The waterfront where we are staying at Valle de Bravo, Mexico.
Where are Kevin and Ruth now? Valle de Bravo, Mexico.

Where are Kevin and Ruth going next? Cancun on December 17th!

Monday, July 15, 2013

That was a tough weekend.

Mondays through Fridays are not bad around here, but on a nice sunny weekend things get pretty hectic.

Especially when you have to deal with drunks, belligerent sober people, and people who don't seem to know how to use either a toilet or a trash can. Ah, the end of the weekend was a very welcome thing indeed!

Friday night was not bad. Other than our typical problem of people making too much noise past quiet hours, it was pretty uneventful.

"Quiet hours" are from 11pm to 7am. I give people an extra little time to settle down...I'm not going to go around at 11:05pm being the noise policeman. So I wait until midnight and then take a walk. Two different sites had to be told. But I do it in a jovial manner. First I explain the "quiet" doesn't mean silent. They are welcome to stay up as long as they aren't being loud enough to bother their neighbor. So, quiet voices are fine. Then, I tell them that I need to do some gas powered weed whacking and grass cutting around their site at 7am, but I can put that off if I don't receive any complaints. The vast majority of cases are settled right there!

Saturday night was good, except one of the same sites from Friday night had to be told again. Other than that, things seemed good, and I went to bed just after midnight.

At least I thought it was good.

But in the morning, Ruth came back from checking the washrooms and said that she had been told about some trouble. It seems some young people came into the campground well after midnight, found themselves one of the two empty sites and set their tents up. Then, they proceeded to get drunk. And of course, the more they drank, the louder they got.

One of our ex board members has a seasonal site right next door to where these guys were doing there thing. It apparently couldn't have been THAT bad, or he would have come to get me.

But, there were some complaints, so I went down around 9:00am to go have a talk with the offenders. But they were still sleeping, apparently having not gone to bed until 5:30am or so from what I heard from one of the complainers. That site was booked for someone else yesterday night, so they had to vacate the site by 11:00am. I gave them until 10:00am and then went and woke them up.

It took some effort. I had to shake the tent and be pretty vocal to get any response out of them. At first I thought nobody was there! Eventually, a couple of skinny kids exited, one of them swearing with every second word. They were still drunk...one of them could hardly stand up!

So I told them they had to leave their site by 11:00am. Turns out there were also two girls with them who had been sleeping in the cars! I hadn't even noticed them until they got out.

Make a long story short, they didn't exit their site until 12:05pm. They simply couldn't function. Then, we had to try and get them to pay their bill. They had two cars, and one wouldn't start. I had to boost him. But we were afraid they would simply drive away without paying, so I said I would boost them only after they paid their bill.

Of course some of the nearby campers are watching this whole circus taking place. I think I handled things pretty good because they could easily have gotten out of control. They paid their bill and ended up going to the day use area and sleeping on the beach. They sobered up there and then I had to boost one of their cars again. This time, they were apologetic and shook my hand. A couple of kids, who simply can't handle their booze.

Later that day I was up in the overflow area and driving around the circular one way lane that goes around the sites. I stopped, got out to talk to one of the campers, and just left the truck running. I was literally 5 seconds away from the truck. Five seconds later later, a guy pulls up behind and honks his horn right away and yells at me to move the truck. I walk over towards him and tell him to relax, I was only going to be a minute and he says "well, you can't just park in the middle of the road and block everybody". I tell him I'm the park manager and I was on park business. His buddies laugh at him, and you can tell this doesn't go over well. By this time I'm walking back to my truck, and I drive through to the exit, although I did so very slowly. Just to annoy him a little more.

At the exit, he pulls up beside me and snarls "You better watch yourself because I'm gonna break you in *&$#%*(%^ two!"

In my younger days, I might have stepped out of my truck. But I'm too old (and a little wiser) for that crap now. So I simply laughed at him at said "yep, you probably could". And drove away.

Seriously? This guy was only a couple of years younger than me and he got that bent out of shape because someone inconvenienced him for 30 seconds of his day. Relax, buddy!

Ruth's day didn't go much better. Between cleaning up human excrement outside of the toilets and then keeping the insides clean, she's just about had enough. And left over diapers on the beach and paper plates and trash that you almost can't keep up with.

It was one of those weekends where you think that it's almost NOT worth the money they are paying us. Hopefully we won't have many more like that, although I expect by the end of the season we'll have seen just about everything.

To end this on a better note, while I was standing in the office for a minute, a guy was checking out and he said this was one of his best camping experiences ever and that he enjoyed our hospitality. He looked directly at me and thanked me personally and said that he and his family can't wait to come back.

As we've said, 95% of the people who come here are absolutely great. But it's that other 5%....




33 comments:

  1. Oh my, not the best weekend. We are grateful our campground only has 24 sites. Most of our customers are older, here for the fishing. In the three years we've been here, we've never had a problem with troublemakers. The sites don't have any privacy between them and we can see all of them from our site. We've actually had some younger people with tents come and take a look and leave because there wasn't enough privacy. Okay with us! However, we have had some messes in the bathrooms. How hard is it to pick up toilet paper or hand towels if you drop them. As you said most are just fine, but its the few that make you shake your head!

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    1. Our place isn't too much bigger. We have 33 sites but on a busy weekend they use the overflow section with has 12 tenting sites and 7 or 8 sites with electricity so there are usually people up there. We get lots of families here but we also get some kids and normally they are put up in the overflow section where they are away from the main population of campers but in this case these kids didn't have reservations and came in really late and just set up camp on one of the empty spots in the main section. For the most part we really haven't had any major problems so hopefully this few instances are just the rare ones we will encounter.

      As for picking up the toilet paper or hand towels, I can handle that it is the other "crap" that I don't like to deal with.

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  2. It only takes one or two of those folks to spoil the fun for everyone...what a shame!

    Maybe all that is behind you and from now on it will be smooth sailing till mid-September!

    Have a quiet week!

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    1. I hope you are right Gay and Joe but I think the August long weekend is going to be our worst, hopefully once that is over it will be smooth sailing.

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  3. Loved your grass cutting technique to get those folks to quiet down. Too bad there is that 5% to ruin your fun. You work so hard to make the CG a nice place and then the five percenters have to make everything so difficult.

    You done good, despite those jerks.

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    1. I hope Kevin won't have to test it out but if he does it could be rather fun to see the looks on their faces when the weedwacking starts.

      Thankfully the majority of the campers are great and we enjoy talking with them.

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  4. Sorry you had to endure all of that. Thank goodness it is not a weekly event. I think you handled it just perfectly. However not enough can be said about slobs who leave their cr*p everywhere. Poor Ruth.

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    1. I think Kevin handled it well too! Thanks for your sympathy for me Contessa, there are definitely times when I need it!

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  5. Working with the public basically sucks. I too could tell a few stories. One of the reasons why I chose NOT to ever work in a High School after a few brief months. That was enough for me. The kids *think* they're adults, kind of like your drunkards.
    Then again, there are those who never grow up either.
    It'll be over soon, and you'll be on your way to more exotic places.
    Oh and, you definitely have more patience than I. Just sayin'.

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    1. I can just imagine some of those stories Bob. I think high schoold students would be terrible to deal with, at least some of them. Working with the public can be very rewarding for the most part, unfortunately there are always a few bad apples that can put a damper on your day.

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  6. Be careful out there you two! Sounds like you have had an interesting weekend, and it wasn't even a long one!

    Hopefully things get smoother from here.

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    1. We are careful, no worries there and I am sure that should any trouble arise there are other campers that would have our backs.

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  7. Be thankful its just a job and not a career..

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    1. That is an excellent way of looking at it, thanks Kenny and Angela.

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  8. some days it's that 5% that ruins it for everyone else!..onto the next weekend!

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  9. Yep, working with the public can be memorable. :P

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  10. I feel badly for you both. It sounds like a difficult job, even if it is temporary! I prayed for you. Blessings, Lynn

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  11. Replies
    1. ...uhmmm Chris....not all people!

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    2. Contessa you are right but after dealing with garbage and public washrooms at a campground you may change your mind. It is unbelievable the waste that is created with both.

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  12. if anyone can handle it ..its you two!!! good job

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  13. I think you have the percentages wrong. 10% of humanity manages to keep the other 90% from sliding into the abyss.
    Cheers

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  14. Hi Kevin and Ruth,
    Your interactions with the bad 5% are very toxic. Even though you are resistant, those interactions may affect you. And sour your experience. Change your outlook.

    After 10 years of public blogging, I stopped because of that bad 5%. I could take their trashing me, but did not want to do that anymore.

    Next year when it comes time to think about earning some money, you may want to do some "less public" of a job. May only be 5% bad, but they are enough to spoil things.

    George

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    1. You are right George, we do have to change our outlook. Those 5% can pull you down for sure, we need to look at all the postitives we have with our jobs and we do try to do that. After weekends like that we do question ourselves as to whether it is worth it, I guess we will have a better idea by the end of the season. There are more ups to the job than downs, but they are the ones that tend to stick out in your mind.

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  15. The joys of public campgrounds, one reason we don't use them anymore.

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    1. We have always enjoyed public campgrounds and in general we have never had issues with them, but as we have said there are always the odd issues and I think any campground will have them they just may be in a different form.

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  16. Your blog has made me pick up after others when using campgrounds and restroom (if I don't have to get "stuff" on my bare hands! It takes less than a couple of seconds to lean over and pick up a paper towel or unused toilet paper someone has left. And just a bit more time and I can wipe water off a vanity. Pay it forward.

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    1. Thank you for being so thoughtful Nan, now if we could only get the people who drop it on the floor to learn to pick it up we wouldn't have to worry about it anymore!

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