There are two things that nearly all New Yorkers hate: day jobs and tourists. Put the two together and you’ve got a surefire recipe for a huge headache.
But Todd Dakotah Briscoe and Anna Drezen are savvy chefs. Their hilarious new book How May We Hate You?: Notes from the Concierge Desk (Potter Style, May 17), takes their sour days behind the concierge desk of New York City’s hotels and sweetens each anecdote with a healthy dose of humor. The result is a clever tour of what might be the world’s most dismal day job—and a colorful escape from your daily grind.
Briscoe and Drezen began recording their most absurd interactions on Tumblr back in 2013. “We were working for the same concierge company in different hotels,” Drezen told the Daily Dot. They were both bewildered by the daily onslaught of requests from hotel patrons who were a curious mix of clueless and demanding.
Seeking catharsis, the two posted short transcripts of their daily dealings on Facebook—where they discovered that their friends loved them. After some hesitation, they decided to share their experiences with the world.
“I remember right before we launched, we were both kind of like, ‘Are you okay with getting fired?’ ‘Yes, are you?’” recalled Briscoe. “We had both kind of reached that point.”
Their blog, “How May We Hate You?” soon went viral, and they discovered that their concierge-desk transcripts spoke to more people than just their fellow hotel staff. “I got a lot of comments from people saying that they read it at the job that they hate and it gets them through it,” said Briscoe.
When the two were approached with a book opportunity, they decided to expand their vision. Drezen explained, “The book itself is a fake travel guide. So it looks like the in-the-room book you get when you check into a hotel…It’s got information about New York and about traveling in general.”
Briscoe added, “I definitely think there is real helpful information in there.”
For example, they address how to hail a taxi.
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There’s a handy flowchart for tipping.
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And there’s this incredibly cute picture of a dog dressed as a tourist.
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This book may have been fueled by hate, but there’s a whole lot to love inside. Now if only we could get some tourists to read it before invading New York City.
Photo via Potter Style
