An American hotel guest comes up to me at our buffet restaurant.
Customer: “I want to speak to a manager about the eggs in your buffet! They’re rotten!”
Me: “Ma’am, those are pickled onions.”
Customer: “I don’t care what kind of bird laid them, they’re gross!”
Related:
Putting Themselves Into A Bit Of A Pickle, Part 2
Putting Themselves Into A Bit Of A Pickle
It was a slow night at the hotel, and I answered the phone.
Caller: “How much are your rooms?”
Me: “It’s [total] after tax, and there’s a $100 deposit we put on your credit card for incidentals.”
Caller: “Since when have you been doing a deposit?”
Me: “Uh, the $100 deposit has been since August or September. Before that, we were doing a $50 deposit for about a year.”
Caller: “Well, I’ve never paid any deposit there.”
Me: “Okay.”
Caller: “I’ve stayed there a bunch of times in the last year. No one asked me for a deposit.”
Me: “Okay.”
I guess at this point he expected me to say, “Well, gee whiz, complete stranger on the other end of the line, I guess because you say so, I don’t have to charge a deposit.”
Caller: “I was just there twice last month, and no one said anything about a deposit!”
Me: “Well, I guess no one was doing their job, then.”
He hung up before I could say anything else which might be attributable to the obvious sarcasm in my voice when I made the last statement. There are folks who we waive the deposit for, but most of them are contractors who pay a set rate or people who have been coming to the hotel forever and would have led the conversation by telling me who they were or addressed me by name when I answered the phone.
It just felt like a variation of the people who say things like, “I stayed in every hotel in the known universe last night and none of them asked for a credit card and they all let me pay with pocket lint.”
I’m a valet at a fancy hotel that isn’t too far from a very famous theme park. A woman pulls up in a big SUV and gets out. She has two toddler-aged children in the car.
Guest: “I’m checking in, but I need to leave straight after. Watch the car and the kids for me.”
She’s about to march straight into the hotel when I have to stop her.
Me: “Ma’am, please bring your children with you when you check in. I can keep your car here by the side of the drive-up if you need to head straight back out, but you can’t leave your children with me.”
Guest: “Why not?”
Me: “I’m a complete stranger. What makes you think I can just watch your kids?”
Guest: “You work for the hotel! Plus, you look trustworthy!”
Me: “What makes me look trustworthy?”
Guest: “Well… you’re…” *whispers* “…white.”
Me: “So was every serial killer that Netflix has made a special about in the last ten years, but thanks for showing your racism, ma’am. I will not be watching your children for you; this is not a service the hotel valet provides. Please look after them yourself or find professional childcare facilities. Good day.”
I work the audit shift at a motel literally right off the highway; I can count traffic from our front parking lot. Audit shift, for those unaware, is the third shift, or overnight, where we run close-of-day software, prepare breakfast (I know not every place does this, but we do, and it gives a general idea of my duties), and generally make sure there’s at least someone on the property at all times.
I’m literally the only employee here at night, my boss lives on the other side of the bay from the hotel, and our customer support line is about as well-versed in the goings-on of this hotel as an ant in an auto shop. Fortunately, I’m 6’2″, large, and generally don’t f*** around. It’s not that I’m any great shakes in a fight, but I’m the kind of tall, fat-that-looks-like-bulk dude that can bluff my way through most any fight, so nobody ever tries getting physical; they just yell a lot and make stupid demands. You know the type.
On one occasion, I take over for the second shift, and I have settled into my evening routine of Reddit and YouTube when I start getting noise complaints. I almost NEVER get noise complaints like this; mostly it’s just someone’s dog while they’re out shopping at the twenty-four-hour grocery store across the street, or someone hard of hearing has their TV too loud. Easy stuff to deal with.
Not these little s***s. Nope. Around midnight, these teenagers start blasting music like they’re trying to shake the entire western seaboard loose.
I march down the hall, already not happy that they’re interrupting my “Eureka” marathon, and knock on the door.
Me: “I need you to turn the music down, please. We’ve gotten some complaints.”
They give me the “yeah, yeah, we will” bulls***, turn it down, and close the door. I don’t even get back to the staircase THREE DOORS AWAY before the music is turned back up, so I go back and pound on the door again.
Teenager #1: “THE F*** DO YOU WANT?!”
Me: “Dude, at least give it long enough for me to get halfway down the hall before you turn it back up.”
Teenager #2: “Man, we didn’t do nothin’.”
Blah, blah, blah.
Me: “Whatever, just turn it the f*** down.”
Not an hour later, I’m getting more complaints, not to mention that I can hear these guys fighting from halfway down the building and an entire floor away. (They’re on the first, and the front office is on the second.) So, I haul myself back down to their room and knock on the door. One of them answers.
Me: “All right, you guys have got to go. I’m giving you half an hour to pack your s*** and leave before I have the cops escort you out.”
Teenager #1: “Our mom isn’t here, and she’s the one renting the room!”
“Well, s***,” I think. “If they’re all this bad, imagine the mom.”
Me: “Either way, you have half an hour.”
Teenager #3: “Man, you can’t kick us all out. We’re minors!”
I repeat myself one more time and then walk away. I call the cops, saying I need help with an eviction. I explain that they’re loud and refuse to leave, and there’s a lot of fighting. It takes the boys in blue about five minutes to show up, at which point I happily lead them down to the room.
They’ve shown up with two squad cars, two cops each, and thank God, because one of them had the foresight to march around to the back of the hotel. By the time I get the cops to the room, the kids have all bailed. Of course, they get about as far as a fart in a vacuum, thanks to the cops. Not ten minutes later, I see the entire entourage of like five kids being detained (not cuffed or in the cars, but certainly not allowed to leave) by like six cops (more have shown up for the funsies).
A couple of them have the audacity (read: it is someone else’s turn with the community brain cell) to argue with the cops like they were yelling at me earlier. They hang around for about twenty or thirty minutes waiting for the kids’ parent.
One of the cops explains to me that they aren’t looking to press charges on a bunch of kids for being noisy and rude. Honestly, up to this point, that’s all they’ve really been doing; I just want them out of the hotel and knew they weren’t taking me seriously.
Then, one of the teens comes into the lobby.
Teenager #4: “Did you really call the cops on us, man?”
Me: “Yeah, I did.”
Teenager #4: “Dude, we’re all minors.”
Me: “Don’t care.”
Teenager #4: “Man, you’s a punk-a** b***.”
Me: “Still don’t care.”
About half an hour after the cops and the kids part ways, a woman comes up to the front desk.
Woman: “Are you the one who called the cops on my kids?”
Oh, boy, here we go.
Me: “Yes, I am.”
Woman: “I am so sorry about them.”
Wait, what?
Woman: “Honestly, only two of them are mine. My daughter snuck her boyfriend in while I was out grocery shopping, and apparently, he brought his friends, one of whom stole a bottle of booze from the grocery store across the street.”
She’s super apologetic and pays for the room properly, and I let her back in to collect their stuff. She is even super understanding when I tell her:
Me: “Look, I know it’s not your fault, but this does mean I have to add you all to the Do Not Rent list going forward.”
Woman: “It’s no problem. I’m not planning on taking her to a hotel again anyway.”
I never did find out what happened to the group of kids responsible for shoplifting, underage drinking, public disturbance, and trespassing. (If you tell someone to leave your hotel and they don’t, as long as they haven’t been there for more than fifteen days [Governor’s Eviction Moratorium], you can have them hauled off for trespassing.) But I do hope the kids got help, and I feel really bad for the mom.
I work in a hotel in a historic city. Coincidentally, we are next-door neighbours with another hotel that we have no affiliation with. Our names are completely different; our name is based on a Roman structure, while their name includes the name of the town and is written on the side of their building.
Despite these differences, we still have this conversation on a daily basis.
Reception: “Good afternoon, and welcome to [Hotel]. Are you checking in?”
The guest has walked past the front door, which has the hotel’s name on it.
Guest: “Yes, I have a booking under [Guest].”
Reception: “I’m sorry, but I don’t have a reservation under that name. Could it be under a different one?”
Guest: “No! I booked this [length of time] ago!”
Reception: “May I see your confirmation email?”
The guest shows a confirmation email for the neighbouring hotel.
Reception: “Sir/Madam, you’re in the wrong hotel. Your hotel is just next door with the big name in gold on the building…”
