Memory Monday

A few memories from my past jobs:

I was working at a tourist information booth in the French Quarter. A few boys bounded up to my booth, and their fearless leader asked "Where can we find a cab? We need to be at the House of Blues in 10 minutes." It was 2 and a half blocks away, I told him as much, even marked it on a map. They had literally run up to my booth - there were no physical problems preventing them from running the next 2 blocks to the House of Blues. We were on Decatur, the most heavily car-traveled street in the Quarter, so I told him he could catch one right in front of me if he wanted. He thanked me, waited on Decatur for a minute or two for a cab, got in, and I heard him tell the cabbie "House of Blues." They were headed the wrong way. In the Quarter, most streets are one-way, so they had to go several blocks out of their way to get to the HOB. Wowza. Trust the silly little information booth girl, y'all. She tells truth.

Same job... Another lady walked up to me and just started out screaming. She hates this town, she'll never come back here, people are so rude and stupid, what's with that accent, it smells bad, it's too #$^@&$% hot... I'm thinking "good riddance," but wondering what she wants. After a few minutes, she tells me to call her a cab. I said I wasn't allowed to do that. Now, I'm not going to say I was an angel working there and frequently did things I wasn't supposed to do, but I wasn't about to oblige when this woman had just insulted the crap out of my city. While she continues ranting, 5 or 6 cabs pass. I started going "There's another one. There's another one." *giggle* She left. Why would you voluntarily come to New Orleans in August anyway? Research, y'all. I love the city more than any other, but I don't even like it in August.

One time, when I was working at a restaurant, I pantsed a guy in the kitchen because he had slapped me on my badly sunburned back several times. He laughed, I laughed, nobody saw us... except my manager. I was fired the next day. Best thing that ever happened to me - I HATED that job.

2nd restaurant job: We used to play baseball in the kitchen with a little rubber ball and an old loaf of bread. We were extraordinarily hard workers, but there are always times at a restaurant when everything's clean, everything's rolled, everything's prepped, and there's literally nothing else to do. I loved that job.

Receptionist job - A guy called and said "Quit calling me!" I said "Can I have your phone number so I can remove you from our system?" "You already have it or you wouldn't be calling!!!" "Sir, you're not the only person we call all day." "I'm not giving it to you." "If you give it to me, this will be the last time you talk to anyone from my company. If not, we'll call you again." "Hmph." He gave me his number.

Same job - A guy called and said "Quit calling me!" Repeat of the above, but it escalated into verbal abuse on his part. I told him I was terminating the call, if he'd like to speak to my supervisor he was welcome to leave him a voice mail. He continued with the abuse, so I transferred him to my boss' voice mail without permission. Natch, the guy called back, and I said "I'm going to have to transfer you to my boss' voice mail." He retorted "You don't have to do anything but pay taxes and die!" "Great! Then I don't have to talk to you!" Click. Of course, he called back a few times, but I hung up on him each time. My boss called him the next day and told him he had no right to harass the employees.

Not working for several years is going to be super weird.