The Information Vacancy

I work at a relatively small chain hotel as a receptionist. Besides checking in guests, one of my main responsibilities is answering phones, and one of the most common requests is emailing receipts. This is usually a very straightforward process that takes maybe two to three minutes. I recently took a call that was very… special, though.

The caller was a woman who identified herself as working for an HR department at a company, and she wanted receipts for some employees who stayed recently. Normal so far. But then:

Me: “Alright, do you have any confirmation numbers for these rooms?”

Caller: “I don’t.”

Me: “That’s absolutely fine. Can you tell me what dates these guests stayed?”

Caller: “I think sometime in the last few weeks.”

Me: “…okay. Were the reservations made under a company name or the guests’ names?”

Caller: “I honestly don’t know. I wasn’t given a lot of information.” *Laughs.*

I’m still trying to be ‘customer service polite’, but honestly getting confused and slightly annoyed at this point:

Me: “Okay, what information do you have?”

Caller: “Can you search by credit card number?”

Me: “Sorry, but that’s not an option in our software.”

Caller: “…oh. I’m not really sure what to do then.”

Long (and painful) story short, this phone call involved attempting to search for a few incorrect names, polite offers to have her call me back once she had more information (which were refused in a chipper tone, like she was doing ME a favor by not hanging up), and eventually her passing me off to her supervisor, who did actually know what she was looking for.

What’s usually a two-to-three-minute call lasted close to twenty. It was just incredibly annoying and bizarre.