I often think that the night is more alive and more richly colored than the day. (Vincent Van Gogh)

I was reading blogs about people wroking as night auditor in the hotels, and I knew I know a lot about working at night, as I was working night shifts already earlier (in the small small hotel that I was writing about before). But now I know that I knew nothing.

Well, let's see how my night schedule combo worked out. Three night shifts in a row passed by as following:

Night No1
Right at this moment I am standing at the reception watching the darkness of the night dissapear gradually to change into a bright (or not so) day, while my older (when it comes to both age and experience) colleague is taking a nap in the back. Quite a long nap, if you would ask me. It's been 2 hours already. At times I'm doing everything especially quietly, thinking how sweet it is that he felt asleep, but then I get angry. Why the hell is he sleeping while I am completely awake?! And I want to turn on the vacuum the loudest possible or shut the door with all my might..... but well, who cares anyway.

Although the weather has been dim and rainy for a few days now, the guests seem to be enjoying night life. The group of guys who came in Hammer comes back slowly one by one (or two). Some are dancing around the lobby while fighting their drunken state, some of them are quietly slipping inside the elvator. Some are waving to me and saying hell and asking me what am I still doing here. Good question ^^;

Well, I love my job now. I get free food too! On Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays our hotel organizes buffets - which means you can buy a ticket and eat all you want. Last month it was Indian food, this month - asparagus dishes. I never tried eating asparagus before. It's weird, but tasty, I think, now that I tried it. We are getting the leftovers. Yummy~! Much better than Indian food and red-coloured chicken, believe me!


Night No 2
I've just put down the phone, but I'm still feeling something close to displeasure or disgust. Oh, while I was writing this sentence the phone rang again... damn, and again.
The time I was waiting for has come, but instead of amusement and fun that I had been expecting, I feel all the things that I just wrote about. Boring.

You know, when you're working at night, especially over the weekend, the thing you should expect to happen sooner or later, is a prank call. It has to happen at least once. And I was quite anticipation it. I know of The Jerky Boys doing all kinds of phone pranks, I was always enjoying them and I wish to be the one on the phone. I wished to be a part of smart and funny prank call....

I'm picking up the phone. 'Blablabla How can I help you?' - I ask after introducing the name of the hotel and its location, just as I am taught.
'I am calling from FBI. We were getting some calls from this number. I think it must be some kind of joke.' - I hear.
'I'm very sorry, sir. But I'm not aware of anypne calling you from here'
'But we were getting a lot of calls today and it's getting out of hand already....' - the caller is continuing.
Ok. It's interesting, I'm thinking, but for now let's play along.
'It might be one of our guests, sir. It might be that our number is showing when they are calling outside numbers from their rooms' - I reply.
'Oh, actually the caller said he's name is Rodriguez'
'I will check that, sir' - I replied, and, believe me or not, I actually checked it. Just in case it was real (sic!) - 'There is no guests like this in our hotel'
'But he said so, he even told me his first name, it was....'
'Sir, if it were a prank call, the caller wouldn't tell you their real name anyway' - I said.
'Errrr...' - I guess the prank is over, I thought, but no! At this time someone started talking in Polish: 'Why are you calling me, please don't call me again!'
Sigh.
That's when it started. They started connecting the call with other people, making weird noises, saying kinda perverted things (to be honest I didn't really get what they were saying, I just heard nipples, so I didn't want to hear the rest).
I hung up.

Another call. Another bullshit.

Another call. Weird noises.

Another call. No sound at all.

Give me a break, man! Think of something more fun, dammit!


Night No 3
This time, we're three people working the night shift, and I really don't know what to do with myself. The two co-workers working with me are professionals, they complete all the tasks before I even think about them. Well, I can learn a lot. But then again one girl is a shift leader, so this time I can waste my time, like I did yesterday for example. She also seems to be quite particular and detailed. Which is a good thing again. The bad thing is that every time I'm on the same shift as her, the food in our canteen for workers is bad. Seriously.

The guy who works with me everyday over this weekend is sleeping as usual in the back, the shift leader went to find some food in the kitchen and I'm secretly writing this blog. This night was no special at all. I got a sunflower seed cake from one nice girl from housekeeping and that's all. Man, I'm tired!

Oh. And one funny thing. To log on to our hotel system we have special logins created from the first letter of our given name and two letters from the last name. Mine is POK, so obviously I gained a new nickname, which is...

... Pokemon....

I had a dream that I was awake and I woke up to find myself asleep.

Here I am, first night shift (and first in general) in my new workplace. It's not as fascinating as one might want to, but not as boring as I expected it to be either. Time is moving slower and slower ever since it showed midnight and I'm here, accompanied with one nice security guard, who's quite eager to chat, sometimes maybe too eager.

Till now, I talked with a few guests. With one only through the intercom, when he asked to open the door for him. Then his girlfriend came. On the reception desk, in a place where the guests' eyesight doesn't reach we have a tv, which looks like it experienced a lot, which showes the security camera's view. After letting the guest in, letting his girlfriend in, I could see like a movie scene in the tv, where Mister-Room-No-003 and his Lady were hugging in front of the room for around 3 minutes 45 seconds, kissing a bit and then moved inside the room.

Then, a drunk guest from room no..... somewhere on the second floor, came down to ask about some convenience store or a place where he could buy cigarettes. It was no top secret that he was a bit tipsy (ok, 'a bit' is too diplomatic), as the vodka-smelly breath reached my nose which is big enough to smell all. Mr Security Guard showed him the way, but before it happened the Vodka-Breath-Guest showed me his membership card for our hotels group with pride reflected in his eyes. 'Yes, sir. We are very happy you are staying with us'.

Another guest passed by the reception quickly hiding his face, but both me and Mr SG saw that the guest must have had been in a fight, and he probably hadn't won. But as scary as his face looked like, he seemed very nice, because he properly greeted me with 'Good evening'. I want to believe it was not him who started the fight. I bet someone must have been in trouble, and he just wanted to save the person in need, so he got punched in his face. For a good cause!

It's still only half past one, so I need to take my time doing things. Till 5 am, I have no real job to do, so I'm going back to reading blogs about night shifts in a hotel. They have some nice stories to tell. If you're interested go there:

1. Graveyard Shift Chicago

2. Tales from the Night Shift