My pub shift is uneventful, until a colleague notes that a female patron is unable to hold her head up and has had a bit too much to drink. Unfortunately, she did not come in to purchase her own drinks, but instead is benefiting from the generosity of the regulars. My colleague and I resolve to not serve her and provide ice water to her table.

An hour passes, and I watch her waddle through the bar, searching for the toilets. I direct her to the door, open the door, and allow her inside to do her business. At this point, I spy a regular easing a handbag over the draft pumps, trying to throw it behind the bar. I ask the regular what’s happening, and his response is simply, “I’m not dealing with that.”

Confused, I watch as the drunk patron returns from the bathroom, sodden. She’s wearing a jumpsuit, and the oblivious woman has not managed to get it off in time before wetting herself. Upon seeing that the regular has left her belongings behind the bar, she proceeds to collapse on the floor and wail. The regular was her date and has abandoned her.

At this point, it’s a little after 6:00 pm and our restaurant tables are beginning to arrive. I phone my manager who asks me to move the woman to the staff-only area so that she can have her breakdown in peace.

Unfortunately, when asked, this woman can’t remember her own address, nor her daughter’s phone number, nor where she put her own phone. Every detail she provides is then immediately corrected, and after a while, it becomes apparent that the sodden woman does not want help.

Finally, a consistent detail emerges. She lives in the next town over, fifteen miles away. She can’t remember her address, though. I phone a taxi and explain the woman’s state. I offer her my spare uniform to wear, knowing I’ll never see it again.

This phone call to the taxi is the most difficult one in my life, as the woman keeps interrupting me to say things like, “I’m not confused. I’m fine. I don’t need a taxi. I’ll drive!” 

The taxi service is reluctant, but as we are a pub and give them a lot of business, they agree to drop her off at her town’s train station. I pay for the taxi on the phone and tell the woman to wait in the staff room until the taxi arrives.

A few minutes later, I go to collect the woman, only to find that she has vanished. The people in the garden say she sprinted away into the night, soaked in her own pee. I manage to get a refund for the taxi but get thoroughly chewed out for wasting their time.

I think that I have heard the end of the tale of this woman, until the end of my shift at about two in the morning: I walk home, only to find that the police have taken up the high street and the local doctors’ office has been broken into.

It turns out that this woman is a doctor and broke into her place of work to sleep in her office. Why she didn’t use her keys, we’ll never know.

I work in a hotel with themed rooms, including a fancy bunk room for the kids.

A hotel guest who knew their kid was feeling sick put them in the top bunk and let them projectile vomit everywhere. I had to get maintenance and management in to help me dismantle the beds completely to clean and sanitize them, all while I’m about four-and-a-half months pregnant.

I love my job and the people I work with but man that was not what I signed up for!

A few years ago, I booked a one-bedroom suite in a beautiful, old, upscale hotel in midtown Atlanta. I had stayed in this hotel a few times before but hardly enough to be considered a regular since I’m only in the area once a year.

When I got up to my room, it didn’t seem to be up to prior standards, but since I had been sleeping in a mountain cabin for a week, I just wanted to shower and go to bed. I walked into the bathroom and was greeted by a pair of black lace crotchless panties. I went back down to check-in and asked to be moved to another room. The manager on duty walked back to the room with me and looked around the room. She told me to hold tight and they would get me moved to another room.

Shortly afterward, a bellman came to pick up my luggage to take me to a new room. He took me to a two-bedroom penthouse suite with a full kitchen and a bathroom that seemed larger than the entire one-bedroom suite I had booked.

I didn’t need that much space, but I certainly felt like hotel management had listened and taken my concerns seriously. I can’t imagine staying anywhere else in Atlanta in the future. This is how you develop a loyal customer base.

CONTENT WARNING: GROSS

The grossest thing that ever happened in my store was when it was discovered a male had… exuberantly enjoyed himself on the ENTIRE oral care aisle. Considering this was a full-sized aisle, with 8ft high shelves, he either was there a RIDICULOUSLY long time or there was a whole gang of male offenders doing this at the same time, and there wasn’t a single product that hadn’t been… splattered.

And sitting dead center was an off-brand Barbie, the cellophane on her box cut away, her clothes cut free in particular points, and horrible magic marker makeup applied.

Management tried to make barely eighteen-year-old me clean it up and were surprised by my refusal.

Related:
On The Need For Hazard Pay, Part 25
On The Need For Hazard Pay, Part 24
On The Need For Hazard Pay, Part 23
On The Need For Hazard Pay, Part 22
On The Need For Hazard Pay, Part 21

At one of my old hotels, I was sometimes literally the only person working on the PM shift. One night in the summer, a guest came in.

Guest: “Someone took their baby into the pool with them and the baby had an accident.”

I ran out and asked all the other people to get out of the pool. The pool was outside and next to a BBQ area, so the guests eating inquired what was going on, and when I told them, they immediately helped me get their kids out of the pool. Good guests — not bothering me, and giving me space to clean. They even asked if they could stay in the BBQ area.

I got the pool skimmer and pulled the poop out, and then I called my maintenance man to see what chemicals to put in the pool to clean it. I put up signs saying the pool was closed and even put yellow caution signs in front of both ladders entering the pool itself. All the while, I was hoping that the phone wouldn’t ring or a guest wouldn’t come to check in since, again, I was the only person working there.

I finally got it all done and went back inside, but then I heard a splash. I ran out and a kid had cannonballed into the pool, with his dad standing there watching.

I probably wasn’t calm but screamed and pointed when I came out to tell the dad to get his kid out of the pool. Ignoring signs and letting his kid swim with poop? Sigh.