I would say that I’m happy it’s Thursday because that means that tomorrow is my day off, except with everything I have to do tomorrow it’s not going to feel like a day off.

I only have two doctors appointments this Friday instead of the three I had last Friday, so that’s a plus. So, I go to the OB/GYN in the morning then it’s up to the hospital yet again for my NST.

I can’t tell you how happy I will be when all this going to the doctor thing is over.

After all the appointments, we’re meeting MD’s grandma for lunch. She just got back from a weeks visit to California and she wants to catch up with us and probably bring us some souvenirs. She really is a very sweet lady, and probably the only member of MD’s family that I’ve never felt like strangling, so that’s a plus too.

After all of that, I would like to come home and take a nap. But, I would also like to get some work done on my MT class, straighten up the house a bit, and get the painting of the lion done (which would be pretty good considering I haven’t even started it yet).

So, I have a full plate, we’ll see what gets eaten and what I leave for later.

**

I have four more shifts here at the hotel and then I’m out. This realization makes me happy and sad and scared. It also makes me a little more prone to giving guests a taste of their own medicine. For the last few days, when someone has gotten attitude with me, I’ve given the same back. It is a very freeing experience to be able to do that and not fear repercussions. I would never engage in an activity that would hurt the hotel, but surprisingly enough, giving the attitude back to these people has made them better guests. I don’t know if it’s because they recognize their behavior as inappropriate when they hear me speak like they do or what. I don’t really care why it works, I’m just happy it does.

The other thing is that I’ve been taking less crap from people over the phone. I had a lady that called today and wanted a room. She said she knew someone who worked for a company that has an account here and she wanted their rate. I told her flat out, you don’t work for this company, you cannot have the rate.

I think under normal circumstances, I would have tried to be polite and understanding, not because I really felt that way, but because I would have felt that it was required of me. But, thinking about it, what do I have to lose telling guests the truth in a blunt fashion.

I guess what I enjoy about it is that I can finally be honest in a way that I don’t feel I can be normally. I’m leaving this job anyway, so if a guest gets a little pissy it’s hardly the end of the world. I finally feel free enough to be more myself behind the desk rather than this robot, zombie, customer service representative.

I think I might write a letter to all the major hotel chains and explain to them how behaving in a more direct, less false, way towards guests might actually improve their guest satisfaction.

Maybe I can convince them to pay for me to stay in lots of hotels to conduct a series of social experiments on whether this direct approach is as good as I think it is.

If that doesn’t work out, I guess I’ll just become a televangelist.

And if that doesn’t work either, I’ll stick to my MT training.

For now I leave you with this:


more cat pictures