I work — well, technically “worked,” since I was laid off when the hotel temporarily closed until the world goes back to normal — as a hotel night auditor, and one of the other clerks has rubbed me the wrong way since he was hired last fall. From the get-go, he has come across as smarmy and arrogant. He’ll always compliment you to your face, while back-biting other employees, in a way that tells you he is doing the exact same thing about you to the others.

Even months after training, he still makes mistakes — entering guest information wrong, not following established procedures, and that sort of thing — and whenever I try to show him the right way to do it, he’ll tell me that someone ELSE told him to do it the way he IS doing it.

There were other things that annoy me about him — like his habit of reorganizing the front desk every few days — but nothing that’s really pertinent to this story.

A few weeks ago, when the pandemic was still in the early stages, after the shift change in the morning, he coughed without even trying to cover his mouth. We had a group of travellers sitting in the lobby. I called him out on it, and the conversation went something like this:

Me: “Dude, you should really cover your mouth when you cough.”

Coworker: “Yeah, whatever.”

Me: “Seriously. I mean, with that outbreak on the go, you need to be more careful about that.”

Coworker: *Smirking* “Yeah, like I’m just coming back from China or something.”

Me: “Look, there are people in the lobby that are travelling who knows where, and the last thing they need in the middle of an outbreak is to see you coughing all over the place.”

Coworker: “Hey, if I’ve got to cough, I’m gonna cough.”

I could see I wasn’t getting anywhere with him, and frankly, if I’d kept at it, it would’ve turned into a shouting match, so I dropped it.

I had that night and the next one off. When I went back to work a couple of nights later, I found out that the owners had closed our sister hotel and laid off most of the staff. Our manager had laid HIM off, as well, apparently for coming to work sick.

They closed our hotel about a week later, and from what I understand, that coworker won’t be asked back when it reopens. Apparently, the owners liked him even less than I did, and coming in sick at the start of a worldwide outbreak was the last straw. I can’t honestly say I’ll miss him.

Several years ago, when our twin sons were twelve, we set out on a “trip of a lifetime,” exploring Europe. The boys were eager to experience new things and were quite the adventurous travellers. We stayed at a gorgeous, ancient fortified farmhouse that was a lodge and a working farm. Other guests included a family from Belgium and three visitors from the States. One was a retired soldier who was shepherding another couple around some of the places he’d fallen for on his deployments.

I was the only one in the family who could speak French at the time, although my wife understood it but was too shy to try her skills. Our hostess was just the opposite; she could understand English but was too shy to speak it.

At breakfast the first morning, our hostess asked us if we wanted an omelette made from goose eggs. The Belgians eagerly accepted, and our boys’ eyes lit up as they saw the size of the eggs. We accepted her offer. The retired soldier also said yes and interpreted the question for his friends. The woman of the couple was very loud in her refusal. “I won’t put that s*** in my mouth! Why can’t these people eat normal?” She was served a regular fried egg.

Our meal was absolutely delicious and both the boys and my wife were very vocal with their pleasure in English.

The woman who had refused the omelette earlier then had a change of heart and asked her friend to ask for one for her, as well.

Our hostess said with a wink in our direction, “Tell her that I am all out of s*** for the day”.

My wife laughed, as did the retired soldier. It was left to me to break the news to the woman that there were no more eggs.

The soldier later thanked me. “Really, she’s been that way the whole trip; she wants to travel but wants everything to be like Philadelphia!”

When I am in high school, I get to go to France on a student ambassador program. One of the rules of this program is that, even though there might be multiple people to a room, everyone needs to have their own bed. Our first night there, we get our room assignments, and my two roommates and I head up to our room.

We get into the room and immediately find two of the beds: a regular queen in the bedroom and a sunseat-esque thing near one of the windows. My roommates snag the two visible beds and then we start searching the room for the other bed. We look in the closets in case it’s a murphy bed situation, tap the walls, again in case of a Murphy bed situation, and just look everywhere we can think of.

We have to call down to the front desk to get sheets for the second bed, so when the employee comes up with those, we ask him to show us where the third bed is because we are clearly dumb Americans.

He looks at me and [Roommate #2] and says, “There are only two of you.” We tell him that the other girl is in the bathroom. He looks at us like he doesn’t fully believe us — why in the heck would we lie about that?! — but tells us it is under the queen.

After he leaves, we go back and look at the queen bed; we initially dismissed it for having anything underneath because there wasn’t a ton of clearance. But I get down on my stomach and crawl around on the floor, tapping on the base, and there’s no bed; it’s definitely a solid base.

By this time, our leaders are doing room checks. They get to our room and I explain that I have no bed. One of the leaders goes down to see if there’s possibly a single room available while the other one comes and does a second glance over the room just to see if we have missed something. We haven’t, and the first leader comes back and lets us know that the hotel is full. 

It’s decided that I’ll room with one of the leaders for the night, so I get my stuff together and move up to her room. She tells me to shower if I want and then I get the sunseat bed. I get cleaned up and I’m all snuggled up in my bed, writing in this journal that the program requires us to keep — we get school credit for this trip — when one of the other leaders comes back and lets us know that they’ve found a bed.

So, I get all my stuff together and move again. Why they couldn’t let me sleep and then just move me in the morning, I’ll never know. This time, I’m in a room with my own bed and things are good and I get to go to sleep.

Before we leave, we have a picnic. There is a donation basket. Once stuff from the picnic has been covered, the leaders convert the leftover money to Franc and Euros give it out to those of us that have done something kind of above and beyond. So, because I moved around and was a good sport about all of it, I get a little extra money.

A few days later, I call home and talk with my mom about things, and I tell her what happened with the money. I find out after I get home that she almost gave my dad a heart attack telling him about it. Here’s what happened:

My mom tells my dad, “[My Name] found a way to make some extra money while on vacation.”

“Oh?”

“Yep! She’s sleeping around!”

I work in a hotel. It is a very busy summer evening and there are two of us working the front desk during the rush, but the other girl has only been working here for a couple of months.

We have a small undercover area directly in front of the lobby where people normally park to check in. Due to its odd layout, it is also the only way to get to a portion of the parking lot. It’s a tight fit, but if the guest checking in has pulled completely to one side, then a second car can drive through.

Two guests riding motorcycles come into the lobby while I am checking in another guest.

Guest: “Is it all right if we park our motorcycles out front there?”

Coworker: “Um, I don’t think so. Normally, our motorcycle parking is along the side of the building here, but let me ask [My Name].”

Guest: “Oh, don’t ask her; it’s okay.”

They immediately leave the lobby. My coworker relays this to me after the rush dies down, and I immediately call the room.

Me: “Hi, this is [My Name] from the front desk. I was just wondering if it was your motorcycles that were parked directly in front of the building?”

Guest: “Uh… yeah.”

Me: “I was just hoping you could move them to a parking spot, or even just twenty feet up along the curb, so cars are able to get around you.”

Guest: “We didn’t think they’d be a problem there. I just want them to be undercover.”

Me: “We generally don’t allow parking there, because it’s difficult for cars to get around. I’m just worried that they may get hit.”

Guest: “We aren’t worried. We watched a truck get through there just fine!”

Me: “Um, okay. It’s just generally not something we—”

Guest: “Well, we think it’s fine.”

This goes on for a couple more minutes as the guest gets more and more irritated. I am more worried about complaints by other guests, but it is clear I am not going to win this fight without these guests overreacting enough at check-out to demand a discount, and possibly beyond — online or to corporate. I surrender. 

Me: “Okay… well… I guess you can leave them there. It’s just that cars are going to have to squeeze through there. I just don’t want your motorcycles to get hit.”

Guest: “Ugh! I’ll tell you what. I’ll come down and take a look at the situation, but my riding jeans are in the wash, so it will be a bit of time anyway.”

Me: “Okay, well, that’s fine, then.”

Guest: “Okay, we’ll leave them there. Thank you so much for your flexibility, Miss [My Name].”

Me: *Awkward laugh* “Okay.” *Click*

I never saw the guests again but had complaints from one couple checking in, and as I was leaving for the night, I watched as a small motorhome tried to squeeze through the area.

I overhear this at the hotel where I work.

Guest: “Yeah, I think we are going to go to the pizza restaurant tonight. We have not had Spanish food yet this trip.”