Back in my days of living in Telluride, Colorado, I worked at a private residence club. It functioned somewhat as a timeshare but provided hotel services. During ski season I wanted to work as a ski instructor just so that I could say that I lived at a ski area and worked as a ski instructor.
Well, the shift changes at the club were 7am, 3pm, and 11pm. Ski school ended after 3pm which meant that the only shift it did not conflict with was the 11pm to 7am graveyard shift. Telluride was a fairly new location for this club so at the time the graveyard shift was occupied by only a sole manager on duty - the night auditor. We did not institute an overnight bellman until later in the season after a few managerial overhauls worthy of a soap opera.
In order to fully staff the position of night auditor, the club needed a full-time 5-night person and a part-time 2-night person - 2 people total. It just so happened that one of our night auditors got fed up with management over some stupid technicality and just like that I got the part-time gig. I was still going to continue at the front desk or with transportation (as a bellman) during the other three days, all 3pm-11pm shifts. Since the full-time night auditor got to choose which 5 nights to work, I got the leftovers, which did not necessarily work around my 2-day ski school schedule. No problem. If the managers couldn't give me the ski school days off, they would just have me work as the night auditor either 8 hours after (double-back) or just before (double shift) ski school.
My work week was pretty unevenly distributed until I got my next big break which was still fairly early in the ski season. The full-time night auditor, a rather grumpy individual, quit because the club failed to meet this person's unreasonable demands. This, of course, made me the new full-timer which meant that I got to set my own schedule. The only condition was that it was strongly preferred that the full-timer be the one to have custody over the more difficult Friday, Saturday, and Sunday night overnights (spilling over into Saturday, Sunday and Monday mornings). A lot of daytime transactions occur during that part of the week so they wanted someone firmly in the loop to be processing them. Given that ski school was Tuesday-Wednesday, this was not a problem at all. I was basically choosing between working Monday night (creating a double shift and a 32-hour 'weekend') and working Wednesday night (creating a double-back and a 24-hour 'weekend') so I chose a Wednesday-Sunday work week.
It turned out to be a good thing that I did not have a permanent double shift on my work schedule. One of the front desk clerks seemed to call in sick fairly often, leaving me to staff the front desk until 11am when the mid-day swing shift person came in. That effectively took out a day of skiing for me - not good when my reason for living there was to ski. Sometimes this same person worked the evening shift before I got in but there were times that this person left 2 hours before the end of the shift but had someone else punch out his time card for him at 11pm. In both scenarios, he was "sick."
I was a bit cynical about this because we live and work about 2900 meters (9500 feet) above sea level. A lot of ski bums our age are known to drink a lot of alcohol but when someone new comes to Telluride, like at the beginning of ski season, they drink like they think they're still in the flatland. Drinking at high elevation messes you up real fast! Now try to imagine how this often plays out with these hard-partying newcomers. If years of multiple hangovers down in the flatland do not teach them a lesson, what makes you think a few rough nights up here will? Especially when it's still early in the season.
So at one point I wrote in our Front Desk Log Book, not mentioning any names, that people should punch out their own time cards. The next evening, after a confrontation where the aforementioned co-worker got on my case and I blew him off, I read what he wrote. His response made reference to me being a few minutes late (he always came 10 minutes early, except when he just didn't come in at all) and also said that sleeping at work is not appropriate. How did he know that I slept through portions of my shift? He used to work as a night auditor at a hotel just down the road. He was plenty familiar with the culture!
My response that night contrasted my being 8 minutes late with his forcing me to work 4 extra hours and I alluded to the possibility of me not showing up at all. But by the time I finished writing I was in a better mood. Crossing out items on the Log Book to as to make them unreadable would be tacky, as would using liquid paper or white-out. What could I do? Well, I added to my entry and made it look like I would possibly have to call in sick because "I've got the boogie fever." It's the best thing I could have done besides waiting until I was naturally in a better mood (typically later in the shift) before writing in the Log Book. In fact, that rule of thumb is true whether or not you are in direct conflict with someone - wait until you're well past the halfway mark of your graveyard shift.
This problem was easily remedied during the next 11pm shift change. My intent was to apologize specifically for my "boogie fever" Log Book entry because, as I thought about it through the course of the day, I wondered if the other guy would think I was mocking him. I was no longer feeling hostile toward him at this point so I actually felt kind of bad about it. Well, we made up and it was all good. As it turned out, I never again showed up late for my shift nor did I sleep during it. He never again forced me to work extra time in the morning nor did he duck out early in the evening. It was not an agreement we made, we just stopped doing these things on our own.
Later in the season, he came through in a big way - twice. The first time was in late March when my family decided to visit me. It was the first time in 11 months that I saw most of them and the first time in 15 months that I saw my brother. This co-worker agreed to change his schedule for that week so that I could have the week off. The second time was a Friday night in early April so that I could drive to Denver, 7 hours each way, to see a U2 concert. This is the most difficult position to fill at this club's location and it is thus very difficult even to find someone to cover just one night, let alone an entire week or more.
I simply could not thank him enough. I also felt a bit of regret over having complained about him making me work extra in the morning and leaving early in the evening. I began to realize that he probably really was sick and not just massively hung over. But what could I do? Apologize again after having already apologized? He did some HUGE favors for me late in the ski season, asking for nothing in return. I should have been more forgiving early on. I certainly would have been had I been able to see into the future. The rewards come in God's time, not in Man's time. For me it was a lesson learned.
Matthew 18: 21-35
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