Wednesday, September 17, 2008

Wacky Wednesday - Old Jobs


Okay, grab your blanket, your Dr. Pepper and get ready for a good read, because do I have a good story for you?!!

So back in my single days, I thought it would be great to take up a part time job working at a hotel in the area I was living.  It was Saturday and Sunday as a Night Auditor, it was a sweet gig, good money, to help supplement my full time job in retail.  I did it for awhile and then I had the chance to do this full time and get out of retail, so hello I jumped right on it.  Then I realized why the other night auditor quit, the security guy was beyond crazy.

Sure I have great stories about the guests, about crazy cab drivers, about fire alarms, but they are no comparison for this story.  The stories name is "Wes"  ( Okay that isn't really even his name, but we will change it for his "protection").  Here is a picture of Wes.  Why do I have a picture, because I stole his airport badge on my last day, and that is a whole other posting for another day.


Wes was the "Night Security" guy at the small business hotel we worked at.  So Wes is in his mid 50's and he has been around the block a time or two.  Let me share with you a few of my experiences with Wes.  He loved to chase people around in the hotel van, he would get on the radio and tell me to call the local police, it wasn't the 911 number it was just the dispatch number, which I did once but after trying to explain that the security guard has a suspicious car cornered in our parking lot and is calling for back up, and feeling like a fool I never did it again.  Which would make him really mad, but I would just pretend I didn't hear the radio and would tell him to leave the crime fighting to the real cops.  

He was so paranoid and knew that everyone was out to get him.  He wouldn't let his sons know where he lived (which was with his mother, ha ha) because he knew they would tell their mom (his ex-wife) and she would wreck his house.   He would drive through the parking lot and write down everyone's license plate and then want me to pull all the room records and make sure that we had them all on file, yeah I told him that was not what the records were for.  He would tell me these stories of how at his previous jobs someone would get jealous of him and then set him up to be fired, never thinking it could have been something that he had done.  

He liked to fight with the Breakfast lady, she would come in about 5 am to start getting the breakfast ready for the guests and he would be in her kitchen cutting up the fruit because she didn't do it right, they would fight about how to put out the food and there was a few times they were yelling at each other at the front desk and I got to tell these two "adults" to act more professional.

He hated the maintenance guy "Ike", and thought he was just a waste and I think he really just wanted his job.  Anyway, sometimes at night Wes would go swimming in the pool because hey it's not like he was suppose to be working or anything.  So gratefully for all the guest Wes would bring his swim trunks, well one day Ike decided he was going to go for a swim, he found  Wes's swim trunks and went swimming ( I am sure it was probably during the middle of the day while he was on the clock, but I am sure it was work related.) anyway Wes found out and totally flipped out, and of course I am the only one around to talk to so I get to hear about Ike's "stuff" and been where his "stuff" was now he couldn't wear the trunks because it would be like there "stuff" was touching each other.  He really thought he should burn them but he did think better of it and just threw them away.

Another great story about Ike and Wes, was a Friday night Ike went to a club and got a little too drunk to drive home so he walked to the hotel and went into the shed.  Well Mr. nosy security guy watched this and was really upset and wanted me to call management about this,  I am not going to call them at 1 am if the hotel is not on fire, so I told him he could talk to them in the morning.  Anyway when Ike was inside the shed and decided he needed a bathroom, he didn't leave the shed he just cracked the door and let loose.  Well Wes was so upset he radioed to me to call the police and it wasn't "Kim call dispatch" it was "Kim get on the phone and dial 5551212," thinking I didn't know what that was, " and tell them that we have a transient in our shed who is drunk.  Well he knew it was Ike, I knew it was Ike and I really didn't think the police coming would make the situation better so I just ignored him.  So he was fuming all night and wanted him out but all he could do was wait for management to come in the morning so he could tattle on him.

He was so anti-brand name stuff that if he "found" something on his security walks like a hat or a t-shirt that he thought he needed he would spend hours trying to figure out how to get the logo or the name off of there or to disguise it. He would wear the uniformed white shirt & tie, but then he had these olive green pants that went up to his ribs that he wore without a belt and when he got really upset he would pull them up and walk away really fast, so he was wearing these ugly, high waisted, flood pants, and he is stomping off, and it looked like he had a wedgey, that was always good for a laugh.  He would go running in his uniform on treadmill come back to the front desk all out of breath and sweating and tell me how fast he had ran his 5 miles.  He would go into empty guests rooms and shower, one time he took the free razors we had at the front desk  for guests and went and saved his head. Then came back up to see how I liked it and he had pieces of toilet paper sticking to where he had nicked himself on his head.

He said he needed to learn how to do my job and how to work the front desk so that when he had to find a new job he would have those skills.  I refused to teach him and told him to talk to management if he wanted to learn.  It got so bad I had to make a rule that he was not allowed behind the front desk ever.  But boy did he try.  

So the assistant manager was one of my friends and when Wes would be doing this crazy stuff at 3 in the morning or so what was I supposed to do?  Well I would just write her a note and vent about what he was doing and sometimes I would even draw her a picture, well she thought they were just hilarious and would share them with the day shift so they had the laugh, but I was the one suffering to bring them the good laugh.

Let's just say there was so many stories, he was so weird, and I don't know if I will ever get over the trauma, but I have saved my favorite story for last.

One night it is about 3:30, I am working in the back, and I hear the "Wes knock" so I go out there and he has colored in his eyebrows, the mustache black, like black black (this was when he was going with the shaved head look).  And he asked me how it looked, I am sure my mouth dropped open because it was horrible.  He was so pale and wrinkly and had these really dark eye brows and really dark mustache that looked worse then a bad hair dye and I couldn't figure out what he did. I was going to beauty school at the time and I had see a lot of bad hair color, but this took the cake. So he asked me what I thought and I said "why would you choose black and what did you use", he said he was tired of looking old, he thought this made him look better and pulled out a BLACK MAGIC MARKER, he had went and colored his eyebrows and mustache with a magic marker. He said he thought it worked just as well as any dye and it was a lot cheaper, plus it was permeant so it would last a long time.  I couldn't help it I just busted out laughing and told him it would never work.  I am sure I could have been nicer but I was pretty done with they guy by then.  Yeah I had to draw a picture of that for my friend. 

So needless to say when I am at work and I am thinking about some of the salesmen in my office that I have to deal with, and when they have almost taken me over the edge I try to imagine them with magic marker eyebrows and mustache and just laugh, and knock on wood that I don't have to work with that insane "Wes" anymore.  And you never know what someone is capable of until you see them at 3 am.

3 comments:

Mostly Jessica said...

Hey Kim,
Did I ever tell you about the time I worked as a security guy at a hotel and I used magic marker to dye my beard?

dust and kam said...

Oh my goodness . . . Hilarious!!!

And all the memories it brings back from my hotel days. Ha ha. But none of my stories compare to "Wes".

That was great Kim! :)

Hope you guys are doing well. Do you guys have pass along cards? If you do, I need some!! :)

Mackey Family said...

Kim
That was so funny. I was laughing so hard.

We really need to get together some time, it's been way too long.