Fightin' Round the World

All right. So I decided I'm just going to spill it. I've already told plenty of people anyway so it's only right that I confess just how much I dislike Russell Crowe.

Don't get me wrong. I love Gladiator just like anybody else. He's a good actor. But he's a dick, plain and simple.

One of the first people I met at my new hotel job where I worked for almost 5 years was a blonde girl with big boobs and a big heart. She is now one of my very best friends, and I live with her currently in my new city. She is one the nicest people ever and everybody loves her. She's great at her job and when I first started she was a supervisor and eventually was promoted to run the front office. She and I have lots of stories together regarding guests, good and bad, but this was by far the worst.

One Sunday I came into work expecting to have an easy day as Sundays usually were. You get a shitload checkouts (which means a shitload of complaints), but very few checkins normally. What I didn't realize was that Russell Crowe's band who was playing a few shows nearby that week (you know the one) had a large following, some of the most pathetic type of fans I'd ever seen. For four straight hours I "dealt" these ladies who were trying to check in but because it was well before checkin time and not everybody had checked out yet, and we certainly hadn't cleaned all the rooms yet, plus the linen wasn't ready, and everybody arrived at once, well it was a bit of a mess. The most frustrating part was that it turns out these ladies were sleeping four to a room. That's not the frustrating part. They didn't even know each other! They had met on the internet through some fan club website and decided to split a room. I'm not sure when the last time these people traveled, but some were literally wearing housecoats if that gives you any idea.
Because his band was playing so nearby to our hotel of course these ladies wanted to know if HE was staying with us. I knew he was, but it is (for future reference) illegal for me to give any information about any guest. I only tell this story now because after that day he made it pretty fucking clear he was staying there.

This guy decides to flaunt that he's staying at my hotel. He makes it no secret whatsoever what room staying he's in, and my coworkers and I spend the next day fighting with the ladies that 'no, they cannot not move to his floor to be nearer to him.' One lady even made a shrine of the Australian fuck on her hotel door which we made her remove. Not only that, but pretty quickly these freaks are not getting along. Imagine that! They're kicking each other out of their rooms and people are crying everywhere. But the show they exclaim is amazing. They can't wait to go the one tomorrow!

So us hotel people are looking forward to the day these people are going to check out. Oh no! Russell has added two more shows at the end of the week! Did the fact that they had flights to catch deter them from staying? Yeah, right. In one instance one lady asked me to make a reservation for the end of the week. She was still going to fly home BUT Russell had asked her personally to come back and so she was. I totally believed her too because here he was prancing around and loving the attention. Why wouldn't he ask his fans to spend thousands of dollars on last minute flights and hotel reservations to see him?

Here's where he goes over the top. Every night after his show he makes the venue cater to him hours after the show has ended when they are basically closed. Sources tell me he was getting wasted every night. This is around the time his wife is pregnant with their first child. He did call her everyday at least, as I could tell by his bill. (How tempted was I to sell that phone number!)

So one night (assumingly the venue got sick of him and shut him down) he decides he's going to have our hotel host his little after-party. My friend happened to be the overnight manager that night. When he stumbles back to the hotel he demands 25 hamburgers (for like 4 people), a bottle of Jack and a case of Coronas. The thing is, it was well after the legal time to sell liquor. She had to make a decision. Piss off an A-list actor or piss off the Bar manager who would fear losing his liquor license. What would you do? Well, the other problem she had was that she couldn't get to the locked-up cold beer. She could only find some warm beer, so she iced it down as best she could and hoped it was cold enough. She went up with the room service server as a good manager should to deliver everything.

Russell Crowe took one long sip of beer and looked at her in disgust. "Congratulations on getting the hamburgers up here, but this beer tastes like piss! You can forget the $100 I was going to tip."

Little did he know she wouldn't have gotten the tip, he only screwed our server.

6 months later Russell Crowe threw a phone a New York hotel concierge. The concierge sued and won. Good for him.

My elevator story

Every hotel I have worked at has had an elevator. Even my little Travelodge by the highway with 3 floors had an elevator. People, maintaining these things are a bitch. But not as messed up as maintaining swimming pools. (I'll leave those stories for another post.)

But elevators are necessary so of course the hotel pays a small fortune for elevator repairmen to do maintenance, keep it currently certified, and fix them when they break down. And they always break down.

My last hotel, my funky urban hotel, had 5 elevators. Four were for guests and one for us employees. I always hate the service elevator by the way. Think about it, garbage and food getting transported by the same elevator? Ew. (Don't worry, soiled linens have a chute and do not go anywhere but straight to the laundry. Along with all the lost teddy bears, nightgowns, underwear, and other stuff that people leave in their beds. Oops.)

So I'll get to the point. Most of the time elevators stop working, people are in them. If it's a busy weekend and one malfunctions, well, what are the odds? Of course the hotel always comps them and kisses their ass, whatever has to be done, because for those claustrophobes (and opportunists) it can be a bit of a nightmare for the hotel. But honestly, us hotel workers are rolling our eyes, like, not again.

(Elevators are mostly on lifts these days, so it's not like Speed where the cable's going to snap and everybody goes crashing down. That would suck.)

So when I got stuck in an elevator on vacation I just sat down and hung out. I was at a sister property, I was by myself and felt pretty safe, just annoyed because the bar wasn't going to be open too much longer.

Well, half an hour went by. This elevator is covered in mirrors so it's hard not to pose and make weird faces. The hotel kept in contact with me telling me finally that they had to call the fire department and they were on their way.

When they arrived I realized that they were coming in through the roof. I was going to get rescued movie star style! So some hot sexy fireman (I assumed) sent a ladder down and one climbed down so he could hold it steady. For a brief moment I panicked. Not because of the ladder per se, but I was wearing a dress! I scurried up and two firemen helped me cross from the roof and climb out the shaft. A security lady started apologizing profusely.

I said, "I'm OK. Is the bar still open?"

She laughs, "Oh, I knew you were all right. We had you on camera. We'll keep the bar open a little longer for you."

Fuck!