Led Schleppelin: 13 Hours at the Crestwood

OK, OK, I came to town without a solid job offer, so while I was waiting for the inevitable callback from the myriad auditions I've done in hopes of landing a well-paying gig, I decided to take a temporary schlep job in an industry with which I have a long and painful history.

The hospitality industry.

The hotel game.

The pay-by-the-day, flophouse, hot-sheet, no-tell motel game.

Only slightly updated from the seamy picture painted by onetime teenage bellhop Jim Thompson in such novels as A Swell-Looking Babe.



So I took a desk clerk job at the Crestwood Suites in Northwest Austin, only a hop, skip, and a u-turn from my palatial digs down the street. I'd held down a similar job at the feared and loathed La Quinta Inn back in St. Augustine in the early years of the millenium, slumming it reading back issues of MOJO while watching UHF television on the portable set (that's how I got sucked into the world of Channel 22, but that's another BLOG! entirely), and occasionally dealing with an irate guest. And then later at the Hilton, taking slightly more upscale complaints.
So I figured I could go back, Jack, and do it again, picking up an easy ten bucks an hour checkin' 'em in and checkin' 'em out.

But a funny thing happened on the way to the extended-stay.

I couldn't fucking do it.

It did my head in, brutally.

I resigned my position -- ten bucks an hour and no commission -- after a brief 13 hours on the job. I didn't want to waste their time and mine. Besides, I got a better offer from a boiler room selling anti-drug radio spots to local contractors.

In any case, here's big ups for Marisa Quijano and Dalanna Davenport, holding down the fort at the Crestwood. Sorry I couldn't have been of more service.