Work Stories: Episode 2: I Want My MTV

Previously in Work Stories, I described a time when I was sitting at work and saw a sex van.  I find it to be an interesting story, though I’m sure many of you would argue that it wasn’t.  That doesn’t matter to me.  What mattered to me was sharing something that I found interesting.  There you go.  This week I will delve into another story about something that has happened to me at work.  This time it will not be about a sex van.

Before I went to university, I had a different job than the one I currently have.  I worked in a hotel.  That’s a common thing in this city, as we have a lot of hotels because most of our city’s income is based on tourism.  What better thing to have for tourism than hotels and motels.  This hotel job involved a lot.  I was a parking lot attendant, I worked in the dining room, I worked in the kitchen as the dishwasher, and sometimes I got other odd jobs.  This is a story of one of those odd jobs.

There were a few hours between the time that the maintenance workers and the night time custodian were on.  The maintenance guys would leave around four in the afternoon, and the custodian wouldn’t come in until around eight.  This meant that if anything went wrong in one of the rooms, I would get sent in to fix the problem.  That’s who I was.  I was the little bitch around that place.  I got lots of hours though, and they liked to give me money.  What the hell?  I’ll do these little things.

So one night I’m doing my parking lot duties and I get called down to the front desk of the hotel.  I was told something along these lines. “I can’t leave the desk right now.  A woman called and said her television isn’t working.  Go fix it.”  Okay, front desk person who has more authority than me.  I’ll go try and fix a television.  I don’t know how to fix it if it’s actually broken though.  I have no tools and I have no mechanical expertise.  Hopefully it isn’t too bad.

I go up to the room and knock on the door.  Now I have to wait a little bit because it’s an old lady.  She takes her time getting to the door, even though she was the one who called the front desk and she knew someone would be coming up to help her out.  I go into the room.  This is where things get sexual.  Right?  Wrong.  This isn’t a cheap porno.  She actually wanted her television fixed.  And I’m not some male porn star who is going to take off my pants instead of fix the television.  Especially for an old lady.  Yikes.

The television is not working.  I press the power button.  Nothing happens.  I press the power button again.  I’m not making sure it works this time.  I don’t want to have the television on if I get it working.  I might get electrocuted.  I can’t have that happen.

What could the problem be?  The first thing that popped into my head was that the television was unplugged.  I look around the side of the television.  Yeah.  It was unplugged.  I bend down, grab the cord, and plug the television back in.  Everything was fixed.

As I was leaving the room, the old woman called me back in.  If I remember exactly what she said, it was this: “Here.  You take this change.  It’s Canadian.  I’m never going to use it again.”  She took all of the change off of the table in the hotel room and put it in my hand.  I thanked her and left the room.  I never saw her again.

This is another story of my work experience that isn’t exciting.  To be honest, I’m not sure any of the tales are going to be overly exciting.  They’re good enough for me to want to share.  That’s why this recurring blog entry exists.  I want to share these things with you.  I hope you enjoy them at least a little bit.  That’s all I ask for.  Until next time, keep on working for the weekend.