Comment on Wilma's Aftermath
I was just reading Autumn's blog and she made mention about how people have come to expect more from the government etc. I commented on the blog, but I thought I would go ahead and post my response here as well.
I agree with Autumn about people's expectations after the storm. Its like people have come to expect handouts. It pisses me off. You have no idea how many employees from our hotel expected our hotel to give them a place to sleep and eat (not that we won't feed our help, but they used the excuse that they couldn't show up for their shift because of reason xyz, yet they made it to the hotel for the cafeteria hours, meanwhile me and a small handful of staff worked around the fricken clock keeping the restaurant running). A lot of these people looking for a place to stay did not have their homes destroyed, they just didn't want to be staying at home with the inconvenience of no power and/or water. I had a good-for-nothing bartender call me at 3am on Sunday night (just before the brunt of Wilma hit) after he had lost power asking for a room at our hotel. This dude won't come in and help me out if I'm short a bartender, but he wants me to authorize him and his wife to come and stay in one of our guestrooms (that rent for $319 a night - at the cheapest) FOR FREE? Give me a fucking break! I told him to go to a shelter. Some staff had the audacity to show up on the day after the storm with coolers and thought I would give away what little ice we had and food for them. They got angry with me when I denied them! Most of my staff are self-righteous, self-centered twenty somethings that won't lift a finger for you, EVEN WHEN YOU ARE PAYING THEM, and expect the world from you. I was ready to tell the whole lot of them to kiss my fat white ass.
As for the lack of preparedness for Wilma, I think a lot of people had become numb to these storms in South Florida. This was like our 5th or 6th storm of the season and the ones that we have gotten this season weren't too bad so people just stopped paying attention to it or just heard that it "might" be a Cat 1 when it hit and did not expect the winds that we got. When Katrina hit us, it was a Cat 1 and we lost a few trees and some people lost power. People are always losing power down here. Hell, I was one of those people who thought the storm was going to be no big deal. Luckily, Jon and I still had our supplies from the other storms and we both work for hotels where we had access to food and water while we were working (which was all of last week).
I agree with Autumn about people's expectations after the storm. Its like people have come to expect handouts. It pisses me off. You have no idea how many employees from our hotel expected our hotel to give them a place to sleep and eat (not that we won't feed our help, but they used the excuse that they couldn't show up for their shift because of reason xyz, yet they made it to the hotel for the cafeteria hours, meanwhile me and a small handful of staff worked around the fricken clock keeping the restaurant running). A lot of these people looking for a place to stay did not have their homes destroyed, they just didn't want to be staying at home with the inconvenience of no power and/or water. I had a good-for-nothing bartender call me at 3am on Sunday night (just before the brunt of Wilma hit) after he had lost power asking for a room at our hotel. This dude won't come in and help me out if I'm short a bartender, but he wants me to authorize him and his wife to come and stay in one of our guestrooms (that rent for $319 a night - at the cheapest) FOR FREE? Give me a fucking break! I told him to go to a shelter. Some staff had the audacity to show up on the day after the storm with coolers and thought I would give away what little ice we had and food for them. They got angry with me when I denied them! Most of my staff are self-righteous, self-centered twenty somethings that won't lift a finger for you, EVEN WHEN YOU ARE PAYING THEM, and expect the world from you. I was ready to tell the whole lot of them to kiss my fat white ass.
As for the lack of preparedness for Wilma, I think a lot of people had become numb to these storms in South Florida. This was like our 5th or 6th storm of the season and the ones that we have gotten this season weren't too bad so people just stopped paying attention to it or just heard that it "might" be a Cat 1 when it hit and did not expect the winds that we got. When Katrina hit us, it was a Cat 1 and we lost a few trees and some people lost power. People are always losing power down here. Hell, I was one of those people who thought the storm was going to be no big deal. Luckily, Jon and I still had our supplies from the other storms and we both work for hotels where we had access to food and water while we were working (which was all of last week).
posted by Kristen at 6:12 PM
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