Work Stories: Episode 32: You Light Up My Life

Previously on Work Stories, I wrote about a guy who came in claiming to be John Lennon.  He wasn’t dead, he was with George Harrison, and he autographed a piece of paper for my coworker.  Sometimes it’s a really strange world out there.  Sometimes that strange world comes at you.  This week is not such a strange thing that happened.  It’s just something that happened.

Let me take you back to when I worked at a hotel.  I was in high school.  I was still in my teenage years.  There were a lot of things that I did at the hotel.  I was the parking lot attendant.  I was a dishwasher.  I cleaned up the dining room.  I did room service.  If someone in a room needed something at night, I was the one who took it to them.  I did a lot of stuff in the hotel.

One day, I was working the morning shift in the dining room.  I got coaxed into staying after my shift to do a little bit of building.  When I say building, I don’t mean construction of a new wing of the hotel.  I wouldn’t know where to start with that.  Probably with a hammer and nails, but that’s not the point.  The point is that they convinced me to stay after my shift to do some extra work that I really didn’t need to do.

I went into the office and sat down.  Someone brought in some boxes.  They told me that I was going to construct the lamps that were in the boxes.  These lamps were going to be replacements for those already in the hotel rooms.

I spent the next hour or so taking different pieces of the lamps out of boxes and putting them together to build some sources of light for weary travellers.  Each box had three or four lamps in it.  Some were small some were tall.  They all worked when I was done with them.  I had made some great fixtures.

If I remember correctly, the reason that I was brought in to do this work was because they wanted to give me some busy work between the time of the morning dining room stuff and the time that the first busload of hotel guests arrived.  I was supposed to take the guests’ luggage to their rooms.  The busywork was meant as just that.  It was supposed to keep me busy until the bus got to the hotel.  I don’t remember if it actually did or not.

I really have nowhere else to go with this writing.  I didn’t think it was going to be all that strong of a Work Story, and I seem to have proved myself right.  It’s short.  It’s pointless.  I made some lamps.  Wooptie-doo!  Who wanted to read about that?

I guess that’s it for this week’s Work Story.  It’s not long.  It’s not good.  But it’s written, so I’m going to share it.  I’m sorry for how horrid this one is, ladies and gentlemen.  I truly am.  I’ll make it up to you next week.

Until then, we’re up all night to Galecki.