Thursday, October 20, 2005
The Glamorous Life of a Salesman
I'm in a nice little coastal town today, working a trade show. (It's going very well, thank you for asking.) I am staying at the hotel where the show is being held. It's old, and far from fancy, but until this trip it was okay.
This morning as I started the water for my shower, I realized there was no bath mat. Then I discovered there was no soap -- that's okay, I have my own shower gel -- and no washcloth. But disaster fell when I got out of the shower, dried off, and reached for the hair dryer...oops, there is no hairdryer. Quick, call the front desk. The phone rings about 10 times and a recorded message comes on. I am running back and forth from the bathroom, where I am putting all the things on my face that are supposed to keep my age from showing, and the phone, where I keep trying to reach the front desk. Finally, I give up, throw on some clothes, and go down to the front desk with dripping hair and no makeup. This is not a sight anyone wants to see, believe me, so of course I run into four different people I know. There is no one at the front desk. I chase down a maid, who chases down a supervisor, who finally locates the desk person. All this time, mind you, my hair is drying itself into weird shapes. The desk person has no hair dryer; he finds a maintenance person who sets off to get one. Meanwhile, the desk person cuts me a key to the room next door and says to dry my hair in there. I run back upstairs, and the key to the room next door doesn't work. So back to my room I go, and do what I can with a brush to make my hair not stand on end. I call the front desk again, tell them the key doesn't work, send maintenance up with a hair dryer. A few minutes later, I hear someone next door trying a key -- he can't make it work, either. Finally, he knocks on my door and says to go use the hair dryer in the room two doors down. At this point, it is about twelve hairs that need drying, but I do it.
I have a very awkward, very unattractive booth for trade shows. I decided that since the standard is a cubicle made out of rails with curtains attached, I would instead get a banner made at Kinko's and attach it to the curtain behind me. When I arrived last night to set up, what I found was tables -- no rails, no curtains. Okay, I'll thumb tack the banner to the wall behind me... except I don't have any thumb tacks. I asked the front desk for some. They arrived this morning. The wall was wood, so I was using my shoe to hammer the thumb tacks in. Next thing I knew, someone was telling me that the seminar classes were being held in the room next to the wall I was pounding on, and it was so loud the speaker had to stop speaking. Ooops! I also heard that the story is now that I was wandering around the hotel naked, looking for a towel!
I took a bunch of customers to dinner last night so I would have company to help me celebrate the Astros' WIN. That makes it all worthwhile.
This morning as I started the water for my shower, I realized there was no bath mat. Then I discovered there was no soap -- that's okay, I have my own shower gel -- and no washcloth. But disaster fell when I got out of the shower, dried off, and reached for the hair dryer...oops, there is no hairdryer. Quick, call the front desk. The phone rings about 10 times and a recorded message comes on. I am running back and forth from the bathroom, where I am putting all the things on my face that are supposed to keep my age from showing, and the phone, where I keep trying to reach the front desk. Finally, I give up, throw on some clothes, and go down to the front desk with dripping hair and no makeup. This is not a sight anyone wants to see, believe me, so of course I run into four different people I know. There is no one at the front desk. I chase down a maid, who chases down a supervisor, who finally locates the desk person. All this time, mind you, my hair is drying itself into weird shapes. The desk person has no hair dryer; he finds a maintenance person who sets off to get one. Meanwhile, the desk person cuts me a key to the room next door and says to dry my hair in there. I run back upstairs, and the key to the room next door doesn't work. So back to my room I go, and do what I can with a brush to make my hair not stand on end. I call the front desk again, tell them the key doesn't work, send maintenance up with a hair dryer. A few minutes later, I hear someone next door trying a key -- he can't make it work, either. Finally, he knocks on my door and says to go use the hair dryer in the room two doors down. At this point, it is about twelve hairs that need drying, but I do it.
I have a very awkward, very unattractive booth for trade shows. I decided that since the standard is a cubicle made out of rails with curtains attached, I would instead get a banner made at Kinko's and attach it to the curtain behind me. When I arrived last night to set up, what I found was tables -- no rails, no curtains. Okay, I'll thumb tack the banner to the wall behind me... except I don't have any thumb tacks. I asked the front desk for some. They arrived this morning. The wall was wood, so I was using my shoe to hammer the thumb tacks in. Next thing I knew, someone was telling me that the seminar classes were being held in the room next to the wall I was pounding on, and it was so loud the speaker had to stop speaking. Ooops! I also heard that the story is now that I was wandering around the hotel naked, looking for a towel!
I took a bunch of customers to dinner last night so I would have company to help me celebrate the Astros' WIN. That makes it all worthwhile.
5 Comments:
Somehow I wonder if after the celebration last night, you weren't still buzzed this morning and actually were wandering around the hotel nekkid looking for a towel.....
Go Stros! You missed all the fun in line at Academy last night.
Oh. So YOU"RE the one everyone was talking about! Only kidding. Thanks for sharing the glamourous life of a traveling salesperson!
My daughter works in Hotel management and she would be appalled with that hotel..Sounds like an interesting convention. Hope you made some good sales.
GO ASTROS! I'm putting my bid in for my World Series shirt right now. Andy, Roger, Roy, and Brandon and going to shut them down. Go Killer BEES...
It sounds like you had a horrible day, but if it's any consolation, you made me laugh aloud telling us about it :).
so that was you wandering around the hotel naked???
kind of reminds me of an episode of mr. bean.
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