Pooling Together Their Excuses

I work at a small hotel. The hotel has a pool that is fenced in and the two gates to it are locked when it closes at 10:00 pm. The fence and gates are about six feet tall. I am working the audit shift and get a call at around 1:00 am from a room.

Guest: “There is a lot of noise coming from the pool area.”

I walk from the lobby building to the pool area and see four people — two men and two women — in the pool. I stand just outside the pool area.

Me: “The pool is closed and you need to leave.”

Pool Guests: “We had no idea that it wasn’t open.”

I reiterate that they need to leave the pool. They try to stall, claiming that they need some time to grab their stuff. They also ask me to unlock the gates. I am still not sure why, but I decide to be petty.

Me: “If you can get in with the gates locked, then you can get out with them locked. You have ten minutes to vacate the pool, and if you don’t, then I will be calling the police.”

I walk back to the lobby building and check to make sure everything is still okay there and do a few minor tasks. About fifteen minutes later, I walk back to the pool area, and they are still there, in the pool, making no attempts to leave.

Me: “I will be calling the police now.”

They ignore me and make no moves toward leaving. I call the police and go back to the lobby building. Two minutes later, an officer arrives and confirms what is going on with me before heading to the pool area.

About six minutes later, he returns to the lobby.

Officer: “The pool is now empty, but I went to their two rooms and informed them that if they are caught in the pool or cause any other issues for you, I’ll be back to arrest them. The couple in the first room apologized and promised they’d behave. The second room was a different story.”

Me: “How so?”

Officer: “This man in the second room stood dripping wet at the door and insisted that they had never been in the pool and they were wet because they had just taken a shower. I asked if he always showered with his clothes on and he said he forgot to take them off. Then I told the man that I’d followed his wet footprints to his room. Then he told me the footprints belonged to someone else! I told him to just go to sleep and stay out of trouble.”

I documented all of that in our logbook and made notes in their folios. The rest of the night was blissfully quiet.