Tales of a Night Porter

Ah.. being a night porter. The hours suck and so does the pay, but it can hardly be called work. Actually, I'm pretty sure I've never had a job with less responsibility. I've had a good time at this job. Here's a few of my exploits..

• About two months ago it was a Saturday night and I was having a nap. At around 4:30 in the morning I awake to some uncommon noise. Apparently the manager, who was living in house at that time hear it too because we both walked into the lobby at the same time with confused look on our faces and then split up to find the source of the commotion. I noticed some wet footprints on the slate floor, and ran for the hot pool in the back. Sure enough, there were some dunk local boys in it. I've worked the door in a club enough times to know how to get drunks to leave without incident and that's what I did. While they're heading out the manager comes out and starts berating them. Basically screaming and threatening which was returned by the lads. We went inside and looked around to find that they actually had walked into the kitchen while I was sleeping and took a bottle of balsamic vinagerette (which was right next to a couple bottles of wine) and that there was a couple of broken eggs on the floor. I felt like a bit of a boob since I should have locked the doors into the main atrium area of the hotel. At 7 in the morning when my shift ended the morning receptionist came in and asked if I knew why there were eggs broken all over the parking lot. "Yeah, I've got an idea..." This has since become a favorite anecdote to tell around the hotel.
• This one occurs about a month later. It was after my shift had ended, I was at home sleeping and my roommate, Nick, asked me if he could drive my van for a little while. I obliged and told him he could find the keys in a pocket of my jeans on the floor. An hour or two later my phone rings, it's work wanting to know if I have seen the set of keys that I carry at night and then pass off in the morning. I looked thru my pockets and couldn't find them, so I informed them of such. The next shift I worked they still had not turned up, they were using a spare set. I told them that the last I remembered of these keys I had let a waitress use them and she set them down on the table where I was eating breakfast a few minutes before my shift ended. Basically, I was told taking the heat for they keys just yet because I don't remember leaving the hotel with them. A full day later I see them under a pile of stuff on my dresser. It turns out that I did take them home by accident, Nick took those keys, and one of the cash register keys can start my van!
• The night porter who works when I am off, Lyndon, never does anything. He goes in at 11, goes to sleep and gets up at 7. He never does any of the cleaning he is supposed to do where as I always do. Last Monday, there was a BBQ at my place, it was Lyndon's night to work and he was there. The Japanese and I made a point to get him totally obliterated before sending him to work, we were quite successful. He stumbled in five minutes late with a bottle of beer in his hand. When I went in the next day to work he was the talk of the hotel. It was a busy night as there was a conference in the private room with an open bar that didn't wind down until after 3am. It was my job to set that room up for their meeting the next day after I went to bed, sure no problem. Before she left, the receptionist (who usually works mornings) asks me if I was going to be able to set the chairs up tonight. I told her I was. Then being my typical expiramenting, joking self I asked her "Just curious, why would have happened if I said I was not able to move those chairs?" She cuckled and went home, I set up the chairs. The next night, last night, I go in at my normal time and the manager meets me. He told me that I did not have to work any more and that they would still pay me for the last three nights I was scheduled to work since Friday was supposed to be my last day anyway. Then he told me he was tired of the attitude of me and the other porter (this was the first time I had seen him in 3 weeks) and that my comment about moving the chairs the night before was totally uncalled for. So once again, my dry sense of humor and fat mouth get me in trouble. I probably could have argued and pled my point and stayed on, but why bother? I still get paid and it's a lot more fun to sit here and write about getting fired that to write about begging to keep my job. I'm pretty sure Lyndon's getting the boot too.