I work at a hotel doing maintenance. People complain that the heated indoor open-year-round pool isn’t warm enough for them. It is usually kept around seventy-five, but most people want it warm like bath water.

Instead of turning up the heat in the pool heaters — back in the pump room, out of customer view — which would do absolutely nothing for the hours it would take it to warm up the water, I do this: first, I walk through the pool area and say:

Me: “Don’t worry; I’ll turn it up for you.”

Then, I walk into the pump room and close the door. I hang out for a few and then come back out.

Me: “It should feel better for you.”

Guest: “Yes, it’s much warmer. Thank you.”

In reality… their bodies just get used to the water.

Client: “We need uniforms designed and made for our new hotel: reception, maid, bellboy, barman, cook, and waiters. Fifty employees, three uniforms per person.”

Me: “We can absolutely do that. When is your deadline?”

Client: “We open on Thursday, so we need everybody dressed and ready to go by then.”

Me: “This Thursday?”

Client: “Yes! Can you do it?”

Me: “Nooooooooooooooooooope.”

A family of seven or so comes in and rents three rooms. Ten minutes later, one of them comes down with a minor complaint about a room and requests a room change. I oblige.

Over the course of the next three hours, they keep coming back with various complaints that get more and more trivial, until finally:

Me: “Would you like me to offer you a full refund, if you’d like to go elsewhere?”

This is something we don’t do after the first hour or so, but I want them out of my hair.

Guest: “No, thank you.”

Finally, an hour later, the father comes down with a curtain he has ripped off and throws it at me across the counter.

Guest: “This curtain fell off! You need to give us all three rooms for free!”

Naturally, I say no. Both he and his wife start screaming at me for an hour because I won’t give in to their unreasonable demands, until they finally decide:

Guest: “Fine, we’re going to leave. We’ll take that refund you offered.”

Nope!

Me: “Sorry, not after you have been in the room for five hours now and have ripped the curtain down.”

They scream some more and finally call the cops since, evidently, I am breaking some law they have invented on the spot. While waiting for the cops:

Guest: “You’re funding terrorism by working at this hotel!”

I assume this is because the place is Indian-owned? Finally, the cops came in and talked to the guests. Then, they talked to me, and finally, they told our guests to leave or go to jail for harassing me.

I work at a hotel front desk. A guest comes to check out.

Me: “Would you like to settle the bill with the card on file? Last four digits [digits]?”

Guest: “How did you get that card? I never gave you that credit card. How did you get that credit card number off of me?!”

Me: “It was provided when you made the booking, sir.”

Guest: “No, I didn’t! You stole it! Get me your manager!”

I go into the back room to find my manager.

Me: “[Manager], you need to come and sort this guest out. He made a booking and forgot he used the card. Now he’s demanding how I know what the last four digits are, and it’s taking all my strength to stop myself from telling him I guessed.“

The manager sorted the guest out. He had made the booking several months prior and had simply forgotten he’d used that card.

I am currently at a huge science fiction convention that draws around 80,000 attendees annually. It covers five hotels and a conference center with another dozen satellite hotels to house all the people who come to town. A large part of the draw is the costumes; there are lots of people in every geeky costume imaginable, ranging from cheap cardboard to movie-grade costing hundreds or thousands of dollars.

In the middle of all this, I happen to be near a businessman in a nice suit in one of the hotel lobbies. He is on his phone, apparently giving directions to someone.

Businessman: “You’ll see a bunch of those [Convention] people in weird costumes. Keep going, and I’m just past them.”

Sir, “people in weird costumes” covers a solid five blocks in every direction. Your colleague is going to be SO LOST!

I didn’t tell him.