I work in a hotel. I am just about to clock out and leave when a guest comes up to the front desk and asks about extending his reservation.

Me: “Good morning, sir! How can I help you?”

Guest: “I would like to extend my reservation.”

Me: “Sure thing! Let me see what I can do.”

I get his room number from him to see what his room type was to make sure we have it in inventory. We are a fairly new hotel, and we have a large long-term stay group with us that has been here since we opened, taking up about half of our inventory.

When I look at our availability, I see that we are completely sold out.

Me: “I’m so sorry, sir, but we are completely sold out tonight. I am not able to extend your reservation and I do apologize about this.”

Guest: “Well, I think my status can change things.”

Me: *Confused pause* “We are completely sold out. I do not have any rooms available.”

Guest: “Surely you have a room available. You guys are never truly sold out.”

Me: “I’m sorry, but I do not have any rooms.”

Guest: “Don’t you guys have a manager’s room available for me?”

Me: “No, I do not. I do not have any rooms available tonight. I apologize for the inconvenience.”

As you can tell, this goes on for some time, and after a while, I start to sound like a broken record. I am tired of him and I am tired in general.

Me: “Sir, if you would like, my managers will be in at any moment. You are more than welcome to talk to them about this. As for right now, the only thing I can do for you is give you a late checkout.”

Guest: “Fine. I’ll take that, seeing as you are no help whatsoever, and I know you are lying about not having rooms. How late can I check out?”

I go and schedule him a four-pm checkout since that’s the latest his rewards tier will allow. He leaves in a big huff and goes back to his room.

I never heard if he came down to talk to the managers, but I did find out that he ended up leaving around one pm. I’m not quite sure what he wanted me to do about not having any rooms for him. Did he expect me to deny someone else their reservation for that night due to his poor planning? Who knows? Do they actually do manager rooms at other hotels? I don’t think so. At least, they didn’t in the two big-name brand hotels that I’ve worked with before. What I do know is that I hate when high-tier guests think they can bully us just because they are “loyal members.” It really grinds my gears.

I work in a local supermarket on the hot deli counter part-time on Friday and Saturday evenings.

The store closes at 10:00 pm on Saturdays, and the counters close at 9:00 pm.

On Friday, as per usual, the store is quiet. The last chicken gets taken around 8:00 pm and we spend the last hour cleaning and preparing for the morning. We leave at 9:00 pm.

I come in the next day only to be taken into the office by the line manager and the store manager.

Line Manager: “Why didn’t we have any chickens left at half-nine?”

Me: “It was quiet and I leave at nine.”

Store Manager: “Tonight, I want to make sure we don’t run into the same situation and that the cabinet is full when you leave.”

Nine pm comes. The store is dead. We have a full cabinet with easily eighty or ninety chickens all bagged up. My job is done.

I come in the next week and I’m hauled into the office by the store manager.

Store Manager: “We had over £1,000 worth of food waste thrown away on Saturday! What the f*** are you playing at?!”

Me: “I’d like to gently remind you that you wanted that cabinet full until the end of my shift. What the f*** did you think was going to happen?”

Store Manager: “Just run it how you used to. Who wants chickens at half-nine on a Friday night, after all?”

My job is not exactly unique, and within my company alone, we have around 5,000 people doing it, but what makes my position different is that I work solo in a location, whereas most people have teams of at least five or six.

The company decides that they are going to open another solo location due to the low overheads and high profits we tend to make, and so it is decided that I am going to help get it set up as well as teaching the new starter the ropes you don’t get shown in a team.

My manager finds a nice hotel five minutes’ walk from the location — he asked me if I was happy walking before booking it — which also includes breakfast and tea, so the only extra budget would be for lunch. The problem starts because it is £10 over his allowed budget and so it has to be sent off to the cost centre for approval. They, of course, check hotels in the area for cheaper prices.

Cost Centre Employee: “[Manager], we managed to find a few hotels in the area with lower prices. We are rejecting your hotel selection. Please find somewhere else.”

This is where malicious compliance comes in. He found a really nice hotel a twenty-minute drive from the location and £1 below his budget. He booked it for me and this was accepted; however, the hotel did not include any food, and the way our company works is that they will cover all food costs from the hotel as long as you have receipts. Because it was twenty minutes from the location and I could not drive, taxis were also booked for me to take me to and from work.

This ended up costing the company an extra £500 after paying for food and taxis. I got to take full advantage of a five-star hotel, as well as having shorter days at work due to “travel time.”

I was like a lot of young girls; I loved horses. “That crazy horse girl” was me, and I was her. My parents weren’t rich, so when I got ten lessons at our local stables for my ninth birthday, I was ecstatic, and I literally fell in love. I saved up to ride more, and I always dreamed about becoming a professional horseback rider. But there was one catch: the owners of the stable.

They quickly saw my enthusiasm and, being a new yard knee-deep in work, they made an offer that I literally cried over with sheer joy. When I was ten, they said I could work there! So, I started working every Saturday and Sunday from 7:30 am to 6:30 pm and some days after school. But I wasn’t getting paid, and I actually still had to pay them for my half-hour group riding lessons on Saturdays.

Not only was I working like a dog there, but they didn’t have any shelter for me and wouldn’t let me in their house. One winter was so bad that I sat in a stable and cried, trying to heat my hands up against a horse. I was an eleven-year old, freezing to death, and they wouldn’t let me in their mansion because I had “work to do.” The only toilet at the stables that I was allowed to use was in a rundown shed that had never been cleaned in the years I was there.

I got pneumonia; I developed hypothermia and I already had childhood asthma. I don’t remember a lot from that period of time, but I do remember going back to horse riding after recovering and getting yelled at for being away too long.

I was ignored, yelled at, and overall treated like crap, so my parents decided that at the very least I shouldn’t have to pay for lessons. Well, when I told the owners, they laughed at this and basically told me to f*** off, and I knew if I told my parents then I wouldn’t be allowed to go back. So, my parents stopped paying for lessons under the assumption I was getting them for free due to all my work, and I just pretended I was getting them when, in reality, I wasn’t.

Unfortunately, although my parents were aware it was a bad situation, they had no idea I didn’t have shelter or sanitary setups, but they knew the owners treated me like crap. I would lie and tell them plots of horse cartoons I’d seen, pretending I’d done it with my imaginary yard friends — sad, I know — and I told them that I was always given hot chocolate. And they did try to stop me going a few times, but I would cry for days and beg them to let me go back because I loved the horses so much.

I started dreading going, but I loved the horses and couldn’t imagine not seeing them every weekend, so I put up with the freezing weather, the abuse, and the exhaustion until I was fourteen. Something snapped and I had a mental breakdown and called my mum to come pick me up. The owners were furious because I was supposed to be leading a few lessons that day — another great perk of the job was walking around an arena for three hours nonstop, leading the new riders — and hadn’t finished mucking out all the stables. I couldn’t do it anymore and went home. For the first time in forever, I slept in and went out with friends.

A few months later, I started missing the horses badly and booked a lesson so I could see them. (I know, but I was desperate.) But when I got there, I found out that my favourite horse had died. No one had told me. I was getting weekly texts from the owners demanding I go in, but no one had even thought to tell me that the horse I had grown attached to over four years had died! I left right then and there in tears. They still made me pay for the lesson I never went to — even though it was a group lesson and this happened a few hours beforehand — and sent abusive messages to me until I blocked them.

They sold their school horses shortly after and became a livery yard. I walked away from horse riding after losing all faith in the sport. I do still miss the horses I looked after, and I hope they’re in the best homes possible. I gave this family my weekends, my time, and my childhood, and they didn’t give me anything in return. Sometimes they would even pretend I hadn’t paid for a lesson, knowing I was too anxious to protest, and I would cry at the end of the day, counting that $30 I had given them for nothing.

I eventually told my parents; they are racked with guilt to this day and have apologised a lot. I didn’t realise at that age that I was being abused because — even though most of the time the owners would talk down to me and shout at me — they would occasionally compliment me, and I would feel so appreciated and happy.

As I’ve told this story, a lot of people have pointed out that this was way more serious than I gave it credit for, and I’ve decided that I will try and take legal action, or at the very least, get the message out about how bad they treated the help. I’m not sure how it’ll go, but I’ve realised that if they did it to me, they’ll do it to other kids, and I will try shine a light on the truth of this company.

I work as a night manager in a hotel. I just started my shift, and I get information regarding a guest who is acting a bit shady, has a connection-reservation coming up which he has not paid for yet, and still has a few bar bills to pay.

One of my colleagues dialed him at 6:00 pm.

Colleague: “I was wondering when you’re planning to come down to finalize your payment?”

Guest: “I’ll be down in just a moment.”

At 9:00 pm, my colleague saw him run out of the lobby without saying anything to the front desk.

I start my shift at 10:30 pm and get all the info I need. I pay a visit to the room he has departed from. I stumble upon one of the dirtiest rooms I have ever witnessed. He has smoked a lot in the shower, and there is ash everywhere; we are a smoke-free hotel.

I go back to the front desk and try to charge his card for the bar bill and as well as the smoking fee. It is declined. I remember overhearing from a colleague that he opens and closes his card however he wants to avoid late payments.

Anyway, I tell myself that if he walks back in, I will make him pay for the bar bill and the smoking fee and then refuse to check him in again.

At 11:30 pm, the madman walks in again and orders me to finalize his connection-reservation.

Me: “I will finalize the payment from your previous stay, in addition to a smoking fee; I found evidence that you smoked in the room.”

Guest: “I’m not paying any smoking fee! I didn’t smoke in the room!”

I show him some pictures of the room.

Guest: *Shrugging* “The ashes must have fallen off of my clothes from when I smoked outside.”

Me: “I’m sorry, but we have evidence.”

He gives up.

Guest: “I’m just gonna call a friend.”

And he takes off running.

I stand there confused. I know that his card will decline, and I feel like it’s not worth it to call the cops etc. After two minutes, I see that he has borrowed one of these electric bikes you can rent around town, and at the same second that he drives past our entrance, I realise that he has activated his card to be able to rent the bike! So, I pull up his folio and try to charge his card once again, and the missing payments go through! He tried to flee, but I feel like I outsmarted him.

He called us later and said that we did not have the right to charge his card after his stay. I simply answered that we do have the right to charge a card if there are missing payments. That is what he signed when he registered. He just said, “See you in court!” and hung up.