Just Giving You Precisely What You Asked For

I am a secretary for a medical facility that funds other medical institutions. I am also responsible for their travel to conventions and conferences. There is a very large, very highly attended conference held each year to which our medical professional staff members are invited as presenters.

One such presenter just has to be incredibly difficult as she feels she is above us dregs and never lets us forget it. As a presenter, they are given certain hotels that are reserved for them at a reduced rate. However, most are nowhere near the convention site and they end up paying a crapload of money for cabs. (This is in the days before rideshares.)

I set up the travel for at least ten folks when I realize that, by a loophole, I can book them into the hotel where the conference is held, so I do that instead of allowing the conference coordinators to book them in heaven know where at the last minute (which they are prone to doing).

[Presenter] comes up to me and demands that I only book her into the hotels listed by the conference coordinators, and if I don’t, she will have me written up. So that’s what I do.

The day before they all leave for the conference, which is clean across the country on the west coast, [Presenter] finds out she is not only the only one not booked in the conference hotel but that she is nine miles away near the airport. And no, there are no more rooms available at the conference hotel. She is hopping mad and storms to my desk screaming about my putting her in a faraway two-star hotel.

Me: *Calmly* “You are in one of the three hotels the conference coordinators reserved for you, and you distinctly instructed me to only select those hotels and nothing else.”

She ended up spending more than $70 in cab fare to and from the hotel to the venue while everyone else only had to go downstairs from their hotel rooms. She almost missed giving her presentation because she was late.

Since then, when I’ve booked everyone for a trip, [Presenter] no longer demands I give her “special treatment” and lets me use my judgment when booking hotels.