The Fortune Cookie in the Hotel Garbage

So.....for a while I worked at the Days Inn in Hurricane. And okay, "a while" means two weeks. But it was an interesting experience with quite a few moments to remember.

It all began when I was looking for a job, five weeks before the date I was due to leave for Sweden. Mor noticed that the marquee in front of the Days Inn said "Help Wanted". So I went in, and the Indian (as in, from India) lady there told me to call her the next day to set up a time for "laundry tanning". (I'm assuming she meant "training".) Lo and Behold, I called her the next day and she informed me that they no longer needed help.

However, two weeks later they needed help again. I went in again. And a few days later they called me. And then I began working. It wasn't a very nice thing to start working when I knew I was leaving in three weeks, but I really needed the money so my parents said I should take it anyway and just not tell them yet....so yeah.

I got up at 5 AM every morning during those two weeks, and that was not fun....yay coffee! And on my first day working there, a girl came in and asked if we were hiring...haha, sorry dearie! I wanted so badly to write down her information and contact her later and tell her that she could get the job in a couple of weeks. Other than that, my first day was rather unremarkable. Learned how to use the computers and set up the continental breakfast. (Is there a global breakfast?)

My second day there, I had hot chocolate for breakfast instead of coffee. Bad idea. I don't really know if that was coincidence or not...but I totally fell asleep at the desk that day. I was awoken by an angry German man who wanted coffee. That night, I had a dream that I fell asleep again behind the desk before even setting up breakfast. Which would be impossible since I don't even go behind the desk before setting up the breakfast.

After that I started having coffee every morning, at three times recommended concentration. That helped me to stay awake, but I became oh-so-bored. I sat behind the desk daydreaming, waiting impatiently for 9 o'clock so that I could finally begin the laundry. Hey, it was doing something!

Work was fine after that. Well, other than taking out the trash. Every day I had to take out the garbage from both inside and outside...and it was absolutely awful. Every single day it seemed some sort of unidentifiable, rancid, odious garbage juice would leak out and drip all over my shoes. I started wearing the same pair of shoes every day for that purpose.

You sure do meet interesting people while working at a hotel. The names in particular can be intriguing. Once there was a man named John Suchy staying there. Suchy. Hmm. And then there was a Chris Shurtleff. Whenever I had to write his name, I couldn't help but think, "Chris left his shirt." And then of course there was the Llama family. Seriously, their last name was Llamas! And of course....Rich Guy. Okay, so his name was really Guy Rich. Which is funny enough. But in all my documents the last name is listed first, so I was going through papers and suddenly I saw that we were currently hosting....Rich Guy. Oh, yeah.

So as you can see, working there had it's advantages and disadvantages. But after two weeks of work, we decided it was time to let them know fair and square that I was leaving. So my parents gave me "official permission" to go to Sweden, and I told my boss about it the next day. I didn't tell him right away, of course. He was mentally asleep when I first saw him, and then I was too busy cleaning. And then I found a fortune cookie in the hotel garbage. (No, I did not open it. But I thought it was intriguing. Somebody threw their fortune away.)And then, I met Swedes! The nice Swedish lady, Annika, asked if she could take a picture of me when we were finished talking. ^^

And then I quit. I told my boss that I didn't have to quit until May 31, but he found someone else pretty dang quickly if I do say so myself. So, after 3 days of work to pay off my parents, 1 for Kayla, and a few more for myself, I am no longer employed.

Except for now I work sometimes at Albertson's, doing demos for pizza and such. Note: If you are ever in a store and you really like one of the samples you receive, please buy it. Did you know that a demo-er is not considered "worth it" unless they can sell enough extra of the product that they make five times more than they are paid?

The End.