u/frenchynerd

When I came for my shift at 3 pm, there was a young man in his twenties checking in. I could hear his slurred speech. It is unsure if this is due to a regional accent, him having some disability or condition of some kind, or being diabetic and his sugar levels out of whack or just... being totally high.

My coworker sent him to his room and I started my shift.

He then started coming and going to our garden and back. Every time he would pass in front of the desk, he would ask where his floor is. When I would be busy, he would ask other guests.

He was suddenly shirtless. I saw him from the windows going around the building, in the bushes, where there is no pathway of any kind.

Every time he would pass in front of me, I would have to remind him where his floor was.

He then suddenly disappeared for a few hours, until, in the middle of the evening, he came back escorted by two police officers.

The police inquired if he had a room here.

"If there is no issues, yes".

The young man didn't even remember he checked-in already.

"Maybe your keycard is in your wallet", said one of the officers.

There it was, indeed.

Once again, I reminded him where his floor and room were, and I explained to the officers how... unusual... his behaviour was in the afternoon.

They told me he just crashed his car close to here and that he was completely confused and lost. They seemed more amused than worried about him.

Why they didn't arrest him for impaired driving is beyond me.

But once they were gone, he picked up on his earlier habits. He passed in front of the desk to go outside and come back in several times. Each time, he would ask where his floor and his room were.

Night shift just arrived and I just explained to her the situation. "You can't miss him, he is going to ask you where his room is."

She believes he may be on some medication that he didn't take today. Or he took too much of it. Who knows.

It is highly possible that, tomorrow, he won't remember that he crashed his car and he will be looking for it.

I am now so curious about what will happen with him tomorrow that, for once, I'm kinda looking forward for my shift.

Update

Update: the local police posted on Facebook that there has been a car crash at the corner of the street close to the hotel. The driver who caused the crash, a young man in his twenties, tried to walk away. The police found him later, he was impaired by a combination of drugs and alcohol, he was interrogated at the police headquarters and then released after receiving a court order, a big fine and his driver's license was suspended.

J'ai des thermostats Hilo dans mon appartement, je suis soudainement inquiet. Comment faire pour les empêcher de brûler comme ça?

Je suis en train de réécouter l'album Panavision présentement.

Je crois qu'il s'agit d'un des groupes québécois les plus underrated et qui sont injustement tombés dans les oubliettes.

On n'entend plus leurs chansons à la radio.

J'ai écouté leur deux albums en boucle quand j'étais ado/jeune adulte. Les chansons jouaient beaucoup à la radio. Je les avais vus en spectacle au Spectrum, c'était rempli.

C'était vraiment un de mes groupes préférés à l'époque.

Je les ai toujours trouvés créatifs, des chansons variées, allant de la pop électro au rock alternatif, et j'écoute ça aujourd'hui, ça ne sonne pas du tout vieux ou passé date.

Il y a plein d'artistes qui ont mis leur carrière en pause mais dont les vieux succès sont toujours connus et jouent encore beaucoup à la radio - genre Les Colocs, et plein d'autres. Qu'est ce qui fait que eux sont en quelque sorte tombés dans l'oubli?

J'avais vu un article dans le Journal de Montréal il y a quelques années, où ils expliquaient qu'ils n'avaient jamais vraiment vécu de leur musique, etc.

Ils auront été une étoile filante dans la scène musicale québécoise.

Qui d'autre ici les écoute encore aujourd'hui?

It is the busiest period of the year. Sold-out almost every night. I'm very tired.

The thing I like the most about this job is having downtime. There is no down time during the summer.

I have seen an ad for a job in a completely different field in which I worked in the past and for which I have several years of experience. I would have very good chances of getting hired. It would require moving to another city, which would bring me closer to a very close friend who is very important for me.

Except the position pays less than here. Like 25% less. And the cost of housing is way higher than here. It's impossible, except if I would give up my 2 bedroom apartment to rent a room. I don't want that. It wouldn't work. This whole current economy is a huge trap.

So, when we are sold-out, even there is no major bad event, there is always an accumulation of small irritants which leaves me completely drained.

• As I was taking preauthorizations for tomorrow's arrivals, a card declined. I sent an email to the guest. The angry guest called back wondering why the hell I was trying to take money from his card. I explain that we are verifying if tomorrow's arrivals have valid credit cards with funds available, as mentioned in our terms and conditions when booking. He starts yelling at me: "It's prepaid card but I didn't put funds on it! I have plenty of money, that's not the issue, you have now business trying to take money from my card!" "Sir, you are very being rude." "NO! YOU are being rude! Wait until I get there tomorrow and you will see!" "I'm cancelling the reservation. Goodbye". I hang up, cancel the reservation, DNR him.
• During check-in, I explain the breakfast hours, where the pool is and how to get to the room. So many guests don't listen to any of this. They will come back over and over again to inquire about the breakfast hours (they are written everywhere) or they don't understand the "go straight ahead in the hallway" part about how to go to their rooms. They will ignore the hallway and go up the stairs. I let them with their big luggage and don't say anything. Hey, I do need some form of entertainment! They will notice the rooms on the floor above don't correspond do their room number, they will come back and ask where is their room. "Straight ahead in the hallway. Straight ahead".
• The wifi. The damn wifi. There is no password. It's an open network. Yet, the guests will call, come over to the desk to ask about the wifi password. It means they didn't even bother to open the list of networks of verify. Better go all the way down and disturb the FDA.
• Guest checks-in. I ask him how many people they are. He says two. But then I see two other people joining him. "Well, are you two people or are you four people?" "Well... hmmm.. We are four" "Well you booked for two, you tell me you're two, but then that's not true, your are four. It's going to change your rate! Put the right number of guests when you book." It's one thing making a mistake when booking, it's another thing straight out lying into my face.
• There has been an unusual high number of guests this week booking the wrong dates this week and then coming to the hotel only to be told we are sold-out, there is no rooms available, and they need to cancel themselves their third party reservation booked for the wrong dates.
• I put the sign "back in 5 minutes" on the desk. I go put my dinner in the microwave and have a bathroom break. I hear guests who audibly decided to ignore the sign and just press on the button "Press here for help" which makes the phone ring with a distinct ring. I decided to completely ignore it, take two extra minutes after my meal was done heating and I was done with the bathrooms and come back veeeeery slowly.
• Guests have an obsession with "another door". Even if their room is right beside the front desk, they absolutely want to know if there is "another door". They want to go through that "other door", even if that means taking longer to get to their room.
• They also have a fascination for towels. We have pool towels available here in the lobby. They will simply all grab towels when they see them. Do they think it's like toilet paper during Covid? Do they fear a shortage of towels?
• A guest told me her child was coeliac. I empathize, it must be a pain to travel. Worried about cross-contamination, she asked me if she could use our kitchen to cook a breakfast for her child. Answer: No. We have in fact been inspected by the health authorities last year and one of the few points they raised was that the kitchen door didn't seem to be always properly locked and we need to ensure only staff can access it.
• Asking for a rollaway bed only when they are checking-in instead of asking ahead of time. That's annoying. I have to leave the desk, go to the other end of the hotel, fumble between the HK trolleys, get the rollaway bed out of there, roll it awkwardly to the elevator and to another end of the hallway. Please, ask for this before you come.
• A morbidly obese woman broke a bed. She came to sit on it and the frame just broke. Hotel bed frames are sturdy. That was a first for me.
• Earlier this week, I had the biggest rush of my career. We had a group of 30 rooms coming in. The end of the afternoon was strangely quiet, almost no check-ins. They all arrived together, at the same time, right at the moment where I was done heating up my meal. In the middle of them, all the families who had booked for that night also decided to come at that time. And all the members of the group wanted to split the bill and I had to do 2, 3 or 4 payments for each room, and they didn't know their licence plate or have their credit card with them, even if they would see the people ahead of them in the line go out to the parking lot to get their wallets... It was hell... For more than one hour, every time I would look up, I would see a line of people going out through the doors and in the parking lot. The people at the end of the line told me they waited more than an hour. I sometimes have a line like that at the beginning of check-in time, but it's cleared in 15 minutes. I have never seen something like that. If a group arrives all at the same time, it's usually with a bus, and everything is paid for already.

-in fact, there seems to be a rule stating that I can never eat right after my meal is done heating up. Right at the moment where I will try to take a bite, something complicated will happen. Tonight, it's a reservation for two rooms. They are not the number of people they indicated. They want to split the reservation to make two separate reservations. They don't know their plate number. They are confused by the registration card. Whole ordeal takes at least 10 minutes.

-There is another rule stating that I can't leave when it's the end of my shift. At 10:59, one minute before the end of the shift, one of the last check-ins will pop up, not ready, will never have their wallet with them, won't have the credit card ... Then, they will leave a review: "the FDA didn't smile". I just wanted to go home!!

It's like having tvtime back, same interface, even the comments are back. I missed it a lot. Looks great, feels great, no clutter, straight to the tracking, like it used to be

But now, how can we be sure this will be sustainable in the future?

And that it won't shut down?

Can the servers accomodate a large user base?

Can they sustain mass API calls to tmdb and tvdb?

These are two things that guests told me in the past days. Every year, at the end of July/beginning of August, I get yelled at, for reasons as diverse as "The hallways are too hot" or "There is drugs in the drawers" (it was dust) or "I don't like that brand of smoke detector. If we die in a fire tonight, it will be your fault". These past days definitely followed the trends of the previous summers.

First case, the guest called during the morning while one of our students employees was on shift. He inquired about cancelling his reservation which was starting the next day. The employee told him he would be fully charged as he was outside the cancellation window. He started yelling after her, she hung up and tried to charge the card on file. The transaction declined, so she moved the reservation in the PMS to the meeting room.

In our PMS, there is one slot for every room, but also a slot for the meeting room, which is also available to rent. We will often move reservations there when we when to make a room available without cancelling the reservation, like for a third party reservation, if we know the guest isn't coming, the system won't let us cancel it but we can at least free the room in the system so other guests can book it.

When I arrived for my shift, the student coworker didn't tell me about this. I just noticed afterwards there was this reservation in the meeting room, that the transaction had declined and that we were sold-out for the next day.

I believed my coworker wanted to cancel it (it was a direct booking) but maybe wasn't sure how to, so she just put it in the meeting room. So, I proceed with the full cancellation, which sends an email to the guest.

A few minutes later, the phone rings: "YOU CANCELLED MY VACATION!!!????"

-Your credit card declined. A valid credit card is necessary to guarantee the reservations.

-YOU (names our nationality) ARE THE SCUM OF THE EARTH! he roars.

With this slur, I instantly hung up. I'm not sure why he wanted to spend his vacation here, if we are the scum of the Earth.

The next day, the student employee explained to me what happened, I told her she just have directly cancelled the reservation instead of putting it in the meeting room.

So, if I summarize, he wanted at first to spend his vacation in place inhabited by the scum of the earth, then he wanted to cancel and he got angry when his wish was granted. Alright.

As for our second case, I know people here don't like when we name the culture or country of origin of the guests. In some cases, it may be relevant. On a regular basis (not always), we have issues with people from this culture. I believe it may be because it's a culture where there was (is?) historically a strong hierarchy between different categories of people, and wealthy immigrants from that culture may believe (not always) that they are superior to service workers like us.

They booked through the worst third party of the two big popular third parties and they reserved a standard room with two beds for two adults. When they arrived, they had three children on top of the two adults and they claimed they booked a suite for five people for the price of a standard room for two adults.

I charged them for the three extra guests, about which they vigorously protested. They protested about not having a suite, I printed them their confirmation with the description of the room they booked. I explained to them we were sold-out and that, anyways, our suites were more expensive than that. They protested that they didn't get what they booked. I told them that we were providing them exactly what they booked, but that they were the ones who didn't respect the terms of the reservation by bringing unannounced guests. They asked to cancel. I told them we can't cancel third party reservations. That's when the man started yelling at me.

He was out of luck. This isn't a corporate-run place and the staff doesn't behave like carpets on which you can rub your feet on. We will all vigorously energy-match and stand up for ourselves. Somewhere else, he could have been coddled with something along the lines of: "I'm so sorry you feel this may, there was maybe a bug with the third party website, this must be such an unpleasant surprise for you, may I offer you some vouchers for free snacks and drinks."

Here, yelling after me rather brings me standing up from my chair and a very strong: "NO! YOU DO NOT TALK TO ME LIKE THIS! I will not accept to be treated this way!"

The wife told him to stop yelling and starting telling how I should at least provide them with a free cot (we charge for that too), how our service is so awful, how she will bombard us with bad reviews if we don't accommodate them and that they will never come back.

To which I said: "Yes, please, do not come back!"

This triggered the man once again, that's when he yelled at me to "SHUT THE F**** OFF. YOU TELL US NOT TO COME BACK? NO NO NO!"

I repeated once again that I will not accept to be treated this way and that they were very close to being evicted with no refund. It would have been a bummer for them, everything in a radius of 100 km was sold-out.

They went to the room, I never saw them of the rest of my shift. They did send messages through the third party about how terrible their experience was.

Another satisfied guest. Oh well.

Bonjour, je cherche des suggestions de listes de lecture Spotify mais qui n'ont pas été créées par Spotify.

Jusqu'à maintenant, dans ce que j'aime, j'ai trouvé:

-On écoutait MusiquePlus

-Les années MusiquePlus

-Québec nostalgie master playlist

-Rock Détente - les grands slows

-Cité Rock Détente compilation ultime

-Crier dans sa voiture

-Palmarès des chansons no 1 au Québec

-Feeling emo par Québec nostalgie

-Spotify top 500 most streamed songs of all time

Avez-vous d'autres suggestions de listes de lecture bien faites, bilingues de préférence, musique pop actuelle et passée/québécois/artistes de France/souvenirs alternatifs?

There is a big family attraction in this part of the country. A lot of our guests in the summer come for this attraction and we have packages which includes hotel+attraction tickets.

This family of four booked such a package in one of our King+futon+Jacuzzi rooms.

Shortly after checking-in, they come to the desk stating that there aren't enough beds in the rooms for everyone. Unfortunately, we don't have any double queen rooms left, so I can't switch them. I inform them that there is a fee if they want to rent a cot. They state once again that this room, with the Jacuzzi bath, is for romantic couples than for families.

Why didn't they book a room which suited there needs better? A deep philosophical questions to which I have no answer. Maybe there was no regular rooms left when they booked. Yet, the description of the room was there. King bed+futon. The pictures were there. The description of the room doesn't magically change because they are a family.

They are unhappy that the only solution is to provide a cot for a fee. They state there isn't enough space in the room for the cot with the Jacuzzi bath which takes a lot of space. I have no other option to offer them, so the cot with a fee it is.

Some families of five book that same room. It is in fact quite spacious. They will indeed add a cot to their reservation when booking or they will bring inflatable mattresses. They plan ahead and understand that the description of the room is a fixed one.

Twenty minutes later, they come back. What they will announce me is something that has never happened in my three years here. Or, well, in more than 15 years in this industry. Yes, as disgruntled as I am, guests still find a way to surprise me and bring new situations to me.

They lost their tickets. Well, in fact, it's one ticket, one family pass for two days. It's worth more than $250. They ask if they can get a new one.

Those tickets, they are tickets for the hotels of the area sold in bulk at the beginning of the summer. We pay for every one of these tickets in advance. If, at the end of the summer, there are tickets left, we send them back for a credit for the next season. But we do have to send the tickets back. If we just give them another ticket, we just lost more than 250$.

So, the answer is no.

They are stunned. "We bought a package we you. Our confirmation email says that we have an entry for this attraction. You only gave us a piece of paper. We lost it. We want to go to the attraction now. What will you do to make this right?"

I am also stunned. At loss for words.

I go get my boss. "They lost the ticket". Boss is also stunned.

There is a big moment of hesitation. Boss goes to see the guests. "You have to find the ticket back"

"We can't. We searched everywhere. Our confirmation email says that we have this attraction included with our stay. We want to go to the attraction now. How do we do that?"

"You want to go now?" boss inquires. "But it closes it one hour. You are going to waste one day of your two day pass."

They are furious. "Well, we wasted so much time with the bedding situation. There were not enough beds for us in the room! And now we have a cot that takes up all that space, it's a mess in there, so of course, we lost the ticket! It's only one little small piece of paper and you just give us that? We need a digital version of it! Your ways are so archaic!"

The attraction does not do digital versions for the hotel tickets.

Boss is still stunned and unsure what to do. I don't believe the boss has seen such a situation of the 15 years of owning this hotel.

"We can try to contact the sales director of the attraction with who we deal and see what they suggest."

Boss tries to call, voicemail. An email was sent. I explain to the guests that we have to wait for a reply.

They go out for dinner. When they come back, they stop once again at the desk.

"So, what do we do now?"

"Well, we haven't got a reply from the attraction, so it will have to wait until tomorrow. We have the last digits of the ticket, so maybe with that, they can cancel the ticket, credit us and we can give you a new one. Or, if they can track the whole number, you may be able to go to customer service there and get a ticket issued, we don't know yet, we have to wait for their reply, but now they are closed, so it will have to wait until tomorrow."

This triggered the full karening mode.

"NO I DON'T CARE WHAT THEY SAY! I DID BUSINESS WITH YOU! YOU HAVE TO PROVIDE ME A WAY TO GO THERE TOMORROW MORNING! IT SAYS SO IN MY CONFIRMATION EMAIL!"

"Well, on our side, our responsibility is to provide you with a ticket, which is what we did..."

"YOU FIND A WAY! YOU THINK OUTSIDE THE BOX! OUR CONFIRMATION EMAIL SAYS YOU HAVE TO PROVIDE A WAY FOR US TO ENTER!"

"Well, we can't force the attraction to let you enter. We have to wait on their reply."

"I DON'T CARE! I DON'T CARE WHAT THEIR POLICY IS OR WHATEVER! I DID BUSINESS WITH YOU NOT WITH THEM! YOU FIND A WAY TO GET US IN THERE TOMORROW! YOU JUST FIGURE IT OUT"

"Well, like I said, we can't force them or tell them to act in some way or the other. Also, if you lost your ticket in the hallway, and someone uses it at the first time tomorrow morning, I'm not sure what us or the attraction can do."

"OH IT'S SUCH A TERRIBLE CUSTOMER SERVICE! I'M SO DISAPPOINTED! IT'S ALL A SERIES OF DISAPPOINTMENTS! FIRST YOU PUT US IN THE ROMANTIC COUPLE ROOM INSTEAD OF A FAMILY ROOM AND THERE ARE NOT ENOUGH BEDS AND WE HAVE TO PAY FOR A COT AND NOW YOU WON'T PROVIDE US FOR A WAY TO GET TO THE ATTRACTION WE PAID FOR! YOU JUST GAVE US A $250 LITTLE PIECE OF PAPER AND THAT'S IT, IF WE LOSE IT, YOU OFFER US NO OTHER OPTIONS"

"We gave you the room that you booked and we provided you with your ticket which allow you to enter the attraction. There is nothing more we can do tonight. We have to wait for the attraction to come back to us tomorrow morning."

The karening continued for a while about how terrible the customer service was and how we don't think out of the box and why don't we simply give them another ticket and figure it all out later and how we will get a bad review.

I simply replied over and over again: "There is nothing more I can do tonight" until they went away.

This is the first day of a big vacation period in this part of the country.

A lot of people had their last day of work yesterday. We are sold-out, but sold-out during the vacations is always more busy than sold-out on another day. We were sold-out Tuesday and Wednesday, and yet, it was very quiet.

But this exact period of the year, summer after summer, is always very draining.

My body is also trying to tell me something. Two years ago, at this period, I had to miss work because I stubbed my right big toe and was unable to drive to work. Then, I caught Covid and missed more work. And I had a colonoscopy. It was really a terrific summer. Last year, I stubbed once again my right big toe. Right at this period of the year. And, I just can't believe it. Yesterday evening, I stubbed my left little toe. I yelled in pain and despair: "Nooooooo noooooooooooooo not again nooooooooooo". From now on, I will be wearing slippers all the time at home, I'm not walking barefoot ever again.

So, my left foot hurts. I'm in a bad mood.

Right when I start my shift, there is a giant orang-outan in front of me. He is with two other families, they requested rooms side by side, and unfortunately, we are running late, their rooms are not ready. I can't switch them with rooms that are ready because they want the rooms side by side. I make them sit in the lobby, but after 15 minutes, he comes roaring at me: "The last time this happened in another hotel I got a BIG discount." I text my boss, who says: "we will be done in 10 minutes, we are not late by much, we will offer a discount for next stay but not this one".

I don't know if this was the ideal reaction, but it's not my property.

He is not happy. Grab the keys, goes to the room, comes back, says there is blood on the sheets, that this is a dealbreaker for him, we really need to give him a big fat discount. My boss goes with him, changes the sheets. The boss showed me a picture of the very bright red dots on the sheets. Usually, if the sheets are stained, it will be pale brown. Boss believes he took a red pen and marked the sheets with it.

There has been a complaint because the jaccuzzi in the room wasn't big enough. Guests reluctant to show their credit card. A guest who says me with my dinner in front of me, and yet, decides to argue with every step of the check-in: "Why do you need my licence plate?" "To identify the cars parked here" "Why do you need to identify the cars?" "Why do you need to see my credit card? I put it online?" *sighs*

Then, about the title of the post itself.

I get a complaint that kids are running wild in the pool, jumping in the spa, dive bombing, splashing everyone, etc. The guest is worried for their safety and is leaving the pool because it's just too unpleasant.

I get in the pool area. It's jam packed.

I say: "I will do a reminder of the rules. The pool is not very deep, we cannot dive or jump and the spa is for relaxation, we cannot jump in it"

A man comes towards me and tells me: "Thank you, my son needed a firm tone of authority, he is not listening to me"

Sorry whaaaaaat? Why do I have to be the one disciplining your son?

But right after, the young teenage boy (12-13 yo) dive bombs in the pool right in front of me.

-OUT OUT OUT!!! Now, you must leave.

The boy gets out of the pool, shocked, turns towards his father and makes a face to demonstrate how crazy he thinks I am. The dad says: "it's like that"

And he starts crying. It does not reach my heart of stone. Out they went, while all the other families were looking at them, while the dad whispered "sorry".

Do I feel bad? No. Do I feel annoyed? Very.

In this 3 star independent properties, we don't preauthorize credit cards in advance. I believe it's a terrible mistake to not do so, but hey, I'm not the owner.

But it would save us, the employees, from a lot of hassle, and keep some less good guests far away.

If we are sold out or close to being sold out, we will manually take payments around 6 pm. If the card declines, we try to call you, then BYYYEEEEE we try to resell the room. If the guest shows up before we resell, he is in luck, but there has been drama in the past. After so many years, my empathy tank is unfortunately running on low for people who try to trick us or who just don't plan their life. I could have done without the drama, though, and preauthorizations would have helped avoid that.

So, tonight, we were surprisingly not sold out.

This mom of three shows up at 10:55. My shift ends at 11...

Her card declines. She tries another one. It declines too. She tries to call her bank to get a limit increase. Of course, the bank is closed...

-Can I pay tomorrow?

I make the most unimpressed face possible.

-No. (Ice cold)

-I have never seen that, I have travelled in a lot of hotels and you always pay when you leave!

Raised eyebrow

She continues you: -Well, I tried everything I could, I would like to help YOU but I just drove seven hours and my kids are tired, so I would like to go to my room now.

Silence

In my mind, I tell myself that if she decided to hit the road for seven hours without being sure she could pay for her hotel, it's not me she needs to help, it's herself. I do feel sorry for the kids who are in this situation, but we are not a charity shelter.

I look sadly at the PC clock. It's close to 11:10 now. Night shift has arrived a while ago, but has started doing the night cleanup.

She fumbles in her banking app, says she was able to get a temporary daily increase, and now, the payment went through.

She get her key cards, and I was able to go home.

I will be dreaming tonight about pre-authorizations. If the day comes where we implement this, it will be a blessed day.

J'ai grandi dans les années 1990 dans une coquette maison unifamiliale d'une banlieue de Montréal.

J'ai quitté au tournant du millénaire pour poursuivre ma vie de jeune adulte alors que mes parents vivaient un divorce acrimonieux et ont vendu la maison.

J'ai souvent voulu aller sonner là et demander si je pouvais visiter et me replonger dans mes souvenirs d'enfance, mais j'ai toujours été trop gêné pour le faire, ayant peur de passer pour un arnaqueur ou un bizarre.

Est-ce que certains d'entre vous ici ont déjà fait ça? Comment avez vous été reçus?

As a recap: Canadian, 150 lbs, scoliosis, herniated disc, important lordosis. I sleep on the side and the back.

Tried:

-Zinus all foam: too firm

-Wayfair plush: too soft

-Zinus hybrid medium-firm: it's a brick

-Tuft & needle original: too firm

-Kingsdown plush hybrid: too rigid, intense pain the whole length of the body waking me up after only two hours when sleeping on the side, sleeping on the back is as terrible

-Silk & Snow hybrid medium firm: it's a brick

-Casper Snow: feels good when laying down, then, during the night, I sink and sink and sink deeper and deeper and deeper, wake up with back pain lasting several hours.

Adding various toppers never worked.

What works for me:

-old innerpsring mattresses on old spring boards in Airbnbs

-Hotels in Europe

-A children mattress from a French brand called Bultex on which I have slept for one week at a friend's place in France

-Very simple mattress 5 in mattress made of yellow foam in a cabin at a camping.

I don't have a big income, budget is limited.

What I have tried since my last post:

-Returned to the store where I bought the Casper three times, spent several hours in total there. The only mattress in there which felt comfortable was a Hush one, but it was way too expensive for me, and it was a big gamble, because they only accept one exchange, it's a final sale after that.

-there's a bot from Good Morning beds who adds what seems like AI-produced replies on every post here, so I sent them an email asking which model from their different brands would best suit me. Nobody ever replied.

-I've read comments of people suggesting expensive brands or brands only sold in the USA. I'm not in the USA. I'm kinda tired of the mattress in a box business, it's such a hassle, open the thing, wait for it to inflate, lay down on it 15 seconds to realize it's a piece of brick, move mattresses all alone around my apartment, initiate my return having the thing take up place for two to three weeks, start over again. Yeah yeah there's a break-in period, yadi yada. I'm too light weight, I never break them in. What they feel like initially is how they will feel like years after for me. Learned that the HARD way, no pun intended.

-changing my metal frame bed for wooden slats. No major change.

-going to a local mattress firm which accepted returns with no exchanges. They either had cheap foam mattresses with a similar feel to Tuft & Needle, Silk & Snow, Zinus, Bloom, Endy... It's all the same feel, feels like a brick to me. Or they had very expensive latex mattresses which seemed good, but way way way out of my budget

-looked online at different retailers in my area. They all only do exchanges, no returns. I just lost 300$ with my Casper Snow which locked me in at the place where I bought it. I exchanged it for the cheapest twin mattress they had to get the most of my money back, but I don't wan't to be trapped again with a store.

-Looked at Costco. Tried to create an account. Unable to log in after that, whatever the device. Having to play IT tech just to log in to a website is a major red flag for me. The prices are not very good either, it's all quite expensive. Having to pay for a membership for a mattress I maybe won't keep is also a red flag.

I am thinking about adjustable bed frames but wondering which mattress would then be suitable. But again, I sleep well on very simple mattresses without needing an adjustable bed frame.

I'm tired. It's several years of not sleeping well, except for some vacation trips here and there. There are mattresses on which I sleep well. I know that from my trips. How do I get one?

Est-ce que le grand terrain vacant du parc Marie-Victorin est toujours un bon endroit sur la rive sud pour regarder les feux, ou bien ils ont débuté les travaux pour le nouveau développement qu'ils veulent faire?

I am trying to migrate my data from Tvtime. I miss the minimalist and super efficient interface of tvtime.

I entered manually all the titles in the import section.

Some titles were mismatches. How do I just remove them?

The different possible status are very confusing. If I'm currently watching a show, do I have to also put it in the watchlist? If not, why does it allow a show to be at the same time in currently watching and in watchlist?

In continue watching, I'm also seeing tons of series that are already watched, I can't seem to find how to make them go away. The season is marked as watched but yet, the individual episodes don't seem to be marked as such.

If I mark a whole series as watched, will the new episodes appear in continue watching?

For upcoming series, if I want it to appear in new releases or continue watching when the first episode comes out, does the status need to be currently watching or watchlist?

I am in deep deep grief.

I opened my TvTime app and there was a popup announcing it would shut down on July 15.

I have been using this app for years. It was very exhaustive, including for Quebecois tv shows, and the comments section was so lively.

This app has been a major part of my daily life since close to 10 years.

Update Trakt has been the first app to properly work bug free after trying all the others repeatedly, it took one minute to import my data from TvTime. Everything seems to be working properly. Hope to find the TVTime family there in the comments section!

Last summer, the air conditioning was broken the whole summer.

I was planning to go this week, but we're going to have hot weather in Montreal.

Anyone aware of this issue has been fixed or not?

Je suis dans l'hôtellerie depuis une quinzaine d'années, j'ai fait plusieurs établissements. La période des vacances estivales vient de débuter, pour nous, c'est notre gros rush. J'ai donné une liste assez exhaustive de trucs et conseils l'an passé, mais je me suis fait dire que c'était trop long. Donc, je vous donne ceux de base, puis AMA, posez-moi vos questions, sauf ma région...

Les problématiques régulières qu'on rencontre à mon lieu de travail:

-Clients non-préparés pour leur check-in. La norme, c'est que ça prend devant nous la personne dont on a le nom sur la réservation, pièce d'identité, carte de crédit physique (tous les noms doivent correspondre), infos complètes des véhicules stationnés (marque, modèle, couleur, plaque). Ça peut être différent à certains endroits, mais c'est la norme de l'industrie.

-Clients qui ont des cartes Débit Visa et qui disent que c'est une carte de crédit. C'est une carte de débit, même si c'est écrit Visa dessus, ce n'est pas une carte de crédit. Pour certains hôtels avec des systèmes de paiement en ligne, ça peut passer, mais attendez-vous à ce qu'on vous demande un dépôt supplémentaire ou même à être refusés si vous vous présentez la nuit. C'est ben plate, mais on a des problèmes avec genre les 2/3 des gens avec ces cartes-là.

-Les clients qui n'ont pas bien lu les politiques d'annulation.

-Les clients qui n'ont pas indiqué le bon nombre de personnes dans leur réservation. Dans certains hôtels, si vous êtes plus que 2, ça peut changer le prix.

-Les clients qui réservent via Booking/Expedia puis qui veulent faire des modifications à leur réservation. Vous devez repasser par la plate-forme que vous utilisée, nous, on ne peut pas modifier ces réservations-là. Ouin, ça se peut que vous tombiez sur un agent au téléphone à dix fuseaux-horaires d'ici avec un accent incompréhensible. NE RÉSERVEZ PAS VIA RESERVATIONDESK point COM, C'EST UN SCAM!!!!

-Les attentes irréalistes selon la catégorie/type d'hôtel choisi et sa taille.

-Je ne vous suggère pas de prendre la route sans réservation faite à l'avance. À tous les soirs, l'été, on a des familles fatiguées qui se présentent et qui cherchent désespérémment une chambre. Si vous décidez de partir sur un nowhere, c'est possible que vous allez devoir aussi dormir sur un nowhere.

Sinon, posez-moi vos questions.

I brushed this topic during one of my previous tales in the past week, but since it just happened once again to me, I believe it deserves a full tale.

This is not a tale about a single event or a single person. It's a tale about several events, events which seem to happen every weekend, following the same scenario, and always involving a man aged between roughly 35 to 55 yo.

My hypothesis about why it keeps happening is that there may be a large chunk of men in that age group who have ADHD, or the attention span of a goldfish. No disrespect to people with ADHD. With some efforts, once you are an adult and know how to manage your condition, I know it is possible to extend that attention span so that it can extend further than the attention span of a goldfish, even with ADHD.

These men, from this age group, don't seem to have been able to properly manage their condition. And the prevalence of ADHD in that age group seems very high, more than for other generations. I am myself a man from that age group. Maybe it's because we have been one of the first generations to grow up with video games. Or we are one of the first generations who have been considered as spoiled. Or the first instant messaging software (ICQ, MSN, mIRC) have affected our brains, I'm unsure.

The scenario goes like this.

Man and wife enter the hotel. Wife steps up the desk while the man goes wandering around.

-Woman: I have a reservation for Matthew White.

-Me: Very well. You can fill in here on the registration the card the make, model, color, plate and Mr White will have to sign.

-Woman: Mattthhhhheeeeeeeeew which car are we driving?

-Man (from the other side of the lobby): black Ram pick-up (still in the Tonka phase from when he was 5 yo, I guess).

-Woman: Matthheeeew come here, I need the plate number.

Matthew comes slowly

-Man: Huh, what, what for? I dunno

He walks away

-Woman: Matthew, come back, I need the plate number.

-Man: oh

*starts shuffling in his wallet. Sees a butterfly far away. Goes away again to the other end of the lobby*

-Woman: Matthew! The plate!

*Matthew finally goes outside to get the plate number. Comes back, gives the plate number to the wife. Notices the BBQ in our garden area. Goes away to go look at the BBQ*

-Me: So, we will need the signature of Mr. White

-Woman: Matthhhhhheeeeeew come back here, I need your signature

-Man: Huh? What for?

He comes back slowly, looking all around, comes sign, maybe in the middle of the registration card, not even beside the word "Signature". He now notices the tables through the windows overlooking the garden, he probably thinks about the beer he is going to open soon there and goes away to look through the windows.

-Me: so, now, I will need the Visa credit card used for the reservation.

-Woman: oh, that's my husbands'. Matthhhheeeeeew come back here you are completely useless. I need your credit card!

Matthew comes back slowly.

-Man: huh? What for? Isn't it already paid?

He gives the credit card to the wife. He sees another Ram pick-up passing in the street or a motorbike. His attention is diverted once again and he goes to look at it.

-Me: So you will have to insert the card.

-Woman: Oh no not the PIN. Matthhheeeeeew what's the PIN?

-Man: 2-5

-Woman: No! Don't say it out loud, come here do your PIN.

Matthew comes to do his PIN and wanders off again as he just noticed the pool, while I explain to the woman the breakfast hours, where is the pool, where is the room, and I can finally, with a sigh of relief, conclude the check-in. Matthew will come back later to ask where the entrance to the pool is and what are the hours, but he will not retain the information anyways. Maybe Jennifer should keep Matthew on a leash. Or if Matthew really wants Jennifer to handle absolutely everything while he can go play, then he should ask her to reserve under her name and use her credit card.