Leaving No Room For Interpretation

I work in a hotel for the night shift. Tonight is a very full and busy night. At 2:00 am — sometimes later — we do our night audit process. This cycles the systems to the next day. Around 3:00 am, I get a call from a potential guest asking if we have any rooms available, and I tell him that, unfortunately, we do not. He hangs up. Fifteen minutes later, a man walks into the hotel.

Guest: “Hi, do you have any rooms?”

Me: “No, I’m sorry. We are completely booked for tonight. I can recommend a few other hotels if you’d like.”

Guest: “Well, I was just on Expedia and it said you did have rooms, so you lied to me on the phone and just now.”

Me: “No, sir, I actually just finished our night audit process, so any room availability would be for this upcoming night, but not right now.”

Guest: “Well, what if I made a reservation and just checked in now? Technically ,its [date].”

Me: “I literally have no rooms to put you in right this second; otherwise, I would. If you make a reservation, you are making one for tonight and they will not have a room available for you until 3:00 pm, which is our check-in time.”

Guest: “But the website says you have availability!”

Me: “Yes, we do for tonight, but not right now. I know the hotel down the street from us has some vacancy; you can try them.”

The man huffs around in the lobby for a bit, muttering about me being a liar and not wanting to sell him a room. About twenty minutes later, a businessman checks out of his room, and before the man has handed me his keys, the other guy gets up.

Guest: “Well, can I just take his room?” 

Me: “I can’t do that, sorry.”

Guest: “Why not? He looks clean; I’m sure it’ll be fine. I just need a place to sleep for a few hours.”

Me: “Then I suggest you try the hotel across the street or further along in the city.”

Guest: “Well, why don’t you do a quick housekeeping sweep? It’ll take like ten minutes, right?”

I am absolutely done.

Me: “No. Housekeeping is not a quick ten-minute thing. I cannot leave the front desk unattended to clean a room for you. And I’m telling you, I don’t have a clean, vacant room to sell you. The hotel across the street does, and even more hotels about five miles down the highway have vacancies; you can try them. I’m not putting you in this gentleman’s room. And if you don’t leave, I’m going to call the police.”

With that, he finally grumbled to himself, left the lobby, and hopped into his truck before leaving.