Work-related stories.

[toggleswitch]

Today while inspecting some buildings by the former World Trade Center by Ground-Zero, I got into what I thought was a regular apt.

Woman in a beautiful red-dress and spaghetti straps opens door. Cigarette in one hand, hi-ball cocktail glass in the other. "This is not really a good time" Supeintendent busts in anyway and drags me along. Says "Hello" to someone who was dressed and on the bed, as if he knew him. I take my pictures of the building and get out.

This is what was transpiring: Working-girl was entertaining a john. Turns out the john was a well-known actor from a popular TV show. Damn, I wish I were more attentive! Totally didn't see his face. You'd a-yhunk the super would not have acknowledged this famous person.

Anyone else have war-stories?

 

[toggleswitch]

Do you think they ordered in lunch? I wonder if it's included or if he pays.

 

[hoover1060]

well one of the loans I had move across my desk today...

The non borrowing spouse's name is:

Mel Kuen Kitty Tang

I am absolutely not making that name up.

 

[toggleswitch]

LOL.

I dont know. In a way we are lucky that Kitty Dukakis never became the first-lady.

All I kept thinking was "Would someone PLEASE go clean that litter box!"

 

[zipdang]

I once had to send business literature to a company named Uniho and another named Nicewonger. It felt kinda naughty just putting those names on the mailing labels.

 

[toggleswitch]

LOL I beleive Oprah has a production company called Harpo, and Whoopi Goldberg has one called one-ho, the logo is one in which a woman with dreads is enjoying a lollipop.

 

[hoover1060]

Harpo

is Oprah spelled backwards...

Her studio is downtown in an old warehouse that is supposedly haunted, because back in 1896 there was a Ferry boat that capsized in the Chicago river with great loss of life. The building that is now Oprah's studion was used as a morgue for the bodies...

 

[oxydolfan1]

Is that building on East 8th Street?

And what exactly were you inspecting?

Don't tell me you work for HPD, or the DOB??

 

[oxydolfan1]

I was interviewing with this nebbishy-looking guy at another insurance company, and I sneezed.

I pulled out a tissue, blew my nose, and he went into his overhead storage compartment, took out an aerosol can, and LYSOLED me....

That was the end of the interview.

 

[toggleswitch]

LOL.

There was a woman rantng and raving lake a rabid dog one day about a dirty restroom. She was berating custodial staff in ear-shot of all of us in the main public lobby waiting to take an elevator up. I heard her say her name. Same name as on my interview slip that I was about to take for a new job. Called the agency (remeber those?) right from the lobby.

Take this job and S--ve it!

 

[oxydolfan1]

Doesn't everybody have these stories?

I had a straitlaced corporate job by day, and always a second or even third job that, uh, contrasted with that whole trip, like the department stores, the dungeon, party places like Danceteria or the punk bars....I worked as a strolling Martian at a science-fiction concept restaurant, and had my daytime boss unknowingly walk right past me on Broadway!!

In college, I inadvertantly set a David's Cookies store on fire (how was I to know those greasy trays could slip off the oven conveyer??)

Every year on Yoko Ono's birthday, I bring in her box set and crank it up in my office...

A few times I've been caught messing around with someone in the office by the cleaning people...(I was lost in emotion...)

Too much work, too much drama, lol!

 

[toggleswitch]

I suppose if they could they'd be RICH!

Were you caught by the copy machine reproducing?

 

[exploder321]

Oh...The copier

I have seen many wierd names in sales (Mr. Buttkiss, LuLu Bell, Ms. Fungho, F. Smartie, Jack Arse, Mac Daddy Simpson are the ones i recall, but chineese are the worst)
I got caught xeroxing my tush..
I backed a $9,995 Hyundai Accent into a $85,000 Acura NSX
I lost a $55,000 check last year, later found in my desk with a note not to loose
Locked the keys in a number of cars customers where test driving at the gas station
Also had a germaphobe Germ-x the door handle and any surface he touched with the Germ-X i keep in the car, because i kept sneezing in a tissue

We all have skeletons

BTW:
How badly did the cookie store burn??

 

[toggleswitch]

If you are sensitive, please avoid this one....

Don't tell me you work for HPD, or the DOB??
Housing Preservation Dept. Or Dept. of Buidings? No, just an ordinary real-estate appraiser.

1- Show me what ya got and I will tell you what others are willing to pay for it.
2- Show me what ya got and I will tell you how it compares to the others.
3- My what a nice piece of property you have. I can see that it is well-maintained.
4- Its value is based on the income it can produce for you.
5- Actually yes, I am required to photograph it and enter it.

And my all-time favorite REAL questions:
1-How big is your unit?
2-How can we gain access to it?
3-I will need to see it. Show it to me, please.

One time I had to deal with a dumb-ass super, and a flaming buildng manager. We were both cracking up at each other's wit and camp (in what was seemingly ordinary business banter) that went right over the head of the superintendent. Apparently we had each-other pegged in 5 seconds flat!

The above real questions had him in stitches. He had me going when he picked up the cell and screamed into it. "Oh Mary, puh-leeaaaaze!" Dusted herself off and went right back into "corporate drag" (went back into character as a suit), preceded of course by a "clutch the pears" oh pardon ME, darling, it just SLIPPED out. "OH?" I said. We were both crying laughing.

Eugene where are you? I need you, dear. I feel a new chapter coming on in my book....

 

[exploder321]

ROFLMAO, I almost wet my self

 

[toggleswitch]

And what exactly were you inspecting?

er uh, (breaks out into a sweat)

The pipes?

 

[appnut]

I have no shame, we will gather up leftover catered food from noon conferences and put in the medical students lounge (as well as for me & two coworkers). When I was summoned for the task (we have a cart we use for lots of things being moved around), via phone call stating "Mr. ___ please bring you and your basket to Room _____"

 

[oxydolfan1]

Whew.

Back in the day, we had a saying about the city housing inspectors....."they go in holding their noses and go out holding their WALLETS!"

No, the damage was mostly smoke-related, unfortunately (the David's Cookies stores of the day were painted stark white, ceiling to floor)....

It was basically a grease fire to the nth degree, from within an industrial oven that couldn't be accessed or easily shut off...(ever seen commercial bricks of cookie dough? You'd never eat 'em again....GREEAAASY!) Then, eventually, only ONE sprinkler came on with low water pressure....just enough to ruin our day....so it was grease and smoke and dizzy queens and firemen with axes and oatmeal and raisins and the counter guy was screeching "BURN BABY BURN!" and our plastic radio melted...

Notice how work-study programs have disappeared from the nation's schools....

 

[dalangdon]

Speaking of Sprinklers.....

One of the funniest days in my hotel career was at the Four Seasons. A delivery truck came to the "motor entrance" (where taxicabs and private cars drop off guests - NOT where delivery trucks deliver) and I was called there because it was a delivery for one of our big charity wing-dings.

I got there just as the delivery driver (who had been told, in no uncertain terms, that he didn't belong there and needed to back out) decided to pull through the driveway, which was under an overhang.

His truck was just short enough to clear the ceiling, but not short enough to clear the sprinkler heads.

So he hits two sprinkler heads, which both blow, and then panics and backs out: Filthy, brackish, water is thrown hither and yon, all over several expensive cars, several well-dressed guests, and oodles of very expensive luggage, as well as the various permanent fixtures of the motor entrance (plants, statues, etc) about that same time, the fire alarm goes off.

Needless to say, several shades of holy hell break loose.

By the time it's all over, I'm soaking wet, as are all the other employees who scrambled to recover as many people, bags, etc as possible, the fire department is there. The delivery guy (a volunteer for the charity) is having hysterics, and I'm trying to keep a straight face. It was just such a mess, and so NOT Four Seasons, that I can't help but want to laugh.

When you consider all of the other real crisies that arise in the life of a hotel (fire, suicides, other unpleasentries) this was was pretty tame. But SHEESH - what a mess!