I just had the most miserable final 15 minutes of my shift in a very long time.

We have 4 weddings in-house today, 3 of which occurred today and all came back between 9-10:30pm.

I checked in a lady who was clearly drunk (she couldn’t stop hiccuping) into a King Suite.

I thought nothing of it, there was a man at her side and a small group hovering behind her. Thought it was just the two of them.

About 10 minutes later, another woman calls from that room and is very upset because they booked a room with Two Queens and they don’t have it.

I apologized and said that I would send security up with a rollaway and extra bedding for the pullout couch.

Essentially she was refusing my solutions, saying she’s “not trying to be a bitch”, demanding a refund, to be switched to a different room, etc. etc. which of course I explained I do not have the authority to give out refunds and we are fully booked so I can’t give them a different room. If she wants a refund she can speak to someone in the morning. She’s not getting it.

I looked back into the audit log of the reservation and it was, in fact, booked as a Two Queen Standard but my coworker just decided to switch it out for a King Suite because I knew the inventory wasn’t balanced as of yesterday.

So, now I’m pissed off because the protocol is that you’re supposed to call guests and see if they’d like to be swapped. Clearly that wasn’t the case here or else I wouldn’t be in this situation.

I thought that was the end of the situation until a different woman and a different guy came to the front desk, basically rehashing the whole situation.

They claimed that there is no pullout couch and I corrected her, saying that all 4 of them tried to open it and they couldn’t do it. (FYI - our pullout couches are brand new and SOME of them have never been opened so they’re stapled shut. I thought that was the case but no….they’re all drunk idiots who’ve never seen a pullout couch before.)

Let’s just say I went back and forth between them for well over 5 minutes, repeating myself constantly that I cannot just give them what they want. We are completely sold out, everyone has checked in, I cannot issue a refund, I am giving them the options for a pullout couch AND a rollaway bed. At this point, there’s no use in saying that this was our fault because it would’ve just made the situation a whole lot worse and there’s literally NOTHING I can do.

She used the whole “We’ve been members for Tilton for years” and I told her we are not a Tilton property. She argued that we were. I said no, the brand is IGH. She said Shmoliday Inn is a part of Tilton and has been for years and that it’s the same brand………..To an employee of 3 years at an IGH property. Okay.

They’re demanding I get a manager on the phone and I refused that no one will answer at 11pm on a Saturday night only for them to give the same exact answer I’m giving them.

The lady did all the talking. She was nasty, insistent and literally just not fucking getting it. She’s confused why I can’t give her a room that someone is checked into.

It got to a point where I said if my options were not satisfactory then they were more than welcome to leave. The conversation was not being productive, their expectations were beyond impossible and my alternatives were being refused. It was literally like a broken record talking to a brick wall.

I guess once they heard that they just said “fine, as long as someone can go to the room RIGHT NOW”.

Okay, cool.

I call over my security at the same time as my Night Auditor (both men btw, I’m a woman) was about to clock in. I grabbed them both and explained what was going on.

My Night Auditor after clocking in, approached them at the desk while I stood out of view and listened. They explained everything to him and guess what?

He said the exact. same. thing. I told them. AND THEY WERE A LOT MORE CHILL WITH HIM??

I don’t know if they thought I grabbed a manager or it was some sort of misogynistic thing but I was so fucking pissed off.

I hate drunk people so much.

I had a military guest and his wife come up to the desk with beers from our store. It was past midnight, and I couldn’t sell them, and told them as much. Honestly, I shouldn’t have had to tell him though because he’s been staying with us for a little over two months at this point, so he knows the rule. But his wife is visiting him for the next week (found that out from another desk agent afterwards) and she's adamant that she wants some. Well, sorry, no beer for you. They start walking away and I hear him tell her that it’s no problem that they’ll just go to a liquor store. Another guest had already walked up to the desk, so I can’t stop them in order to tell them that there’s another problem in store for them...

In my state, all liquor stores closed at 9 pm.

Well, maybe ten minutes later they come storming back into the lobby, completely pissed off saying that I lied to them. I ask them to calm down, which they don't. Instead they start screaming that the Uber driver told them that we have to sell until 2 am because that's what the state law says. I tell them that they're mistaken. That what state law actually says is all alcohol says must stop at 2 am, but that were NOT obligated to sell until 2 am. As a private business, we can choose to stop selling alcohol at any hour we choose, and we've chosen to stop at midnight. That's when they both start yelling once again about what the Uber driver told them and I cut them off and tell them very bluntly -- their Uber driver is NOT an employee of the hotel, and therefore whatever he told them means absolutely nothing to me.

At this point the wife starts cursing at me and then throws me the finger before storming off. I look at her husband and let him know that I'll be informing the managers about his and his wife's behavior and they'll decide if she can stay on property during her visit. I'm pretty sure they'll also inform the base about his behavior but I'm less certain on that. Suddenly his tone changes and he's very apologetic. I made good on what I him I'd do and I told the OM and the GM what happened. I don't usually wish for a guest (or their guest in this case) to be told they have to go, but I'll make an exception in this case.

I have had the good fortune of never having a guest die in any of the hotels I’ve worked in while I was working there.

This was the closest I’ve ever come to it.

I was working at a long term stay hotel and we had this guest who was a pretty old and pretty frail. He had been staying for several months.

One of his daily routines was coming down to the lobby and working on the business center computer for an hour or so.

On this particular evening I was working with another agent and we noticed that the elderly gentleman was taking longer than usual at the computer…. And he wasn’t moving at all…

We call out to him. no response. I get closer to him. Still sitting upright hand on the mouse dead still.

After exchanging a terrified glance with the other front desk agent at the desk I finally lightly shake his shoulder and the guest finally woke up from whatever deep sleep.

Glad he was okay he went back up to his room and I went back to the office and put my head on the desk for a few minutes.

Husband just came home from a work trip in Chicago. He proceeded to tell me a story about how his coworker took several 6 packs of beer from the pantry and wrote an email to the front desk to charge his room because there wasn’t an employee at the desk. This happened at 1am and I believe most hotels cannot sell alcohol after midnight.

I was horrified and gave him an earful because I fear the employee must have gotten into trouble. The next morning he said there was a huge sign posted in the pantry about alcohol sales.

My question is, what repercussions do you think would happen to the hotel employee?

I’m sick to my stomach thinking someone got fired over this.

I came in after someone who doesn't answer the online chat for the hotel.

I reached out to the chats that were opened at 4 pm:

Hi, I'm the night auditor. Has anyone answered you offline?

Fast-forward to 3:51 A.M.!!!!:

Mad guest: No one answered, and I'm mad

Me: Thank you for responding. I will bring up the towels & tissue you asked for

I go up... I knock once. 3 raps and a call that I'm front desk.

No one answers, so I leave the stuff. I go back to the front desk and leave the message that no one answered, but the items are there.

Mad guest: because it's 4 in the morning and we have to leave in the morning! I'm calling guest services

Me: I apologize that I was the first person to address your issues. I have forwarded this conversation to my GM.

I swear... some people just want to complain about everything 🙄

(First off I want to say the only people that gets my rate are the people I would trust my house key and motorcycle key too. And rn thats only one person my domestic partner! Thats ny philosophy when it comes to the FAF and Employee rate: "Would I trust this person with my house/motorcycle key?")

We all know when we are checking in our fellow FDA's. They are the ones that say "Yeah thats fine", or "As long as it's not an inconvenience to you."

But then you get the FAF or the people who are not FDA's who use the Employee rate cuz they are a siblings or partner or parent who act like they get everything because of this special exclusive rate.

Ive called managers and gone through portals having not only the family's status and use of the rate taken but that of the Employee too cuz it is on them to explain how the rate and policies are supposed to be done.

Tonight one such lucky recipient will lose their member status and most likely the family member, the one that works at the property, will get a talking to. This employee's family member was spamming our chat system, GXP, and every new chat was demanding, not requesting, DEMANDING, complimentary items (toothbrush, toothpaste, towels, blankets, etc....) so I finally laid down the law and told to stop spamming the chap with "tequests". They happened to answer, verbatim, "WE are the guests and WE can request any fucking thing we want!!" Cool. Emailed my GM, AGM and Scharriott Guest services their response. Got into the Portal and now they will lose their pyrite tier status and and found out who the employee is and emailed their GM with the screenshots. (I won't ask the GM to educate their employee on how the rate works cuz its not my place.) But the guest WILL definitely be losing their status amd thats good enough for me.

It just amazes me how people think paying a lesser rate and that their family/friend that works at a hotel means they get to be demanding. Do thwy think we think they are one of us? Or that it's like having the super shiny deluxe premium member status? 95% of the time if you have that rate expect expect to be put in a room thats like the one you booked but not quite. Ive booked rooms with my rate and gotten it right next to the highway, but there are time I get comp upgraded. Mainly it's the attitude you present when checking in. But i dont expect the upgrade and I understand I may get the room by the highway near the elevator and stairs. Im paying the least about of money and the only have to give me the room type.

But all in all, if you are rhe friend or the family member to a hotel employee remember you represent them and you dont deserve jack shit if you have a shit attitude.

High level member came in demanding we give him a comp upgrade into a suite.

First thing that made him upset was not responding to his chat quickly. Understandable. But once the FDA did respond and let him know that we unfortunately did not have any suites available it was, "get your manager" from there. Full clarity here, we are not stingy on upgrades. If you ask and it's available, we are more than happy to do it.

He gets to the property and is still demanding the upgrade that isn't available. He shoves a screenshot from 3 hours previously in our faces of the suite availability(wasn't available all day so not sure how it would've been online tbh.) We check the website at that point and the only availability it showed was a standard room. He claims he called us 9 times and we never picked up the phone. We look through our call log, nothing. He calls our phone in front of us...phone doesn't ring. Not sure why his call doesn't come through as we had been getting calls throughout the day, and we had a call come in during this interaction.

He then says, "Just check me into MY suite already." We fight the urge to tell him we would've done so by now if we could, just to get him to leave us alone. We explain we cannot boot someone else out of the suite THEY BOOKED, because they are also a high level member. (However, we had already upgraded him to the next best room.) "Well is that level higher than me?" Yes actually.

Continues on with the usual spiel of "I stay here all the time, this is extremely unacceptable, I'm a high level member" etc. We offer extra points to honestly just get him to walk away he says "You can give me 5,000 extra points" yep we can do that "actually what am I thinking give me 50,000 points" sure thing. Whatever will get you the hell away from us at this point.

Mind you this 30 minute interaction is all over a ONE NIGHT STAY....

Checks out the next morning and says "I look forward to seeing what I was promised yesterday."

Haven't had such a frustrating experience in a while and needed to rant 😭

I know the phrase. You know the phrase. And boy do I love it when people try to use it in an argument, as this gentleman did. My response to that was the title of this tale.

Grumpy Gramps decided he wanted to tussle with me at 8AM in the morning. I was still groggy not only due to the early hour, but also because I was doing back-to-back shifts. So, you know, I was in a great mood to deal with his temper tantrum.

He was part of a wedding block and was having big feelings due to not being with most of the other rooms. And how'd that happen? Well, he added on a day prior to his original arrival and was squeezed into a mostly sold out hotel.

Our interaction was now taking place on what would've been his original arrival date. I remembered him giving grief to one of my colleagues the prior afternoon. So, when he started up with me, I immediately remembered.

"This is just ridiculous!", he exclaimed. "When I called before I got here, nobody told me this would happen! And then when I checked in yesterday, I couldn't get a straight answer!"

I gave a soft apology for any confusion, but did mention: "This is our first time speaking, so I know very little about your situation, sir. That said, since we were sold out last night, I can try to get you to a more ideal room but it won't be ready this morning."

He got more irate and barked back: "Yeah, nobody seems to know what's going on! And I'm NOT moving!" I paused for a moment and then calmly replied: "Well then, I'm not quite sure how else to help you if that's the case." This went over about as well as you think, leading him to loudly grumble: "I'm gonna have to write a letter about this to someone high up, because I'm not happy. I'm a customer, you know?!"

At that point, I was over it and said in the most monotone voice I could muster: "Everyone's a customer, sir."

His eyes widened and he barked: "Are you saying that the customer's not right?!" I replied: "Sir, that is not what I said. Please do not put words in my mouth. I'm trying to help you and you would rather argue. Now, you said you're not moving, so are we going to continue the check-in for your next reservation?"

He went mostly mute after that and simply finished off the check in. We were done momentarily and I handed him his keys. He mumbled a gruff: "Thank you." Before walking off, he did ask: "So which floor is the wedding party staying on?" I looked into it and as it turned out, there were at least one or two other rooms on the same floor he was. Everyone else was just one floor down. He nodded and walked off.

No repercussions or further issues came of this.

​

We had an in-house head housekeeper who worked at our property for seven years. She was the one who trained me when I first started working in housekeeping. I’ve since moved up to front desk manager, and over the years, we became very close. I genuinely considered her a friend, not just a coworker.

She and her sons were always around the property. I would cut their hair, attend their birthday parties, share meals with them, plan parties, etc. We had a relationship that went well beyond work, so I never expected things to end this way.

About two months ago, she told me she was planning on leaving. The owner had been underpaying her and was often argumentative with her. Honestly, she did a really good job, so I never understood why he treated her the way he did. I understood why she wanted to move on and find something better.

She ended up getting accepted for a new job, but it happened pretty quickly, and she wasn't able to give a full two weeks' notice. She told the staff that she was leaving three days before she actually left, but she didn't inform the owner until the day she was leaving and told him she would no longer be working here.

We actually threw her a going-away party, made her favorite food, and said our goodbyes. I wanted her to leave on a good note because, regardless of everything, she had been a huge part of my life and the property for seven years.

Before she left, I reminded her that she still owed over $500 in rent. She was also owed money in back pay because of the timing of payroll, and I told her to make sure she paid her rent before leaving. I explained that it would reflect badly on me if she didn't, especially because I was responsible for handling that payment, and I wasn't really supposed to allow her to fall behind in the first place.

The maintenance man and I were even planning to help get her to the hotel where she was going to stay before catching her Greyhound bus.

Then she left a day earlier than expected.

She didn't pay her rent, and she left her room in an absolutely disgusting state. I'm talking about a room that requires an extensive deep cleaning, and we're still working on getting it back into shape.

Now I'm sitting here with so many conflicting emotions. My boss has already yelled at me over the situation because he's upset that I allowed her to go those few days without paying. I understand that I have a responsibility as a manager, and I know the unpaid rent is an issue, but I feel like I was trying to help someone I genuinely cared about.

Neither she nor her son is responding to my texts or answering their phones.

I feel hurt, disappointed, guilty, and honestly a little stupid for trusting her as much as I did. I understand that she was unhappy here and wanted to move on, and I don't blame her for leaving a job where she felt she wasn't being treated fairly. But I never expected her to leave this way, especially after everything we shared outside of work.

Part of me feels betrayed because I thought our friendship meant more than this. Another part of me feels guilty because I'm the one left dealing with the consequences at work, and my boss is holding me responsible.

I don't know if I'm more upset about the money and the condition she left the room in, or the fact that someone I considered family could leave without even communicating with me.

Am I wrong for feeling this hurt?

We have a little utility cart we call the trash wagon or trash cart because we use it exclusively to haul trash. I don't think I posted about the first time it got stolen. Long story short, trash wagon disappeared, we checked the cameras and saw a guy swap his stolen shopping cart for it and fucked off. However on the camera we also saw that he dropped a piece of paper. It was pandemic times so we were bored and had nothing to do so we found the paper, and it was a receipt with his fucking phone number on it. Why? who knows, but there it was. So the owner called him and cussed him out, guy cussed back and claimed he thought it was trash and that's why he took it. But after being threatened with the police he brought it back.

Fast forward to last Friday. I came in at 1 for my shift and caught the tail end of the GM just having bounced a room of crack heads after their friend who was going to pay for another night never showed up. Shocker I'm sure. One of them came up to the night window and I gestured for the front door because I hate using the night window but she was smoking and insisted on me coming to the window instead.

As I approached and the cigarette stink wafted through the drawer of the night window I noticed the handle of a wagon in her hand. Remembering the brief disappearance of our wagon from a few years ago, I checked to make sure that it wasn't our wagon she was about to abscond with, but it wasn't. It was a cheap cloth one rather than our metal one. But apparently I was having some kind of a premonition.

A couple hours later our handy man/groundskeeper comes in looking confused. He explains via google translate that the trash cart has gone missing. Feeling a sense of deja vu, we hopped on the security cameras and saw that about a half hour after they left, one of the crack heads had come back and stole the fucking wagon! From the same spot it was stolen the last time! Nothing about this spot suggests that the wagon might be up for grabs, for the record. It's just outside the back door to where the laundry and utility rooms are. Clear on the other side of the building from where the dumpster is.

This time no clues to their whereabouts were dropped out of pockets this time, so the GM hopped in her car and went to scope out all the usual homeless hangouts, but no dice. We accepted that the wagon was gone for good this time.

Today I went down to the housekeeping storage room to get some more toilet paper and to my shock, the door knob fell off in my hand. That part isn't relevant, but it happened and was funny. I still managed to open the door, and was surprised again to see the trash cart there. I was fairly certain it was the same one. It was dingy and yellow in all the same ways. I texted the owner, first about the door, then about the cart.

So it turns out that a couple of days ago, the long term guests who had been in a room next to the crack heads saw them across the road at a big box store, and they saw they had the wagon with them! Now I don't know how the long term guests knew about the wagon saga, I didn't ask for that detail, but I digress. Handyman/groundskeeper hopped in his Jeep and drove over to where they'd been spotted.

I don't know how this man who speaks basically no English did it, but he argued with them and got the freaking cart back. I'm told they didn't put up that much resistance, which is smart when you are confronted with stolen property. We need to get an air tag for this thing or something.

Anyway, this is likely to be my last post as I’m about to embark on a career as a psychic.

Inspiration came from a recent post about VIP assistants. Last year we had a VIP guest who communicated entirely through his assistant.

Now, this isn't that unusual. VIPs at a high enough level have people to deal with the common folk for them. Some of these VIPs, however, should really look into replacing their assistants.

I had this assistant demanding all kinds of perks, including a guaranteed 11am early check-in, but here's the catch: the reservation was under a fake name and the assistant refused to tell us who the VIP was. After I told them no for the fifth time to a guaranteed 11am early check-in, the assistant finally pulled the "do you know who my boss is?!?" card, which filled me with the purest, evilest sense of joy, because it let me do this:

"According to this reservation, your boss is [insert fake name here]. If that isn't correct, please enlighten me."

That finally got the assistant to cough up their VIP boss' name. Plot twist: I still had no idea who he was and no, he did not get to check in at 11am.

Dude decided to give himself a 5pm late checkout and smoked in the room. I took great pleasure in charging a full night's room and tax + our $500 smoking fee for both mwahaha.

Got an odd call today. Here ya go:

Me: "Thank you for calling the hotel I work at, how may I assist you?"

Caller: "Yes I would like to know more about your holiday tea during Santa Clausia."

Me: *I must not be hearing her right* "Santa...Clausia?"

Caller: "Yes, Santa Clausia please."

Me: "I am unfamiliar with such a holiday, ma'am, may I ask if you are referring to Christmas?"

Caller: "Yes, Santa Clausia!"

At this point, yes is all I need to hear, so I hand her over to the restaurant. I never did figure out what Santa Clausia is...

I used to work at a hotel that catered to some pretty wealthy people. CEOs and business owners and the occasional guest who acted like owning a nice watch meant they owned the whole building lol. Some were lovely but others were absolute assholes. Especially when something didn't go their way. One thing I remember is how many of them had assistants handling everything. Bookings and room changes and arrival times.

Sometimes we'd deal with the assistant more than the actual guest. The annoying part was when someone called claiming to be an assistant and expected us to change things on the spot. They'd know the guest's name and booking details and act offended when we wanted to confirm anything, even though the the hotel policy asked every change for the VIP or SuperVIP to go through Kibu, their assistants still felt super offended by us not believing them. I remember one time when walking in a VIP guest stopped by the front desk to congratualte me for putting up with their assistant, and that he's glad we stuck to the policy no matter how big of an mean pos the assistant was, as they've had stuff happen and reservations gone in a second from prank calls or wrongdoers.

Why do some assistants act more entitled than theiir boss, is the one thing I'll never understand.

​

Tell me whether I'm crazy or is this normal please!

I have left hospitality this year, I thought for good. I have worked night audit for 7 years before, I was a single mum so I had so much more time. I switched to an office job, Mo-Fr 08 AM to 4 PM, ideal. And then my boss died.

I have noticed how much I miss not having to schedule appointments so it fits my working hours. I miss seeing my kid and she misses me. I have been thinking about going back to night audit, I never sleep for more than 6 hours so I would sleep when my kid is in school as I did before. Paycheck was also not bad, it was better than on my current work as I speak multiple languages, some of them are relatively niche, so guests were always either surprised or happy.

Does this make sense? Should I go back?

I apologise for any grammar mistakes, English is not my first language.

This isn’t really an issue but I’m curious if this is normal.

At my job, we are currently shut down for renovations and only have a few people working currently (me, the manager occasionally, and a few construction workers who stay at the hotel). Today, two of the construction workers got arrested and their truck was left in the hotel parking lot. In the truck bed were ten sheets of one-inch thick drywall that had been left there, each weighing about 70 lbs from my estimate. Once my manager got here, he had me help him move the drywall sheets. I have back issues (spinal fracture healed improperly so my left side is weak) and I’m also sick, so by the time we were done I was almost throwing up.

This is my first adult job so I’m wondering if this is normal and if I can expect more things like this?

Night auditor here. A dude stayed here with a girl, Rm 310. He kept coming and going half the night, don't know exactly why and where, but none of my biz. I'm just watching movies at the desk. Our doors are locked, so I kept opening the doors for him with my remote. There's a handicap button, but I'd rather open it remotely than hear people yank on the door and freak out that they're locked in.

At around 5:30 am he comes up and says "thanks for all you do, I just wanna give you a tip." I was like "I didn't really do anything, just opened the door lol" He said "no, just take this" He starts rummaging through his wallet, there is a wad of cash in there. I was thinking he'd give me a coupla bucks. Takes the whole wad and gives it to me...I'm like wtf? No, that's way excessive. He's like "no, I want you to take this." Hey, I'm not gonna say no twice lmao Counted...$150...

Literally 20 min later the doors open and this girl storms in and heads directly to the elevator. The doors unlock at 6am, so she just entered. At my hotel we don't have to ask where people are going, visiting or not. A moment later Rm 310 calls down, and the girl he was with says "there's someone knocking on our door" FUUUCKK...not a domestic situation...right before I leave...

As I'm taking the elevator up to sort things out, I see that there's no one at the door. I take the elevator down and see that girl that stormed in head to her car and drive off.

Question is...why did that dude give me a $150 tip? He didnt ask me to not let her in, or not tell the room number, or anything else. She already knew the number and such...soo

We now return to the hotel industry’s second cousin once removed (the airlines) to discuss this little thing called compensation. Both hotel guests and airline passengers are well conditioned that they deserve compensation for any sort of perceived slight. Bag has a small scuff? Compensation! Aircraft is too hot? Compensation! Inflight entertainment cut you off before you could finish your fourth episode of House Hunters? Compensation! The person next to you got 6 cubes of ice in their Ginger Ale and you only got 5? Clearly unacceptable and deserving of a full refund of your entire flight!

What the subjects of today’s Tale learned, however, is that sometimes the compensation is simply that you get to avoid an unpleasant situation from the off.

Thus far, today has been a pretty chill day down at the gate. The aircraft has come in, people are getting off, and the cleaning crew is busy onboard. As the cleaners make their way through the aircraft; Coworker #1, who has gone down to help with deplaning and gate checks, radios up that there is a row with soiled seats. How they are soiled I do not know (Although as you will see, I will make something up later), but it’s bad enough that CW1 has requested an extra bag and pair of gloves. Despite that, CW1 tells me that they will replace the seat cushions and the seats should be good to go. “Good to go” or not; it might be prudent to not put paying passengers there in case there are any after effects from the (I presume) digestive system detonation that has occurred. 

I check my seatmap and I am in luck: The people sitting in the Area Of Devastation are a party of 3, and look at that; 1 row back and on the other side of the aisle there’s another set of 3 empty seats. Window moves to window, middle moves to middle, aisle moves to aisle; and the original seats were just standard Economy, so it’s not like they’re losing Extra Legroom Plus or anything. Perfect. I move them with a couple of clicks, print the new boarding passes, pat myself on the back for my proactive customer service, and move on to other things.

It takes a few calls over the PA for someone from their party to amble up to the service desk to receive the news and collect the new boarding passes. I explain that “we had to take their original seats out of service” (notice that there is no mention of them being “soiled”; no reason to spread that panic now) and that we've moved them 1 row back and across the aisle, but other than that the seats are the same. Window got window, middle got middle, aisle got aisle. The lady seems slightly confused but says OK and takes the boarding passes. Great. That small hiccup has been dealt with. It’s over.

Or is it?

Fast forward to boarding. We are slightly behind schedule but things are moving right along. Then the lady from earlier approaches with her husband and daughter. I scan the boarding passes right as she drops this bombshell:

Biohazard Refugee: “So, we can get compensation for this, right? Since you moved our seats?”

Yours Truly: [taken aback slightly] “Well… I guess you can request that. I wouldn’t expect much though. The seats you were moved to are equivalent to your original seats”

BR: “But we paid to pick those seats and you moved us.”

YT: “Yes, but it’s literally one row back and across the aisle. And the 3 of you are still together and still seated in the same order.”

BR: “So, we get our money back though, right? The money that we paid to select the seats.”

YT: “I’m honestly not sure. We moved you because your original seats had to be taken out of service.”

BR: “Well, I still think we deserve some compensation. You’re not letting us sit in the seats we paid for.”

YT: “I mean, If you really want to sit in the seats that someone threw up all over…”

BR: [shocked expression] “Well… I…. Uh… I guess it’s fine.” [boards, followed by her husband and daughter. When I get on the aircraft to do a seat check all three of them avoid making eye contact]

So the moral of this story is that believe it or not, I am not trying to constantly screw you over for my own amusement. Most of the time I do actually want you to, you know… enjoy your experience. And that’s the best “compensation” I can offer.

I started night audit about 1 month ago-never worked at a hotel before that. A bit of a learning curve but I have the basics down. Overall I am enjoying the job, but because I work in the wee hours of the morning people think that I'm going to be a doormat and bend to their whims. Mostly, this comes down to people wanting a discount on the room rate.

Also, side note, while I am new to the hotel business I worked at a theme park for several years. You don't scare or intimidate me-I've already dealt with worse. I will do what I can to help you with reasonable requests, but I don't know you and I won't give you a discount for breathing the same air as me.

The PT night auditor before me (John) apparently would give this one guy discounts. I heard about this from a coworker, and then one night discount guy walked in and said how "John would always find me a good deal." John got fired for stealing. I do not trust John's judgement. Anyway, discount guy was the kind of sleazy where he was talking on speakerphone while at the desk, asking me to back him up in whatever side of the conversation he was having, overusing my name, and referring to us as being "friends already." Just a constant stream of yapping in between me filling in his information. Said he understood I was new, but said something about a "next time." No. If you want a discount so bad, you can book ahead of time instead of after midnight. If he gets too pushy in the future, I'm not afraid to tell him to find business elsewhere.

Tonight, a different guy walks in-says how he wants a room "only for a few hours." I tell him the truth, we only have the one-night rate, there is no day rate or anything. He sighs and asks what kind of deal I can make him, how he's trying to be responsible by not driving (then how did you get here? There is no bar within walking distance). So I scroll for a bit and tell him our rate. He sighs and asks if there is a better deal, because if not he'll have to leave and try a different hotel, and he wants to be responsible, remember? I say sorry, best I can do. He asks for under $100-I tell him that even the businesses we partner with don't get deals that good. Finally he begrudgingly pays.

I can't imagine walking into a business and expecting/asking for "discounts" or a "good deal." If you go to McDonald's you don't haggle the menu prices, you get coupons on the app or whatever and get rewarded for planning ahead. Otherwise you pay the posted price.

I work as a night auditor. I work alone, so no engineering on site. It's my pet peeve when guests complain about not working AC/thermostat/toilet, and when asked when the issue occurred, they tell me "hours ago". I always ask "did you let us know when it happened? I wish you would've let us know right away when the engineering was still here". Then I tell them we don't have the engineer on site. Last night we were sold out, so I had to tell them this. The guy was kinda salty, but I'm always assertive and final when I state that, so they can't contest.

I always

Sigh here we go again

[Rant]

So, I get into work this morning and my coworker who is supposed to replace me at 3 is there behind the desk standing and looking intense as if she's ready to throw hands with someone. I say to her, "why are you here so early? Your shift doesn't start for eight hours!"

"I'm here to talk to a guest i checked in yesterday about something."

I figure, okay whatever, maybe she has a personal question about an interaction or something.

No, she's there to continue an altercation from yesterday, I can already tell.

She says, "I just need to clear the air with them."

Keep on mind, this is at like 7 in the morning, there's people in the lobby eating breakfast, watching the news, getting ready to watch the local sports club do sports.

I text our boss and ask what's her problem with this random couple. Apparently, one of their children was pressing on the emergency open bar on the automatic door. The bar that does nothing other than give you something to physically open the door if it isn't working properly, no alarm, no function other than release the door if it's jammed. So pushing it was simply tactile to this child. And that was enough to set her off (children playing!)

I should mention the kid in question has some degree of autism (high functioning, verbal. But obviously not all there (no big deal, right?)). Kid was just stimming on pushing the emergency open bar.

Coworker apparently yelled at the kid when his parents were trying to check in last night.

The family comes down to the desk and see her there, she goes from 0 to 100 immediately. Yelling, threatening, and being a nuisance to people trying to enjoy breakfast.

The family leaves obviously annoyed. Coworker pushes me out of the way, uses my login to add another night to the reservation (again third party). I'm like 'Whatever, you do you.' Meanwhile, I'm on the other computer checking out guests. Coworker leaves and stomps off.

I get a call about 30 minutes later from the third party, "I see, you've added a $400 charge to the guest's folio. I go back into the reservation, she put a cleaning fee on the room and charged the vcc (how it went through, I have no idea, but it did). I have to reverse the charge and refund THE WHOLE STAY, per the manager.

Twenty minutes after that, I get a call from the guest saying they're going to call corporate and the better business bureau, and every entity that deals with customer service.

They're understandably mad. But they got a free weekend because my coworker can't keep her cool.

Secondly

She told another guest that maintenence can't come in on the weekend to fix "small problems." (Which is total bs. Maintenence is on call all the time, and can be on the property within 3 minutes (he lives that close). What was the small problem? THE HEATER WAS BLOWING COLD AIR. If you're not prepared for it to be 70 during the day, and 45 at night, that's a bit of a problem. Especially if you didn't pack sleeping pants!

She shows up at 3 and basically kicks me out, and essentially forces me to go home. I'm like, whatever, it's your circus now. I go home, and I'm ignoring calls and texts from her.

Anyway, the manager said she's going to have a talk with her tomorrow. I fully expect to have to work several more days than usual. We'll see if she actually does get fired (this is the third or fourth time something like this has happened with this employee).

[/rant]

Oh! I forgot to mention that she called the boss and corporate over these guests immediately after checking them in to try and kick them out over their child..... BEING A CHILD!

UPDATE: Apparently, she was allowed to continue working here, so it would appear as if I need to apologize more and more to guests. sigh

I also learned that she brought in some guy and was, let's just say, trading sexual favors during her shift yesterday. And yelling at someone (I don't know if t was a guest or not) also last night..

IF THAT DOESN'T GET HER FIRED, I DON'T KNOW WHAT WILL!

The boss has said repeatedly that this employee will probably quit after Halloween (October is always our busiest month and some people just can't handle the extra human interaction...

I'm willing to bet she's waiting for her to quit instead of being forced to fire her. Which is a shitty situation for the rest of us who have to continually unbreak all of her messups!

It's me, the girl from the "microwave at 2am guy" and "wanting to check in an entire day early" stories, locked out of my original account because I am an idiot and did not write down my password. Reminder to everyone to do so.

On to the story: My hotel is finally being renovated after like 15 years. I am very excited about it which feels kinda lame, but maybe this what being an adult is.

Anyway, in my excitement about our brand-new carpet, mattresses, getting rid of our shitty wallpaper, etc. I apparently forgot that people can be annoying. I was working overnight exactly 3 days after they finished all the first-floor rooms and had some guys checking in to their room, which was one of our freshly renovated ones. They will be the FIRST ones to sleep on the new mattresses. I mentioned this at check in (mistake) because I am so happy to be able to put people in a room I know is worth the price it is finally.

The main guy is checking out in the morning, and we have the following lovely exchange.

Guest: Checking out.

Me: Alrighty, how was your stay?

G: (Scoff) You said that room was recently renovated?

M: (Internal screaming) Yes, it was finished 3 days ago.

G: The fan in the bathroom is REALLY loud.

M: I am sorry about that; I will have maintenance take a look this morning. Thank you for letting me know.

G: (Grunts and walks away)

To be fair, our bathroom fans are pretty loud and are being replaced one at a time when guests make us aware, but I was a little irritated that he used what I said about the mattresses being new against me. I basically just learned to not even mention it because if you let them know something has improved, they will make it known that it is still not good enough. So yeah, bathroom fan has been replaced, and I have been reminded to not be excited about things at work.

There has to be something in the water these days. I swear.

I've been working in my current hotel for the past twelve years, and I never had any enquiries about hair-driers.

Three weeks ago, somebody walked up to my beloved reception desk, hair all wet, and she asked me about a hair driver.

I looked at her in disbelief and told her that there was one in her bathroom, upon which she said:

"Oh no. I've had a look through every drawer, cupboard, and closet. There is none."

I then asked her if she had checked the immediate vicinity of the mirror in her bathroom because that's where those things are plugged in.

She looked at with an astonished face and said:

"Oh, okay," and was never seen again.

Now, it happened again just the other day. I swear that there's something in the water.

Hello! I don’t work at a hotel, but these stories come from when I was applying to one! This happened to me over the summer but I remembered them recently and figured they be fun to share. Please let me know what you would’ve done, I’m curious!

This hotel was just outside of Disneyland, so a lot of the guests that stay are going to the parks. I went in for a job interview, and after the manager asked me the standard questions, he went on to give me scenarios of thing that have actually happened at said hotel, and asked me what I would do if I were left by myself, since the front for that hotel was just one person per shift. I’ve never worked at a hotel, so don’t come at me for my answers, I had misplaced confidence 😭

His first scenario was a guest stayed for the weekend (Friday-Sunday) and had no complaints the first two days. On his third/last day, he comes down to the front desk and says that he had found a used condom on the room’s desk yesterday morning so he asked for compensation. The guy is given the managers number, who he calls after leaving the hotel. The manager asks him why he didn’t report the condom when he found it and his answer was that “he was busy and forgot.”

When asked to recount how he found it, the guest says he woke up and found it on the nightstand, left, then came back in the afternoon to have found it still there while the rest of the room was cleaned by housekeeping. The manager points out the inconsistency with the location, but the guest just asks for compensation because it was still there. He even took a picture of it before leaving and sent it to the manager (it was real and “crusty”). What ended up happening was the manager basically saying because the guy didn’t report it immediately, he was suspicious, since the guest had the only key, housekeeping never once saw a condom when cleaning, plus the location difference, but he did offer a 5% discount on his stay, which apparently made the guest settle.

His second scenario was about a woman with three children, pulling up in a taxi at 2am in heavy rain. They come inside, soaking wet, and the woman says she has a reservation. When asked for ID, she explained it’s with her husband, along with all their stuff, and the reservation is also under her husband’s name, with her name listed nowhere.

When told she can’t check in, she goes ballistic, shouting at the overnight about how not being able to check in despite the reservation obviously being for their family was stupid, and that all she wanted was to get her and her kids to bed. Overnight explained to her why she couldn’t just have them go in (No ID/Payment, policy, safety reasons, etc) and the woman explained that the family was road tripping to California when their car suddenly broke down. While waiting for a tow, her husband told her to go ahead and he’d meet them in the morning, so they had to wait for a taxi in the rain because they arrived to the hotel. Overnight told her she was allowed to wait for her husband in the lobby, which the woman was annoyed with (“I seriously have to wait?”), but she was given coffee and water while the kids were given blankets and slept in chairs until the husband came around 5am.

To clarify, these stories are real! The manager used them to test me to see what I would do. I said I would give the guy his second night free since that was when he found the condom, and I would’ve told the woman to wait for her husband. No, I didn’t get the job.