My Friday

it is your friday, but let me tell you about my friday. it was not a friday of any sorts-- likely because my friday is a tuesday and everybody treats it like a tuesday-- and at times it was so chaotic and unhealthy that i almost enjoyed it in a sick way.

i won't be offended if you don't read this one: it's long (and picture-less.)

2:01pm - 8 hours and 59 minutes till my weekend

this client was particularly mad. she had every reason to be mad, given her situation, but having just walked into the office made me wish someone else had to deal with her anger. she was the type to say "you did this" as though i were an entity that controlled every mistake associated with her card.

the truth was, many people had their hands in the circus, and i had touched it only once and only as the safety net for the times she realized she was falling.

the "you did this" was in reference to a colleague booking the client a hotel in vancouver city (british columbia) and a ferry headed to vancouver island (victoria), leaving her to believe the ferry was headed to the same vancouver as the hotel.

what i had actually done was apologized profusely on account of my colleagues error and proceeded to dive into four hours of research in order to find the only ferry (b.c. ferries) that could take her from the island to the city on such short notice. i documented everything and left for the night with every intention of calling her at 10am the following morning at the start of my impromptu over-time shift.

but she called back at 9am.

the concierge she reached didn't read any of my notes documenting the research and this lead to the lady booking a flight from seattle to vancouver rather than a $20 ferry ride.

worse yet, our card services failed to process her overseas alert and so her credit card was frozen during her entire trip through canada.

and amtrak had cancelled her train pass from chicago to seattle.

"you did this."

this is what we can an "escalation" and it is handed to whichever unlucky manager is on duty. generally, it ends in the client being paid the differences in expenses. it's all you can do when things go so horribly wrong.

and this is when you learn-- if you're not familiar with the corporate world-- that 90% of your job is covering your own ass so thoroughly that there is no way any of the mistakes can be traced back to you. no. my notes regarding ferries were documented and my plan of immediate action was as well.

i don't believe in this. i can't rest easy just because it wasn't my fault. i spent four hours trying to be sure we hadn't ruined this client's vacation and it happened anyway.

i was a safety net with fire below-- setting her up to be cooked gently with no real escape till the ropes burned through and she could fall into a pit of flames.

augh.

3:15pm - 7 hours and 45 minutes till my weekend

he wanted me to plan out his road-trip from san diego to denver and had no particular length of time in mind. all he knew is that he wanted to leave on sunday-- five days away. it being my friday meant nothing to him, he saw no reason i couldn't plan the trip before 11pm when i got off work.

"can't you just get it to me tonight?" he urged, "say by 8pm?"

"i can certainly try," i stated, "but if not, one of my colleagues will pick up where i've left off and your experience should be seamless and simple either way."

i clenched my jaw knowing i had said the same thing to the client who wanted a ferry to vancouver. but here's hoping.

"i don't see why you can't get it done by 8," he said, "it can't be that hard, can it?"

"well," i started, "hard enough for you to need assistance."

i'm not usually so wise with clients, but i was only off the phone with my first horrible call for a moment before this vague road-trip request came flying in last minute.

"do your best. i'm running out of time."

"it might be nice to stop through vegas," i told him, "because it may be the last city you see on your way to denver. you are, undeniably, looking at a lot of desert after vegas."

"no," he said, "i've got two kids and they won't like that. do you think we could see mount rushmore on the way?"

i struggled to find an answer to his question as quickly and politely as possible, but realized there was no way out other than honesty.

"mount rushmore is in south dakota, sir."

"so is that out of the way?"

"you just might want to stick with the glen canyon national park in utah, it's... closer."

3:30pm - 7 hours and 30 minutes till my weekend

she was a kind lady with a healthy amount of elderliness in her voice, wavery, and worrying about dating herself. the actual request was a simple car reservation but when we got to talking about smart cars and what a ridiculous vehicle they were, san francisco came up.

she had lived in the city during the 70's, when the towering inferno and the streets of san francisco were being filmed-- when alcatraz was a cheap and non-touristy place to visit.

we had an amazingly lengthy and entertaining conversation and my followup email started "Thank you for such a pleasant call." but that pleasant call did last one solid hour and as soon as it was over, i had to go straight to my designated break.

the conversation was refreshing in a sense, but the time in which it happened was poor. i needed to be working on the road-trip to denver and while she was a charmer, i didn't have time for long calls of any nature.

4:30pm - 6 hours and 30 minutes till my weekend

fifteen minute break. i smoked two cigarettes, back to back.

4:51pm - 6 hours and 9 minutes till my weekend

i'd only started researching potential road-trips for a matter of minutes before an old man called and began his speech with, "i'm calling because i spoke with you earlier and you ruined the entire thing and the whole thing has been a joke and you never called me back."

i had never spoken to this man. this man was another client who enjoyed saying "you" when he meant "your colleagues."

his request was simple: he wanted to stay at the marriott in harbor beach, using gift certificates issued by us-- using his credit card points. for the sake of censorship, let's just call his credit card the poop card.

now, the trouble is that marriotts are very strict about the client having their gift certificate before making a reservation and according to our computers the last concierge had already explained this to the client. but he was calling back asking whether or not we'd spoken to the marriott and changed their minds.

"if not," he said in his tired voice, "i'll go to higher powers."

"it seems my colleague has already spoken with the marriott," i replied, "and informed you that you will need to purchase the gift certificate before making the reservation as a particular code on the certificate is necessary to their systems, sir. i believe we told you this during your last call."

"that's not how it used to be," he croaked, "and i thought i had a poop credit card."

"unfortunately, sir, that is how it is now," i started, "i've been here under a year, but in the extent i have worked here, this has always been the way marriott's do business. and, also unfortunately, this is the marriott hotel-- not the poop credit card hotel-- so we do have to abide by the rules set in place by the marriott and they are that you need the gift certificate prior to making a reservation."

he wasn't having it. he asked i call the marriott back and see if they'd changed their mind. i called back and found that, unsurprisingly, they had not changed their mind. and so he asked i check rates at the ritz-carlton in harbor beach and see what could be done with gift certificates at that location. this should've been easier because the ritz does not require gift certificates to be in hand prior to reservations like the marriott does.

but nothing is easy with an 80 year-old man who can't accept changes.

"the best available rate is $799 per night, sir."

"my travel agent could get it for $429 per night," he said confused.

"i do apologize," i said sternly, "but the best available rate i see is $799."

"what can you do to change that?"

"sir," i paused,"unfortunately i cannot make a $799 rate turn into $429 per night. however, if your travel agent can honor that rate i recommend you book through them."

"you're missing the point."

"if i am," i started, "please help me to understand the point."

"if i book through my travel agent," he breathed, "i can't use the gift certificate."

"that, sir, is not true," i said, "you can use the gift certificate no matter what-- it has nothing to do with me. so long as you use it at a ritz, you can book the reservation anyway you like."

"let's go back to the marriott."

i wanted to kill this man, but-- given his age-- realized he would likely die soon enough and a homicidal charge was not worth speeding up the process.

we booked the marriott without using a gift certificate and i explained how he might want to redeem his credit card points for dollars and use those dollars to pay for the hotel stay. the points-to-dollars ratio was not as good as redeeming for a gift certificate, but it was still better than paying out of pocket.

the man made me promise to fax and mail him a copy of his hotel confirmation. no one asks me to fax anything, but that wasn't nearly as unusual as the fact he meant snail-mail and not email him the confirmation on top of it.

whatever. i just wanted to get the man off the phone and get started on the san diego denver road-trip.

"and can you connect me to the travel department," he added, "i need to confirm my flight."

i placed him on hold while connecting to the proper department and explaining the situation to the operator. the entire process must've taken thirty seconds, but when i returned to conference the client in, he asked if he could put me (and travel) on hold for a moment.

that moment lasted fifteen minutes and i had a lengthy and frustrated conversation with the travel agent before we both decided to hang up. the greatest part of that conversation was discovering that the elderly client had already booked a room at the marriott for the exact dates he had me book. he had done it through travel right before calling me.

i called the client back to pretend we'd been disconnected and be sure everything was finished.

"oh," he said, "i called travel while i had you on hold."

"but... that's who i was trying to connect you with," i said legitimately thinking this aging client was fucking with me.

"well, thank you for your time," he said.

"before you go, sir, travel mentioned to me that you... already have a reservation at the marriott. evidently, i just made you another one for the same exact time and place. was that on purpose?"

"oh my lord," he said, "how was i supposed to know they actually made the reservation if they didn't fax me?"

i just spent nearly two hours with this man, booking something he'd already booked.

you've got to be shitting me.

6:30pm - 4 hours and 30 minutes till my weekend

lunch break. normally i only take thirty minutes, but i needed that hour more than i needed the over-time. i needed two hours and i debated about blaming the extended lunch on an error of our new phone system.

7:30pm - 3 hours and 30 minutes till my weekend

i returned from lunch and realized the road-trip-- which was due in thirty minutes-- had not been started. i hadn't had a spare moment off the phone. i put myself in "fulfillment" to block calls from coming to me so i could speed through the itinerary.

i had a miniature breakdown which consisted of cackles at nothing and a small fight with our printer which refused to print on envelopes.

but i calmed down and straightened my mind. it's 2010 and we have the internet: things were going to be okay.

at this time, i would like to thank google maps, frommers.com, and the photographers of flickr for making it possible for me to finish this last minute road-trip request via copy & paste.

8:35pm - 2 hours and 25 minutes till my weekend

by this time, all the bosses were gone and most of the concierge had gone home-- all that were left was myself, d, j and b: the swing shift. and it seemed the entire building was receiving the same sorts of calls as me-- there was something in the air.

"MOTHERFUCKING COCKSUCKER-- FUCK YOU!" d shouted from across the office.

"what happened?" i asked, looking over the cubicle walls and standing on my swivel chair.

"that's what he said," d responded, "he called me a 'mother-fing cocksucker'"

"oh, the client said that?" i asked, "i though you were calling him that."

"no," d said, "the guy was pissed because he called to use his credit card points to redeem for something he had bought on a different credit card. i told him he couldn't do that-- he called me a mother-fing cocksucker and hung up."

"can i use my macy's gift card at the grocery store?" j chimed in. we were all losing our minds slowly.

"hey," b said, "at least none of you had to spend an hour finding 'a song i heard once... in a movie...'"

9:21pm - 1 hour and 19 minutes till my weekend

the calls had mostly stopped and we had decided it best to stand on our swivel chairs and toss beanbags across the office. there was no reason, just that we had swivel chairs and beanbags. and that it's hard to be in a bad mood playing catch while balancing on a swivel chair.

it is particularly hard to balance on a swivel chair while trying to throw anything great lengths.

d talked about his love of art and b talked about never having created anything artistic and then we all debated about whether or not art classes teach you to become more artistic or trick you into thinking you can never create art because you can't mimic the already successful artists.

then we talked about porn from three angles.

one concierge loves porn and loves his wife for loving porn, the other concierge hadn't gotten into porn until his girlfriend forced it upon him, and i prefer naked people that i have personally gotten naked rather than paid, downloadable, girls.

it was a surprisingly intellectual debate.

at a time, we all stood on our swivel chairs and did the twist. i showed d some of my art and he showed me some of his. we all shared our knowledge of scams, creations and middle names.

"today can eat a sloppy dick," i said, "but you know, the 9-5ers probably had an even shittier day."

"yeah," d said, "and they don't get to stand on their swivel chairs and talk about porn."

10:59pm - 1 minute before my weekend

i clocked out and walked home. despite how horrible the day was, the last few hours of it made me truly appreciate the 2-11pm shift-- i was comforted by knowing everyone went through the same nonsense and we were able to have a solid conversation and laugh about it all without the watching eyes of any bosses.

but i never want to deal with a day like that again.