For some reason, this past weekend, while at the lovely Dinah’s Garden Hotel in Palo Alto…I suddenly remembered a job I had during college. I think because David and I were discussing the poor customer service we were experiencing from the front desk staff at the hotel, when we had to call multiple times to complain about the noise coming from a party that had gone well into the evening (after midnight), creating a huge thumping noise that echoed throught he complex, causing us to be unable to sleep.

I suddenly remembered a job I had, running the front desk at a hotel in Boone, NC, called the High Country Inn. I do want to point out, before I go any farther, that I am in no way recommending this location to anyone travelling to the Boone, NC area. Use your own judgement :-).

Some years ago, as an employee of the HCI, I happily worked the front desk, providing room keys and a friendly smile to customers visiting the area. The hotel was a nice, relaxing location, right off a main road, with a pool, and rocking chairs. The details I remember are moderately blurry, mostly because I have purged the job from my mind until this past weekend, but here’s basically what happened, and why I was “fired”.

I was working the evening shift one weekend, when a customer and his wife showed up for their evening stay. I gave them their keys, and off they went to their room. I soon got a call from them, to inform me that the room was flooded due to a problem with the air conditioning system. I immediately found a new room for them, and they came to get new keys, while I went up to check the old room and the state of the carpet. I made sure that housekeeping was aware of the issue.

Unfortunately, when they went to their next room, they discovered that room also had a problem. I do not remember the specific issue, but the room was not acceptable. Two room moves in an evening is not a good impression for the customer, so I knew I needed to do something about it. I got them a new room, made sure it was ok, and also gave them a coupon for a free breakfast in the morning to try and smooth the situation out. I also tried to read the swing manager via phone to advise her of the issue, but I was not able to reach her.

I thought the issue was resolved. I had helped these folks get a clean room (finally), and made sure they received some compensation for the trouble, with a free breakfast in the morning. No big deal right? Sounds like what you would want the staff to do if you had this kind of problem right?

Apparently not, for the owners of the HCI. I came to work the next day to discover the swing manager there, advising me the owner wanted to talk to me and was planning to fire me. Why? Because I gave the customers free breakfast coupons, and with those coupons they could have ordered the steak and eggs dish which was the most expensive breakfast item.

That’s right. I was going to be fired because using their free breakfast card, given to them because they had to move rooms twice, they COULD have ordered a breakfast that was approximately $12.

I was astounded. I went into the owners office and received a verbal beratement for not contacting the manager to get approval before giving customers a coupon. I was also told that I should have given them a discount on their room instead, because that would have been cheaper than both of them getting the steak and eggs breakfast.

I asked what they got for breakfast. Apparently, that didn’t matter (I found out later that they did NOT order steak and eggs btw). What mattered is that I had overstepped my bounds by providing good customer service. And this from a place that I had worked for several months, had cancelled a vacation so that I could be there over a July 4 holiday to work, and was actually a very good employee off.

And so, during this verbal harassment I was receiving, I advised the owner that the conversation was over, and that I was quitting. I left, turned in my shirt, and went home to await my final paycheck.

Thankfully, all of the other jobs I had during college (of which there were 3), had excellent managers who put customers first.

Anyway, that’s the end of that little story of the first and only job I’ve been fired from…and honestly, I’m fine with being fired for providing good customer service :-).

Some of you may recall a previous post of mine about bathroom etiquette and the relation to our roles in society, or rather, lack thereof. I’d like to speak to you now about the fact that we do not work in a trailer park, please don’t treat it as such.At the end of last week, I was taking my normal trip to the café to get lunch, and followed my usual path from my office, through the corridor between buildings, down the stairs and WHOA! What the heck is that on one of the stairs….no….it can’t be….is that a huge glob of SPIT???

I regret to say, that yes…it was a huge luggie. That’s slang for a grotesque amount of phlegm that someone so graciously coughed up and chose to spit ON THE STAIRWELL.

Ok first of all…spitting is disgusting anyway. If you have to do it, do it in the privacy of your own trailer park, or somewhere out in the woods where no one can see you or hear you. Do NOT do it in the parking lot walking back to your car…do not do it on the sidewalk at the mall…and do NOT do it on the stairs at WORK!

I don’t care if you have the worst cold in the world, and simply can’t expectorate enough to clear it out…go to the bathroom and cough into a tissue. And while we’re on that note…don’t look in the tissue after you do it and then show it to other people. It’s not a new born, we don’t care how “precious the little thing looks” or how “he has my nose“. All we care about is your having your phlegm experience somewhere very, very far away from the general population.

Don’t make me call your mother.

Source article:

Mz6 wrote to mention an article in the NY Daily News stating that an increasing number of employers are Googling their prospective employees during the interview/hiring process. From the article: “‘A friend of mine posted a picture of me on My Space with my eyes half closed and a caption that suggests I’ve smoked something illegal,’ says Kluttz. While the caption was a joke, Kluttz now wonders whether the past two employers she interviewed with thought it was so funny. Both expressed interest in hiring Kluttz, but at the 11th hour went with someone else.”

I just ran across this item via Slashdot, from the NY Daily News. It’s a pretty interesting article about the tangled web some people weave in creating and developing their online presence. Now I’d imagine that most of us have personal websites out there…I know I have since college. It’s a great way to share information about yourself, let others get to know you in a semi-anonymous fashion, share pictures, rant/rave (read: blog), etc.

This article, however, points out something that I have actually done myself. I’ve done quite a bit of hiring over the years, and used to do a lot of the hiring events with my division. I found myself googling prospective candidates with high frequency…not only to see if they had a presence, but also to gauge some level of technical know-how.

Many people put their website on their resume these days, especially if it showcases some type of web programming or interesting design (depending upon the job they are interviewing for). Many people put their resumes on their website, with an online portfolio of sorts, with writing, art, designs, animations, whatever.

In general, I think it’s a good thing, but as the article shows, the “myspace” phenomenon can also lead to candid pictures/comments being interpreted in very different ways by a prospective employer.

I suppose the end message is, be aware. Knowing is half the battle. GI JOE TO THE RESCUE!

Sorry about that, as soon as I said be aware the first thing that popped into my head was GI Joe. I don’t question it, I just go with it. Hopefully that will be interpreted correctly the next time my employer decides to google me. That sounds naughty.

Faces are overrated. You know, that thing that sits on top of your spinal column. Face, Middle English, from Old French, from (assumed) Vulgar Latin facia, from Latin facies make, form, face, from facere to make or to do. The face is what we typically think of when we picture our identity. When we introduce ourselves to others, it’s typically our faces that they look at (if they don’t be sure you are familiar with your company’s Anti-Harassment Guidelines). On your driver’s license, on your passport, and on some credit cards, there is a picture of your face. That is what confirms your identity and establishes who you are and what you’re wearing. Well, that’s mostly below the face that defines what you are wearing, but you get the point.On my badge, there are 4 major components. First, the company logo. Second, a coloured stripe set indicating that I’m an exempt employee. Third, my name, or at least the nickname that is listed in the employee profile database. Fourth, an image of my FACE. Ok, not this exact picture, but how many of us actually look this happy in our badge pictures anyway?

When I enter the building, the security guard is pretending to match my living face, to the digi-face on my badge, to make sure that I am really me. Regardless of whether my live face looks like my digi-face, it is still my face which proves identity.

Some people don’t like their faces. They paint them with products from Estee Lauder, moisturize them with Oil of Olay (I’ve heard of olive oil, peanut oil, etc, but what exactly is an Olay and how do you extract oil from it? O’Le!), and they scrub them with things called astringents and exfoliants. I don’t know about you, but the words astringent and exfoliant scare me.

Astringent seems to imply tightening up. I don’t want to put liquid on my face that will turn me into a shrunken severed head. That’s just so Night of the Living Dead-esque.

Exfoliant is even worse. Exfoliant makes me think of seeing a snake skin, shriveled and drying in the garden. Skin that used to be an integral part of the snake, that has now been exfoliated into my yard. I can’t even imagine what my reaction would be if I came home and found a drying human shell in the yard. “Oh that’s just the mailman. He must have used an exfoliant this morning and forgot to pick up his external integument when it fell off after he delivered my mail.” Like…AHHHHHHHH!!!!!!! This is one reason people carry plastic bags with them when they take their dogs for a walk…to pick up the refuse/waste/foliant that has been excreted. People should do this as well. It’s not courteous to leave your dog’s crap in my yard, nor your own skin shell. But anyway.

A face can, conversely, be a beautiful thing. Consider frat boys for just a moment (some of you may want to take more than just a moment, in which case you can leave your cursor sitting right here, and finish this editorial later). You know all those bumper stickers people have on their cars that say ‘I break for animals’? I have one on the back of mine that says, ‘I Break for Frat Boys‘. I think it’s a requirement to have a beautiful face if you want to be in a frat, and I fully support that. (This is humour people…laugh.)

Additionally, it’s a requirement if you want to be a beauty queen. Just turn on the TV during the Miss America pageant or watch the movie Drop Dead Gorgeous. Isn’t Miss California lovely? What a striking resemblance she has to Ms. Georgia, Ms. Kansas, Ms. Nebraska, Ms. Oregon, Ms. Washington, Ms….everyone! They all look the same. They have taken a beautiful face, and slapped on so much Estee, that they all look like Dame Edna or Tammy Faye! Remove all that goo, and there is real beauty (not classic beauty like the most beautiful woman in the world - *snaps to Isabella Rossellini*), but a striking, wonderful, pleasing beauty. These women should be proud of their faces! Proud nose, proud eyes, proud lips, proud Mary keep on burning…anyway.

A friend of mine is currently going through a process called dermabrasion. As you all know, an abrasion is a mild scrape or bruise in which the skin is torn. As opposed to a puncture type wound, which pierces the skin, an abrasion tends to have the effect of removing layers of skin, and is usually found in injuries where skin slides against rough surfaces at high speed. I’ve had personal experience with abrasions, having flown off a skateboard when I was in middle school at about 40MPH, and sliding 10 feet along the pavement on my street. What’s interesting here is that the abrasion I sustained caused permanent scars on my elbow and knees.

Dermabrasion, on the other hand, REMOVES scars from the skin. Apparently all you have to do is add the Latin word root of dermis to the front of abrasion, which incidentally comes from the Latin abradere, and voila, you have something akin to the antonym. Not exactly kin to the antonym, but more a cousin of the antonym. In essence, dermisabradere. Now the value of this procedure is that you remove the top layer of the skin (the epidermis - the outer epithelial layer of the external integument of the animal body that is derived from the embryonic epiblast; specifically : the outer nonsensitive and nonvascular layer of the skin of a vertebrate that overlies the dermis), and reveal the sensitive vascular inner mesodermic layer, wiping away any trace of scars from things such as acne, smallpox, or chickenpox.

Again, this is all for the sake of our faces. Why do we pay so much attention to our face? Why do people use makeup, coloured contacts, pluck their eyebrows, exfoliate, astringe, abraise, and moisturize? Why do people continually schedule meetings called Face to Face meetings? What is so important about being able to see someone’s face, in order to really connect with them? Why do I have a beach towel with a big smiling turtle that says ‘Smile, It Increases Your Face Value’?

As a side comment, which I’m quite fond of making, identity theft has become more and more common in the world. Impersonation of another can grant access to credit, medical histories, social security, paychecks, and even children. Who could forget the previews for the movie Face-Off, where they blended the faces and voices of John Travolta and Nick Cage? Who can forget that fabulous Michael Jackson video, Black or White, where faces are morphed and modified over and over again, becoming new and unique people every few seconds to the beat of the song? The face is the identity. The face is our image to the rest of the world.

The exalted Merriam Webster defines face as:

1 a : the front part of the human head including the chin, mouth, nose, cheeks, eyes, and usually the forehead b : the face as a means of identification

No matter what you do, whether you remove skin, add skin, add makeup, remove makeup, add coloured contacts, get your ears pierced, get a tattoo on your nose, have a pimple, have no teeth, have a mole or facial hair…no matter what you do, you can’t get away from your face. (Ok, so just recently there was a person somewhere in Europe who had a face transplant, and actually got away from their face, which is probably the most massive kind of dermabrasion you can get, but for the purposes of my diatribe, pretend like normal person can’t get away from their face. Yes, blah blah blah, it was a great scientific achievement, blah blah blah, but it spoils my premise so ignore it just for now.)

And likewise, I can’t get away from this face to face meeting I’m sitting in, with tears running down my face from the fever I’m getting from listening to the droning, monotonous, excessively evil and ephemeral (Greek: ephEmeros lasting a day) presentation. The countless PowerPoint slides with text in Helvetica 72 bold. The never-ending stream of animated text that flies from the right, then the left, then the upper right, then the lower left. The screeching microphone with annoying background noise created by people who received a call on the cell phone in their pocket that they were supposed to have turned off as part of the ground rules of the meeting. The one network connection in the room that gets shared by the 43 attendees, and the interrupting of the presentation long enough for someone to climb under the desk, swap the Ethernet cable, climb back into their chair and sigh as they try to renew their DHCP address.

The agenda which isn’t the one that was published to the web site one hour before the meeting, but runs over on every presentation causing lunch to happen some time around 3:30pm, forcing my stomach to begin masticating itself. The cancellation of the intercampus shuttle, preventing me from getting to a site which still has the airport shuttle, causing me to miss the one and only one shuttle flight to get me home, causing me to spend the night in the Best Western dumping ground, with no internet access and a phone connection that only gets 2400baud connected to the company network, allowing me to download the 6MB image file that was so kindly sent to me by a relative who just HAD to let me see a picture of some new fifth cousin eight times removed with the UGLIEST face I have ever seen on a baby. I certainly won’t be braking for him once he reaches college.

Here’s a blast from the past…circa 1989. Don’t ask…I used to work there and had to memorize it…what’s even scarier is that I still remember it

Big Mac, McDLT, a Quarter Pounder with some cheese, Filet-O-Fish, a Hamburger, a Cheeseburger, a Happy Meal, McNuggets, tasty gold french fries (regular and larger size), and salads (Chef or Garden or a Chicken Salad Oriental), big-big breakfast, Egg McMuffin, hot-hotcakes and sausage, maybe biscuits (bacon, egg and cheese or sausage), Danish, hash browns, too, and for dessert, hot apple pie, and sundaes (three varietites), a soft-serve cone, three kinds of shakes, and Choclaty chip cookies, and to drink, a coca-cola, diet Coke, an orange drink, a Sprite, and coffee, decaf, too, a lowfat milk, also an orange juice; I love McDonald’s; Good Time, Great Taste; and I get this all at one place.

(and yes, it’s sung to particular tune/cadence)

how sad…truly sad

Malibu Rum, Grenadine, Pineapple Juice, Orange Juice, better phrased as “Malibu Girls Put Out”. Frankly that is the only way I can remember how to make a Bahama Mama.

You might be asking yourself now, self, why does he need to know this information? And why the silly phrase? Well, it’s because Rachelle and I are enrolled in Bartending College!

That’s right….this past weekend we had our first two days of school, with our remaining two days coming up this following Sat/Sun. We’re learning how to make the drinks that the people demand! And oh my god it’s not as easy as one might think.

On Sunday, we have two tests. First is the written exam, which requires us to know 32 drinks by name, know which glass they are served in, the correct order of ingredients, how to make it, and how to garnish it. If we pass the written exam, we move on to a practical exam, which requires us to make and serve 12 drinks in 7 minutes or less. Frankly, I’m terrified. Although we’re just taking this class for fun, not as a 100% career change, I do NOT want to fail these exams.

But come on people. How on earth am I going to remember that a Brandy Alexander has a garnish of nutmeg, and a Gin Rickey has a lime instead of a lemon (an exception to the soda water rule). Or that a Liquid cocaine is illegal to serve if you pour more than 1/3rd of each of the three ingredients (jagermeister, rumplemintz, bacardi 151)?

It might be time to make some flash cards, take a trip to Bev-Mo and buy some supplies, and practice my art getting David drunk from my concoctions. Wish me luck!

I have started keeping a list of my current irritations regarding the jargon and corporate babble I hear on a regular basis.
I’ll plan to keep this one updated as time progresses (like it does), with new and wonderful phrases or words I hear.Enjoy if you will, and stop using these if you do

I need to take a “bio break“ - because it’s not PC to say P (I use Bio Break)

“Going forward“ - ugh! this is almost like “here’s what we do today, but tomorrow we will…“ - I admit, I catch myself using the Today vs. Tomorrow in presentations…but if you ever catch me saying “Going Forward“, please ask me to leave

“moving forward“ - same as above

Ending your sentences with “right?“ - you’re not asking for validation after every sentence you say are you? You don’t really want people to respond, right?

“We’re going to go ahead and …“ - well then DO IT already!

“key” programs or “key” initiatives - um, do you mean they are IMPORTANT? as opposed to un-key? What is the opposite of “key“, and when did “key“ become an adjective?

“Are meeting is at 10“, instead of OUR meeting is at 10 - you got the “R“ right, but wrong vowels people…

Submitted: “I’ll ping you.” ; What’s next? “Hey, I’ll tracert to.your.desk in the morning.”