Ebb and Flow

Ebb and Flow. I have to keep reminding myself. I had a quick call yesterday morning. It was a half hour call which pays 2/3 what an hour call pays, but the agency collects the same fees regardless. So you don’t make as much. I often turn my nose up at the half hour calls because I view them as not being worth my time, especially when hour calls are done in half an hour anyway. The same job gets done, only I get the shaft. Ange laughs and says, “Oh, how quickly we forget!” She’s right. There were times in the past, many many times, where an extra hundred bucks would have made the world of difference. Now I can’t be bothered. Even in the ebb times (or is it the flow?). I’ve decided to change my mentality. It’s quick and easy, and really, what’s wrong with having that extra bank in your pocket. That, however is not the point of my story at all. Quite the opposite.

Last night I was called to work a city just over an hour outside of town. When there’s travel like that the rates go way up. The girl at the agency told me to quote the gentleman twice the hourly rate. Sounds good to me. Yes, it would be over three hours in total of my time, but chances are I wouldn’t be getting another call on a Wednesday night. The girl also told me that our boss was up there working, and she suspected that there might be an event, cause there seemed to be a lot of action for us up there. Perhaps I’d be able to get in two calls at the out of town rate. She did warn me that these guys were partiers, and she and another girl were having a lot of problems with more than one person in the room (we don’t put on shows) and getting full payment up front. Since we would be in the same hotel, I was to call her as soon as I got there. I was summoned to the penthouse of a hotel which could easily be considered one of the nicest hotels this side of the country. I use to work in the hospitality industry, so it was a little tough for me to focus on why I was there, being surrounded by such beauty. The gentleman was drunk when I got there, but not messy or rude or anything. As soon as I had taken off my coat he handed me a crisp stack of bills. “Count it!” he insists. It’s more than enough money for two hours. I call the agency to let them know I’d made it safe and they ask how long I’m staying for. I look at him and say, “One hour?” He looks unsure. “Lets say one hour and go from there.” I tell the girl. I hang up the phone, and put the money in my purse. He pours me a tall flute of Don Perignon (I googled it, it retails at $140/bottle). This man liked to show off his money, and I had nooo problem oooing and ahhhing for his ego. An hour goes by and I get my time call. I look at him to see if I’m staying and he hands me another mitt full of cash. I wasn’t expecting this. He didn’t have to pay me anything, really. I say thank you and put in my purse. “No, count it!” He insists! So I count it, and consciously keep my eyebrows from raising. The amount that I’d made in those two hours equalled what I would make in a month working my old desk job. This would be the flow that keeps me through the ebbs. It would have been awesome to get a third hour out of him, but by then we were both very tired. It was midnight when I’d left, and I clocked off. I was exhausted. The good thing was with the money I’d earned, I had no qualms with checking into a hotel rather than making the long drive home.