Getting Owned By The Owner, Part 29

Bosses/Owners/Managers, Hotel, Karma/Comeuppance, Liars/Scammers, Reddit, USA | Right | CREDIT: shopgirl2 | June 2, 2025

The owner of my hotel was a millionaire several times over, but you would never know it. His wife dressed like she was going to dinner with the President, and he looked like a slightly worse-for-wear guest. Little old dude, walked around in khakis and Hawaiian shirts. Ratty shoes. But an absolute shark and wouldn’t wait to let you have it if he didn’t like you.

He typically spent all of his time in his windowless office in the basement, making phone calls and who knows what else.

This was over twenty years ago, and the town we lived in was about 50,000 people. We rarely had a security guard on staff and no cameras, so he would occasionally chill out in the lobby to keep an eye on things if he was concerned about something.

As long as you did your job, this wasn’t an issue. He didn’t often chat with us unless it was in the back office because he wanted to be taken for a regular travel-weary guest. I personally think it was a game for him.

If he was hanging out in the lobby, he would just sit and people-watch or read the paper. However, there were times when people would become belligerent with the front desk staff for whatever reason, and they would always start with:

Guest: “I know the owner, you better do as I say.”

And then they would go all in on the fact that they are going to get you fired, etc.

The owner would look up from his paper say:

Owner: “I have no idea who the h*** you are, but stop bugging my staff. You aren’t getting an upgrade. You are lucky I even let you stay after that.”

After the guest was properly chastised and left for their room, he would give you a lopsided grin and go back to reading the paper.