u/TheNiteOwl38

Like most of the people on this subreddit, when I'm posting something, it's usually some form of ranting or venting because I've come across a guest who's the living embodiment of the saying, "You can't fix stupid." But on occasion, someone ends up posting a story about something good -- an easy shift, or the rare occurrence of dealing with an awesome guest. Today, I finally get to do that after who knows how long.

When you're a night auditor you find yourself not always being the guest's favorite desk agent. Mostly it has to do with the fact that as the auditor, your by yourself and therefore, for both the safety of the guest and, most importantly, yourself, you have to be a little more rigid with the rules sometimes. And that means maybe having to say no to something the guests might want. No sir, I cannot sell your drunk ass alcohol past cutoff time. Sorry ma'am, the pool is closed and I will not reopen it just for you and your sugar daddy. But this past weekend, I had this couple walk in. They were older, probably in their early-60s. They were dressed for a really nice night out. They came up to the desk and started talking to me, and since it was slow, I made small talk while doing my paperwork.

It turns out it was their anniversary and they were staying at my hotel because they got married here. To be specific they stayed with us for their wedding. The actual ceremony took place in the building the nightclub currently resides in before the club moved in and became the hotel's (and mine) archnemesis, but I'm digressing. They were just about to call it a night, but they wanted to have one more dance and were wondering if I could somehow play their wedding song over the PA system so they could dance in the lobby. This is where I felt kind of bad because I had to tell them that unfortunately I don't have access to the computer that handles the music. They understood, but looked upset and started to go towards the elevator. But then I remembered that when I'm doing my audit and the accompanying emails and tax stuff, I play music off my phone or the computer. So, I figured what the hell. Before they could get out of earshot I ask them what's their wedding song.

Islands in Stream.

Coincidentally, a song I have downloaded to my phone, and actually one of my favorite songs. I quickly connect it to my wireless speaker, turn down the volume of the overhead speaker, and let them dance in the lobby. I said this on one of my previous posts, and it still applies here: this is the part of my job I enjoy, I love helping people.

A few days ago I was working my shift when this guest walked up to the desk asking if we had a phone charger she could borrow since she forgot to pack hers and it was too late in the day to go buy a new one. I had to tell her that unfortunately the hotel doesn't carry chargers. She seemed shocked and asked why. I told her we used to, but the problem was that we'd always end up losing them when guests never returned them. So finally, after replacing who knows how many chargers (both iPhone and Android) the hotel just stopped carrying them. She was upset, but then asked, "What about that one?" while pointing to the back desk against the wall where there was a phone charging.

My phone to be exact.

I told her the phone was mine as was the charger and therefore I wasn't going to lend it out. She said that wasn't fair, that she should be allowed to use it. I once again informed her that the charger was mine, not the hotels. She didn't care and actually said that since I worked for the hotel, anything of mine is part of the hotel while I was on duty and I was obligated to let her use my charger. I've heard some really weird mental gymnastics from guests in order to justify being given whatever request they're asking for, but THIS one was out there, even for me. I told her that she has no rights to my personal property and she was not going to be given my charger no matter what, and she walked off in a huff.

I found out later from my FOS that she came down and complained that I refused her request for the use of my charger. Apparently she became upset when told once again that an employee's personal property is just that, their personal property and the hotel would not force us to allow a guest to use it. The rest of the desk staff and myself are taking bets on whether or not she'll try taking this up with corporate.

I had a guy walk in wanting a room. I recognized him. He last stayed with us years ago. He was a lawyer for an oil company, and they paid for him to stay with us like they did their other employees. He was with us for like a year and a half, almost two years. He was a weird guest. Not bad. He didn't demand a whole lot of the staff, and he didn't cause any massive problems beyond the occasional the normal stuff that luckily didn't make us hate him. No, he was just... weird. There was a vibe to him that gave us the impression that he was into some freaky stuff.

Anyway, it had been years since he'd been too my hotel. In fact, the last time he was with us, our previous GM was still the one in charge.

So he walked in and said he needed a room while throwing his ID and three hundred dollars down onto the desk. I say hello and welcome him back, but then inform him that unfortunately I'm going to need a credit card to check him in. He says the cash on the desk should cover the room. Realistically he's not wrong. But what I tell him is that we no longer accept cash at check in (we stopped five years ago when our new GM took over) and that he will need to put a credit card on file. He says he's not doing that and to take his cash. That right there is telling me that he's doing something, or someone, he shouldn't be doing and he doesn't want a credit card trail. Like I said, we used to think that he was into some freaky stuff.

He didn't like it when I repeated the hotel's new policy. He then reminds me about how much business he gave the hotel last time and I tell him I remember how much his COMPANY spent for him to stay with us. He looked a little annoyed at my response. He then demanded that I call the GM, whom he referred to by name, to fix this. I inform him that the GM he's just requested I call no longer works for the hotel. Instead of accepting that, he actually demanded that I call her anyway. Instead I offered to call our current GM to explain the hotel's policy since he clearly didn't want to accept my explanation of it.

He ended up leaving, angered and ranting that he can't believe name dropping the GM's name didn't get him anything. Never mind the fact that he's dropping the name of someone who doesn't work there anymore. He also just moved himself from being just an annoying guest to just another entitled prick of a guest.

Edited to fix a typo caused by my dyslexia 🤦‍♂️😂🤦‍♂️😂

At my hotel, we're having an elevator issue. Our main elevator has been out of commission for a couple of days. Now the elevator techs finally got the part that we needed to fix it... or so we thought. Turns out that they ordered a part that doesn't fit. So, while we wait for them to get the correct part, which will take until Monday, we've been having to let the guests go upstairs by means of the service elevator.

That was the background, now here's what that caused.

So last night, during shift change, while the girl working the PM shift was checking in some guests, the phone rang. I answered it, and it was guest on the sixth floor who was angry about having to use the service elevator. She said it made her feel unsafe since everyone in the building was able to use it, and she didn't know who they were. I guess she's best buddies with every single person everywhere else she stays. She also said that because she didn't know whom else was here that she chose to use the stairs to get to her room because of this. She was demanding a room on the first floor due to us forcing her to use the stairs and/or her money back.

I apologized for her the inconvenience but let her know unfortunately we did not have rooms on the first floor and that she chose to use the stairs rather than the elevator. I also told her that there was no money to refund as her as she had not paid in cash, and her reservation was not prepaid. Her card may have been swiped at check-in, but it had not been charged yet, only authorized. I did however offer to let her check out of her current reservation and leave the hotel, all without penalty. She then said if we did not refund her immediately, she would call the police as only having one working elevator was illegal. I corrected her misinformation by telling her that it was not illegal to have only one working elevator and once again offered to let her check out without penalty. This caused her to hang up. I thought I was done dealing with her and finished with shift change.

Then a few minutes later, after the PM shift had left, the desk phone starts giving off the alert that let's us know a guest has dialed 911. I'm thinking, "No she fucking didn't." But she did. I verified that the 911 alarm was coming from her room, which it was, and then silenced it. I then called the GM to let him know what's happening and to ask if I can kick her out. To my surprise, while I was on the phone with my GM, for some ungodly reason... two police units actually arrived. I was like, "What the actual fuck? They can't be having that slow a night."

The arrival of the police kind of made the decision for my GM. Once the police confirmed what reason they were actually there for, which they found stupid as well, they said that they would inform the guest that it was not illegal to have only one working elevator. That's when I informed them that I would need their help in escorting her out of the hotel since we were in fact now kicking her out. On her way out, she was screaming at me that she was still entitled to being given a cash refund even if she didn't pay cash, which the police told her she wasn't since she, once again, didn't pay in cash. She then started screaming at the police that it was illegal for them to not only side against her, but to give her a ticket for misusing the 911 system. I later found out they escorted her to the train station since was only staying at my hotel for the night until she could catch her train in the morning. I actually felt sorry for the people working at the station, and the train crew of whatever train she got on.

And before anyone reading this asks... yes, we did add her crazy ass to our DNR list.

I walked in for my shift and noticed a pizza from a mom and pop place sitting off to the side of the desk. No big deal, I think. It's not unusual to see that since my hotel doesn't allow delivery drivers to go up to the rooms. I ask the PM shift if the guest is coming down. She says she doesn't know. Huh? She tells me it doesn't have a room number and the Door Dash guy said the order has instructions to leave it at the desk, that they'll come down. I ask how long has it been sitting there and she tells me an hour and a half. I ask if she's checked the name so she could've called the room. She says no. I grab the receipt sticking out of the box and look up the name. Nothing. It doesn't match any in-house guest or any accompanying guests. I mentally groan and say not again.

You see, we've been having an issue with the occasional Door Dash deliveries to my hotel. They're not supposed to be coming to my hotel. We discovered a while back that when the guests of a Schmintercontinental that's about ten minutes away on the other side of downtown order on Door Dash, my hotel's address comes up. For whatever reason, those guests don't realize that when they're ordering, and the food ends up at my hotel.

Now on my shift, I always ask for the room number, and if they say it doesn't have one, I ask for the name. If I can't find them in my system, I ask to see the order from their screen. Most of the time I end up having to tell them that they're at the wrong hotel. They'll say but it says this address, and I'll tell them they're still at the wrong hotel and show them something with our hotel name on it. They get pissed and leave. The girl working this PM shift takes delivery drivers at their word and just accepts the food, so those guests probably end up pissed off because they'll be contacting Door Dash to say they never got their food, and Door Dash will say that the driver said it got delivered. And the Schmintercontinental gets off with no one mad at them (I assume).

Here's the messed up part about all this. The Schmintercontinental knows about this problem. When we figured out what was happening we contacted Door Dash to let them know so they could fix it. They told us that the hotel in question, the Schmintercontinental, has to contact them to request the address correction. So we called the Schmintercontinental. And the response of the manager (the GM to be specific) was that this was an issue between the guests and Door Dash, and not the hotel's issue.

It's nice to know that they don't mind wiping their hands clean of issues they know are inconveniencing their guests when all it would take is a few minutes to fix.

So I was working my audit shift last night when this woman comes up to the desk. I notice that she looks upset. I asked how could I help her and she tells me her room number and demands that I move her to a new room. I inform her that unfortunately we're sold out so I can't move her. Before she can say anything else, I ask her what the problem is since there might be something I can do to fix her issue once I know what it is. She says, "Apparently my current room has bed bugs!"

For those of you reading this who don't work in the industry, bed bugs are the two words no hotel ever wants to hear. Internally I'm starting to worry. I start to try and get details and begin asking questions. She says she found a massive one on her pillow. That kind of confuses me because I've never heard of bed bugs described as massive due to the fact that they're pretty small. So I ask if she's sure it was a bed bug. She responds with, "I caught it and brought it down to show you as proof."

At this point she takes the tissue that she's been holding in her hand and hands it to me me. I open it, thinking I'm going to have to soak my hands in purell later after washing them a few times, and take one look at what's in it. At this point I feel foolish for freaking out. I look back at her and say, "Ma'am, that's a leaf."

She looks totally dumbfounded. She begins stammering and grasping for words and it immediately dawns on me that she's trying to scam an upgrade. She then says how I can be sure it's not a bed bug. Apparently she doesn't know that most hotels train their staffs to, at the very least, know what bed bugs look like. I begin telling her that what she's caught is the wrong size, the wrong color, and most importantly, it's a leaf. She then stormed off.

I made sure to notate what happened and I emailed the managers, just in case she tries to come down in the morning. I've seen plenty of guests try all sorts of lies and shenanigans to score themselves an upgrade, but this was a first... for me at least. I also feel slightly insulted at the thought that she believed that I'd be dumb enough to not know the difference between a bed bug and a leaf.

Like the title said, do guests just not know how to knock anymore? Last night it just seemed like person and person was just incapable of comprehending the concept of a locked door. I’d have people, both guests and people from outside, walk up to the door, see that it didn’t open, and just stand there totally confused. I might be willing to let the people who weren’t guests get away with that in some small way, after all, they’re not staying here, so it can be expected that they might not realize that the door will be locked and they need me to open it. But that’s a very small allowance because it's overnight, so common sense says that a business, even a hotel, might lock their doors overnight, let alone 24 hours a day like my hotel does. But then again, asking people to have common sense is sometimes asking too much. But the guests, they have no excuse. They know that the doors are locked because they’ve been told at check-in.

The only bright part for me was watching all the extremely funny reactions to the locked doors. There were those guests who, when realizing that the doors were not opening, just stood there, looking lost, like the world had just lost all meaning of how it was supposed to work. And they’d stay there, standing still waiting for me to look up from the computer or turn around from the back desk and finally notice them to inform them that they need to use their key to make the doors open. Then there were the ones who would look at the door, and then start tapping with their fingertips. I can only assume that they were thinking, “Um, you’re supposed to open. Why are you not opening? Um… is there no God!?!?”

Then there were the wavers who would see the sensor above the doors and wave their hands in front of it thinking maybe it didn’t sense them correctly. The other type of waver would wave his or her hand in front of the doors themselves, like they were Jedi from Star Wars. I’m sorry sir or ma’am, these aren’t the doors you're looking for. Then there were the stompers. These were my favorites because these people got my attention and got me to look up from the computer or my paperwork. They’d get to the door, it wouldn’t open, and they would proceed to start stomping their foot in front of the doors, repeatedly. I don’t know about other hotels, but mine does not have a pressure pad to activate the doors

Then you had the few who would try to force the doors open, only to find out that the doors come with this handy security function when they sense that they’re being pried apart, they lock into place and can’t be forced open unless you have the kind of strength reserved for WWE wrestlers or those prepared to pay hundreds, possibly thousands, of dollars to fix our door.

And the one thing all these people have in common, is the sheer fact that all these funny, yet futile, attempts could have rendered totally unnecessary if they had simply thought to knock, or even ring that god awful button that rings the bell. And yes, it would have been even better, in the cases of the guests at least, to think to themselves, “Gee, let me see if my hotel key would work to open the hotel door.” I mean if I went to their house, I’m sure they’d want me to knock in order to be let in rather than try breaking and entering using any number of ways to force the door open. Why would they think they’re exempt from that?