(I work in a hotel.)

Customer: *takes sip of coffee from pot in lobby, sneers* “Coffee’s cold!”

Me: “I’m sorry, but there will be another pot made soon.”

Customer: “You should always have coffee. Always!“

Me: “We are not a coffee shop; we are a hotel, with all due respect, sir.”

Customer: “Always have coffee, hot and ready. Always. You have it listed on your website!”

Me: *snaps* “Sir, let me go now to our website and print out the list of our amenities.” *prints* “As you can see, there is no free coffee in the lobby 24/7. We put some out, out of kindness to you. It’s not required, and you are not paying for it.”

Customer: *sputtering, looking at paper* “I’ll be reporting your rudeness to your manager! Bunch of crooks!” *storms off*

Me: “My rudeness or my correctness?”

(He did report me to my manager, calling me rude and a smarta**. Good thing I warned my manager about it beforehand.)

(I work at a family resort on the weekends as front desk lead. This happens to me starting at around 8:00 pm.)

Me: “Hello, we need a pack-and-play for room 547.”

Runner: “Okay, okay, one second.” *waits five seconds* “What did they want?”

Me: “A pack-and-play.”

Runner: “What’s that? Oh, a crib. Okay, and what room number?”

Me: “547.”

Runner: “All right, a crib to 457.”

Me: “No, it’s 547.”

Runner: “457?”

Me: “FIVE, FOUR, SEVEN.”

Runner: “Okay. I got it now.”

Me: “Thank you.”

(One hour later:)

Room 457: “Hello. Someone delivered this crib and we don’t need it.”

Coworker: “Oh, I’m sorry! I’ll let our runner know.” *calls runner* “Hello, 457 called and said they were delivered a rollaway and never ordered one.”

(I’m walking by as this happens, and I’m completely dumbstruck that he STILL delivered the item to 457.)

Runner: “Oh? They don’t want it anymore?”

Me: “He was supposed to deliver it to 547.”

Coworker: “It needs to go to 547. Okay, bye.”

(By this time, 547 has called to complain that their baby wants to sleep and their pack-and-play did not show up. A half hour later, they call back and we call the runner again.)

Runner: *calling from room 557* “Say, what room was that pack-and-thingy supposed to go to?”

Me: *dying inside* “FIVE… FOUR… SEVEN.”

Runner: “Okay.”

(I didn’t receive any more calls after that, so I assume they got it that time.)

(I am down in the laundry room getting towels when a guest is getting checked in, so I have no interaction with him. When I get back, I notice he has left his payment card at the desk, so I walk around to the back to give it back to him.)

Me: “Are you [Guest]?”

Guest: “Uh… Yes?”

Me: *hands him his card*

Guest: “OH! Oh, thank God! THANK GOD! HAHAHA!”

Me: “Haha, yeah, bad thing to leave behind.”

Guest: “HA! Oh, man! Thank God! I thought you were with Cheaters! Oh, thank God! “

Me: “…”

(I have just checked in a guest who was very unhappy with her room, so I switched her to another right across the hallway.)

Another Guest: “There are some people running back and forth between [Room #1] and [Room #2]. Their noise is waking me up.”

(I realize it’s the guest that I switched earlier, so I send a security guard to check it out. He reports that the guest’s kids are staying in the new room and she and her husband are sleeping in the old one. I call the guest.)

Me: “Ma’am, you can only have one room. If you want the second, you have to pay for it.”

Guest: *arguing* “Can’t we just keep it like this?”

(She argued and then finally agreed to move to her new room. Basically, she was trying to get two rooms for the price of one! Some people…)

(I work front desk at a hotel and I get a call from an in-house guest.)

Customer: “Yeah, I’m in 417 and all my light bulbs are burnt out. I have no light in here and I’ve got work to do. Can you send someone up here to fix them, please?”

Me: “Absolutely, ma’am. I’ll be right up.”

(I highly doubt that all of her bulbs are burnt out, so I grab only two spare lights and head upstairs to see what the problem is. I get to her room and knock.)

Me: “Hi! So, which lights are not working?”

Customer: “None of them! They won’t turn on; I’ve tried everything.”

(I walk over to the first lamp, turn the switch, and the light comes on.)

Customer: “Oh…”

(I go to the other lamps on either side of the bed, turn the switches on each of them, and they both turn on. I repeat this with each light in the room, turning knobs and flipping switches; they all work.)

Customer: “Well, I feel stupid now.”

(In my mind I’m thinking, “Well, that’s because you ARE stupid,” but of course, I don’t actually say that.)

Me: “Oh, no worries; those lights can be pretty tricky sometimes. Is there anything else I can help you with?”

Customer: “Yes, actually, can you close that window for me? I had trouble getting it to open all the way, and now I can’t close it.”

(I go to close it and notice right away that the window is open ABOVE the little plastic piece that normally keeps the window from opening more than seven inches.)

Me: “Well, this is odd.”

Customer: “Yeah, I had to force it open; I hope I didn’t break it.”

Me: “Yeah, I’m going to go grab a screwdriver to try to fix this. I’ll be back in a moment, okay?”

Customer: “Sure, no problem. I really hope I didn’t break it.”

(I go put away the two unused light bulbs, grab a screwdriver, and head back upstairs. As soon as I try to fix it, I see exactly what the problem is.)

Me: “Well, it looks like someone forced this window to open above the plastic guard. See that plastic bit that the window was resting on? That is supposed to stop the window from opening any further. Somebody forced the window up past it, and now the mechanism is broken. See here?” *I point to a large, cracked piece of plastic on the window itself* “It’s cracked and broken, and the little mechanism inside is stuck. I won’t be able to close it. I think you did, in fact, break it when you forced it open, so most likely you will be billed for the damage.”

Customer: “Oh, but I never forced anything! It was already like that when I checked in; the window was already open!”

Me: “But you just told me you hoped you didn’t break it because—”

Customer: “No, I never said I had trouble opening the window, or that I forced it. I never told you those things earlier. So… Can I get a new room?”

Me: *sigh* “Yes, ma’am, I will get you a new room.”

(We only had one other room of that kind available, but the customer didn’t like it because there was no desk in it. She insisted on a room with a desk, so I ended up upgrading her and increased the price accordingly. She fought with the manager the next morning, and eventually my boss gave the upgrade for free and decided not to bill her for the damage. His logic was that the guest would be happy and come back. She ended up leaving a very negative and false review of our hotel, and she never came back. She was a one-shot guest who caused more trouble than she was worth.)