This morning was blessedly quiet and peaceful. I love being the first to arrive in the morning. I make my way through the kitchen, flipping switches and brewing coffee, unlock the front doors, and head up to the office to go over yesterday’s checklists, to-do lists, and any correspondence that arrived during the wee small hours of the morning.
On a good day, none of the guests are up when I arrive, or they’re all out hunting, as they were today. This gives me a bit of space to start my day and organize my thoughts. When I finish up in the office, I head down to the kitchen to make lattes for myself and Alex, unless there’s a huge pile of stuff in the office, in which case he has usually arrived by the time I make it downstairs, and the coffee is waiting for me.
Normally, the phone will start ringing around 7 a.m., which is 9 a.m. in New York. East Coasters are oblivious to the time difference. If no one’s there at 7 a.m. to field their calls, they are slightly outraged, as though we should all be working the same hours regardless of time zones. Also, our employees call early, especially when they’re calling to say something has come up and they will be late or absent. In these instances, they tend to call as early as possible in the hopes of avoiding a real person at the other end of the phone line.
Frankly, I’m not a phone person. The years when I spent hours talking on the phone are long past, and at home, I can sit right beside a ringing phone and completely ignore it. This drives Alex insane. He is incapable of ignoring the phone and almost as ineffective at extricating himself from long, involved conversations with guests. He’s a chatty creature and seems unaware of the passage of time when he’s involved in a verbal exchange. This is where my ever-so-slightly anti-social tendencies come in handy, because I can get things done while he’s yapping—I mean conversing—with our guests.
At work, I’m not allowed to ignore the phone, and it’s amazing how often it rings when it’s in my possession. This morning, though, it was silent. No one was calling in sick or late, no one was calling with frantic deadlines, reprimands, sales pitches, endless questions, or anything at all.
By eight, the silence was getting to Alex, and he picked up the phone to make a call, only to discover that the lines were dead. We checked a few different rooms and came to the conclusion that none of the phones were working. Then we radioed the barn and thankfully discovered that their phone line was fine. Paul made a few calls for us, and someone should be out to check on the phone system around noon, which in Pagosa time means anytime after twelve and before six. The circuit board for the phone system is probably fried; it seems to happen about every 6–9 months. Fortunately, our guests are still out in the field. Phones are important to the hotel, and I hope to get them restored soon. For the moment, though, I for one am enjoying the silence.
**Update: Our phone guy was almost exactly on time. I love that. Unfortunately, the power box for our phone system is toast. We’re still under warranty, which is good, but because Pagosa does not get Saturday deliveries of any kind, the replacement will not be here until Monday. So, we’ve bypassed the system and hooked up a few individual outside lines. There’s no voicemail or transferring calls, but at least people can get through to the office and the kitchen. It should make for an interesting weekend.
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