Guest: “We are checking out a day early. Can we get our money back for the extra day?”
Me: “Unfortunately, your reservation was booked and paid through [Budget Third-Party Company], which has a non-refundable clause, and therefore, we cannot refund you for the remaining night.”
Guest: “Thanks. You’ll be hearing from my lawyer.”
My husband works in hospitality, as do I. We decide to take advantage of a discount on a room and spend the night in a hotel during a weekend of wine tasting with friends. Check-in is uneventful and we proceed to our room. My husband tends to evaluate it as an engineer and housekeeper to make sure all is well. I tend to look at the upkeep details.
My husband finds two lightbulbs that are out, so he takes them out of the lamps and leaves them on the dresser. I notice some minor upkeep issues.
Then, we realize that there is no real airflow in the room, despite turning the fan and AC on. My husband looks around and locates the return air filter and opens it. The filter is completely blocked and disgusting. When we look at it, we notice a date written in the corner; it is two years old!
Upon checkout, I mention the lightbulbs to the front desk agent.
Agent: “How would we know unless you tell us?”
I was shocked silent. I skipped mentioning the air filter, figuring they would see it leaning against the wall when they serviced the room. In the industry, it is standard for housekeepers to test all lights to ensure they all work, among other things. There is no excuse for the air filter.
Me: “Can I have your rewards phone number?”
The customer bends down with her face almost touching the counter and whispers her phone number.
Me: “Could you please repeat it?”
Customer: *Yells* “What are you, deaf?!”
I look at her for a second and reach up to flip my hearing aid out from behind my ear.
Me: “Yes, I am.”
She just looked at me. I don’t think she was expecting that!
Because of current events, California has recently placed even more restrictions on businesses and my store is currently only allowed to have eighteen customers in at a time, or we risk getting shut down.
I have just let the eighteenth customer in and am conversing with them a short way inside the door when a lady comes charging into the store. I hold my hand up, “stop in the name of love” style.
Me: “Ma’am, we’re at capacity right now.”
The woman reels back dramatically.
Customer: “Oh, my God! I’ve never been so assaulted in my whole life!”
She stomps out after I attempt to explain the regulations to her. Sometime later, my coworker gives me the heads-up that the lady is back in the store and is going around telling all the staff how “assaulted’ she was.
She runs into me near the register counter and demands my name, which I calmly give.
Customer: “I’m going to write to corporate about how assaulted I was!”
I understand that folks are under a lot of stress these days, but that woman must live a charmed life if her idea of assault is being told to wait her turn!
A Yeoman in the navy is a person that performs office duties, whether a man or a woman. During the 1980s, most offices used IBM Selectric type typewriters; they use a font ball to type letters, and if you want to change font, you change the font ball.
I am sitting in the ship’s office one day with a couple of others waiting to go over our annual evaluations with my division officer. There are two yeomen working in the office typing reports. One is male and the other female.
Male Yeoman: *To the other yeoman* “Do you have an OCR font ball?”
Female Yeoman: “No, I think we have just the two balls between us.”
