Sidney Tyler Lofton

I’m Sid, I watch tv and I occasionally wrangle a moron.  Welcome to the Worst Direction, may I show you to your room? 

I’ll preface this that 80% of you are lovely people. Well you were until the double whammy scourge of trump/corona.  But back to the 20% do you literally piss in your beds every night? Also how dare you approach me holding a smartphone/tablet and ask me directions. It is 2021 sir, get your shit together. How can you read a sign and then ask me the question the sign answered? Its a hold not a charge….it will drop off. and I’m sorry you chose to book thru a third party seller leaving me with no power over your reservation. Read what you sign. 

I have seen things that will haunt me till I’m dead. Questions will remain unanswered for eternity. These are my tales from the front desk.

Grandma and the .45

 

So the last property I worked at was an interstate hotel that happened to be located next to a hospital satellite campus. So we had tons of old folks staying there so they could be near loved ones or for treatment. This hotel was also run by an indian princess who would do everything except her job. So I’m up on the 3rd floor changing out an ac unit when my cell rings and its IP. She says we have a noise complaint from room 210 can you go down and check it out. So I saunter on down to 210 and what I hear coming from the otherside of the door sounds like an MMA match. So I knock and the door is thrown open and I’m greeted by the sight of a 90yo heavy set grandma in a tshirt and no pants aiming what I found later was a Smith and Wesson. 45 at my face. I roll out of the way and ask if everything is ok. She responds that my caretaker has been drinking and is abusing me…. (yeah I know, like you have a gun in your paw how is she abusing you?) So I immediately call the local PD and explain what’s going on. They get there fairly quickly and start interviewing grandma .45 and her caretaker. What had happened was. G45 and CT had bought 2 half gallons of vodka and drank them both then got into a physical fight about something on the tv. So we request the cops help them leave and I’m asked if I want to press charges for the gun. I decline. G45 leaves CT is taken into custody for abuse. About a month later G45 calls the hotel, asks to speak to me and wants to know if I’ll go to court for her. No apology for pointing a gun at my dome and gets really angry when I decline. I do not miss interstate hotels.

The saga of the poop bag lady

 

Picture it. A sunny summer morning at the worst direction. Having coffee while watching the news. My peace was shattered by a phone call from a room extension. Housekeeping saying Mr. Sidney you need to come to this room.

I kill my coffee and take the elevator of doom to the floor. Walk down the hall and open the room door. I smell shit. The housekeeper is standing there pointing to the cabinet under the sink with her hand covering her nose and mouth. I kneel down and open the cabinet.

Reddit when I tell you that the smell that assaulted me was like getting hit in the face with a brick of concentrated shit. I am not exaggerating. I power through the assault and what do I see? Well it’s a cardboard box full of plastic grocery bags that are all tied shut. And half full of shit. Now keep in mind this cabinet is a whole 2 feet from the toilet.

Confused is an understatement. This is a regular guest that’s been nothing but great everytime theyve stayed. So I call the GM and hes just as confused as I am. Tells me to have house keeping dispose of the box and its contents and use bleach to clean the cabinet. Also instructs me to not ask the guest what the absolute fuck. So we are left with a mystery. 2 weeks later poop bad lady makes her return. As instructed we act as of she doesnt shit in bags and collect it. Two days into her stay myself and the gm are standing at the desk cutting up as we do. When who walks in during the middle of the day but PBL. She proceeds to her room and is soon as she is in the elevator my gm starts asking out loud I guess trying to work out why she shits in bags instead of the toilet why she does this. Then we hear the elevator open and PBL comes walking past carrying yep you guessed it a grocery bag with a dump in it. She gets in her car and leaves and we never see her again. No answers as to why and it still haunts me to this day that shes out there just shitting in bags in random hotel rooms. I’m gonna be in my death bed and my last words will be PLEASE TELL ME ABOUT THE POOP BAGS!

This industry is truly mystifying sometimes.

“Them F$%*&!# Indians!”

Had an inquiry to room availability by a walk in today. Followed by do them fucking indians run this place. Couldn’t help myself. I said well sir to the best of my knowledge Custer ran them out in the late 1800s. He didn’t say anything, just turned and went away. Sometimes I love my job.

It’s definitely a day y’all.

 

 Part 2,987,465 of you cant make this shit up presents!

Me just chilling behind the desk.

Dude walks up. ” Hey homie, where is the local beach?”

Me. Ummmmmm. What?

Dude. Where is the local beach?

Me. Sir Tennessee is a landlocked state. we don’t have beaches.

Dude. What’s landlocked mean?

Me. …….

Dude. So there aren’t any local beaches. Man, he lied to me.

Then the dude walks off grumbling. Leaving me to consider the life choices that led me here.

The legend of the karate kid

 

Gather round fellow front deskers and hear the legend of the karate kid. Its 8am and again I’m chilling at the desk watching the news having some coffee when the automatic doors open and I see a lil pupper wandering out into the parking lot. Well as an animal lover I’m not gonna let the little dude get run over so I go and grab him and walk to the breakfast area to see who he belongs too. I ask and no one claims him. Another guest speaks up and says a guy brought the dog out here fixed it a bowl with gravy and sausage and just left it. So I take the lil fella behind the desk with me for safe keeping. Hes back there for about 30 min when I have to leave the desk and as soon as I open the door he books it. So I run down the hall and grab him. He of course bites the strange man grabbing at him. I shake it off and gather him back behind the desk. (Cant be mad at a freaked out pup).As we are again chilling a dude with no shirt or shoes wearing jeans and a leather jacket comes to the desk raging that someone has stolen his dog. I point to the lil guy and ask this dog? Well this dude loses his mind starts calling me all kinds of horrible shit saying hes gonna beat my ass for stealing his dog. Then in his infinite wisdom opens the door to come behind my desk and make good on his promises of violence. Those thoughts were quickly derailed as I broke his nose. I follow him into the lobby hes screaming and cussing at me saying I’m nothing but a fat bitch etc.. He decides he wants to square up again and pulls out the crane kick from karate kid. When I tell you I laughed. Boy did I laugh. I guess between my laughter and his already leaking nose he decided that he should cut his losses and high tailed it back to his room pup in tow. So I call the local fuzz and they show up within about 10 min and I evict the guy. They tell him to make sure to get all his shit cause hes not allowed back. After dude is booted I go check the room to find it pretty much destroyed but he left his iPad.

I take it to the desk and throw it in the junk drawer and go back to my day. The next few hours are peaceful and then I see a familiar car pull up under the portico…. its Ralph macchio himself back for seconds. He comes in raging about how we stole his ipad… I tell him to kick rocks and call the police again. Hes not having it and at this point fuck him and his ipad. So I ask him of hed like it back. He says yeah after I kick your ass. So I grab his ipad walk out from behind the desk push him out of my way and sail that iPad into the parking lot. Steve Rogers would have been proud of that throw. He gets real quiet. Blink blinks me doesn’t say a word and runs to get his now useless iPad jumps in his car with his pup and peels out of the lot. Cops show up an hour later have a chuckle at the camera footage and leave.

CMAs

Holy hell Im glad this is almost over. Its like the people of walmarts best of gallery descended upon us. If I have to see one more drunk white girl in pink and camo cowboy boots and a straw cowboy hat crammed into a dress thats 3 sizes too small singing some shitty pop country song Im gonna scream.

Life under an Indian Princess

 

This property was owned by an older Indian gentleman who was planning on giving ot to his son and his sons wife(IP). IP was such an insufferable status chasing money grubber that her husband left her for one of the many white trash ladies employed as front desk at the time. So he was disowned by his family who took in IP as their own daughter and this is how she became the GM of this particular establishment. I’ve told a couple of these stories in other threads but I’m going to include them here as well.

The beginning. I had been there all of a month maybe 2. This was my first hospitality gig ever. When she came to me said hey youre in charge for the next two months myself and the family are going to India. I said respectfully look I’m not sure I can do that I dint know about the day to day as all I’d worked was first shit and a few audits at the time. She assured me I’d be fine and there would be no suprises as shed taken care of everything.

The 2nd week of my 2 months as the oh shit I’m in charge guy I get a call. It’s from the senior citizen tour bus company confirming the 42 of our 44 rooms for 2 days from then. I look in system and nope no block. So I look at the inventory and we are sold completely out for the time period that they will be here. So yeah I panic and start blowing up phones but thanks to the time difference ots a good 12 hours before I get a call back. I ask wtaf? She says if yeah I forgot about that but dint worry I have a friend coming to handle it. By handle it she meant cancel all of the reservations we had and then give those rooms to the tour company. Did they bother to call any of those reservations and inform them of this? Hahahahaha of course not. So while I’m working a 16 hour shift I’m checking in the tour company and trying to find fortysomething rooms to walk these other guests to. That was a nightmare my friends. It almost broke me but I persevered. Also during this period the hotel phones were turned off because she wouldn’t pay the bill

Then there was the time she almost killed a holocaust survivor because she was too lazy to drive 5 min and unlock a safe. I’m chilling at the desk having my coffee when this ancient lady comes to the desk and says her safe wont open. So I go up and check and sure enough the batteries are dead. Now this isint a huge problem. But one that needs the master key to unlock the safe Which she wont give me because she trusts noone but herself. So I explain to the lady that I cannot open the sage and the gm is unavailable to do so until monday morning at 10M(this was a Saturday morning). It was around then that I noticed the telltale tattoo on her arm. She is understandably upset and is threatening us with calling the police and lawsuits as her daughter is a lawyer in New York city. I again call IP and she refuse to budge, saying the lady can wait…. I then tell her look youre about to be responsible for the death of a person that the literal nazis couldnt kill. This apparently shook her from her apathy and she made the 5 min drive to very angrily unlock the ladies safe.

We served your typical hotel shit breakfast. Eggs, biscuits that kind fare. The eggs came in vinegar soaked bags and were literally kept under lock and key. Nothing else in this hotel was locked down except for the eggs. When I asked about it one day I was told that they didn’t want the staff stealing eggs. Cash drawer unlocked, maintenance shed with thousands of dollars in tools unlocked all storage closets unlocked. But not that egg fridge that shit was guarded like gold.

I had to doge contractors she owed money too on almost the daily and it was getting to the point they were getting mad at me because she would tell then she would be there at a certain time to cut them checks and never show. This was an all the time thing.

She would only work from 10am to 2pm monday through friday. So if at 3 when my relief was to be there and they didnt show I was on a 16 hour shift with an hour ride home and an hours ride back to he back at 7am. She refused to allow us to use a room to sleep when this happened. Saying if we wanted to use a room we could book and pay the rack rate.

So somehow in all of this I got conned into a salary position for 40 hours a week and anything over that was overtime. I was regularly putting in 60 to 80 hours a week covering for her and other employees. Then when checks came out I had my salary rate and no overtime. When asked about this I was told I was mistaken and to be happy with what I got. So someone called the labor board and made an anonymous complaint. Fast forward about a month and the labor board is in house conducting an investigation. 4 months later a team meeting is called and we are given checks for our back pay and damages. I got about 10 grand. She then looked at me and said all positions are being removed as well as all vacation and holiday pay and everyone in staff was getting cut to 10.00/hr. I looked at my check laughed and said fuck you I’m out. I then took a few months off and found d a really great small property to work at with an awesome owner/gm who actually gives a fuck.