Chapter 29: Equipment
Wear high-end, durable, and extremely comfortable shoes. I prefer running shoes. And the nice thing about today’s fashion is that men wearing suits with running shoes is normal, so if you’re a supervisor in a suit, this is still the best option. If your company mandates any other color than black, try everything you can to convince them to go black, because anything near a white shoe is going to get megascuffed in just a matter of days.
Wear two carabiners on your belt. Do not utilize stretch devices that are meant for you to zip keys forward and backward on a string. These are shit.
A pen. You need to have a pen at all times. I like to place mine behind my left ear, though I’m also often lipping it like a cigarette when I’m not thinking. Putting a pen in any pocket is ill-advised, as it’s likely to explode. Do not use a “nice” pen. The probability of losing it is high. In fact you should have two or three backups per day.
Keep daily tickets in one pocket, overnight tickets in another. Because digital tips are becoming very common, I now recommend you keep your phone handy. Dangerous advice to those of you who can’t stay away from that constant vibrator, or the doom scroll. In another pocket you need money. So long as you trust the security of it in your pocket, keep your wallet. You should be able to break a hundred dollar bill into smaller bills. I’ve had some shifts where I had to break several hundred dollar bills for a tip. Honestly, if you were really playing things carefully, you’d keep between three and six hundred dollars cash with you in 20’s, 5’s, and a small amount of 1’s.
Sunscreen, if you need it. Also cheap sunglasses, of neutral style. One location I worked at, which stared into every sunset, declared that sunglasses were not allowed. Fortunately, one of the valets struck a skateboarder as he was pulling out of the driveway and claimed he couldn’t see him because of the glare, and thus management relented. (The skateboarder was fine, though he picked up his board and smashed into the hood of the car, causing significant damage).
Your underwear must be on the athletic side, or else just overly comfortable and not prone to bunching. I am baffled as to why boxer briefs are the dominant form in men’s underwear these days. They are constrictive, hot, and seek the anus frequently when running. Their popularity must be a compromise between homophobia and desperate male sexuality.
I have tried everything when it comes to undergarments. Briefs, boxers, hybrids, panties, jock straps. I have an affinity for man thongs, even g-strings, as well very soft boy-short panties, but the social fear of one peeking out on my waistline and being perceived as a creep keeps me from wearing them most days. But a good thong is perfect for work. Snug, not entirely boner prohibitive, cool and sleek. In general, with myriad social and practical considerations, I recommend a soft brief—satin with a good waistband, something essentially granny panty for men. The mistake underwear producers make with men is the mistake that slights our whole gender from time to time. They figure men are hard creatures, and women are soft. So we get hard products and they get soft. But my balls do not want a hard product, my pecker neither. Find me a man who asks for teeth on his loins. Who is that man? Nibble me, at most. Have mercy.
On the question of whether or not your employer should be paying for any of the above equipment you need, the answer is undoubtedly yes they should. However, none of what I described is grossly expensive, except for the shoes. I have to capitulate in suggesting that you suck it up and spend two or three days wages on the shoes. Declare it as a work expense on your taxes, if you’re so inclined. There will also be the question of a jacket, when cold weather comes. Some valet companies liberally provide winter clothes. Some don’t. Some idiotically provide flimsy windbreakers that swish every time you move and provide zero warmth. The jacket stand-off with your bosses can get to the heart of your work relationship very fast, for when cold months come, and your management witnesses employees struggling to stay warm, or complains about your personal warm attire, it really puts them in the Scrooge. Some managers will go full blown Ebenezer. And it’s impossible not to consider their motivation: ordering jackets for the whole team is a few hundred dollars out of the expense account, and almost always part of the bosses’ year end bonus is related to this spending. It’s a perfect storm. A wise manager orders jackets ahead of time, during the warm months. The foolish manager has forgot to consider his employees in the cold months, and scrolls through spreadsheets from his office, pretending it’s not that bad, counting his bonus ahead of time, and reasoning he’ll order the jackets in January once he’s got it.
Keep in mind that a large percentage of the shitty things your boss does is related to his bonuses.1
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General bonus criteria for account managers are:
- Keeping claims below a certain threshold, either in dollars or number of claims filed or both.
- Keeping labor down (not figuratively, literally keeping money expended on labor below a certain number).
- Keeping expenses as mentioned below a certain dollar amount.
- Then there are a cadre of ridiculous, basically dog-and-pony standards to keep— things like having a high percentage of employee timesheets approved, or a low number of payroll corrections, a certain number of “name mentions” in guest surveys, a high score for year end “shop” evaluations wherein a fake customer comes each month and assesses the valets anonymously.
- Outstanding revenue collected, i.e. high sales for the year.
Chapter 30: Good Things Happening to Bad People
I was unusually late for a day shift, probably by over an hour, and when I got to work, the catastrophe had happened just minutes before I arrived. One of our staff members who had a record of driving a bit recklessly already had scratched all the side panels of an Audi across pillar in the garage. Inspecting the damage, evidently he had done so at a significant speed as well. To make matters worse, there was a small inverted proboscis like pipe fixture at the base of the pillar, now blown clean off, and the hotel had to turn off some portion of their water line to get it to stop explosively draining.
The guilty valet didn’t waste any time confessing, naturally, and I found it strangely appropriate the way he described the accident, how he tried to whip the car between two pillars (and failed), and his firm declaration that he would not be working the rest of the day. And so he left quickly. This is one of the worst amounts of damage I’ve ever seen done to a valet car, and combined with the damage to the hotel pipe, the whole thing eventually got tabulated to be around nine thousand dollars.
I had been working as the claim supervisor for over a year at that point—which didn’t mean that I processed the claim myself—no, no, there’s a whole department for that for each valet company, usually in faraway places. But it meant that when these things happened I would do the interpersonal bit of taking the damaged owner through his or her paperwork, and explaining the necessaries. It was difficult preparing for the conversation with this Audi owner, however, because the damage, way more than usual, hardly seemed like an honest mistake. The valet who was operating the car pulled a maneuver that no valet should ever be making.
My boss was in a very hot spot over this incident, and I knew it right away. For one thing, the dollar figure was going to put our whole operation in the red for several months, if not longer. Still worse, the valet who had committed this error was someone he hired as a kind of favor, and he worked only two or three days out of the whole month: always big checkout days, a quick 200 dollars twice a month. Trust that this inspired no little grumbling from the rest of the staff. But now, with this new development, my boss would face his higher ups questioning why the guy would be on payroll at all.
So it didn’t anger me when, on the phone with my manager after the accident, he made a very unusual accusation about me: he said the accident was my fault. He reasoned that if I was on time to work, the accident wouldn’t have happened.
I wept. I went back down to the garage with the others and I said “open the door!” And other valets warned me there would be odor, for the burst pipe was a sewage pipe. And I cried out, giving thanks to God and saying “Audi, A6, come hither!” And that silver German work of engineering rolled forward, shimmering untouched body panels, wrapped in linen.
Well, that last part didn’t happen, but I was amazed by the conversation I had with the owner of the Audi. He was a middle aged man, all his hair intact but gray, definitely gray. He impressed me as the kind of guy women are talking about when they complain that men age well and women don’t. It made things easier, probably, that he was staying at the hotel on a business trip, less easy that the car was still his personal vehicle, but more easy that there was no family to console in the moment, no wife over his shoulder giving me the stink eye, no children asking brilliant questions like “why did they mess the car up!?”
We sat in the breakfast nook, a table I elected for its range beyond casual earshot, and I went over the usual paperwork with him. Signed my parts, and he signed his. I went outside my usual routine and confessed a bit of the gratuitous nature of the damage. His first response was to ask about the valet who was driving. He wanted to know if he was ok. I’m not perfect at reading people. Lord knows, I can be duped, and have many times in the past. Hell, probably more than I even know. But this man’s tone, and the way he asked his questions, lead me to believe right away he was being sincere. After all, we had no audience. Our conversation and this incident would be private—the only people who would ever hear about it were sitting at the table, plus whatever people we choose to tell, and the companies representing us, involved in rectifying the damage. So he was not trying to signal anybody what a good person he is. For that matter, I can’t recall anyone I’ve done this paperwork with asking very many questions at all. If they do ask a question, it’ll be “when am I going to hear from your claims department?” (7 business days). But here’s this man asking about the well-being of the person who damaged his property. No anger whatsoever.
Befuddled by this kindness, I started looking him up and down. What kind of shoes is he wearing? Does he have a watch? Any cologne? I had to try and figure out if he was rich. As well, I was tempted to lob a joke suggesting he might be religious, less for humor and more as an attempt to see if he’d respond by professing a faith. Politicians are doing these sorts of “jokes” all the time. They’re hideous, and I stopped myself before saying it. I did, however, remark to him that his behavior and kindness were unusual. Without drama, or any sort of fantastic life lesson to share, he just shrugged and said “oh, well, these things happen.” Is he depressed? I thought. Maybe he’s so damned depressed he doesn’t care about anything? But on the business of his vehicle, he did insist that we were going to fix the damage. What a funny response I had to that—I assured him we would fix it. Sitting across from me was a man who challenged the very low faith I had in humanity at the time, and I wanted badly to assure him, as if I could personally take care of the practical solution, “yes I’ll fix it.” But I had to be plural, I had to concede that I can’t fix it, I only play this part. We’ll fix it. I have to have faith the right thing will be done by other people. This is hard.
But, in a knockout blow to my pessimism, as we departed, the Audi man thanked me kindly for taking the time with him. He mentioned understanding that my task was an ugly one, and has its own difficulty.
Maybe he was a psychologist?
The following week, my boss was in shambles dealing with his higher ups, and stressed constantly about the situation. He feared he would be terminated or transferred over it. The valets on the ground loved to talk about the accident, and how insane the employee who they already disliked must’ve been driving, and they weren’t short about expressing smug contentment to have some of their morning shifts back (the offending valet was indeed fired swiftly). Surely, I mentioned the kindness of the owner to all of them, many, many times. Though it never stuck. You know when you tell a story and it lands on your audience like a bumblebee—they think, “that’s nice, but I don’t want it, get it off me.”
Chapter 31: Appropriate Use of Your Phone
In my book, I’ve shared a few photographs with you. Note that none of them are cars, despite my profession being an endless intake of cars. I say this because, it is inappropriate almost all of the time to take photographs of guest vehicles. I see my coworkers doing it often. Do not take photos inside of cars, do not take photos outside of cars, do not do it on the driveway, do not do it in the garage. You probably shouldn’t even venture the question to a guest if you may photograph their car.
I’ve stated that I’m not much of a “car guy,” and this is easy to recuse myself of because “car guys” are their own specific subculture in America. I do like nice things, however. And there are some vehicles I’ve been excited to see roll on the driveway. I once parked a Bugatti, and funny enough its distant cousin, a VW Thing is another notable car I was excited about. Simple pleasures, like Chevy HHR’s and PT Cruisers excite me, as well certain manual transmission jobs—there’s a regular at my current hotel who drives a Rabbit I like very much. My enjoyment of parking these vehicles starts and stops with the ignition, however. I would never photograph and share their presence with social media feeds or texts to gearheads. You shouldn’t either. The valet’s existence in this world at all is a little precarious. One of the previous sites that I worked at converted their garage to self-park and laid off all valets, and frankly, I think it’s working out pretty well for them. Sure, it’s more of a motel now than a resort, but if that’s what they want, they got it.
You should never be on your phone on the driveway—just plain never, though it’s somewhat forgivable if you’re doing something like checking the schedule or contacting a worker who is on site or supposed to be there. Even those instances are better taken care of off the drive. I don’t know if I’m crazy, old, or both, but I feel like most people don’t understand how ugly it is to be looking at your phone. In any context. Doesn’t matter. If that screen is reflecting on your face, you look ugly. Even if you’re reading the contents of what’s on the screen out loud to me, my mind can’t separate the notion that you’re not paying attention to me, to us, to anybody—you’re in the matrix. I do not think that trying to “normalize” cell phone use in this manner is going to sway psychological reactions to it. Some people try to say it’s no different than reading a book or looking at a book…and I flatly disagree. Phones are wild, manic devices, an ocean full of sea monsters, known and unknown. Books are two dimensional, and their covers always give away their content. But where I agree with the comparison those people are making is in practical use. Most books are read in private, nowadays, and if they are read in a social setting, that person is probably alone in a coffee shop, or humming along on a train, rather than in a setting where their attention ought to be available elsewhere.
But people are pulling out their phones in settings you would never pull out a book and attempt to read a few pages. If I was in the middle of a rock concert, and the band was thrashing around stage and the crowd was going wild, I’d never in this moment pull out Great Expectations and hold it up in the air.
I have, however, read many books at work. I’ve worked at locations where I’m the only valet on duty, and the possibility that I’ll wait up to an hour before any business hits the driveway is very real. In this instance, I can forgive a phone or a book, though the latter is better in case you get caught with a bent neck by a customer or another employee.
Where I work now, high volume, it’s unimaginable to try and read a book on the driveway. I’d scarcely have time to read a short poem. Yet my coworkers are on their phones constantly. Don’t do it.
There are good uses for the device. Sometimes you should take photos of a car—that would be when a vehicle has bad and evident damage on it when it comes in. I also write down notes in my phone when I’m given a lot to do at once, things like:
Flowers go to rm 117
Removal rm 151
Stop by pool and give rm keys to Mr. Herbie Derby.
Occasionally someone will ask you for directions to someplace you’re unfamiliar with. It’s appropriate to use your phone to figure that out. And hopefully you make so much money in tips that it requires the calculator app to figure out how much is owed to you.
That’s about it though. For the most part, keep it in your pocket.1
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Note that some states have laws about employees being required to use their phones on the job. Like most things legal, it varies from place to place, but where I live, I’m owed a stipend— money every paycheck, due to the phone law. At present, my current company pretends that we are not owed this stipend— that our use of our phones is voluntary and not mandatory. This is crazy. They communicate exclusively on my phone, from relevant work info to distributing the schedule and more. Eventually, they will have to pay the stipend, or else a class action suit. It’s not really much money, about 2.50 a week, and I don’t feel inclined to make a stink about it. The spirit of the legislation, however, is admirable. It shouldn’t be expected for me to use my personal 1000 dollar device for free.