Night Auditors get no respect, I tell ya...no respect. *fidgets with tie*

[MercenaryMuffin]

When I was a kid I got no respect. One time I was kidnapped, and the kidnappers sent my parents a note that said, "We want five thousand dollars or you'll see your kid again."

Ah, yes...Night Auditors. In a world filled with 9 to 5 working joes, we're the exceptions. The weirdos who sleep during the day and work through the night, like some sort of vampire. The awesome ones with fangs and blood lust that burst into flames in daylight and get killed by Blade, I mean. Not the whiny cry-baby emo-rage teenagers with sparkly skin.

I, for one, enjoy the hours. I've always been a night person anyway, abhorring the sunlight and hissing away into darkness. I find you meet the most interesting people working nights, be they good or bad. It takes a certain kind of person to work through the hours that 98% of the population sleep through, but those who do find welcome company among other social outcasts.

Have you ever seen Dave Attell's "Insomniac"? Yeah, that's pretty much the kind of people I get in my hotel on a nightly basis. To quote the theme song:

"Drunks and losers, dwarves with limps, flos and ho's and one-eyed pimps. Down they alley way they creep, they're all your friends when you can't sleep!"


Ain't it true. Nearly every night, I get asked "How do you work these hours?", or "What's it like?", "Don't you get tired?" (yes, about 4am I do), etc.
What's it like? It's like any other job, only I come in when it's dark and leave when that horrible sun comes up.
Most people are pretty cool, and the majority of the people I get wanting a room at all hours of the night are either a) completely tired, b) completely wasted, or c) both. However, I do get the occasional douche nozzle. In my two years at this hotel, I've been threatened numerous times, drunkenly swung at once, had my $1,500 laptop stolen from me (and I was never reimbursed any amount of money by the cheap-skate who owns our hotel and said he would do exactly that ), and dealt with people of all types trying to cheat, steal, or bribe me into giving them cheaper rates.

Some of my favorite ways of trying to get me to drastically chop the rate:

-"Dude, like...we'll get some hot-ass girls in here, dude, with some big ol' [Blue Footed Boobies], and, and shit, and...they'll totally, like, blow you, dude. For real."
Sorry, no deal, DUDE. Said "dudes" then failed to produce women of any kind, of course.

-"I work with Hilton as an undercover agent, I need a better rate or your hotel will be shut down!"
Hilton spies? Seriously?

-"So I'm gonna [fork] my girlfriend, and if you give me a cheaper rate, I'll let you video tape it."
LEAVE. RIGHT NOW.

-"Have you ever heard of John Silverton? He'll make you rich. He's known for making people rich. He'll make you rich if you let me stay for twenty dollars."
Yeah, I believe that one!

-"OMIGODINEEDAROOMIFIDONTGETONEIMGONNAFREAKOMIGODOM IGOD"
...What?

-"Last month I stayed here for sixty dollars."
Sure you did. And last month I married Evangeline Lilly and we lived in peace on the Island (until the smoke monster made us leave).

-"Yeah, I'm online, and this website says I can stay for X amount" or:
"Another hotel charged Y amount, will you match them?"
No. No I won't.

-"I used to be in the military!"
Yeah, so did I. What do you want? We offer active duty discounts, but nothing for former servicemen (or women).

-"But my husband/sister/second cousin's uncle's dog is in the hospital/has rabies/ate bad seafood/has Lupus!"
It's not lupus.

-"Do you know who I am?!"
No, do you know who I am? I'm the guy that isn't giving you a discount. Next!

-"My kids are tired and I need a lower rate and you're keeping them from sleeping and they're gonna get sick and then I'll sue you and I'll see you get fired because you don't care about my children and blah blah blah"
I'm sorry you've neglected to bring your kids in at a decent hour, but too bad.

I salute you, denizens of the night! May your coffee run deep, and may your customers not suck. Even when they offer to do so in exchange for a lower rate.
Kick the sandman in his sack, stay up late, insomniac night auditor!

[blas]

Night shift people, in general, get no respect.

It only took me about one week to realize that. Three years later, I'm still dealing with it.

[smileyeagle1021]

I've lasted nearly a year on graveyard shift... and now I have officially given up on audit... the hotel I work for has made me hate the travel industy... wish me luck on the job search

[MercenaryMuffin]

Hey, night shift isn't for anyone. It's hard to maintain a "normal" social life...fortunately, I'm an anti-social night dweller anyway, so it works for me

On a side note, finding a girl/guy who accepts that you work weird hours is hard to do, unless they also work nights.

[smileyeagle1021]

night shift by itself wouldn't bother me... night shift at a hotel that I'd hate working any shift on though makes it so much worse.

[blas]

I actually think I have more of a social life than when I was on 2nd shift hours.

Granted, I'm pretty useless during the day, but I still have my nights on the weekend to hang out with friends and my boyfriend.

When I worked 2-10s or whatever have you, I'd hang out with friends or sit at home online until the wee hours of the morning, then go to work and rinse wash and repeat. At least on third shift, while I may not do much during the week, I can still keep contact with friends and not feel like I'm missing out on a huge chunk of my day, the way I did on 2nd. Hours like 2-10 really cut into your day.

Sometimes it is hard to keep up a relationship, if the person you are with doesn't understand the backwards way that your body works and sleeps. But if you find the right person who accepts how sleepy you get (no matter what time it is...us night shifters are always tired!) and how you can never seem to sleep well at night, then that's just great.

[MercenaryMuffin]

(no matter what time it is...us night shifters are always tired!)

Ha, ain't that the truth. People always tell me "you look tired". Well duh, I'm awake when you're sleeping.

I work 4-10s, so I get Fri/Sat/Sun off. I much prefer this over the usual 8 hour shifts, because having that extra day off is great. I get more time to be with friends/girls on those three days off, for (mostly) normal hours.
But man, going from falling asleep at 11pm or later on my days off, to going to sleep at 3pm on my work days...it's hard on ya. Fortunately, the two relationships I've had in the past year have been understanding, even though they didn't work the same hours I did.

[WhiteRose]

i like the setup that's coming...i get to work at nite with my fiance, then sleep during the morning (not much happens in the morning anyway), then hang out with friends in the afternoon (or if my friend needs it, babysit)

[blas]

I hear you loud and clear.

We had hour cuts that went on for a few months, and while relying on unemployment to cover the gap and the loss of money sucked, it was fucking fabulous having 3 days off in a row. If only the factory would allow 4-10s. But what makes sense is never allowed there.

Fortunately, being such a girly girl, I can make a good attempt at covering exhaustion with mascara and eyeshadow....and coverup underneath those dark circles.

I tend to get decent amounts of sleep during the week...I prefer to be up a few hours after work before bed, sleep till about 7:30, then be up for a few hours before work.

[MercenaryMuffin]

Well I work 11pm to 9am, and try as I might, I was never able to get myself to go to sleep immediately after work. So I'm usually up playing my 360 or on my computer for a while. I go to bed around 3pm and get up at 10:30...I make up any lost sleep on my days off, lol

[Irving Patrick Freleigh]

Uhh, I don't miss third shift at all. Not one bit.

Yeah, I got paid a dollar extra an hour for working that shift, but because corporate wanted to keep payroll as low as possible, they ran us with a skeleton crew every night. Only three or four people to fill and backstock a truck. And this was when we were taking three trucks in a normal week.

We worked like dogs and still left freight sitting in the backroom to be filled or backstocked. That is, if we left on time. Some nights we had to stay late to finish up. But no overtime--to make up for it we had to leave early a different day.

The only time we do third shift anymore is the Wednesday before Thanksgiving to the Saturday after Black Friday, and that's because of all the prep work we have to do that can't be done during the day. And I still feel like an absolute wreck when it's done. I get home from work at 7, shower, stay up until 8 or 8:30 or so, sleep until noon or so, get up and do whatever errands I have to do during the day, go back to bed at around 3 and sleep until 7 or 8. I never feel like I'm getting enough sleep.

This week they were looking for people to work third shift because the cleaning company is going to strip and wax the floors and clean the carpets. I declined. If I'm not going to get the extra dollar an hour, they can go screw.

[Mad-Bassist]

Nice to meet you, MercenaryMuffin. That nick sounds like a combination of pleasant and dangerous, which is what it takes to work with what I used to call "customers" in my convenience store days, but now have to refer to as "guests."

My boss likes to say it takes a special kind of person to be an auditor. I say having no life helps too, heh heh. If it wasn't for the fact the owner is too cheap to get us real health insurance, I'd say it's a perfect job: I get to lock the lobby doors after 10:00, crank up the music, and do the bookwork while keeping an eye on the cameras. The night starts with Coast to Coast AM, and if the guest is too wacky, it's either music, or my latest addiction: Penn Jillette's radio show (pennfans.net - I highly recommend it!)

My keys to survival:
1) Melatonin: the greatest sleep aid since cats
2) Air conditioning
3) Keeping the schedule through the weekend, which makes for a weird social life. Netflix and wireless headphones help too.

I think Night Auditor is the best position to have in a hotel, and the larger the better. I hear the small places make auditors do the laundry. Since my current place is stuck in the 20th century, I have the fun of filling out the spreadsheets in pencil every night.

Haven't had good sucky guests in a while, but since the slow season is over, I'll probably have some choice wedding guest stories soon. I remember one guy who was yelling at me through the speaker saying he worked for Holiday Inn (can't remember the issue because it wasn't worth remembering,) and he asked what my position was. I said, "Night Auditor." He asked, "Are you a CPA?" Unfortunately I was rather new at the time, so I didn't want to go into convenience store mode on him. I was thinking, "You work at a Holiday Inn and don't know what a Night Auditor is?"

When will these people ever learn:
1) The best discounts go to people I like, or whom I think deserves it. Demanding only raises a red flag and takes me back to the days of drunks trying to talk me out of old hot dogs on the grill.
2) Anything you say can and will be recorded in the log book so everyone will know what sort of a douche-nozzle you are. (I had to borrow your term... it's too funny, especially since hotels are a women's world—and a couple of my co-workers are going to laugh when they hear it!)
3) Name dropping doesn't work. "That's nice, I know [boss' name] too!"
4) If you want to know what kind of place I'm running, it's on the sign outside in five big letters.

...and I'm staying up too late again (evil, evil noon!)
Keep up the insanity!

[Bella_Vixen]

-"But my husband/sister/second cousin's uncle's dog is in the hospital/has rabies/ate bad seafood/has Lupus!"
It's not lupus.

I laughed so hard!

[wagegoth]

I worked graveyard, but it was at a law firm. We were officially word processors, but we did pretty much everything that was needed by the attorneys.

I loved it. Most of the attorneys were gone. Most of the attorneys needing work that late were really grateful we were there.

One night, though, I was really tired. I was proofing some work I'd done, when I suddenly woke up with my face on the document on the desk. Thankfully I didn't drool. Also, thankfully, no one had come in the department while I was out for 15 minutes.


Many years ago, I worked for my parents' janitorial business, but that was a hybrid swing/graveyard shift. We started at 5 pm, then worked until 9 pm on short nights, 1 am on the big ones.

[Irving Patrick Freleigh]

Working 5 pm to 1:30 am wasn't so bad, I thought....oh wait, yes it was.

Spent the first 3 hours or longer unloading the truck, felt like I was through the wringer when that was done, took lunch at 10:00 (closing time) which I either brown-bagged or begged the manager to let me out so I could go to Mickey D's and then have them let me back in, and spend the final three hours either stocking or cleaning up bulk furniture or paper and detergent.

It might not have been so bad if I wasn't spending all that time at the beginning of the shift unloading the truck. That is by far the most physically-demanding job in the store. I always end up really sore when I get done doing it.