You Can Count On Unaccountability

(I’m on a business trip until Sunday. Thursday night, my keycard won’t work in my door, so I go to the front desk.)

Me: “Excuse me, my keycard isn’t opening my door.”

Clerk: “What room are you in?”

Me: “[Room number]”.

Clerk: “You checked out this morning.”

Me: “No, I didn’t.”

Clerk: “Yes, you did. I have it right here. [Room number] checked out today.”

Me: “I didn’t check out. I’m here until Sunday. All of my things are still in the room.”

Clerk: “I do have a note here from Housekeeping about that. Hold on… oh, looks like you were checked out by mistake. Let me fix your key.”

(My key is recoded, and I go on my merry way. Come Sunday morning, my bill is slipped under my door. My company is paying for the hotel room, but I’ve had to give them my debit card to cover incidentals. I see that on the day they accidentally checked me out, they have charged my personal card for one night. This is something I can’t afford, so I go back to the front desk.)

Me: “I see you’ve charged my card instead of my company’s card for one night. I need that refunded to my card, please.”

Clerk: “I’m sorry; the receipts have gone to Accounting already, and it’s Sunday, so there’s nobody there. We can’t refund you.”

Me: “But… it was due to a mistake you guys made!”

Clerk: “Well, you should have told us about it on Thursday!”

Me: “I didn’t KNOW about it on Thursday! I found out less than an hour ago!”

Clerk: “Sorry, you’ll have to call Accounting on Monday.”

(It took two days of calling and arguing with their Accounting office before they finally refunded the charge.)