Mis-sold On The Resume

(I am the front desk manager at a hotel. We have just hired a new girl who is really not working out. Despite having several years experience at a hotel, she seems completely clueless as to how the hotel industry operates. She also has zero computer skills and as such her training has taken at least twice as long as it normally should. After more than 3 weeks, we decide she is ready for her first shift alone. It’s a quiet night and I make sure she has all her notes as well as my cell number in case she needs to call me for help with anything. Before leaving we have the following discussion:)

Me: “So, we are currently at 75% occupancy. We need to get that up to 100% tonight, so make sure you rent out all the rooms. I don’t want to see any vacant rooms when I come in tomorrow morning. It shouldn’t be too hard; we get a lot of walk-ins this time of year. Just make sure you do whatever you have to in order to sell those rooms. Anybody who walks in looking for a rooms doesn’t leave without renting one. Got it?”

Employee: “Yup, no problem. I can guarantee with almost 100% certainty that every room will be sold tonight.”

Me: “Okay, great. Make sure you call me if there’s anything.”

(Later that evening, around midnight, I get a call from the night auditor who is normally very calm and subdued. Right now, though, he is frantic.)

Me: “What’s going on over there?”

Employee #2: “That idiot is going to run us out of business.”

Me: “Why? What happened?”

Employee #2: “You told her she had to do everything in her power to rent all the rooms so she did…to her family at $1 per room.”

Me: “What?! Are you f****** kidding me? How many rooms did she rent?”

Employee #2: “12 total. She’s got her entire family and all her friends here as we speak. She called them in right after you left and so we had, like, no rooms left to rent to walk-ins. She’s been turning customers away all night. They all paid a discounted rate of $1 because she said she had to get the rooms rented. Some of them are even occupying suites. She’s actually proud of herself for selling out the hotel tonight. She genuinely believes she is going to be praised and rewarded for this tomorrow.”

Me: “I can’t believe this. Do me a favor. Get the applications file from the cabinet and put it on my desk. I’m going to start looking for someone new first thing tomorrow.”

(Since the rooms went to her friends and family without proper authorization it was considered stealing. I confronted her the next day and informed her that her services were no longer needed and that she could come by for her pay check later that week. She genuinely could not understand why it wasn’t ok to rent those rooms at that price; I told her to sell them and she sold them. Lesson learned: always check references and never hire based solely on the resume.)