Friday, May 19, 2006

I quit.

Is it worse being broke or being dead?
by AC - permalink


So I'm probably going to quit my job next week. There's something about having a shotgun pushed into your face that makes you reevaluate whether it's worth $45 net a day to do... well, anything, if there's a chance of getting your brains fucking knocked out of your skull for four hundred bucks. I moved off the graveyard shift because our security was so bad, only to get a death threat in broad daylight. Time to move on? I'd say so.

I think this was the first time I'd ever had a gun pointed at my face, but it was amazing how quickly I reacted to it. It was an instantaneous, gut reaction. All I think I could comprehend in that thousanth of a second was that there was a large-bore shotgun four inches from my face and a semi-automatic handgun right next to it in the hand of a second guy, who also seemed to be wearing a skimask, and that I should back up and get as low as possible as quickly as possible. There's no thinking, no second-thoughts. You just get the fuck down and point in the general direction of where the cash is.

I mean, even if I'd been armed, what could I do? I'd been talking to a regular guest, a friend of mine, who was also in the lobby with me with her four-year-old boy. I was thinking, in those adrenaline-juiced seconds, about that kid, when I suddenly realized that I was basically fucked. If this asshole squeezes the trigger on that shotgun while his fuckwit buddy rifles through the cash drawer, there's nothing I can do about it. I'm just dead. At that point, I calmed way down. I don't really even remember what happened after that moment, until they were gone. Probably the trippiest moment of my life when I wasn't actually tripping.

It's the fact that these guys got in and out in under 60 seconds with no trouble that makes me want to quit this job. Tomorrow the cash drawer will be back to $300 plus income, and security will be no better. So why not hit it again? I don't need that shit in my life. As soon as the manager finally got back from his dinner break I walked out the door. I'm off til Monday afternoon anyway, but when I come in, I'm telling him it will be my last week, if not my last shift. Last night, someone fired a .38 through the window of one of the rooms. We dug the round out of the wall. Two nights before, two guys muscled into the room of a 70-year-old guy staying in the hotel right next door and took four grand from him. Again, in broad daylight. There are pimps, dealers, thieves, and thugs to wade through on a daily and nightly basis who want to rent rooms for the night.

Fuck that. I'm done. I'd rather be flat broke than flatlined.

No comments: