23.6.06

agresivo pasivo

Hotel life. Everyone's a goddamn boss, and they all think "Corporate" is the ultimate password. These assholes saunter up to my desk and say, firmly, "Give me your best Corporate rate." The word corporate is always delivered as though on the sly, like this is the fucking key, sister, now let me see the booze.

These motherfuckers don't realize I've got my own sly exchange, and it's just for them. Custom fucking fit. I smile, and I tell them so sweetly them I can get them in for $10 more than the standard rate. They say, "C'mon. S'that the best you can do?" And, yes, that is always, exactly, invariably what they say.

"Okay...well...let's see...I can get you in...for...$89.99."

Bam. Full fucking price is exactly what you get for all your cum guzzlery and c'mons. At best, they get AAA rate out of me, $80.99, and they walk away feeling like they earned $20. I walk back to the laundry, similar saunter, because I AM the passive-aggressive dastardly Jack-you-on-the-spot do-badder that, if you knew how much I hated you--how desperately I want to fuck you over--you would drive on to the next town, maybe even the town after that. I giggle. I fill out the little form that gives me "10 points" for booking a walk-in at standard.

25 of those and I get a fucking pizza.

Those are the other ones I've got a routine for. The pizza people. The rude bastards who call down to ask me for the telephone numbers to pizza places. I know my hotel, and I know those dicks are staring at a phone book even as they dial 0. But they don't know that I'm also staring at mine.

"Oh sure...oh, ooo...where did they put my phone book? I'm sorry. Can I have you hold on just a sec?...I know it's around here somewhere. I'm sorry."

I make damn sure that I stand there smiling for at least the time it would take a marginally literate man to look it up his fucking self. Sometimes I touch the cover of the book as I do this. That feels the best.

Who's that smiling scamp with those rapscallion ways?
T-I-N-A
Who's booking you all at two times standard rate?
T-I-N-A
Who scowls in the phone with a sweet, candied voice?
T-I-N-A
Who would rip off your face if she had any choice?

2 comments:

E T C said...

Amazing and Thank you.

Anna Nimh said...

You're welcome. And you might enjoy a co-worker's email response even more...

"I scanned through your post....great. We have the same thing going, I love bitch-slapping the "give me yer corporate rate" wankers around, too. What I do, though, is tell them we're sold out. Yep, to get into my hotel you've got to pass the personality test. Most get in. Farmers always get in. I'm also biased towards minorities, especially those not wearing suits. But a good many are rejected....about a year ago my friend and I were calculating/thinking out loud and came up with a conservative estimate of $30,000 in potential walk-in revenue Night Auditor **** has turned his nose up to since starting up at the hotel. Just last night 4 people discovered there was no "room at the inn" when, in fact, there were several rooms at the inn. "Sorry" I sympathetically tell them with a serious face as internally I chortle at another small victory in the Good Fight.