As much as I have bitched about my chosen career path, I have to admit, there are some very REAL benefits to monkeyhood. There are the obvious financial advantages to carrying a briefcase (backpack actually), plus the 401Ks and stock purchase plans and benefit packages. There's the free ISP, cell phone, and home phone. There is access to a 24 hour travel agent and the 330,000 frequent flier miles in my account. And as I'm typing this naked while I'm on a conference call, I spend a whole lot less time in the pleated Dockers than the rest of the Digeratti.

But I think my favorite part of corporate monkeyhood are the hotels. When I bounce around to the various cities on the west coast, I get to stay in hotels that have negotiated contracts with my company. And on the west coast those include the Westin St. Francis in San Francisco, the Four Seasons in Vancouver, and my personal favorite, the Fairmont Olympic in Seattle.

The Fairmont is the kind of place where all the towels and all the linens are always at risk of ending up in your roller-bag as they are infinitely better than anything you can get at the local Bed Bath and Beyond. I'm not sure just how many threads went into that comforter, but I'm pretty sure I can't count that high. It's the kind of place where the response to "Please call me Jim" is always "No problem Mr. Parisi."

But I think their commitment to keeping the customer happy has gotten a little out of hand. In each room is a digital scale. And the scale claimed that I had dropped almost ten pounds to just over 142.

142 pounds? Really, I think not. My weight has not fluctuated more than seven pounds since 1994, and to drop that much I had to spend a month in Africa. Every scale I have been on has claimed in the range of 150. I just went and confirmed this again on the scale at my gym.

Look, maybe some of your customers think that for $400 a night they deserve a little fantasy with their pay-per-view porn, but I'm not one of them. I'm thrilled to have the free bottle of water waiting for me at my bedside every night, and the loofah in the bathroom. I appreciate the the jazz collection already loaded in the CD player and the full health-club on the second floor. And as much as I love the chocolate covered strawberries you have left for me in my room, please, my hips are my business.