Way Too Charged Up Over This

Like all hotels, we have a lost and found system because people leave things behind all the time. The item is bagged, labeled, and sorted into a storage box based on the floor it was found on, and then the information is written in a binder so we have an easy way to know exactly what’s in our lost and found bins. I’ll abbreviate Lost & Found as “L&F” for the sake of brevity.

We keep L&F items for ninety days. If they’re not claimed by that time, they become the property of the hotel and are typically claimed by whichever housekeepers wants them. If no one wants the items, they are thrown out. The number one items left behind are phone chargers. Most people don’t bother calling and asking for them to be returned, so after ninety days, they get put in a drawer in the office for the employees to use and to lend out to any guest who has forgotten their own charger.

[Guest] comes in with her husband. I greet them and start checking them in and everything.

Guest: “I left something here during my last stay, and I never got it back.”

Me: “Oh! I’m sorry. What was it?”

Guest: “A phone charger.”

I try looking up her last reservation, but for some reason, the system ain’t havin’ it. Name, phone number, email address — nothing I search is bringing up any results.

Me: “Do you remember the room number or the dates you stayed?”

Guest: “No, but I spoke to the manager on the phone multiple times when I first left it here. He said he’d ship it back to me, but it never arrived.”

Me: “Well, I’m sorry, but nothing is coming up in my search results right now. I can look a bit harder later on when we aren’t so busy.”

Guest: “It’s very unprofessional for you to not have any record of our last stay.”

Lady… obviously, we do have a record, but it’s hard to find when the name isn’t turning up results and I don’t know what date or room number you stayed.

Me: “I understand, and I’ll do my best to find it when I have a few minutes. I can call you when I find something, okay?”

She goes to her room, but not ten minutes later, she calls the desk to ask me if I’ve found her reservation yet. My sister in Christ, I haven’t even had a chance to breathe yet.

Me: “No, but I’ll call you when I do.”

Guest: “Could you just physically go to the lost and found and look through everything to see if you can find my charger?”

Ma’am, what in the f***…

Me: “Do you remember what room you were in last time or what date you stayed?”

She half-scoffs, half-laughs.

Guest: “No! Of course not! You don’t need that information to find my charger!”

Me: “Well, that’s how our lost and found is organized, so I either need that or I need to see your reservation, which I haven’t had a chance to find yet.”

Guest: “Can you search by my rewards number?”

Me: “Yes, but I’ve already tried that.”

Guest: “No, no, no. My old rewards number from my old phone number.”

Why, no, that didn’t cross my mind. She reads it off to me, and her reservation pops right up. And I don’t know what I expected, but it sure wasn’t a reservation from February 5th. It’s November. I stare at it and blink for a second, wondering if she is kidding me.

Me: “It looks like your last stay was on February 5th. Does that sound correct?”

Guest: “Yes! That’s it!”

Me: “Oh, that was nine months ago…”

Guest: “I know that. I told you I spoke to your manager multiple times, and he promised to ship it back, but he never did.”

Me: “I, uh… Let me check our L&F log real quick. Please hold.”

I go back and look at our L&F binder, and there isn’t even anything logged in there — not a single phone charger on that day or the next. This also means that the manager wouldn’t have sent anything back because nothing was found in the first place.

I pick up the phone again and tell her.

Guest: *Angrily* “You need to actually go back to your lost and found and look through everything to make sure!”

Me: “There’s nothing documented about you leaving a charger behind. And even if you did, we get rid of items after ninety days.”

Guest: “You’re telling me you threw out my personal property? That you just get rid of things like that? That’s irresponsible, unprofessional, and disrespectful to the person whose property it is. You should be keeping things until people come back for them.”

Yeah, sure, [Guest], because who knows when Gertrude IV might call and demand to have her toenail clippings from two years ago returned. It’s not feasible to keep all L&F items forever.

Me: “I understand, but that’s our policy here. I can pass this on to the manager who will be here tomorrow morning if you’d like.”

Guest: “I’d like for you to go look for my phone charger.”

Me: “I sa—” *Sighs* “Is it a regular iPhone charger?”

Guest: “Yes, it’s an iPhone charger.”

Me: “Well, I’ll give you another one if you want to stop by the desk sometime today.”

Guest: “Fine. I’ll be down in a few minutes.”

I pull one out of our drawer, make sure it is clean, and wait for her to come down. I think this will be the end of it. But alas…

I give the charger to her, and she stands there lecturing me.

Guest: “This whole situation is so unprofessional! You’re all so irresponsible! I will be speaking to your manager about this in the morning!”

I text my manager a heads-up so he doesn’t end up ambushed unexpectedly by this woman in the morning.

Sure enough, the next morning, the guest comes down to talk to someone. My manager tells her the same thing I did last night. After this lady yells at her some more, [Manager] goes and gets our L&F binder and drops it on the counter.

Manager: “Look, see the dates here? There’s no mention of any charger found on those dates.”

Guest: “But I spoke to a man who said he’d ship it to me!”

[Manager] goes and gets the general manager.

General Manager: “Ma’am, I’m the only man who works here, and I didn’t speak to you about shipping a charger.”

Guest: “Well, you’re not the man I talked to! It was a different man!”

General Manager: “I’m the only man who works here. Didn’t the agent from last night give you another charger?”

Guest: “Yes, she did. But that’s not the point! This entire staff is handling this extremely unprofessionally. You’re all unprofessional, rude, and disrespectful. I didn’t want to have to write a bad review, but I can see that I’ll have to.”

Manager: “That’s fine, ma’am. Have a nice day!”

The guest left, but I can guarantee you that she did not have a nice day.

I can’t wait to read her review. That’ll be worth a good laugh.