(I love my aunt, I really do, but sometimes she doesn’t grasp the concepts of customer service, as the only job she’s had is being a teacher for high-schoolers. I have to call her out on her complaints about customer service; this one I particularly remember. She’s visiting my family in Denver; she and her husband are staying at a hotel nearby. They pick me up one day to go shopping, and we are riding in the car.)

Aunt: “I’m so pissed off at the hotel. We are not getting what we are paying for.”

Me: “What happened?”

Aunt: “They didn’t clean our room while we were out yesterday.”

Me: “That’s weird.”

Aunt: “We had to call down and ask for clean towels.”

Me: “Did you complain?”

Aunt: “Yes, but they said we had our ‘do not disturb’ sign on the knob to our room.”

Me: “Well, did you?”

Aunt: “Yes.”

Me: “Did you leave it there by accident?”

Aunt: “No, we wanted it there; we didn’t want to be disturbed.”

Me: “So, you’re mad they obeyed the ‘do not disturb’ sign?”

Aunt: “They should clean the room!”

(I am with my parents in a cheap hotel. I am six and my parents are sleeping because of jet lag. I am still awake and decide to look under the bed. I find handcuffs! I decide to handcuff my parents together. When they wake up I am asleep in the next bed. Their panic wakes me up but I still look asleep. I know I am in trouble. I don’t remember what really happens, but they eventually get the handcuffs off and are about to talk to the hotel people.)

Me: “You got the handcuffs off!”

Parents: “…?”

Me: “…”

Parents: “What do you know about this?”

Me: “I found them under the bed.”

Parents: “You are lucky that those were just magic trick handcuffs so we got out of them easily!”

(It wasn’t until much later that I found out what those handcuffs were probably really used for despite the innocent manufacturer.)

(My wife works in a hotel and she relayed this story to me.)

Wife: “Bell department, [Wife] speaking. How may I assist you?”

Customer: “We lost our luggage ticket but need you to bring our bags up.”

Wife: “That’s not a problem, ma’am. Please describe the bags, and tell me how many you have?”

Customer: “Yeah, it was two big black bags. Get them and bring them up right away!”

Wife: “All right, ma’am, I will start looking for those right away, and as soon as we find them a bellman will bring them up.”

Customer: “Hurry up.” *click*

(She looks through the dozens of racks for a grouping of two black bags, then checks the name. This is a big hotel and there are hundreds, if not thousands of bags. After looking through the entire downstairs area for about ten minutes, she calls to get help to look in the upstairs area; she has no luck there, either.)

Wife: *calling the guest back* “I apologize, ma’am, but we were not able to locate two black bags under your name. Could you possibly tell me anything else about them?”

Customer: “For crying out loud, do I have to come down there myself? It’s two black bags; how hard could it be?”

Wife: “Ma’am, this hotel has thousands of rooms; I literally have hundreds of black bags down here from our guests. I just need a bit more to go on. Any luck finding the ticket?”

Customer: “No. Fine, it was two black bags, a grey bag, and a blue suitcase. Sheesh. Why is this so hard?”

Wife: *gritting her teeth and wanting to strangle guest through the phone* “Oh, so it was four bags: two black, one grey bag, and a blue suitcase. As soon as we locate them, the bellman will be up to your room. Give us about ten minutes.”

Customer: “I don’t have all day.” *click*

Wife: *head-desk*

[My sister and I are Americans, in Ottawa for a couple of days.  She is the stupid one in this story.  It is approximately 11 hours after we left home.  Our hotel is very nice, and is located a couple of blocks from Parliament Hill]
Sister: Can we change our money here?
Male Desk Worker: Yes, I can do that. [He starts to type things in on the computer terminal.  He turns to the female worker]  How do I do that?
[They go through the process, and a couple of minutes later, he is ready for the actual exchange]
MDW:  How much do you want?
Sister: $40 American
MDW [as he is opening his cash drawer and pulling out the appropriate Canadian Currency]  That will be $42.50
[At this point, my sister is pulling out more than the $40, causing the worker to be confused]
MDW:  I meant that you give me $40, I give <i>you</i>$42.50
We all laugh (we were exhausted from driving all day).  It was a [email protected]#t exchange rate, but we were OK with that.

(Two people, a man and a woman, come up to my desk together and start talking.)

Me: “Hello, may I help you?”

Man: “Checking in.”

(I go through the process of check in, and all the while, the woman and man are chatting friendly. It’s obvious they know each other very well.)

Woman: “Do you have any luggage carts?”

Me: “Oh, there’s no more, I’ll just ask someone to fetch them.”

(I finish with check in and go to tell the houseperson, who’s in the back about the carts.)

Man: “Hey! Aren’t you gonna CHECK HER IN?!”

Me: “Uh, who? Oh her, I thought she was with you.”

Man: “Huh?!”

Me: “You know, your wife or something?”

Man: “She isn’t MY WIFE, my wife is sick in the hospital! How can you assume that?!”

Me: “Because you were talking with her and you came up with her? I was just going to ask the houseperson to get the carts that she asked for.”

(The man darts a look at her, then at me.)

Woman: “It’s true.”

Man: “…Oh.”

(He calms down and struts away. Moral of the story: don’t walk up with someone unless you two are together, it’s very confusing! Stand behind each other in line, dummies! Plus, mind your business.)