We had a local "Summer-stock" theater company which was a great piece of business for the hotel for several years. Each summer there were five or six shows which followed each other in and out of our town's "Star Theater" every two weeks. The many actors and crews were in need of guest rooms so we would bid for their long term stays. Most of the shows had a "Head-Liner" as the star of the show. Some of the ones I remember were; Mitzi Gaynor, Bert Convey, Forrest Tucker, Debbie Reynolds, Imogene Cocoa and Sid Caesar. This all took place in the 80's, when these famous name stars were still very well known albeit somewhat at the twilight of their careers.
Imogene Cocoa was the sweetest little lady. She kept to herself and was nice to everyone. When she left her guest room, Miss Cocoa wore large dark glasses, a hat and a long coat. Sid was determined to live a healthy life style and he needed a special diet. Each morning we loaded several large trays for Mr. Caesar and delivered them to his room. Every fruit we could find was provided, in quantity, along with whole grain breads and cereals, juices, and other items he listed for us. I had always thought of Sid Caesar as kind of a playboy type. He was the "Top Banana" from the early 50's television hit, Your Show of Shows. A real comedian and Imogene was his sidekick. She was older than Sid by more than a decade and for her, it was beginning to show. Here he was, however, in his sixties, eating and drinking a natural diet and obsessing over his daily exercise routine. We had to take all the furniture, from the room adjoining his guest room, and put it in storage when his fitness machines arrived. He looked great! Sid turned 87 last September, has his own dot com and just had an interview video posted to YouTube a few days ago.
Once, when a new group of actors and crew members arrived, there seemed to be alot of vivacious young women among the group, (more than normal). Seemingly dozens of unusually tall, tanned girls with curvy figures were checking in at our front desk. They all shared the big hair and heavy makeup, sometimes associated with "Vegas Style" show business, and drew much attention from hotel guests and employees alike. When I looked at the name of the show, I realized that it was a "Burlesque" type of production. The lead in on the program said that it might not be suitable for children. The big talk among the hotel's staff, at the begining of those two weeks, was how those girls had been caught, by the "Old Man", laying out in the sun, behind the hotel, mostly nude! They couldn't have tan lines for the performance. I found them a place on the roof that was much more private. This helped in at least two ways, the girls got their tans and the staff got their work done.
Tuesday, May 25, 2010
Monday, May 17, 2010
Bloody Lobby
It was my weekend to be the MOD, (Manager on duty), and we checked in early that Friday afternoon so the kids could swim. I finished my weekly duties and cleared my desk off with Monday morning and next week's shedule in mind. There were six of us who shared these weekend watches, so for the most part none of the hotel's department heads had to work weekends.
The satelite gave us HBO in the rooms, a luxury not present in our home. The family decided we would order room service and watch a movie. Around ten PM I took a walk through the hotel, saying goodnight to employees as I touched all the bases and headed for the kitchen. It was closing time for the restaurant and the dishwasher was ready to take the garbage out. I unlocked the back door and helped him drag the heavy barrels outside to the dumpster. Back in our room, everyone was fading fast. Swimming and sunshine had worn out our little band and Mama had them all tucked in and asleep. I changed out of my suit and tie and put on a pair of jeans and a tee-shirt before landing in a tired heap on "my side" of the king bed.
The ringing phone rattled my mind awake. "There's a fight in the bar!" said an excited desk clerk.
The bar only had four tables and ten barstools. It was there more for service to the dining room than to be some "action lounge". Betty had been the weekend barmaid since Hector was a pup. Everything was set up to be a one person operation and she handled it well although she was only 5 feet tall, 110 pounds and well into her sixties. When she had to change a beer keg, she got the kitchen to handle it for her or just served something else and left a note for the Day Shift. She was standing in the middle of three men who were screaming and swinging fists at each other. Her outstreched arms were the only part of Betty I could see as I rounded the corner and saw the donnybrook responsible for the loud voices. Tables and chairs were upside down. Several uninvolved guests were at safe distances watching. The lights were too dim to make out much more.
"Betty, get back behind the bar",I ordered, "Now!" She squirmed out from between the fighters and ducked behind her bar. It had the effect of a "pause button" on the three and I realized they had stopped and were now all staring at me. "OK guys, I don't know how this started, but you have to leave" I said in my best "authority" voice. "They owe me $19 first", says Betty from her new location. "Who are you?" the closest one to me sneered. "I'm Dave VanArsdale and I'm the General Manager of the hotel" I informed him. Now Betty chimes in, "That's what they were fighting about" she shouted, "Who was gonna pay the tab."
I saw what I thought at the time was my way out of this mess. After all, what was a lousey $19? "Forget the tab" I announced, "just leave".
Well, old sneer face wasn't very impressed with my voice of authority. Looking back, I was only thirty at the time, wore a mustache to look older and was at least 8 or 10 years younger than this mob. Plus, they had that "special view" of the world I inhabited at that particular moment, which can only be understood and shared by others who have had plenty to drink. He lowered his head and charged across the small barroom. I took the weight of his shoulder to my belly, reached under his chin and got my right hand on his throat. I squeezed as hard as I could and started to back out of the bar into the lobby, dragging this clown. bent over and wheezing as I went. As the front desk of the hotel came into my view to the left and behind me, I shouted over my shoulder at the clerk, "Call the Cops!" "Their on their way", he yelled back. It was at that very moment that the second fighter jumped me from behind. His weight on my back should have knocked me down, but I still had sneer face throttled with my right hand and I used him for support and kept my feet under me. That was when Phil started poking the third fighter with the broom! That's right, here was the desk clerk who had called the police, now come out into the lobby with a broom and was using the handle like some kind of weapon to keep the last guy away from me. I squeezed harder on the windpipe and felt him go limp. In one motion, I let sneer face drop to the floor and spun away from #2. "Listen you guys, the police are on their way." "Let's all just stop and you can leave before they get here and arrest you." I suggested as I took a step back and raised my open hands to them in a calming gesture.
#2 was helping sneer face get back to his feet and I turned to Phil and his broom. He still held #3 at bay and I told him to get back behind the desk. Just as it seemed that things were calming down, the heavy fist landed hard on my left eye. I fell back a couple steps but kept my balance and didn't go down. My hand found its way to the stunned eye and when I drew it away from my face, I realized I was dripping blood.
"OK, you hit somebody." "Now would you just leave?" I said sarcastically.
Sneer face was the hitter, which made sense as he had the most liquid courage in him.
It was almost cartoonish, he got so mad that his face turned purple. He stomped across the lobby to the plate glass double doors at the entryway and smashed his fist straight through one! The glass cut a gash in his arm and now he was bleeding all over the floor. His two friends got on either side of him and out into the night they went. What a threesome.
Now it was my turn to get mad. They had damaged hotel property and now it looked like they might get away. I ran out the doors after them and seeing no police yet, started screeming taunts across the lot at them. It worked and they were still not in their car when the Township Patrol car arrived a few minutes later. I tried to begin the explanation to the officer as he got out of his car but he was not ready to hear anything from me. "We'll be in to get your story in a few minutes," he directed me to wait inside the hotel.
Almost unbelievabley, five minutes later, no less than five police officers stood and watched the three drunks pile into their car and drive away into the night. I ran out into the parking lot. "What did you let them go for?" I pleaded. "They were so drunk, they couldn't walk!" I accused, "and you let them drive!" One of the cops lead me back into the hotel lobby. I pointed to the blood, the broken glass and my poor swollen eye as I filled him in on the events of the last twenty minutes. I certainly did not hide my dismay at the fact that the three were not taken to jail to dry out for the night. He did not give me any explaination other than, "Well, the driver wasn't that drunk." He wasn't even sure he had their names! He didn't stay long. I was confused. One of the payphones on the other side of my bloodied up lobby started ringing. Phil walked over to it and answered it. He looked up at me, "They asked for Dave the Manager."
"You don't know who told you this" said the voice. Actually, I did recognize the voice as that of one of the county sheriff deputies I knew personally. "The reason the Township Police they let those guys go is that they are City Cops!" he went on to explain.
So as it turned out, two brothers, City Cops, each with 20+ years of service, had chosen my lounge to get bombed in and start a fight that Friday night with their "Business Agent" from the local Teamsters Union.
My address was in the Township, not the City, and when the Township Cops found out who was bustin' up the local hotel, the Blue Code was stronger than the risk of bad will with a local merchant.
I called the City Chief of Police first thing Monday morning. They were family men, he put forth. He assurred me that they would accept my offer and thanked me sincerly as I left his office. Later that week at an agreed time the two brothers and the Teamster sat down with me in my restaurant and after handing me $480 cash for the broken glass door, apologizing each in turn for acting in such a way, and promising never to return to my bar, they each thanked me for keeping this "between us".
Sneer face was the last to go out through the now clean lobby and he turned back toward me, letting his brother and the BA leave. He put his hand on his neck and touched the bruised skin, then got a little of that sneer back as he brought the other hand from behind him, full of a 357 Magnum which I'm sure was fully loaded. I swallowed hard and breathed steady as we stared at each other for a moment in the same place we had first met last Friday.
"I guess you know we always carry." he smiled as he returned the gun to hiding, behind his back, then quickly went out the door.
The satelite gave us HBO in the rooms, a luxury not present in our home. The family decided we would order room service and watch a movie. Around ten PM I took a walk through the hotel, saying goodnight to employees as I touched all the bases and headed for the kitchen. It was closing time for the restaurant and the dishwasher was ready to take the garbage out. I unlocked the back door and helped him drag the heavy barrels outside to the dumpster. Back in our room, everyone was fading fast. Swimming and sunshine had worn out our little band and Mama had them all tucked in and asleep. I changed out of my suit and tie and put on a pair of jeans and a tee-shirt before landing in a tired heap on "my side" of the king bed.
The ringing phone rattled my mind awake. "There's a fight in the bar!" said an excited desk clerk.
The bar only had four tables and ten barstools. It was there more for service to the dining room than to be some "action lounge". Betty had been the weekend barmaid since Hector was a pup. Everything was set up to be a one person operation and she handled it well although she was only 5 feet tall, 110 pounds and well into her sixties. When she had to change a beer keg, she got the kitchen to handle it for her or just served something else and left a note for the Day Shift. She was standing in the middle of three men who were screaming and swinging fists at each other. Her outstreched arms were the only part of Betty I could see as I rounded the corner and saw the donnybrook responsible for the loud voices. Tables and chairs were upside down. Several uninvolved guests were at safe distances watching. The lights were too dim to make out much more.
"Betty, get back behind the bar",I ordered, "Now!" She squirmed out from between the fighters and ducked behind her bar. It had the effect of a "pause button" on the three and I realized they had stopped and were now all staring at me. "OK guys, I don't know how this started, but you have to leave" I said in my best "authority" voice. "They owe me $19 first", says Betty from her new location. "Who are you?" the closest one to me sneered. "I'm Dave VanArsdale and I'm the General Manager of the hotel" I informed him. Now Betty chimes in, "That's what they were fighting about" she shouted, "Who was gonna pay the tab."
I saw what I thought at the time was my way out of this mess. After all, what was a lousey $19? "Forget the tab" I announced, "just leave".
Well, old sneer face wasn't very impressed with my voice of authority. Looking back, I was only thirty at the time, wore a mustache to look older and was at least 8 or 10 years younger than this mob. Plus, they had that "special view" of the world I inhabited at that particular moment, which can only be understood and shared by others who have had plenty to drink. He lowered his head and charged across the small barroom. I took the weight of his shoulder to my belly, reached under his chin and got my right hand on his throat. I squeezed as hard as I could and started to back out of the bar into the lobby, dragging this clown. bent over and wheezing as I went. As the front desk of the hotel came into my view to the left and behind me, I shouted over my shoulder at the clerk, "Call the Cops!" "Their on their way", he yelled back. It was at that very moment that the second fighter jumped me from behind. His weight on my back should have knocked me down, but I still had sneer face throttled with my right hand and I used him for support and kept my feet under me. That was when Phil started poking the third fighter with the broom! That's right, here was the desk clerk who had called the police, now come out into the lobby with a broom and was using the handle like some kind of weapon to keep the last guy away from me. I squeezed harder on the windpipe and felt him go limp. In one motion, I let sneer face drop to the floor and spun away from #2. "Listen you guys, the police are on their way." "Let's all just stop and you can leave before they get here and arrest you." I suggested as I took a step back and raised my open hands to them in a calming gesture.
#2 was helping sneer face get back to his feet and I turned to Phil and his broom. He still held #3 at bay and I told him to get back behind the desk. Just as it seemed that things were calming down, the heavy fist landed hard on my left eye. I fell back a couple steps but kept my balance and didn't go down. My hand found its way to the stunned eye and when I drew it away from my face, I realized I was dripping blood.
"OK, you hit somebody." "Now would you just leave?" I said sarcastically.
Sneer face was the hitter, which made sense as he had the most liquid courage in him.
It was almost cartoonish, he got so mad that his face turned purple. He stomped across the lobby to the plate glass double doors at the entryway and smashed his fist straight through one! The glass cut a gash in his arm and now he was bleeding all over the floor. His two friends got on either side of him and out into the night they went. What a threesome.
Now it was my turn to get mad. They had damaged hotel property and now it looked like they might get away. I ran out the doors after them and seeing no police yet, started screeming taunts across the lot at them. It worked and they were still not in their car when the Township Patrol car arrived a few minutes later. I tried to begin the explanation to the officer as he got out of his car but he was not ready to hear anything from me. "We'll be in to get your story in a few minutes," he directed me to wait inside the hotel.
Almost unbelievabley, five minutes later, no less than five police officers stood and watched the three drunks pile into their car and drive away into the night. I ran out into the parking lot. "What did you let them go for?" I pleaded. "They were so drunk, they couldn't walk!" I accused, "and you let them drive!" One of the cops lead me back into the hotel lobby. I pointed to the blood, the broken glass and my poor swollen eye as I filled him in on the events of the last twenty minutes. I certainly did not hide my dismay at the fact that the three were not taken to jail to dry out for the night. He did not give me any explaination other than, "Well, the driver wasn't that drunk." He wasn't even sure he had their names! He didn't stay long. I was confused. One of the payphones on the other side of my bloodied up lobby started ringing. Phil walked over to it and answered it. He looked up at me, "They asked for Dave the Manager."
"You don't know who told you this" said the voice. Actually, I did recognize the voice as that of one of the county sheriff deputies I knew personally. "The reason the Township Police they let those guys go is that they are City Cops!" he went on to explain.
So as it turned out, two brothers, City Cops, each with 20+ years of service, had chosen my lounge to get bombed in and start a fight that Friday night with their "Business Agent" from the local Teamsters Union.
My address was in the Township, not the City, and when the Township Cops found out who was bustin' up the local hotel, the Blue Code was stronger than the risk of bad will with a local merchant.
I called the City Chief of Police first thing Monday morning. They were family men, he put forth. He assurred me that they would accept my offer and thanked me sincerly as I left his office. Later that week at an agreed time the two brothers and the Teamster sat down with me in my restaurant and after handing me $480 cash for the broken glass door, apologizing each in turn for acting in such a way, and promising never to return to my bar, they each thanked me for keeping this "between us".
Sneer face was the last to go out through the now clean lobby and he turned back toward me, letting his brother and the BA leave. He put his hand on his neck and touched the bruised skin, then got a little of that sneer back as he brought the other hand from behind him, full of a 357 Magnum which I'm sure was fully loaded. I swallowed hard and breathed steady as we stared at each other for a moment in the same place we had first met last Friday.
"I guess you know we always carry." he smiled as he returned the gun to hiding, behind his back, then quickly went out the door.
Monday, May 10, 2010
Survival Mode
The snow just kept falling. My wife Julie and I, having watched the weather last night, packed an overnight bag before limping into work that morning. Most of the staff got to work as well. Shortly after we arrived, a big 18 wheeler blocked the "exit" half of the hotel's entrance drive. The look on his face said it all as the trucker shuffled up to the desk. When we were planning the hotel, we had first drawn the drive more to the West of its ultimate location. That would have resulted in a much more gentle grade but the township engineer was not having any more "T" intersections and we had to cut the road straight up the hill. This was before cell phones were commonplace. "Can I get change for the pay phone?" the unhappy fellow asked. As the desk clerk traded him four quarters for a dollar, I volunteered, "Rivers is the name of the towing company." He gave me a deadpan look. "I guess this isn't the first time." I blamed it on the township.
I woke up at 4 AM. Impossibly, the snow was falling faster now. Most of yesterday afternoon, our snow plow contractor, Bill, had been concentrating on "the hill" and keeping a lane open in the parking lots, but it was a losing battle. He could not get home so I gave him a room. At 2 PM yesterday, I had asked for volunteers, among the employees, to check in and spend the night. I sent everyone else home. At 5 PM, after calling and finding them open and agreeable, we led a large, bundled band of thirty or so, on foot, up the hill and across the Interstate overpass to Mr. Bill's Quarterdeck Restaurant for supper. We were the only ones in the place and I don't know how the few employees who served us got home. After eating and packing the take-out orders into bags, we started trudging back across the bridge toward our hotel. We could not see our tracks! By 7 PM the hotel was full and at 8 PM, the lobby TV said that the Governor had declared a "State of Emergency" and it was against the law to drive!
As dawn broke that morning, we were ready. Our "volunteers" had set out a great breakfast for a full house. We opened and set the meeting room tables and chairs as overflow. After all, just because we ran a limited service hotel, (no restaurant), did not mean we didn't feed our guests. We had coffee, teas, hot cocoa, three kinds of juice, whole milk, skim milk, chocolate milk, fresh fruit, cold cereals, hot cereals, peeled eggs, waffles, sausage patties, danishes, donuts, bagels, English muffins, toast.....well, you get the idea. The only thing you couldn't get at our breakfast was "the check". There were just over 200 people who ate that morning.
It snowed all day. No one could know exactly how much had fallen, since there had been snow on the ground before this latest event began. It was certainly over five feet total and the paths that we kept shoveled at the hotel's four exits looked like tunnels. We notified all the guests that at 5 PM we would put food back out. Somehow the wonderful breakfast wasn't the same but there was still plenty and they ate it. We had some board games and we got them out for the lobby. The coke machines still worked and several long-term guests brought a bottle or two down to share with new friends as the "Risk Tournaments" lasted into the night.
Breakfast, after the second night finally ended, was sullen. We still had food left, but the variety was shrinking. As I looked across the landscape from the front of the hotel, nothing moved and all was silent. The snow had stopped falling sometime during the night and I wondered when the snowplows would start the clean up. It was obvious to me as I pondered the dilemma that no human effort could change the fates that would give us all at least one more night in this seemingly, smaller and smaller, soon foodless, limited service,(very limited), hotel that I was responsible for. I had to find a way to do something. It was time for action!
I called the Supermarket about a mile away and was greeted by a man who identified himself as the Store Manager. He was snowed in with two of his employees. Yes! If I could find a way to get to his store, he would take a company check for anything I wanted. I made a list. My next call found Mr. Bill at his home, (where else would he be?) and he said that he was sorry but there was no way for him to open the restaurant doors. After dismissing the idea of a break in, I asked, "if I can get to your house, would you trust me with the keys?" "Dave, if you can get here, you can have the keys", he said.
One of the "long term" guests was a young man from down south. We had come to know Allen well in the months that he lived with us and liked him allot. He had a large 4x4 pickup with a lift kit installed that looked like a kind of "Big Foot". Bill, The snow plow guy said he would give it a try. Allen, Bill and I assembled the teams. It took all day. I took my place in the bed of Allen's truck and we worked our way toward Mr. Bills neighborhood. The other team headed for groceries. I had to slough through the drifts on foot, as the last few blocks near Mr. Bills were impassable for the truck. Once I neared his home, sweating and huffing up the middle of where I thought the street was, I heard a shout. There was Bill's head, he was standing 20 feet into his driveway from his garage. It was as far as he could manage to get. He was waving and holding the keys in the air like a prize. They were.
The other team had been stopped about a quarter mile from the super market's parking lot. They too would not fail. I loaded cases of beer and wine from the storeroom at the restaurant and left a list of what we took. As the guests enjoyed their ham and cheese sandwiches, cups of soup and a cold beer at supper that evening, they could not hear enough from the "team members" about the adventures that took place to bring this feast home! They were treated like heroes.
By the morning of day four, the interstates had been opened up and the Governor took the driving ban away. Everyone was up early and we all pitched in together to dig out the cars. One by one, the guests joined in the task of helping each other. It was something to see and the momentum built upon itself so that all of the cars were freed in no time at all. People helping each other.
"Dave, we have a problem at the desk." the voice was my wife. Once inside, I saw a thirtyish couple standing at the desk. They were well dressed and had their coats and hats on with suitcases at their feet. It was explained to me by an exasperated desk clerk, who like the rest of us was working doubles on very little sleep, that these guests were checking out and had refused to pay! "Hi, my name is Dave and I'm the manager of the hotel." I smiled. "How can I help you?" The fellow looked me in the eye for a moment and sighed, "We want to leave and you wouldn't let us leave until today", he seethed at me in a thick French accent. "We pay for stay, you not let us leave, we not pay more to you." I looked the guest folio over hoping that there was a credit card that I could charge. Cash in advance, two nights paid, three nights stayed. I tried to reason with him as his wife stood a little way off staring embarrassingly at her expensive shoes. He became surly. He began to denigrate the hotel and its employees. He found my last nerve.
When the man finally pulled the Canadian hundred dollar bill out of his pocket, the police officer had just said, "You have a choice to make and you have ten seconds to make it!" "Like this hotel manager and his staff, I have been working around the clock for days to keep people safe in an emergency." "Either pay for the room or I will take you to jail!" He had found the cop's last nerve as well. The officer looked from the funny money to me with a "what now" look when the guest stated, "Eese all I have." I smiled. "At the current rate of exchange, it seems that $100 Canadian is the precise balance owed", I lied. I turned to the clerk, "Please post cash to zero this guest's account." "Thank you", I said to no one in particular. They scowled at me and left.
"I guess it's true what they say", said my officer friend, after they were out the door. "No good deed ever goes unpunished."
I woke up at 4 AM. Impossibly, the snow was falling faster now. Most of yesterday afternoon, our snow plow contractor, Bill, had been concentrating on "the hill" and keeping a lane open in the parking lots, but it was a losing battle. He could not get home so I gave him a room. At 2 PM yesterday, I had asked for volunteers, among the employees, to check in and spend the night. I sent everyone else home. At 5 PM, after calling and finding them open and agreeable, we led a large, bundled band of thirty or so, on foot, up the hill and across the Interstate overpass to Mr. Bill's Quarterdeck Restaurant for supper. We were the only ones in the place and I don't know how the few employees who served us got home. After eating and packing the take-out orders into bags, we started trudging back across the bridge toward our hotel. We could not see our tracks! By 7 PM the hotel was full and at 8 PM, the lobby TV said that the Governor had declared a "State of Emergency" and it was against the law to drive!
As dawn broke that morning, we were ready. Our "volunteers" had set out a great breakfast for a full house. We opened and set the meeting room tables and chairs as overflow. After all, just because we ran a limited service hotel, (no restaurant), did not mean we didn't feed our guests. We had coffee, teas, hot cocoa, three kinds of juice, whole milk, skim milk, chocolate milk, fresh fruit, cold cereals, hot cereals, peeled eggs, waffles, sausage patties, danishes, donuts, bagels, English muffins, toast.....well, you get the idea. The only thing you couldn't get at our breakfast was "the check". There were just over 200 people who ate that morning.
It snowed all day. No one could know exactly how much had fallen, since there had been snow on the ground before this latest event began. It was certainly over five feet total and the paths that we kept shoveled at the hotel's four exits looked like tunnels. We notified all the guests that at 5 PM we would put food back out. Somehow the wonderful breakfast wasn't the same but there was still plenty and they ate it. We had some board games and we got them out for the lobby. The coke machines still worked and several long-term guests brought a bottle or two down to share with new friends as the "Risk Tournaments" lasted into the night.
Breakfast, after the second night finally ended, was sullen. We still had food left, but the variety was shrinking. As I looked across the landscape from the front of the hotel, nothing moved and all was silent. The snow had stopped falling sometime during the night and I wondered when the snowplows would start the clean up. It was obvious to me as I pondered the dilemma that no human effort could change the fates that would give us all at least one more night in this seemingly, smaller and smaller, soon foodless, limited service,(very limited), hotel that I was responsible for. I had to find a way to do something. It was time for action!
I called the Supermarket about a mile away and was greeted by a man who identified himself as the Store Manager. He was snowed in with two of his employees. Yes! If I could find a way to get to his store, he would take a company check for anything I wanted. I made a list. My next call found Mr. Bill at his home, (where else would he be?) and he said that he was sorry but there was no way for him to open the restaurant doors. After dismissing the idea of a break in, I asked, "if I can get to your house, would you trust me with the keys?" "Dave, if you can get here, you can have the keys", he said.
One of the "long term" guests was a young man from down south. We had come to know Allen well in the months that he lived with us and liked him allot. He had a large 4x4 pickup with a lift kit installed that looked like a kind of "Big Foot". Bill, The snow plow guy said he would give it a try. Allen, Bill and I assembled the teams. It took all day. I took my place in the bed of Allen's truck and we worked our way toward Mr. Bills neighborhood. The other team headed for groceries. I had to slough through the drifts on foot, as the last few blocks near Mr. Bills were impassable for the truck. Once I neared his home, sweating and huffing up the middle of where I thought the street was, I heard a shout. There was Bill's head, he was standing 20 feet into his driveway from his garage. It was as far as he could manage to get. He was waving and holding the keys in the air like a prize. They were.
The other team had been stopped about a quarter mile from the super market's parking lot. They too would not fail. I loaded cases of beer and wine from the storeroom at the restaurant and left a list of what we took. As the guests enjoyed their ham and cheese sandwiches, cups of soup and a cold beer at supper that evening, they could not hear enough from the "team members" about the adventures that took place to bring this feast home! They were treated like heroes.
By the morning of day four, the interstates had been opened up and the Governor took the driving ban away. Everyone was up early and we all pitched in together to dig out the cars. One by one, the guests joined in the task of helping each other. It was something to see and the momentum built upon itself so that all of the cars were freed in no time at all. People helping each other.
"Dave, we have a problem at the desk." the voice was my wife. Once inside, I saw a thirtyish couple standing at the desk. They were well dressed and had their coats and hats on with suitcases at their feet. It was explained to me by an exasperated desk clerk, who like the rest of us was working doubles on very little sleep, that these guests were checking out and had refused to pay! "Hi, my name is Dave and I'm the manager of the hotel." I smiled. "How can I help you?" The fellow looked me in the eye for a moment and sighed, "We want to leave and you wouldn't let us leave until today", he seethed at me in a thick French accent. "We pay for stay, you not let us leave, we not pay more to you." I looked the guest folio over hoping that there was a credit card that I could charge. Cash in advance, two nights paid, three nights stayed. I tried to reason with him as his wife stood a little way off staring embarrassingly at her expensive shoes. He became surly. He began to denigrate the hotel and its employees. He found my last nerve.
When the man finally pulled the Canadian hundred dollar bill out of his pocket, the police officer had just said, "You have a choice to make and you have ten seconds to make it!" "Like this hotel manager and his staff, I have been working around the clock for days to keep people safe in an emergency." "Either pay for the room or I will take you to jail!" He had found the cop's last nerve as well. The officer looked from the funny money to me with a "what now" look when the guest stated, "Eese all I have." I smiled. "At the current rate of exchange, it seems that $100 Canadian is the precise balance owed", I lied. I turned to the clerk, "Please post cash to zero this guest's account." "Thank you", I said to no one in particular. They scowled at me and left.
"I guess it's true what they say", said my officer friend, after they were out the door. "No good deed ever goes unpunished."
Monday, May 3, 2010
Mr. McKinley, General Manager
Charles McKinley was the General Manager of the hotel where I did the night audit when I was twenty-one years old in 1974. The shift was 11 to 7 and my job was to balance all the guests' accounts, post room and tax to each and bring the hotel's "Net Outstanding" into balance. Bud was the bellman so I wasn't alone most nights. We had just upgraded the phone system from an old time cord board shortly after I started but the machine we used for posting charges and credits to guest portfolios was an NCR4200. It was like 20 cash registers, one atop the other. Since it was mechanical, there was a crank you could stick in the side in case the electricity went out so you could still do the audit, (pre-uninterrupted power source). I could start the room and tax on that monstrosity and literally keep up with it as fast as it could go through the whole guest ledger. There was a rhythm to it that was almost musical....$23.50 credit balance...$22.40 room...$1.10 tax...zero balance. I loved zero balances! Hard to have an error on any of the zero balance folios.
Errors were my mortal enemies. Did you know that a transposition error is divisible by nine? If you post $42.00 when you only collected $24.00, the difference is $18.00. Many times at 4 AM the error I had to find was a multiple of nine so that at least gave me something to look for. It was always somewhere. I caught on to the logic of charges and credits being opposites so the whole business made sense to me. Once you ran the trial balance and everything added up, it was time to Z out the machine and change over to tomorrow's business.
Mr. McKinley called me from his home one night, shortly after my shift had started. I did not expect a call from the General Manager. In fact, he had never called before. Nervously, I heard him say succinctly, "David, I want you to wait for me after you get off tomorrow morning." "Just go over to the restaurant and have a coffee until I get there at eight." The night went by slowly. I went over to the restaurant and waited. I was relieved when Mr. McKinley finally came in, smiled and sat across the table from me. Seems Mr. McKinley's Assistant Manager had dove into a swimming pool the day before and broke his neck! Would I like a shot at the job? Yes sir! Well, that was how I got into hotel management. What a great manager to learn from. Charles, (no one ever would dare call him Charles), was well into his sixties. He had started his career at the Albert Pick in Chicago fifty years ago "hopping bell" as he called it. There was nothing about hotels he didn't know. Everyone in town knew him or at least who he was. Sometimes a friend of his would drop by for lunch or just a visit. "Tell Mack that Walter is here." he'd say.
One day, after I had my new job under control and was feeling real comfortable, I tried the "Mack stuff" with him. Our desks faced each other and we had become close in a short time but I had always addressed him as Mr. McKinley. He lept to his feet and stuck his finger straight out about six inches from my nose, "Don't you ever Mack me young man!" I promised that I never again would.
When I was offered a chance to relocate to learn the Food and Beverage part of the Hotel business, (we leased ours out to an operator), he told me not to go. "There isn't that much to know", he said. He had taught me everything about the rooms and now gave me the wisdom of Food and Beverage in one little poem.
"Cold food cold,
Hot food hot.
Front door open,
Back door locked!"
Truer words were never spoken.
Errors were my mortal enemies. Did you know that a transposition error is divisible by nine? If you post $42.00 when you only collected $24.00, the difference is $18.00. Many times at 4 AM the error I had to find was a multiple of nine so that at least gave me something to look for. It was always somewhere. I caught on to the logic of charges and credits being opposites so the whole business made sense to me. Once you ran the trial balance and everything added up, it was time to Z out the machine and change over to tomorrow's business.
Mr. McKinley called me from his home one night, shortly after my shift had started. I did not expect a call from the General Manager. In fact, he had never called before. Nervously, I heard him say succinctly, "David, I want you to wait for me after you get off tomorrow morning." "Just go over to the restaurant and have a coffee until I get there at eight." The night went by slowly. I went over to the restaurant and waited. I was relieved when Mr. McKinley finally came in, smiled and sat across the table from me. Seems Mr. McKinley's Assistant Manager had dove into a swimming pool the day before and broke his neck! Would I like a shot at the job? Yes sir! Well, that was how I got into hotel management. What a great manager to learn from. Charles, (no one ever would dare call him Charles), was well into his sixties. He had started his career at the Albert Pick in Chicago fifty years ago "hopping bell" as he called it. There was nothing about hotels he didn't know. Everyone in town knew him or at least who he was. Sometimes a friend of his would drop by for lunch or just a visit. "Tell Mack that Walter is here." he'd say.
One day, after I had my new job under control and was feeling real comfortable, I tried the "Mack stuff" with him. Our desks faced each other and we had become close in a short time but I had always addressed him as Mr. McKinley. He lept to his feet and stuck his finger straight out about six inches from my nose, "Don't you ever Mack me young man!" I promised that I never again would.
When I was offered a chance to relocate to learn the Food and Beverage part of the Hotel business, (we leased ours out to an operator), he told me not to go. "There isn't that much to know", he said. He had taught me everything about the rooms and now gave me the wisdom of Food and Beverage in one little poem.
"Cold food cold,
Hot food hot.
Front door open,
Back door locked!"
Truer words were never spoken.
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