Full Moon Day

Five o’clock rolled around early this morning. I had to be in work by 7 am to open up the hotel on this Labor Day weekend. Looking out my Wall of Windows in my great room I saw a full moon hanging in the sky. That portended the day to follow.




First thing I do on the way to work on the morning shift is to stop at the Food Lion in Five Points to pick up the morning papers to place in the hotel’s breakfast room. At this early in the morning, everyone is moving slow, including yours truly. At quarter to seven I burst through the doors to Food Lion looking for the papers. No papers. Right behind me is a rough looking gal delivering the papers. I quickly grab the papers I need and I’m off to work. I arrive shortly before 7 am, clock in and immediately encounter a Needy Guest.



Now my job at the hotel is the front desk clerk. I check guests in the hotel, I take reservations, I answer questions like which restaurant serves the best crab cakes, where can they rent bicycles and other many and varied questions. That’s my job. That’s what they pay me to do. But, as all hotel front desk clerks know, there are those guests who find it impossible to pass the front desk without asking a multitude of questions and requesting special treatment. These guests are called Needy Guests. Well, we had one this morning. Oh Mother of God did we have one this morning, afternoon, and all day long. “How do you get to the beach?” “Can I walk to the beach?” “Do you have towels?” “Do you have a bag for the towels?” “Where is the library?” “How do I get to the library?” “Can I feed my child in the breakfast room?” The questions continued on and on ad infinitum. If it sounds like I’m complaining, well I am. This woman wore me out. Oh yes, the biggie was could I wash her baby bottles and have them ready at 12 pm in time before her little darling’s nap. Oh yes, that’s what we specialize in at the hotel, using our dishwasher to wash baby bottles.



Well, enough about her. Another guest comes to the front desk and tells me he’s not happy with his room. He says he doesn’t have a balcony. I check his reservation and find that his wife made the reservation over the Internet. He tells me he feels claustrophobic and “can’t breath” because he doesn’t have a balcony and asks me if I could move him to another room. I tell him I cannot because we are sold out. He asked me again if I could “do something.” He tells me that he wasn’t told that his room (actually a very nice suite with a sun room) didn’t have a balcony. Mind you, his wife made the reservation herself over the Internet. On our website if the room doesn’t have a balcony we don’t say “Room doesn’t have a balcony.” He isn’t happy with this explanation and says to me “Would you rent a room without a balcony?” Uh, actually I have. In fact I think every room I have ever rented in my life did not have a balcony. But I could tell what he was trying to do my challenging me with his confrontational questions. He was trying to make me defensive.  He wanted to make HIS mistake MY mistake. I wasn’t going to permit that to happen. Even though my main adult business career was trust operations, since 1994 I’ve worked part time as a hotel front desk clerk. I’ve seen this movie before. I know how this game works and I wasn’t going to be drawn into it. I told him he could sit on the Waterview Room deck which faces the canal. He still wasn’t smiling but he realized that I wasn’t going to pull a private room for him out of you know where that had a balcony.



The rest of the morning continued in a similar vein. My manager said “There must be a full moon with all the weirdness.” I confirmed to him that yes, indeed there was a full moon. I was so glad when 3 o’clock rolled around and my shift came to an end and I turned over the reins of The Full Moon Inn to my relief, Monica. I just got off the phone with Monica. As the readers of this blog probably surmised by now, the weirdness continues. She related to me some truly strange tales that happened since I left this afternoon including that same guest who felt “claustrophobic” in his room. He spilled a can of soda on his bed, expensive comforter and all. Nice. Thank goodness Monica was able to get the comforter in the washer before the soda dried and she was able to remove the stain. She has about four hours to go before her shift ends. I don’t go in again until Monday afternoon at 3 PM. By then all the guests will be gone.



Oh, one big fact I left out. There were at least 14 kids under 5 years of age that went into our breakfast room this morning. And these little darlings didn’t walk quietly either. They ran screaming, both ways. Later on one of the guests brought down a bag of “trash” for me to dispose of. Yes, you guess it. The bag of “trash” was a bag of dirty diapers. Ah yes, all those years of night school to get my college degree and all those years of Mr. Big Shot Operations Manager in the Trust Department and here I am today disposing of a bag of s..t. I’m good.

Getting Back Up To Speed

Last night I ended my six day marathon work schedule at the hotel where I work part-time. Whew! I was busier last night that I was on the Fourth of July. There must have been a full moon last night. Multiple phone calls, guests checking in, guest checking out early, making reservations, checking reservations, doing loads of laundry,moping and vacuuming the floors....you name it. I was a master of multi-tasking last night. At one point I was beginning to lose it which is a big NO-NO in the hospitality business. I started to get snippy with a guest who was insisting on renting our beer package special for FOUR guests instead of the usual two guests. We don't do four guest because they tend to get too rowdy and thus disturb the other guests in the hotel. You know how it works when more than two young adults get together with a couple of six packs of a brew......PAAAARRRRTYYY! Well, the woman who was trying to make the reservation over the phone wanted to know "Who makes the rule that you can only have one couple in the room?" I told her in a very clear tone of voice "the owner of the hotel." So she decides to try and intimidate me by calling the owner of the brewery who has the arrangement with our hotel and says "I wonder what (blank) will think of that?" Okay honey, you call him. I didn't actually say that but I had to bit my tongue. Instead I put my sweetest, most reasonable tone of voice on and said "If you wouldn't mind, you can call the manager tomorrow and speak with him." She instead told me "Have the owner of the hotel call me!" I told her (still my sweet, reasonable voice) I couldn't do that but "perhaps you could call in the morning." She wasn't too happy with this suggestion but she didn't have much choice. I could sense the road we were going down and knew we didn't want to go there. It solves nothing except to cause both of use to become very defensive and dislike one another. That's not what the hospitality business is all about. The customer may always be right but sometimes they're not going to get there way. This was one of those times.

After this exchange of "focused" words, I had to push my RESET button or else I was going to continue down a path for the rest of the night which wouldn't be good for me or the guests of the hotel. That I did and I was sweetness and light the rest of the night, no matter what curve balls were thrown at me by the guests (and there were a few more, believe me.)

One thing I like about my job working the front desk of the hotel is that it keeps my mind sharp. Oh sure, there are those times which are very trying and I wonder "Why did I ever take this job? Do I need this aggravation?" The answer is "Yes" because if I didn't have a job that stimulated my mind, then my mind would atrophy like my good friend who is slowly sinking into dementia. Your brain is like a muscle, if you don't use it, it will shrink up and be useless. Then you die. In the meantime, you're no good to yourself or anyone else. That is a fate I do not wish to invite upon myself. I look at these sometimes tough situations that I sometimes face at the hotel as a challenge. My goal is to turn around a negative situation into a positive one. I have almost always succeeded and when that happens I feel a positive reinforcement that I am performing a worthwhile function in life. My portion of the world may be small and insignificant but it is of value to me and those who interact with me. I always strive to make those interactions positive for both myself and the people I meet everyday. I love my job. I appreciate every day that I wake up and have a job to go to.

I have the rest of this week off. I don't go back to work until next Monday night. I will luxuriate in that time. That's another thing I like about working, the time off is so much more appreciated. I love my job but I love my time off too. Today I'm meeting my friends Judy and Judy (yes, they're both named Judy) for lunch at Gilligan's in Lewes. Perhaps I'll invite another friend over for dinner later this week. The sun is out, the temperature is warm and there is a gentle breeze. My backyard beckons.

Missing My Monday Nights

This is the second Monday night I'm not working a the hotel. I don't work next Monday night either. I was asked to fore go these Monday nights so a co-worker could have the Fourth of July weekend off so she could spend time with her son before he ships out to Iraq.

I'm always willing to help and being flexible with my work schedule was one of the offers I made to my employer when I first applied for the job of part-time front desk clerk way back in April of 2007. I knew there was a need for flexibility for the position I was applying for. I found that out when I worked at the Hampton Inn as a part time night auditor back in 1998. I was frequently asked to fill in for my co-workers which I was glad to do.

This is the longest stretch of time that I'm not working at the hotel. By the time I go back to work on July 2nd I will have been away from the job for three weeks. The most I've been away before was a week and half. Even with that short layoff I noticed that my rhythm was off when I got back to work. Working the busy Fourth of July weekend should be interesting because it will be very busy that weekend.

Not working three weeks has also thrown of my rhythm at home. At first I was working Monday and Thursday nights, from 3 to 11 and every other weekend. One weekend I would work 7 to 3. Then I would have a weekend off and then work 3 to 11. That stopped several months ago. Now my hours have been cut back to only Monday nights because of the poor economy.

Working once or twice a week was the pefect schedule for me. I worked and then I had plenty of time off. I'm not at the point in my life when I want all of my time off. I feel like I'm without an anchor if I don't have a job to go to, if only part-time. I would never work full-time again. That is completely out of the picture. Working full-time at this time of my life I would feel trapped. No, working part-time is perfect for me. But, this three week layoff, it isn't working.

Well, one good thing about not working at the hotel, I don't have to apologize to the guests for all the rain we're having in Lower Slower (aka Sussex County, Delaware.) I just know the sun will be shining all five days when I'm working again. Murphy's Law.

Good Morning Sunshine

What do we have here? Why it looks like the dominant member of the baby bluebird Batch of Five. A short while ago I went out to the bluebird box to take my latest progress picture of the first batch of bluebirds this year and this is what greeted me. Apparently, Skeeziks here figured out this is where the food come in and he (she) is going to be first in line. I dare not open the bluebird box lest this one falls out. Mama bluebird was nearby keeping observing. I think she knows that I am not a threat to her babies.

The Purple Martins are doing fine in their house. The one lower apartment that I had such a devil of a time getting rid of the sparrows is now occupied by a Purple Martin family. Last week when I threw out the sparrow nest; eggs and all. That did the trick. The sparrows have been coming back with decreasing frequency looking in the other apartments for its eggs but no go. This afternoon I checked an apartment on the front of Purple Martin house. I haven't seen any Purple Martin activity up there. I pulled down the birdhouse and checked the apartment. Sure enough it was stuffed to the ceiling with straw, weeds, trash and whatever else the sparrow could find. Out it went. And for good measure I checked the other hanging gourd. Yep. Another sparrow nest. That one went out too. No eggs in either one. They're building new nests as I type this. I'll wait until they lay their eggs then I'll take the whole shebang out. We can fight this battle all summer but there is no way any house sparrow is going to raise their young in any of my birdhouses. Tain't happening.

Today was/is a beautiful sunny day for a change. Rain is forecast for this weekend though. I just returned from Peppers, a local nursery, with geraniums for my container pots. My neighbor put out a beautiful geranium planter this morning. I cannot let that go unchallenged. Yes, we do the lawn thing and we have a friendly competition in container planting. I love living in a neighborhood like this where we can enjoy one another's efforts instead of battling the deer like I did at my home in Pennsylvania.

The waters of unrest continue to roil at work. I can't go into much detail on this blog but I did want to make the point that all is not well at work. Things should come to a head this week. I hope I can continue to work there because I love my job and the people I work with. I'm good at what I do but sometimes that's not enough when other factors come into play to sap one's enthusiasm about going to work. My rule has always been if I dread going to work, then I'm in the wrong job. I hope things work out at work but if not, then that is the way it was meant to be. Life will go on. I have a comfortable and lovely home. I have more than enough to do around here to keep me busy. Of course I wouldn't be making as many trips to Peppers.

Now I'm off to go outside and enjoy some of this late afternoon sun. This is my favorite time of day in the summer. Just me, one with nature. No worries about living up to someone else's unrealistic expectations. This is the way I live my life at this moment in time.

Coming Down The Stretch

Only two more weeks left on my current temporary gig at full time work schedule. While I don't mind working full time, it doesn't leave me much time for what I really like to do - working in my garden and posting to my blog. While I appreciate that opportunity to work full time I'll be glad when I go back to part time work. At this time of my life, my routine and lifestyle is more suited to working part time. Working part time gives me the opportunity to have the best of both worlds. I have the freedom of retirement and yet still have the discipline of the workplace. I realize this doesn't work for everyone but it is what works for me. I guess I'll always work. At least as long as I can get up in the morning and put on my pants and shoes. However, it is getting tougher putting those shoes on.

Wild Ride

How about that stock market this week? Talk about a wild ride! Hopefully the free fall of the stock market is at an end with the promise of the emergency infusion of funds from the Federal government to save some companies that are too big to fail. My fear is that the worst is not over. I would like to think that we have hit the bottom but I think that is wishful thinking. I watched what few shares of stock that I have sink almost 50% in two days. So here in my lifetime I have seen my IRA value drop by over 90% during the bursting of the Internet Bubble of 2001. Then two years ago I got caught in the beginning of the Housing Market Bubble and was trapped into paying two mortgages for almost a year. I finally sold my house for a lot less than I had planned and as a result I now have a mortgage that will be paid off when I'm 95 years old. That's one reason I'm still working, to earn enough money to pay my monthly mortgage. That's not the only reason I'm working during my retirement. I enjoy my job working at a local small boutique hotel. My coworkers are interesting and fun to work with, and I enjoy meeting new people. But the wild ride of the market this week brought back to me how tenuous my security is. The terrorists have tried to bring this country down by ramming airplanes in the twin towers of the World Trade Center. However, the deregulation of Wall Street may have achieved what the terrorists couldn't achieve, bringing this country down. Can there still be any question about privatising Social Security and putting those funds in Wall Street?

Three Down, Three To Go

Ah, I've completed half of my temporary full time job obligation. For the next two days I plan to luxuriate and just do nothing. Actually, I won't do "nothing." I will do whatever hits me fancy at the moment. What's hitting my fancy right now is to update this blog. Somehow I don't feel that my day is complete until I make my daily blog entry. In the past three weeks, there are some days that I am just too exhausted to think straight. Did I say "straight?" Me saying "straight" is like McCain saying he's a "straight talker." McCain is anything but a straight talker these days in which he will say anything, lies included, just to get elected president. But, I don't want to get into my political views on this blog (that's for my "Ron Sees The Light" blog.) Sometimes I just can't help myself since following politics is and has been one of my passions. Back to my full time work schedule. I am finding that I enjoy working full time. Sure, I'm sometimes exhausted at the end of the day from answering questions from the hotel front desk such as "How far are you from the beach? Do you have a pool? How close are you from the water? Does my room have a good view of the water?" (see a theme here?) Of course I get "Do you have oatmeal?" questions (like last night.) Another downside to working full time is that I don't have enough time to do my chores like shopping, cleaning the house, and yard work. And that reminds me, as much as I like yard work, I'm ready for fall time. That's what I like about the change of seasons, I can take a break from the constant yard work. Another one of my passions is my family genealogical research. Since the warm weather I've had to abandon my four hour a day updates to my Family Tree Maker computer data base. I have enough data to enter until the end of my days. When I first retired to Delaware, I did very little. I had to unwind after the trauma of selling my house and moving all my worldly possessions to my new home in Delaware. Then I had all the problems associated with getting everything hooked up in this new house (TV, computer, phones - nothing was easy - problems all.) However, after three months I felt like I had to do something. I had to have something to structure my week around. Plus, I needed extra money to now help pay for the mortgage on my new home which I did not plan for when I first made the decision to move. I decided to look for a part time job. My previous part time job was working the front desk of a hotel (The Hampton Inn in Exton, PA.) I liked that job for many reasons. I got to meet people, the commute was good, and I didn't take the job home with me. There are many other reasons why I like working in the hospitality industry, perhaps the main being that my personality is one that is service driven. I like to provide the customer service that I, myself, find so lacking in today's business world. Perhaps, I get no greater satisfaction that seeing the smile on a guest's face after they have experienced a pleasant stay at the boutique hotel where I work in Lewes, Delaware. So, while I may be a little stressed out from the last three weeks of working full time, I am glad that I had the opportunity to work full time and sharpen my skills at the front desk. But, at the same time I am looking forward to the next two days of doing JUST NOTHING!

A New Day in Delaware

As the song “Nature Boy” by Nat King says, “The greatest thing is to be loved, and love in return.” That sentiment can be applied to a person, a pet, a hobby or a state. I love Delaware. And Delaware loves me in return. Rain or shine, cold or warm, I love Delaware. Each day I roll out of bed I think of how lucky I am to live in this wonderful state. Yes, other states have their charms. They may have their mountains, rivers, historic landmarks, cultural attractions. Delaware is perfect for me in this, my retirement. Even though I work part-time, I still consider myself retired. My job is fun and without the pressure of a five day a week, 50 week year grind. The people I work with are a varied and wonderful group of folks. We all have our individual personalities with our strengths and weaknesses, but we all work together towards the common goal of providing excellent service to the guests of the bed and breakfast where we are employed. What more could on ask for other than to appreciate and give thanks that the time has finally arrived after all these years of working for this goal. Are there bumps along this happy road of retirement? Sure. Route 1 is still torn up after 20 some months of construction. That nightmare is scheduled to end May 23rd, before the Memorial Day weekend rush of tourists. We shall see. The price of food and gas keep going up without any end in sight. The war continues in Iraq. Our best and brightest are still dying or coming home permanently injured fighting in a conflict that has no rational reason. And Delaware still doesn’t have a Wegmans grocery store in Sussex County. Those negative factors do not affect the pure beauty of a day like today. The sun is bright and clear, the birds are joyfully going about their business. The flowers are freshly washed from the early morning application of the sprinkler systems. Some neighbors head off for work. Yes, it will be another good day in Delaware.

My Part Time Job

After I retired I laid around the house for about three months, just to unwind and decompress from the nightmare ordeal of selling my house in Pennsylvania. I decided that I wanted to go back to work. However, I didn’t want to work fulltime. I didn’t want to work Monday through Friday, 8 AM to 5 PM, 50 weeks of the year. As they say, “been there, done that!” I certainly didn’t want to work in a padded cubicle. Really “been there, done that” with all the attendant office politics that go hand in hand with that type of job. At this time of my life, in my waning years I, like many other retirees wanted to do something just for myself. I wanted to work at a job that I truly enjoyed. A job was fun and interesting. Sure, all jobs have their moments but what is life if not a challenge every now and then? I think a little stimulus is what we all need in our everyday life to keep our brains from atrophying. So, I decided to seek a job that I had previously when I was in between my banking jobs – hotel front desk clerk. After applying at several Rehoboth Beach and Lewes hotels, a canal front bed and breakfast inn was astute enough to hire me to work part-time Monday and Thursday evenings and every other weekend – once during the day and the other weekend during the evening. The owner of the Inn hired me after an interview. He is a man of true wisdom. He saw the true value of hiring an “older” employee. Sure, I may have been around the block a few times but I can hold my own with the best and brightest and youngest employee. In my case experience does indeed trump youth and beauty. This was/is an ideal situation for me. Just enough work to keep me active and vital but not so much that it would drain the life out of me. Also, the extra income helps to pay the mortgage that I now have since I had to drop the price of my previous home in Pennsylvania in order to sell it and move to Delaware. That’s another whole story I may, or may not go into in the future. I am a believer in that all things happen for a reason. I truly believe that if I had no trouble selling my previous job I probably would not have found my present job at the upscale, delightful small Inn where I work now. I work with wonderful co-workers, a great boss, and appreciative guests. Best of all, I’m finally working “near the water”. That seems to be just about everybody’s goal in life to either “live near the water” or “work near the water.” I have one out of two which isn’t bad at all.