Surviving Another Work Night By : J. Hartman “So, between us and these four walls...,” a chubby Caucasian woman within her 40's speaks quietly to the two females in the room. The brown raccoon female with white hair speaks up with a huge smile across her muzzle as she quickly turns towards the wall, “I AM ON TO YOU!” The chubby woman gasps as she quickly looks around the room, “What, what, what happened?” The woman catches her breath as another woman in the room, a tan Chinese woman laughs at the raccoon's actions...and the poor chubby woman's fright. The raccoon speaks quietly as she looks at the two again, smirking, “What? You said 'between us and these four walls'. I was making sure they won't snitch on your confessions.” The chubby woman just stares at the raccoon in pure disbelief at the female's sense of humor as the Chinese woman just laughs once more, chuckling, “That's Shandra for you. But seriously Bridgette, continue.” By this time, the chubby woman named Bridgette finally loosens up and just chuckles as she still gives the raccoon by the name of Shandra an odd look. Not a look of ire or ilk. But more of just curious about what's going on in her head when it comes to her sense of humor. Shandra just smirks as she folds her arms, listening in, “Okay ladies, I checked in a guest that told me they lost their wallet, but they got a photo copy of their last months billing statement. I figured that I would go ahead and let them in anyways. Got their address from the billing address and so forth. Though the credit card reader was down. So I could not swipe cards for the first two hours, let alone punch in numbers. So I let them in, thinking they are okay.” Shandra groans as she figures out where this is going, only to have the Chinese woman jab in the chest with her elbow as Bridgette continues. “Once the provider was back up, I was able to punch in all the credit card numbers for each respective room except that group I mentioned.” The raccoon sighs as she looks at the drawer where they keep each room's paper worked stored for the night, grumbling, “Let me guess, its my mission tonight to see if I can get a hold of them for another means of payment. Right?” Bridgette sighs as she nods, “Yes, sorry about that.” The chubby woman don't look comfortable talking to Shandra about the the mess the woman accidentally made for the female to fix. Shandra just sighs as she folds her arms once more, leaning against the front counter as the Chinese woman speaks up, “Don't worry about it Bridgette, we all make mistakes. Your still new here anyways.” Shandra stands behind the front counter of their hotel lobby. Looking a little annoyed as she looks over paper work laid out behind the counter. She grumbles to herself about her messed up her nights been so far. The female was happy at first that she had people she knew to talk too. The Chinese woman was her boss Zeung Yun Cho. The two been working with each other for years. Though she was not her first boss ever. Of course, she's only the General Manager. And the least of her problems. Their big boss lives in Vancouver, BC though, so even though he's the real problem for everyone. At least he's not around all the time to cause them. At least not the ones up front. Though there are some actions he does take when it comes to the care of the actual structure. But not much that has ever caused them all problems, yet. But of course, seeing Zeung Yun and Bridgette staying past their shift was both a blessing and a curse. Sure, they can't leave till she is clocked on and ready to take their place. But sometimes a co-worker would stay behind to chat. Most of the time, a co-worker would stay behind to help fill them in with the mess ups they can't seem to fix. True, its better than having them just run off and leave her to figuring it out on her own. But at the same time, its just as annoying. Shandra sighs as she realized it was what she dreaded, and they left her with a few things for her to figure out during the night. First is the customer without proper ID and proof of credit. Then there are a lot of earnings made through the main system that do not match the credit reader's print outs. Since the two systems are purely separate, it don't make finding the culprits real easy. She is not hunting down who messed up. She's just trying to find which room was fully paid. And which room was NOT paid. Even though the main system says “paid”. But the credit print out shows less than the final out come for that moment. Shandra grumbles at this as a guest walks into the lobby. Making her ignore her research as she gets back to her main primary function, customer service. To Shandra's dismay, it was a male raccoon walking into the lobby. The male immediately notices her and wonders up to the front counter till he's standing face to face. The female gives a big smile as she silently thanks the Lord for a good, thick counter between the two. She usually don't think ill of her kind. But she is currently in her time of month. And the last thing she needs is a male of her species to notice and try to get her attention. The male smiles as he rest his elbows on the top counter, smiling as in leans on it. Not to get closer to her, but mainly to slouch as he speaks up, “Hello, your the first morph I seen in this building that works here.” “Really? We do have a morph in house keeping....but then again, you probably showed up after the housekeepers went home,” Shandra's says flat, yet with a smile on her face. The male smiles, “Ah, okay, so its just the two of you then? Our of all these skins?” Shandra was not amused, nor is she comfortable with the conversation. Even though her features show her discomfort, her ears remained upright, and her smile remained on her muzzle as she speaks in a polite yet flat tone, “Yes.” The male chuckles, “Bah, I guess you can't talk about them cause they pay your bills.” The female does her best not the growl as she does surprisingly well with keeping herself calm...despite how her eyes shows other wise, “Yeah. But lets not talk about that. Is there anything you need, sir?” “Yes, actually, I would like to know if my credit information have went through, room 231,” the male states. Shandra smiles brightly as she opens up her drawer to get the paper work for his room. The male could not help but smile too, since she was smiling. But she was only smiling cause he just eliminated the hardest part of her night. Confronting a customer about their billing information at Midnight. Once she pulled out his information, she moved her right hand to the keyboard and typed in a few keys quickly as she moves the paper work around to find the credit information. In split seconds she got the credit information in hand, and the monitor showing her his room and information that should match the paper work in front of her. “Bridgette have been trying to get a hold of you in this whole afternoon Mr.....,” Shandra speaks in a pleasant tone, only to trail off as she quickly looks at his screen, “Mr. Wolf.” She could not help but chuckle as she finished reading the name. Only to get a groan from the customer, “Yeah, I know, I don't look anything like a wolf.....” “Oh, that's okay, I just find anyone with a species name for a last name funny. My best friend's last name is “Fox”, and he's a human,” Shandra says as she's amused by this. The male looks unamused by this as he asks, “So did the information gone through....?” He quickly looks at female's name tag over her left, flat breast, “Shandra.....your female?” Now its Shandra's turn to look unamused as the male tries to regain the friendly atmosphere, “Sorry, did not mean to say that.” She sighs as she then grins, “No problem, I get that more than I care to admit. Now, as I was saying earlier, Bridgette was trying to get a hold of you earlier. Apparently your credit card number have not gone through.” Mr. Wolf puts his hands into his pockets, looking for more information as Shandra continues, “I hate to tell you this. But we do need something that will give us payment.” “Here you go, use this one instead,” Mr. Wolf hands Shandra a folded piece of paper. Before Shandra gets to ask anything, the male then hurries down the hall, “That should work, I'll be in my room asleep. Please don't wake us till the morning.” Shandra sighs as she picks up the paper and unfolds it. Once again its another photo copy of another credit card statement. This time a Discovery card. She grumbles as she puts that info with the rest of his paper work. Then makes a note to work on it after she fixes up her discrepancies with the audit information. 3 AM, by this time, she finished fixing up the audit paper work and end of day sales. She pressed her luck and already got everything settled out for the day before, making the anything she does now, for that days end of sale. After much thinking with her conversation with Mr. Wolf, the more she starts to feel that there's something dishonest about the male. No ID, no credit cards, no cash. But carries photo copies of his his credit card statements, and uses them at all the places he goes too. Even though Bridgette never bothers writing down the home addresses of the customers. Let alone, nobody who works there even bothers with it. Shandra is one of the few, and can see that it is very fishy when a male wants to go out and spend money with a lot of important information missing...in a town where his statements are addressed too. He lives in town, this is adding up to her suspicions. She don't like where her thoughts are going. Nor does she like that the male's first credit card declined, and his second comes up with a message, “Call”. That usually means trouble. She been trying to get a hold of the guest since she last talked to him, but the male won't answer his phone. The female don't like this at all. 4 AM, she gave up trying to get a hold of Mr. Wolf and just got behind her old 486 laptop. It may be 2004, but she's perfectly happy with her old piece of technology. As long it can run Windows 95, run the programs she needs to keep her up to pace with everyone, and get on line, she's happy. And Shandra was just typing away on some MUSH client, conversing with friends as she passed the time away. She sits comfortably in her back office, sitting in front of a window facing the front counter. Just in case a guest walks in, she'll be able to see them come in. Unfortunately, a man bursts into the front doors in a yellow padded suite, calling out, “Hello?” Shandra jumps out of her seat and stumble out of her office, trying to quickly get behind her front counter as she gasps, “Is there something wrong.....sir?” The man says flatly, “You got a fire in the room on top of the roof.” She pauses for a little bit, wondering what he meant. She sighs as she realizes she's talking to a fire man. Not to mention there's a pick up outside of the main door, and a fire truck with sirens flashing just pulling into the lot from the distance. As she watches the fire truck, the man gets impatient and asks, “Do you have any clue on how to get up there?” Shandra feels like a moron as she finally figures it out. The building is only two stories high, but there is a room in the middle of the roof that sticks out of the rest of the ceiling. It's just a room with four like width like walls, four windows, with lights in it. Making it like some sort of light house. “Yes, there, but unfortunately there is no direct way towards that tower. There is two ways in to crawl to it. And they are on the north end and south end of the building,” the female states calmly. Her facial features obviously shows her concern yet non-excitement towards the ordeal. “What? Don't you guys have any direct way towards that room at all,” the fireman asked. She shook her head, “No Sir, sorry. Should I pull the fire alarm now?” The fireman shook his head as couple more men came into the building, “No, please show us these entrance ways, and we'll decide from there.” Shandra nods as she leads them down the north hall, then up the northern stairs. Once they reached the top, she points up to the part of the roof where the ceiling has a square hole up. With a piece of dry wall on the other side, covering the hole towards the ceiling, or attic called by most. The firemen groans as Shandra goes back down the stairs. When she reaches back to her lobby, she decides to walk outside to the parking lot to look up at the tower up on the roof. Sure enough, as the firemen said, there is flames burning within the tower. It's not burning outside, but its fully burning inside, with the vents on the underside of its sloped roof puffing out smoke. Shandra grumbles to herself, “Lovely,” as she walks back into the lobby. The firemen just reached her front counter as she walked into the lobby, “Ms, we are going to evacuate the building, go ahead and pull the alarm.” Shandra nods as she has a deep down longing being fulfilled. And that is to pull the fire alarm switch behind the counter. She could not help but smile with glee as she quickly jerk the switched, breaking the seal, getting some dye onto her black furred hand as the sirens in the building go off. Her ears go flat from all the noise, lights flash all over the place, mainly in places where there is an exit. She then goes behind her counter, starting to make master key cards for the firemen as the go outside to organize the rest of their team. Once they came back in, she hands the firemen the stack of key cards, informing them what they are for. The firemen where at first surprised, then just smiled as they took the keys thanking her for thinking ahead as they head out into the building. Once the firemen left the lobby to start knocking on doors, a local police officer comes in and wonders what's happening. Shandra informs the officer what's happening and without thinking, hands him a key card. The old officer just shrugs, and with a look of pure joy, quickly heads into the hallway and joins the firemen. “Front desk,” Shandra greats the caller on the phone as the sirens blare in the back ground. Shandra taunts the caller in her mind, “Go ahead, make my night. Prove to me you all are stupid.” The customer asks, “Are the fire alarms on?” Shandra tries not to laugh as she smiles, answering flatly, “Yes, yes they are on.” The guest goes silent a little, then asks in a polite, like this is no big deal, “Ah, okay, so are you guys going to turn it off?” The female smirks as she answers back in a serious tone, “Sorry Sir, no, this is a real fire. And your lucky I am even answering the phone. Please quickly get dressed and head out of the building.” She then hangs up before the guest could say anything, only to pick up another call. Same same story. And this goes on for another minute till her amusement disappears. By the time she finished informing the 10th caller, she decides to let the phone ring off the hook as she picks up a key card for herself. She starts to grumble to herself, figuring that they may be some people who would be too used to fire drills that they won't be able to figure out that this is the real thing. But she could not believe that EVRYONE was not taking this seriously. Before she got to leave front counter to join the firemen with getting guest out of their room, she ended up getting surrounded by guest demanding to know why they are being forced out of their rooms. She knows that that the firemen already have informed them of the situation. Though they are still in ignoring the reality of the situation. Shandra, as calmly, and as clear as she could, which is not easy for a morph, informs them that this is not a drill, and to please leave the building before anything major happens. Shandra spends the whole time directing customers out of the building, keeping the reality ignorant hotel guest in check as she keeps up with what is happening with the fire department. Eventually she goes outside to see that the fire truck have backed out of the back parking lot. Due to the fact there is barely any room in the back for the truck to maneuver back there. And that once again, to Shandra's annoyance to the public behavior, have parked their cars on the fire lanes, cause they are too lazy to walk a good distance to the nearest entrance. The raccoon fem takes a deep breath as she tries her best not to allow the stupidity the she witnesses day in, day out, upset her. But nothing prepared her for seeing the fire truck decide to slowly come towards to their location, and having her to be the only one to move out of the way. Nobody moved out of the trucks way. Everyone just stood there, watching the fire as it starts to finally eat its way out of one of the sides, bringing flames to the outside, making it quickly expand higher. Even after the fire truck honked their air horn, nobody moved. Heck, not even a minute, and some one just mindlessly walk right in front of the truck, trying to get a better view. Shandra grits her teeth as she then walks in front of the crowd, doing her best not to growl as she says as clearly, and loudly towards them, “Will you people please move to the side. The fire truck behind you are trying to move past you.” While she said this, she used her hands and arms to direct the crowd to where she wants them to move. The all, to her surprise and disgust, herded themselves towards the side. She once again gets an amazed look at the firemen as their fire truck once again starts moving. Some of the men wave at her as they move to position. Shandra could not help but smile as she waves back. At least some one appreciate her help. “No Sir, your building in not up in flames......yes sir, the fire department is taking care of it.....no sir, the hallways are not filled with smoke....,” Shandra stands behind her front counter once more, talking to the owner of the hotel. The boss decided to wake up early and give her an early morning call. Only to have him freak out and ask for every detail she can give him, “Look Sir, I really should not be on the phone. I'll either call you back when things die down and under control, or I'll write it all down and inform Zeung Yun when she comes in around 6:30 AM.” She then hangs up, already telling herself to just write it down and give it to her General Manager. She hates dealing with the hotel owner. The firemen then came in, looking beat, “Okay Mam, the fire is out, and everything is under control.” Shandra nods as she is given a waver to sign, “Please sign here Miss.” Shandra does so as they go over with what is written on the report, and they believed caused it. And at the end, thanking her for helping out and praising her for not losing herself when reality of the situation kicked in. She smiled as she exhales, “Thanks.....did I really help out?” The men nodded, “Yeah, all we had to do was say a couple of things, and you did the rest. All we had to do was do our job, and you made sure things ran smoothly. Been through this before?” Shandra shakes her head as the men smiled, “Well, you did good for a first timer. Lets hope you don't go through this again. Your lucky this was not a major fire.” Another fireman then spoke up, “Yeah, we where just coming back from midnight practice when we noticed there was a small fire going in your tower up there. Good thing we saw it when it was still under control.” “Control,” Shandra asked, wondered how a random fire can be considered controlled. The men chuckled, “Well, it was in a state where we could easily get to it and put it out without huge amount of damage...IF we had a direct access point. Unfortunately, there was not, so we ended up breaking a window up there so we can get the rest of the flame out.” Once the firemen left and the customers started to come around, it was 6 AM. Most of the customers where already ranting about how much they where inconvenience, that breakfast was late, and there was no hot coffee through the whole ordeal. Shandra done her best to not lose her temper. The look in her eyes have left some of the less rude customers to avoid her as the real obnoxious once press their luck with the unstable minded raccoon. Shandra just clinches her fist as her anger was so apparent, that even her ears where flat, and there was no smile on her face. All she could do was just growl out apologies towards what happened. And nothing more, cause if she tried to talk reason into them, she may lose control and beat reason into them. It was not till 6:30 AM when everyone either went back to bed, or checked out early. Though within this time period, she once again tried to get the credit card reader to accept the numbers she punched in for the customer in room 231. Once again it says “call”. Grumbling, she picks up the phone and starts calling Discovery card. Though before she got finished with the automated voice answering machine, an angry man comes into the hotel and glares at her. Considering how she's been getting angry customers towards her all morning, she just looked back and as politely as she could muster, asks, “My I help you?” “Yes, I have an employee staying in room 231,” the man says in a low, yet angry tone, “I am Timothy Wolf, and my employee....well, at this point, ex-employee took my bank statements and tried to check into this place.” Shandra looks shocked, even though she suspected the raccoon male was up to no good. She really did hope it was not true. Nor did she expect to be face to face with the real Mr. Wolf. “Okay dumb ass, here's my credit card. Use that to pay for this room. I don't care what the hell the price is, I'll get him for it later,” the man, despite his anger, hands Shandra the credit card and his ID to her hand. Shandra wanted to get on his case for taking it out on her. But she counts her blessings and is glad he did not throw the cards at her like some would do. She swipes the card and punch in all the information onto the main system. She then hands the man the bills and receipts that came out of the credit card reader. The man signs it, not once says anything. Though once he finished signing it, he grumbles, “Next time don't rent to anyone without proper identification and card in hand.” He then turns and walks out, mumbling, “Not that you would care, fucking coons.” Shandra knew the man was going to assume that just because she they where the same species that the man was going to assume that she let the male check in. Her ears dropped, even though she's been really angry and just right annoyed with how stupid everyone has been that morning. But nothing hurt more than just being considered an accessory to a crime due to species. Did not help that when the man got out of the lobby doors, he bumps into her General Manager, Zeung Yun. The man then proceeds to rant and rave about how he should sue the hotel for being so careless and how he feels the female behind the counter was in this with the male. The man don't realize, but she can hear every word through the walls. Shandra just stood there, trying not to think about it. Its not her fault, she did not check the male in. And if it was her, she never would have let him in due to what the male was lacking. But she hates having to kick anyone out without hardcore reasons. She prepares herself leave. Packs up her laptop and just clocks out at 7 AM. She gave her GM a quick update from her shift, then runs off before anything else would happen. She knows she won't get in trouble, since the GM was there at the beginning of her shift. So she knows about the story behind room 231. Though she is still clueless to HOW would the man know the male's room number. But she did not care, she just wanted to go home. Her moral and feeling of self worth was shot too many times that shift. She just wanted hide away from the public at that moment. Exhausted, Shandra plops herself onto her bed. Usually she gets herself fully undressed. But she feels so burnt out and depressed that she did not bother taking the sock off her left foot. She just plopped onto the bed, quickly took her pants off. She then quickly took her fake right leg off of her right thigh, then just took her buttoned uniformed shirt off. Then just got under the sheets in her white t-shirt, panties, and sock. She rest her head on her own pillow as she grabs her lover's pillow and places her nose on it. She then take a deep breath, inhaling the scent of her love into her lungs, letting her nose tell her that he was just on it hours ago. She then sighs and hugs the pillow close to her, sighing as she wished that he was home at that moment. Just some one...anyone that she knows and cares about, to tell her that she's loved. Though mostly from her lover, since he's the only one she feels comfortable for a hug. She closes her eyes as she curls up under the bed sheets, hugging his pillow as she imagines its him as she falls asleep. Surviving another work night, once again.