Briscoe Todd Dakotah - How may we hate you?: notes from the concierge desk

F irst of all, wed like to thank Emma Brodie for instinctually understanding our sense of humor, advocating for our weird little book at every step, and making this whole process as fun and not-terrifying as possible. Thank you, Emma, for the Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman memes that got us through the scariest parts of this, and for laughing at Duck Boat references. Gosh, duck boats are dumb, huh? You are our Book Mommy and we love you.

Also, thank you to Ian Dingman and Danielle Deschenes for making the book look beautiful and for explaining to us what photos are.

We also want to thank Aaron Wehner, Doris Cooper, Kevin Garcia, and Mark McCauslin. Were pretty sure you are all wizards. Thank you for convening in your wizard lair to make this book.

Obviously, we could never, ever have done this without Alyssa Reuben at Paradigm. Thank you for guiding us, fighting for us, being hungry for us, and diplomatically answering our How do book happen? dumdum beginner questions. Thank you also to Dana Spector and Katelyn Dougherty for finding us funny and doing such amazing things for us.

Mindy Tucker is an angel on this earth. Shes the most kind, patient, intelligent, capable, and hilarious photographer anywhere on the planet. This book would not have happened without her; or at least, we would have had way more stress-induced nosebleeds. Thank you for making us look pretty and always knowing the right thing to do. Thanks also to Greg Hancle for being able to telepathically communicate with Mindy to make a public photo shoot run more smoothly than we could have imagined, and to Ryan Schuyler Shepherd for assisting our second shoot for an entire day and night in a hot, likely haunted hotel room.

We discovered our illustrator Branson Reese by finding his doodles on a white board. It was like that moment in Good Will Hunting when Stellan Skarsgrd looks at the chalkboard and sees the equations and hes like, What kind of genius is this? Branson, you are a singular goof of the highest order. Thank you for working on a crazy schedule and for drawing such an adorable bedbug penis.

Kate Weber, your boat is on its way. Thank you for so much for your incredible generosity of skill, time, and bone structure.

Sharon Spell, thank you for telling us about art. You are art.

Thanks to Amy for sending us stories from the worst desk in the city. Wed say you deserve better, but were pretty sure you love it.

Thank you to Max Reuben for sending a very helpful email for us.

Thanks to all of our former managers and coworkers for having our backs.

Thank you to Bobby Flay. The dog who modeled for us. Not the chef.

Thank you to Bobby Flay the chef, too, actually. You are good at cooking!

Thanks to Chris for being our personal doorman. Today, we go to SoHo.

Congratulations to our models, Judy Alvarez, Chris Betz, Joel Kim Booster, Janelle James, Christian Polanco, Sue Smith, Emma Tattenbaum-Fine, Amir Wachterman, and Kate Weber, for their acceptance to Cycle 342 of Americas Next Top Model. Also, thanks to Anna Roisman for bringing Bobby Flay. We hope being in this book somehow gets all of you invited to a hip party with cool drugs and disco dancing and whatever it is that people do at hip parties. Thank you for your gorgeous faces.

To the following various helpful people: Miles Klee, David Colon, Sam Grobart, Hilary Redmon, Natalie Shure, Gloria Street, Amber Smith, Doug Fronk, Zac Simmons, Ruben Fleischer, David Bernad, Ashley Marie Christine, Rich Drezen, Josh Gondelman, and Billy Domineau. Thank you for being variously helpful!

Thanks to everyone who read and shared our blog. Your Internet procrastination completely changed our lives.

Thanks to Kelly Clarkson and Brendan Fraser, because they are Todd and Annas favorite celebrities, respectively, and we can thank whomever we want.

Thanks to our parents, Patrick and Patricia Briscoe and Warren and Irene Drezen, for letting us get BFAs and not saying Duh every time we complained about our Pretending jobs being really difficult, and to our friends and family for being so excited for us. We love you.

And finally, thanks to the hotel guests who made us miserable enough to blog about it. This book is for you.

A Word from the Authors:

W elcome to the How May We Hate You? ebook. To make your stay with this ebook as pleasant as possible, we've included lots of helpful tips and tricks throughout. Simply click or tap on any of the below buttons to be transported to an oasis of knowledge and good cheer. Or just to see more of our book. Whichever you preferthe guest is always right.

Copyright 2016 by Anna Drezen and Todd Dakotah Briscoe

Photographs 2016 by Mindy Tucker, except for images (Drezen and Briscoe).

Illustrations copyright Branson Reese 2016

All rights reserved.

Published in the United States by Potter Style, an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York.

www.crownpublishing.com

www.potterstyle.com

POTTER STYLE is a trademark and POTTER STYLE with colophon is a registered trademark of Penguin Random House LLC.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data isavailable.

ISBN9780553448344

eBook ISBN9780553448351

Cover design by Ian Dingman

Illustrations by Branson Reese

v4.1_r1
prh

INTRODUCTION

W ho are we to write this book? Are we two ungrateful millennials angry at having to actually work? Are we two bitter curmudgeons who love making people angry?

Nah. We are just two comedians who found ourselves working in the hospitality industry as concierges, and we couldnt believe some of the outrageous things that guests would say to us. We wanted to share them with the world. We really dont like to hurt peoples feelings, which is why everyone in this book is anonymous.

Hi. Were Anna and Todd. We met at NYU, where we studied Pretending (Theater). Upon graduating and realizing that the world doesnt care about dreams, we found ourselves needing a day job (or what most people just call a job) so that we could continue to buy beers at our friends weird theater shows in Chelsea basements.

We were too clumsy to carry things, so waiting tables was out. We didnt want the pressure of keeping children alive, so babysitting was out. And we werent into having strangers touch our feet, so escorting was out. We just wanted day jobs that would give us time in front of a computer so we could read Gawker and stalk our exes.

Hotels it was. Make a couple of reservations. Give a few directions. Suggest a couple Broadway shows. Sounds easy enough, right?

Wrong. Unfortunately, the vast majority of the people we dealt with weredifficult. Here are some typical daily interactions:

GUEST I need a salon appointment. Wash and blow Saturday at 12.