They Be High-Rollin’ And They Hatin’

I work at a hotel front desk and dealing with entitled high-rollers is usually fairly easy. It gets hard some days being talked down to and treated like crap; usually, I can brush it off and keep my attitude up.

A guest comes up to me.

Guest: “I’d like to give my high-roller room to my friends here; my host already said it was fine.”

Hosts take care of the high-rollers, giving them free rooms, free food and drink, extra play cash, and all that to encourage them to spend even more money here and not at our competitors.

Me: “Okay! Not a problem. Let me take a look at the notes and make sure they have updated everything properly.”

I get both their IDs and I find — with no surprise — that there are no notes. I hunt through emails but find nothing. I call the host and they have no idea what I’m talking about. Cue the guest getting mad, and she drops the name of her host who, of course, isn’t here today.

Me: “I’m sorry, but the only way we can get this figured out is for you to stop by the host office and talk to them. Per policy, I cannot make your room hosted and free.”

She grouches and grumbles and heads off. Her guest stays with me.

Me: “Would you mind moving to the side so I can help the guest behind you?”

While checking in, I hear her guests talking, and the husband just doesn’t want to bother with the free room and wants to just pay to get in. They go to check in with my coworker, and just as she goes to make keys, the system kicks her out because the host went into it.

By now, it’s too late; the card has already been run. I don’t know if the host fixed it afterward so the amount paid would be refunded after checkout or what.

Not more than three minutes later, the high-roller comes back and starts yelling at me about “letting” them check in without waiting.

Me: “I can’t control when people make a decision. I can only do my job.”

Guest: “This was taken care of and you just ruined it!”

Me: “No, ma’am, I can only go by policy and communication from the host. Since I had nothing here to refer to, I did the only thing I could.”

Guest: “I don’t care! We had figured this out and you ruined it! Rude!”

She starts walking away. I look to my right, thinking about getting my stress reliever out of my bag. This is also in her direction and she takes my look the wrong way.

Guest: “Don’t you look at me in that tone!”

I don’t say anything at this point, just trying to keep my fight or flight response in check.

Guest: “I spend thousands of dollars here—”

I finally lose my cool.

Me: “I DON’T FLIPPING CARE HOW MUCH YOU SPEND! THAT DOESN’T GIVE YOU THE RIGHT TO TREAT ME LIKE CRAP!”

I hear my coworker say my name and I realize what I just did.

Guest: “You don’t f****** care, huh? We will see about that!”

She heads off to the host office. My coworker tells me to go take a break.

Me: “Nope, I’m going to go talk to [Hotel Manager].”

I speed-walked to her office, trying to hold back tears, and when I got there, my coworker had already called her and the host office had demanded a meeting. My manager is amazing and listened to my side before going to the meeting. She told me to go eat some lunch and come back.

After getting calming help from my mother-in-law, who works in another department, I went and ate and then went to wait for my manager in her office. She didn’t write me up or suspend me like I was expecting. She sent me home for the day and said I could come in early the next day. My coworker backed me up saying that I didn’t cuss, just got loud.

The next day, all my coworkers told me how much they wished they could have told a high-roller what I told her. I discovered my husband thinks it’s hot when I stand up for myself. Even that high-roller’s host told me she’s done it, too.

She couldn’t even place that guest’s name in her own head. How much do you want to bet the guest was dropping names to get her way?