotel for the night. So I got all the information together and ready for their check-in.
<span style="font-siz
e: large;”>At 10:45, 2 young girls come rushing in needing a room. They had been traveling west, back to home but got caught up in the storm and predictions were not favorable in them making it to their town. So I rented them a room.
At 10:55, as my 11 pm shift relief is strolling in, a guest already registered, came in and asked about roll a way beds. We don’t have them. I ended up convincing him to just get another room instead of trying to stuff everyone into his 1 room. (What? How did I manage that???)
At 11:20, by the time i had done turn over, cleaned out the mops, rinsed out the mop bucket, and got Mariela all up to date, the tenant from the apartment complex had NOT arrived, which would have made my 3rd rental for the deal for me to get the $100.
I tried telling you people that it wouldn’t happen. And I was right. Talk about an "add salt to the wound" situation! So damn close. So.damn.close.
When I told Hubby about it, he yelled at me. He actually yelled at me and said I should have kept my big mouth shut and never mentioned the one room I had rented before Bill had called. While some people may be dishonest enough to do that, I am not. Besides, I knew all Bill had to do was go back in & look at the time stamps on the check ins. Duh. So my honesty will work in my favor … in the future lol.
Next time I see Bill or talk to him on the phone, I will tell him to never do that to me again. If he wants to give me a bonus, fine, just don’t tell me about it until I have met his conditions! My blood pressure was through the roof those last few minutes waiting on the apartment people to arrive. Never again will I put myself through that lol.
Ok then, I got things to do. Remind me next time to talk about me telling Joleen to bite her tongue!
Till next time …
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