11 August 2014

Happy Monday!

Laundry day was a success. I woke up at 7:00 to get my clothes in the washer before anyone else in the dorm started their own laundry ordeal. I poured in some of my Rite Aid brand detergent with "fresh scent." I was tired of using the dorm-supplied Aroma-Land brand detergent which is unscented. Re-read that sentence if you didn't catch the irony the first time.

While waiting for my laundry to finish I took a morning nap, ate breakfast, and read the book of Nehemiah from the Bible . I had read in 24/6 that Nehemiah was worth reading to understand how to work incredibly hard while also honoring the Sabbath or "stop day." He claimed that if you ever find an old Bible that belonged to a Plymouth Rock Pilgrim, the pages in Nehemiah would be heavily dog-eared.

The Jordan Pond House parking lot never ceases to amaze me. Instead of the busiest rush coming at 1:30 like it usually does, the flood gates opened at noon instead. Several times traffic backed all the way up to the main road, even though all the cars circling the lot were moving. It was an incredible mass of metal and rubber.

Around 12:30, at the absolute peak of business in the lot, I turned around to find 3 horses and riders come across the crosswalk. I walked toward the ladies and said, "Now, I don't know anything about horses, but..." I planned on continuing on by telling them that I'm almost positive that there is no place to hitch the horses to while the riders eat at the restaurant. Before I could explain that to them, however, the one with a riding helmet brimmed with what appeared to be a large sun hat asked me where they could ride. Then the second rider said, "I am Martha." I'm not lying here, it was Martha Stewart...in the parking lot...again. To her introduction I literally replied with a "hey" and a slight head nod. Because of how busy everything was around me and how absurd it was that I now had three horses in the middle of a backed-up parking lot, I gave the riders my park and carriage road maps, told them to go back to the carriage roads and take two rights, and sent them on their way. Ain't nobody got time to be starstruck in the parking lot.

Around 2:00 a law enforcement Park Ranger came up to me and asked, "Are you the parking attendant?" I replied honestly, "Well, I'm not sure if I'd call myself that today." She went on to tell me how they had received a report that the parking lot was "horrendous." She wanted to know if the caller had been referring to the south lot right by the restaurant or the north lot. I like to refer to that lot as No Man's Land since we don't have anyone attending to that lot. Keeping my honest streak going I admitted to her that at times the south lot had been exceptionally bad, but I guaranteed her that the north lot is consistently worse. She replied with a, "yep, that makes sense," and then something along the lines of "looks like you're doing the best you can over here." Thanks, Ranger!

I finally retreated after a full 3 hours of serving and protecting in the lot. I returned to the info booth to find Edie and Sarah keeping everything under control. While I was away, the wait time had crept up to 70 minutes for outside tables today. I think that is a record for the summer.

We kept the waitlist going until 5:41, another record for the summer. We also received so many phone reservation requests today that reservation seating for tomorrow is filled up until almost 5:00. We'll still have space for walk-in guests, but I'm willing to bet we'll break 90 minutes on the waitlist tomorrow at some point.

Being in the heart of the truly busy season is sort of a bummer. When I'm in the parking lot, my job is basically to tell folks that all the spots are full and their best bet is to circle the lots for an untold number of times until they see a spot turn over. Then, they have to be next in line in order to snag the spot. When I'm in the info booth, my job changes to answering the phone and telling people that have already had to wait in the phone line and listen to a pre-recorded message about Acadia that their preferred reservation time is unavailable. Their options are either to reserve a spot for a late, late, late lunch or to walk in and plan on waiting for an hour or so. Most people are very understanding and courtesy when I have to break news like this. After all, the news is simply a product of the popularity of the restaurant and not the way it is run. Most everyone realizes that. But I can tell under the facade of saving face that they are disappointed. I don't like to upset people. That makes me feel upset.

Sorry, the wi-fi signal is pretty weak still. So weak, in fact, that I cannot manage to get a picture of the day downloaded. One of these days I'll catch up on those, I promise.