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The Master Of “Work Smarter, Not Harder”

, , , , , , , | Working | October 30, 2020

I work as a concierge in a hotel. I’ve got a coworker who’s honestly what most people would consider a parasite. He works way less than everyone else and is perpetually finding ways to skive off. We call him Wizard.

Our boss absolutely loathes Wizard and is determined to find a way to fire him.

I don’t know the exact details, but she suddenly came in one day and said that the delivery company had accidentally sent our shipment of gift shop merchandise to the branch at the other end of the city and they couldn’t send it to us. Someone had to go in person to pick it up.

Wizard basically got volunteered. It was only later that we found out that he didn’t have a driver’s license, so he couldn’t take a van over there. Worse, our boss specified that we needed the merchandise by 4:00 pm. This meant that Wizard had to somehow cross the city twice in three hours, carrying with him several boxes of merchandise on the way back. It would be impossible, as we estimated the one-way journey by public transport alone would take two hours. Failure, he was told, would be punished by immediate dismissal.

Within fifteen minutes, the janitors were already planning his farewell party.

Imagine our surprise when Wizard turned up at 3:00 pm with all the merchandise, completely unaware that our boss had set him up to fail.

The boss was livid, furiously screaming at Wizard, who was honestly completely lost as to why she was pissed. He got the goods within the allotted time and without damage, so why was this lady screaming at him like he had failed?

This wasn’t the first, nor the last incident. Whenever we had a problem, we’d go up to Wizard, and he’d make them go away. Somehow. We never actually asked how he did it, but after you saw Wizard in action, you really didn’t care how he did it.

A list of his feats:

1) Salvaged a couple’s honeymoon after their original plan suffered several cancellations

2) Got rid of a waitress’ stalker for her. Twice. (Two different men.)

3) Can somehow speak no less than three Asian languages and act as translator for foreign guests from East Asia.

4) Has good enough alcohol tolerance to go drinking with a Russian guest. (Said guest half-demanded that someone take him to a cheap bar and drink with him. That was a weird request, but Wizard had fun.)

5) Knows where to find cosplay events and dress-up parties even in the most inane times of the year. (Another weird request. I immediately handed it off to Wizard.)

6) Figured out which guest was stealing stuff from another guest’s minibar.

7) Administered first aid to an old man that fainted.

8) Solved an issue where a regular kept pawing at a female janitor.

At some point, one of the janitors claimed that he was a wizard and that questioning his methods would lead to the magic being lost. Everyone decided to play along with that, leading to his nickname.

Even our regional manager was amused by Wizard, bringing up the idea of having dedicated problem-solvers in every branch. I don’t know how that panned out, but needless to say, our branch considers Wizard one of our key members… even if we basically have to do most of his paperwork for him.

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