No xxxHolic this week....

But. Before I present to you all what you've been waiting for, I'm going to regale you with a classic tale of 'The customer is still an ass.' Now, mind you, you can always skip this part and go straight to the goodies, but if you're up for a fine laugh at how idiotic people can be, please read on.

So it was one of those long days for me at work. It starts off relatively miserable (somehow I've managed to contract a nasty cough, thus making breathing and being in happy guest service mood a difficult chore), but it's fine. I can take it. Well, it's around 10:45pm when my phone operator (henceforth DTS) gets a call from a lady. Now my property is part of a big chain, so we use their rewards/points system. This lady is a platinum. Very important person. So, she gets this call. It seems that the woman had sent out her laundry for same day service with our laundry service. So it goes out at about 9am, gets back at about 5:30pm. It appears as if she's only received her undergarments back, and none of her outer clothing (including her jogging clothes and work clothes). So she's a little upset and confused as to why some, but not all. Well, my DTS then says that she'll have housekeeping check through our laundry to see if it was perhaps not delivered with the rest of it (it's happened before), and that she'll call her right back. Well, the search through laundry finds nothing. Bad news.

So DTS calls this lady back, it's now around 11, and lets her know that we've found nothing of her items. Now this lady is quite distressed and becoming angry. She wants to go exercise in our workout facility in the morning, but won't be able to if she doesn't have her clothes. Also, she does have work in the morning. Well, we're very sorry and apologize, we'll double check and get back to her. Well, she's going to take a shower and will call back. Who can she talk to. Oh. That would be me. The night manager. Yay... So now it's around 11:30 and she calls back, asking for me. Well, I let her know that again, we have not found anything, nor has any additional information become available. I apologized deeply and let her know that what kind of action we were going to take. But because it's something like the middle of the night, no one in any kind of laundry business is going to be on. And my housekeeper doesn't have the number to the laundry place anyway. The housekeeper who does have the number won't be in until 6:30am. Ooookay. Well, of course she's not happy at all with this kind of plan, because she wants her clothes now, damnit. So she berates my ear off for about five minutes about how terrible this situation is, she can't believe I let it happen, she doesn't think I'm actually trying to help her and am pawning off her problem onto the morning shift (total stab for me because I'm pretty much the only one who takes complete ownership of problems in this hotel), why isn't there anything else that we can do, and nothing but her clothes appearing out of thin air will make this situation right, she stays with our brands despite it being more expensive so that she can stay worry free and she can't believe I'm causing her all this stress. Et cetera.

So, when she's finished with me, I radio my overnight security and ask him to look in every nook and cranny of laundry and lost and found, just to cover all the bases. Again. Nothing. I hunt up her laundry ticket to ascertain that yes indeed, she did give to us all these items and put its copy with this lady's folio. Well, overnight, I leave her a message on her phone to call us when she wakes up and I will let her know what has been done. Well, she calls at about 5:45am, and I explain that I had security look everywhere, and thus the problem would now be with the laundry service, if they had or had not returned her items to us. But we can't contact them yet. Still. She's a little calmer after her sleep, but is still very upset with me always telling her that I can't fix her problem because no one is up at that hour of the day to do normal business just yet because of this, that, and the other thing, so she says that she's going to work out anyway, and what will I be doing in an hour? Well, by then, I tell her I should be gone, the morning manager will be replacing me at that time. While she is working out though, our housekeepers are coming in, and I'll be able to get better information from them. And not to insult you, ma'am, but are you absolutely certain the items aren't in any of your closets hanging up. No, not at all, I looked everywhere. Okay, fine.

The first housekeeper at 6 doesn't have either the keys for laundry or the number to the laundry place. No problem. The next housekeeper coming in will. 6:20 I give her a call, and she comes to talk to me about the problem. She's panicked since she took the laundry to start with and was totally afraid this was all going to be blamed on her. No, no worries. It's probably just with the laundry service. Okay, so assistant executive housekeeper is in today, maybe he can help. Except he doesn't feel like showing up on time. So now forty-five minutes after this lady has called me that morning, I'm still no closer to any new information on her clothes. So now I give up and hunt up the number to the laundry service myself. It's to a cell phone and the bloody thing is switched off. What the hell kind of business is this? So I'm a little peeved now. But no problems.

Now it's 7am. No word from anyone. Luckily my front desk people show up on time and I abandon them to go get things straightened out. I call the assistant executive housekeeper. Ah, great, he's acutally in now. So I get him to try the laundry place again. Meanwhile, I'm praying that my morning manager will show up soon so that I won't be the one, yet again, to tell this lady we have nothing for her yet. Thankfully, this happens and as soon as I'm done giving him the low down on the situation, she calls. And he gets to tell her we still have nothing.

I run away for the day, dreading how the entire situation is going to culminate, but trying not to be too concerned since I can't do anything anymore out of work. Well, the morning manager calls about two hours after I leave, and the first words out of his mouth are: They were in her closet the whole time.

You can't be serious. But oh yes, he was. He drags into the mix our GM, who tells him to go take a look through her room. Well, she's getting back into her old clothes from the shower, and he offers her breakfast, no, she'll just take it in the concierge lounge, that's fine. So he goes and looks through her closets. And sees a bag full of garments hanging up in her bedroom closet. He goes away, lets the GM know. He calls her back and asks if she's absolutely sure the items aren't in her closets anywhere, since he spoke with the housekeeper who placed the items in her room and she had been positive she had put them in the bedroom closet. Yes, yes, she's looked everywhere, they're nowhere. Okay, well, the GM and AM manager let her know they're coming up to her room to take a look-through with her. By the time they get up to the room, she meets them at the door and says she's so sorry, they were in her closet the whole time. And I want to beat myself over the head. The end.

So really the only thing I have to say about this week's chapter is that the printing quality of Shounen Mag is quite terrible. I really hate it when the printing quality goes down. Means the scans aren't as pretty and nice. But oh well. Splash page is Clone Syaoran. Then it seems as if we've come to the Final Battle in this world. And it's Sakura v. Eagle. And a one on one battle at that. Syaoran steps up to the plate, and I don't hate Sakura in this chapter because she gives him a smile and calls him by his name. So I'm okay with that. But then, who will Eagle's fighter be? Oh snap. It's Angelic Layer Hikaru.

I stuck with my own tried and true Sendspace, but for the other, I decided to try this Mediafire I've seen. So let me know if it works/doesn't work. I'll straighten it out. Enjoy! TRC ch. 144 and again.

And! I bought Beans Ace again. It seems as if it comes randomly to my bookstore, but I haven't checked the issue numbers since the last one I bought, so I could be wrong. But in any case, it came with a cute mini calendar. So I scanned pictures of the ones I knew: Code Geass, Shounen Onmyouji, and Saiunkoku Monogatari. Yay.