Monday June 14th 2004

	Balance This! 12:39 am-Turk Comments (0) Fucks Permalink (No Ratings Yet) One of the duties of a person that is a front desk clerk at the hotel I work at is balancing credit cards. Now to me that is a pretty cut and dry thing. You use the fundamental skills you learned in grade school. You know adding and subtracting? So either people there can’t add and subtract or the training at the place is fucking horrendous. Take a look below and let see if you can figure out this task that apparently is to hard for some people. Example A is the credit card receipt totals that the front desk clerk added up. Example B is the totals for the credit cards off of the computer report. Example A room 101 25.00 room 102 50.00 room 103 25.00 room 104 25.00 room 104 25.00 total: 150.00 over: 50.00 Example B room 101 25.00 room 102 25.00 room 103 25.00 room 104 25.00 total: 100.00 Now the way it is supposed to work is that if the total you get from adding the credit cards receipts up don’t balance you run the report to see why the amount is out of whack. Simple right? Again it seems it’s not that simple. So in Example A it should be clear to anyone that there is something wrong. The front desk clerk knows that the total should be 100 bucks. I know this because they wrote on the adding machine tape that they were over 50 bucks. Now in the old days a front desk clerk was trained properly this didn’t happen. But that was then and this is now. Back then we were smart enough to print out the computer report and compare the two. You take the computer report (Example B) and your credit cards receipts (Example A) and figure out why you are over. Granted this can be a pain in the ass. When you got over a hundred credit cards to go through it is a major pain in the ass. But it’s got to be done. So lets look at our computer report (Example B) and see why the credit cards (Example A) are off. You just go down the list. First off you can see that for whatever reason the credit card for room 102 is different on the credit card report. So you take a look and you will find that the guest was overcharged and a adjustment was made. The old credit card slip wasn’t taken out and a new one put in. That is the hard one. Now we look at the list again. Pretty simple here. For whatever reason room 104 has a duplicate receipt in the pile and no one tried to balance at all. So by checking the computer totals to see why the credit card receipts are off you can easily balance up the credit cards. This is just one of the things that irks me to no end. Now the last front desk manager fumbled the ball here. I only hope the next one we get can start to do things right.
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Friday April 27th 2007

	Good, Bad, And Ugly 12:12 am-Turk Comments (2) Bad Hotel, Fucks, Good Hotel Permalink (No Ratings Yet) It’s been exactly seven months since I started at the new hotel. I use this post to determine how long it’s been. At the time of that post I had worked my first day at the new hotel. I’ve decided to do a little write up on how things are at this new hotel seven months later. This will be a very simple write up. The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly. The Good. Number one right off the bat and this is a big one for me. The new hotel is not a shitty Ramada like the worst hotel ever is. It was a huge thing for me to get out of those red shirts. Also very important to me is the owners of the hotel. And when compared to the “people” who own the worst hotel ever the people who own the new hotel are a definitely a good thing. I could write a whole post on how the two are different. For example though these new hotel owners upgrade their hotel. And they do it right. They do not hire retards who placed the lowest bid for the job. A word or two also needs to be said about the front desk staff. I have no complaints what so ever. They are on time and know how to balance credit cards. There are no idiots here. Nor are there any half blind night auditors who work when I don’t. It really is quite a joy to be able to work with people that have their shit together. The Front Desk Manager I will only say this: He is not a pussy. Last but not least under “good” are the guests who stay at the hotel. There is a huge difference in the quality of the guests this new hotel attracts. We do not get any bar time drunks. Nor do we get any of the general scum that the worst hotel ever seems to attract. Which is only echoed by the fact that I have yet to call the police on any of the people that stay at this new hotel. The Bad Just one here. Managers who can’t print folios. Now this may seem like a petty thing. But to me what does it say about the people who are supposedly above me if they can not print their own folios out when they do a transaction in the computer. I’ve often wondered why it is these managers do this. I’ve only ever been able to come up with two excuses. They are lazy. They are incompetent. I just can’t peg which it is here at this new hotel. Lazy or Incompetent? And why does it always seem to be Sales people that do this? The Ugly Why is it I can’t find an employer who really cares about their employees? While these owners do take good care of the building and of the guests, I really feel they are very lacking when it comes to their employees. I expect a few things from the people who employ me. Reviews and Raises. I expect that after a persons been at a hotel they get a review six months in. I like getting told how I’m doing now and then as it shows me that the managers/owners may actually give a shit about how the hotel is run. It seem like they (management) would want to evaluate the employees they have at least every now and then. The raise of course would be tied into the review. Now I’m not expecting a raise every six months. I personally would be happy with a raise every year. I also expect medical insurance. I’m not getting any younger here. It’s just something I need now. These owners at this new hotel have seen fit to cancel medical insurance a few months ago. I don’t understand why they would cut the benefits of the employee. It should be the other way around. They should be adding to the benefits of the employee. As it is I have absolutely no loyalty to these people as it is. Why should I? I drive 17 miles each way. If I can get a job in my immediate area I have no problem at all quiting this hotel for a local one. I need insurance. I need raises. These are things that I have to have to keep me being the employee that my employer wants to have around. Without these kinds of things I’m going to slowly turn back into the way I used to be at the worst hotel ever.
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Friday September 1st 2006

	New Auditor Update 2 2:12 am-Turk Comments (3) Bad Hotel Permalink (No Ratings Yet) Not so long ago I wrote about the new night auditor. This is what I had decided was wrong with this new higher paid auditor: I literally laughed out loud when it dawned on me what she had done. The new night auditor is fucking stupid. So either she doesn’t now how to balance credit cards or the new night auditor can not read or do basic math. Which as it turns out this was harsh of me. I overlooked human frailty. What follows is another be a night auditor at home example. These below are the Amex and Mastercards that the new night auditor “balanced” (and again these open in a new window): Here is the Amex Card Report. And here are the Auditor Mastercard Reports and the Desk Clerk Mastercards Reports (both are needed to balance the Mastercards). With this information it’s very easy to see that what the new night auditor is doing is getting the numbers wrong. 64.00 that should be 64.90 and 109.36 that should be 108.36. It was clear what the problem was: It’s not that the lady can’t read or do simple math. It’s that she is blind as a bat. Ladies and Gentlemen may I introduce the Bausch & Lomb Magna-Page 2X: 8-1/4″x10-3/4″, Clear Acrylic Sheet provides instant magnification of an entire page. Made of high-quality clear acrylic. Specially designed fresnel lenses are molded (rather than hot stamped) of optical grade acrylic to provide optimum image quality. So not stupid. Just a case of bad eyesight. Bad eyes equal more pay at the hotel. I’ll start sitting closer to the tv from now on and hope it will get me a raise when I come in with my very own Magna-Page.
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Wednesday August 16th 2006

	New Auditor Update 2:55 am-Turk Comments (3) Bad Hotel Permalink (No Ratings Yet) How about an update on the new night auditor? Because it really is funny in a sad way. As I may have mentioned there is a new night auditor to replace (who can’t be replaced) the one who left. This person has had four days of training. Two days of front desk training and two days of audit training. Four fucking days total. This is a case of her being able to pick the shit up in four days. Not that it is that complicated. Now supposedly this lady has experience in the hotel field. Apparently she has experience doing the night audit as well. She must have lots of experience to make more than me right? Four days training and the fact she is making more than me say to me that she should be able to pick it up in four days. But I’m beginning to wonder. Today the new auditor worked the first shift. As a bonus this four day trained person is training another new person. Nothing like the blind leading the blind huh? First shift I think is fairly simple. You check people out. At this hotel that is about what they do. You can’t expect to much from the candidates we get here. They also “balance” credit cards. This in itself has become a huge joke. The thing is I expect any night auditor that makes more than me to be able to at the least balance credit cards. Below will be visual aids for auditors who know what I’m talking about (and people who can read and do basic math as well). First we have scanned pictures of the new auditors “balanced” credit cards for her first shift. Visa and Amex is all she had at first glance. These open in a new window: Now when I first looked at her paper work it looked fine. It’s when I started to actually look at the reports that WinPM generates that I started to get confused. And at first I overlooked the obvious. Here is her Amex Report and this is her Visa Report. If you compare the reports to her adding machine tape bunch of folios you can clearly see (if you can read and do basic math) that her shit does not balance. Now I’m thinking to myself maybe she forgot to remove folios that she may have adjusted off because of a mistake or costumer complaint. So I pushed the amex/visa to the side and started with mastercards and discover. The new auditor also had mastercards and discovers according to the reports I use to balance. Yet she had no paper clipped folios with the adding machine tape to show she balanced them. You have to remember I am assuming that this new auditor at the very least can read and do simple math. Foolish me. Once I printed up her Mastercard Report and her Discover Report did it start to become clear what had happened. Well not clear but I knew what she did I should say. Her mastercards were in with her visas folios. Her discovers were in with her amex folios. I literally laughed out loud when it dawned on me what she had done. The new night auditor is fucking stupid. This may seem harsh. Look again at those first two scans. Do you see how the words American Express and Visa are highlighted in yellow? She did that herself with a yellow highlighter. Every folio of hers is highlighted like that. Whether it be amex, visa. mastercard, or discover. She took the time to highlight the shit. If she can read she should be able to see that her folios did not balance. She’s the one who added the folios up. So either she doesn’t now how to balance credit cards or the new night auditor can not read or do basic math. What do you think it is? It amazes me even more when I remember that this new auditor is making more money than me. Perhaps if I was an idiot who can not read or do basic math I would get a raise? Maybe I need to start acting like the rest of these retards we call front desk clerks and night auditors. Maybe then I will get a raise. Because at this point I’m so fucking depressed in my current work situation that I maybe willing to act like the rest of these tards if that will get me a raise.
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Monday June 12th 2006

	Work Log 11:13 pm-Turk Comments (0) Bad Hotel Permalink (No Ratings Yet) This entry is a log as it happens of my night of “work”: 10:53 pm-Typing this as I get dressed for work. Running late as usual. Must leave by 10:55pm or I will be late. 10:56 pm-Leaving for work. Going to be late again. Of course if I hadn’t typed this I would have been on time. 10:58 pm-Actually pull out of drive way. 11:05 pm-Punch in at work. 11:14 pm-Publish this entry 11:22 pm-Gather the folders of the desk clerks who worked today. Tossed aside until I pull their paper work later on. 11:24 pm-Printed House Count Report, Cancellation/Denials Report, Credit Limit Exception Report, Daily Activity Report, and the No Show Report. All of these reports go to the Sheriff. 11:26 pm-Turned first only walk in away. They didn’t like the rate of 79.00 plus tax. It’s a shame I don’t haggle with these assholes. 11:30 pm-Started to count my cash drawer. 11:37 pm-Finished counting the cash drawer, one phone call interrupted me. 11:43 pm-Call from above some sort of crazy stalker bitch. Guest requested she be told they are taking no more calls. Usual kind of thing for the clientele of this hotel. 11:47 pm-Took paper work out of folders so I can start to balance the credit cards. 11:51 pm-Took reports printed earlier and use them to balance credit cards now that the paper work is all sorted. 11:53 pm-Credit cards balanced. I take all the paper work and folders and chuck them aside till later. 11:57 pm-Time to disconnect the shitty cendant provided isp so I can hook up the good charter provided wireless isp. 12:02 am-The wireless bridge finally resolves the ip address and I’m on the good net! 12:03 am-Boot up Trillian. 12:13 am-Preparing for actual audit done by computer. I print a Guest Name List and the Clean and Vacant Room List. 12:16 am-Room and Tax posted by the computer. 12:18 am-Cashier Closeout completed. 12:19 am-Began Close Day. 12:21 am-Fired up Dark Age of Camelot. Playing a Bonedancer on Midgard/Lancelot. 12:27 am-Gawain finally logs on to aim. 12:31 am-Corrected my retarded typo. It’s a Bonedancer not a Bonelord. 12:36 am-Close Day is complete. 1:27 am-Asshole Redneck Guest doesn’t understand english. Wanted his clothes which were dry cleaned. The phrase “I do not have your clothes here, please check your room” is to much for his redneck mind to handle. 1:42 am-Logged out of Dark Age of Camelot, for now. 2:05 am-Gawain logged off. No one to entertain me now. 4:05 am-Printed miscellaneous reports. 5:26 am-Transmitted the credit card batch 5:45 am-Took all of the reports and paperwork and tossed it in back on one of the desks like I always do. 5:55 am-Logged out of Trillian. 6:00 am-One long god damn hour to go. 6:11 am-Why isn’t it 7:00 am yet? This thought goes through my head until I leave the hotel. 6:25 am-Time to unhook the good internet and plug back in that shitty cendant provided isp. 6:50 am-Ten minutes to go. Here ten minutes equals an eternity 6:55 am-Five minutes to go. A pattern emerges? 6:56 am-Four minutes to go. 6:57 am-Three minutes to go. 6:58 am-Two. 6:59 am-One. Hurray first shift is here! 7:00 am-Take me home Jesus! 7:12 am-Home and I wonder did I punch out? Don’t really care. I’m home. And that is my usual night.
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Thursday December 29th 2005

	The Guide 3:07 am-Turk Comments (0) Permalink (No Ratings Yet) The Night Audit Guide V 5.0 Section 1 1.1 Login Section 2 2.1 The Final Balance Report 2.2 YY1’s Section 3 3.1 Room Rate Variance Report 3.2 What To Look For Section 4 4.1 Things To Do Before The Audit Is Run Section 5 5.1 Putting The System Down 5.2 Fakeinit 5.3 Power Down Section 6 6.1 Running The Night Audit 6.2 The Pre Audit Tape 6.3 The Post Audit Tape 6.4 Finishing Up 6.5 The Post Audit 6.6 Night Audit Reports Section 7 7.1 Special Days 7.2 Sunday Night 7.3 Wednesday Night Section 8 8.1 Credit Cards Section 9 9.1 Reports for lazy managers Section 1 1.1 Login First put the computer(s) in to audit mode. Escape out of every screen Quit Encore. Hit escape, a prompt will come up that says: “exit from the Encore application? (y/n)”. Hit y, then enter. At the login prompt type in audit1 and/or audit2. Then enter your encore login. Section 2 2.1 The Final Balance Report Check the thingie by the printer to the right. Look in the top one labeled “Banquet Tickets & Corrections”. Grab the direct bills in the bottom. Look to see if they (the front desk) have balanced. Print the Final Balance Report (5-3-5-y-s-n-n-y). The first couple of pages are what we want to concentrate on for balancing purposes of the direct bills. If direct bills do not balance first check if there are any YY1’s. 2.2 YY1’s YY1’s appear on the Final Balance Report under the id column. YY1’s are the result of people checking out of the TV in their room. To get YY1’s out of the system and out of the direct bill totals you to post the room balance to the credit card. Go in to the departed guest screen (3-1-3). To post the balance to the credit card hit 3 to post. Enter c to post to the credit card. Section 3 3.1 Room Rate Variance Report The purpose of this Room Rate Variance (5-2-2-1-1-enter-s-n-n-y) is to find variances in room rates. The frontdesk is supposed to do this, but not always does. 3.2 What To Look For Here are a few things to look for when looking at this report. Look under the regular and quote columns. If these rates don’t match you want to fix it so the quoted rate matches the regular rate. If rooms are being shared the above the is not always correct. You also need to check the desc line at the check in or change a room screen (2-1). Section 4 4.1 Things To Do Before The Audit Is Run There is a few reports you can run before the audit. Run a reservation list (5-1-1-1-mmddyy-#days-2-1-s-n-n-y). Run a vacant room list (5-4-3-1-4-enter-s-n-n-y). Run a guest list (5-2-1-1-y-enter-297-enter-s-n-n-y). These reports will be needed while the computer is down and when it’s running the audit. Section 5 5.1 Putting The System Down Before you put the system down and in to single user mode. Escape out of the system so you are looking at a big E. Hit escape and enter y to exit Encore on each computer. You will see this prompt: jvlbl SCO UNIX System V/386 Release 3.2 login: Do this to every computer. 5.2 Fakeinit At the login prompt type in encadm and hit enter. This is only done at the main computer in back. This computer is referred to as the console. This brings you to the Encore Administration Menu. Put the system into fakeinit. Fakeinit is the single user mode. While fakeinit is active the restaurant and bar can not post. At the admin menu prompt type in fakeinit and hit enter. Type y when it asks you if you want to exit multi-user mode. If any computers are still up when you enter fakeinit you will get a message reminding you. 5.3 Power Down At a point when you know that the bar has finished posting you can do a power down. It’s important to remember to do this only after you know the bar is closed and posted. At the Encore Admin Menu type in powerdwn and hit enter. If any of the computers are still up you will get a warning message to put them down. The computer will take a minute or two then you will get asked if you want to continue. Type y for yes and the computer will do it’s power down routine. When the computer is done it will tell you that it is ok to power off or to hit any key to reboot. We want to power off, so turn off the power of the tape drive (on the back of the unit) and then turn off the console’s power. Then all you have to do is power back up. First turn on the tape drive (or the computer will not recognize it is there). and then hit the power button on the console. Section 6 6.1 Running The Night Audit The night audit consist of two phases. First the pre audit and then the post audit. 6.2 The Pre Audit Tape First a word of warning. Do not do the audit on the console in the back. At the prompt(see section 5.1) enter in audit1 or audit2. At the main Encore menu hit 6. You will be asked twice if you want to start the main audit. Hit y both times to start the main audit. Then to start the main night audit hit 1. You will get a warning to make sure all the other computers are logged off. You will get two prompts asking you if you are sure you want to start the night audit. After you answer yes the second time you are committed to doing the audit. There is no going back. Hit enter to start the night audit. At this point the computer will run some system tests and you will be asked to insert the first tape. After you put the first tape in the tape drive hit enter. You will be asked to enter the number given. Do so and again hit enter to continue. It is important to note that each tape also has two phases. First Encore gets all of it’s data ready and then writes that information to the tape, this takes about a half hour. You will get a warning beep and be asked to hit enter to continue. Then when Encore has all of it’s data it wrote to the tape it double checks that the information is correct, which takes another half hour. So each tape takes a hour. And the whole night audit process takes just about two hours. 6.3 The Post Audit Tape The post audit is really the same as above in section 6.2 The Pre Audit Tape. 6.4 Finishing Up After the audit is done running you will get a prompt that lets you know that the audit is done. It says: The main audit is now complete- you may now return the system to multi-user mode and run the post audit. Press enter to continue… Press enter to continue. 6.5 The Post Audit First don’t confuse the Post Audit with the Post Audit Tape. Two different things. The Post Audit is ran by hitting 6-6. This is a simple process and the computer does all the work for you. This is essential if you want to be able to print all of the night audit reports. 6.6 Night Audit Reports There are two sets of night audit reports that have to be ran. First the Main Night Audit Reports (5-9-2-1-1-1-s-n-n-y) and then the Post Audit Reports (5-9-2-1-1-2-s-n-n-y). Time on these vary, depending on the number of guests. Section 7 7.1 Special Days There are two days that you have to do extra steps to complete the night audit. 7.2 Sunday Night On every Sunday after the second night audit tape has ran you will be prompted to insert the crash tape. There isn’t much for you to do. Put the crash tape in the tape drive and hit enter. Be aware that the crash tape takes an additional hour to complete. The crash tape must be completed to finish the night audit. 7.3 Wednesday Night On every Wednesday you are prompted to do the EDT Billing Archive backup. After the Post Audit (section 6.5) has finished you will be prompted to insert the EDT billing tape. Here is what the actual prompt tells you: EDT Billing file archive program Press esc to bypass or Enter to continue. At this point hit escape to quit this. It will ask you to insert the tape and then hit enter to continue. Do not do this. This process takes three to five minutes. When the EDT backup is done you will get a message telling you to tap enter to continue with the Night Audit process. Section 8 8.1 Credit Cards To balance the credit cards for the front desk use this procedure. First you must print an Awaiting Settlement report (func/enter(blue key)-3-1-1-1 using the credit card machine. At the bottom of this report you will see totals by credit card type. You must balance this with the encore totals which can be found on the Final Balance Report (5-3-5-y-s-n-n-y). You must add the visa and mastercard totals together on the credit card report to balance to the Final Balance Report . To settle the credit card you must use the credit card machine. To do this hit settle(no. 9)-1-enter-enter total-enter. The credit card machine will do it’s business and a report will print out. Put the two credit cards with the encore folios. Section 9 9.1 Reports for lazy managers After the audit reports are complete there are additional reports to print. These reports are for the managers to lazy to print their own reports. The majority of these reports are done from the same place you printed the night audit reports. You want to enter 5-9-2-1-3 for reprinting reports. Unless the report has a AP0 before you enter in the exact numbers as indicated as if starting from the main encore menu. GM Reports AP061055 Control Report AP061020 Room & Tax Postings AP061021 Additional Postings 5-3-6-2-y-s-n-n-y Advance Deposits Report Sales Reports AP061020 Room & Tax Postings 5-6-1-2-s-n-n-y Rm Statistics By Market Segment FDM Report’s AP065010 No Show Report
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