The EVIL department

Well, it's happened. I am working at a hotel again. I am not in "operations" which is where all the action takes place, but I'm sure some good stories will come out of this job. However, from what I can tell, this is by far the most smoothly run hotel I have encountered. Ever.

So I am now in the "evil" department. Sales. In every hotel I've worked at the front office abhorrs the sales department. Sales are the spawns of Satan in fact. They book all this business, which is good, but then they get to leave. And the front office is stuck dealing with the egos and the very specific demands that all front office agents can't stand.

Some of our favorite requests:

Late check outs - anyone who's on vacation and has a late flight does not want to vacate the room at the stated time. I get it. I understand. We don't care that you ask. We just care that you don't understand why we say no when we do.
I promise its not because we're mean and find it amusing to kick you out (well, we kind of do want you to leave if you've been a particularly handful of a guest like the guy who complained that the elevator certificate expired two months ago and we should probably look into that) but its because other people need to check in. Housekeeping are people too, with lives even, and don't want to be cleaning rooms til 9:00pm at night.
Anyway, the second we say it's going to be a fee all of the sudden the person is cool with leaving on time, which is noon and is not all that early. Oh, and we'll store your bags. If a hotel doesn't offer at least that then you are getting screwed and/or staying at a Motel 8. (I once had a hotel store a hard cover of a jeep I had rented. That's service!)

Early check in - I don't know of a hotel that won't check you in early if there is a room available. But the only way to guarantee it is to to buy the room for the night before. Hotels are a business. Shocking, I know. If they can sell every room, and have everyone actually show up, it's called a perfect sell. It rarely happens. And yet, people don't understand why when they requested an early check in (key word is request) that it may not happen. This goes for all requests actually. You know why we can't guarantee anything? Because people are self-absorbed flakes. If a person wants to stay another day and the hotel is sold out, we can't force them on to the street. This happens a lot, especially in convention cities.

Oh, I should mention what a "walk situation" is now. I personally can't get over the shock and anger some people go through when they get walked.

So, like I said, people are flakes. So hotels purposely oversell their hotels in order to try and sell out. I am not exaggerating when I say my last hotel averaged like 5 no-shows a night. And these people put down credit cards! I know, it's weird. So when all the peeps actually show up, the hotel is like shit, we have to walk someone. Guess what, the hotel is paying on this one. And if you have another night to spend, you will get treated like royalty upon your return (if the hotel knows what it's doing.) Um, I'm game if someone wants to bump me somewhere and pay for it.

The problem is when either the guest is not paying, maybe their company is, and its late and they just want to go to bed. Tired and cranky people? NO thank you. Or the person had some kind of plans revolving around our hotel and it fucks up their world. This is what happened to me the first time I walked a lady. She started crying because all her friends were staying there and it was like their annual girls trip or something. Anywho, shit happens. It sucks, but life will go on.

When I was an agent I was always trying to be helpful. There was this lady who booked a suite and was having some sort of party. OK, fine. She wanted to know exactly which suite it was. I assigned a room and told her. Fast forward two weeks and she checks in, but it's not the suite I assigned. She asks for the manager. Who moved her suite? Apparently she had printed the room number on the invitations. Now, she was in the exact same kind of room, BUT it was a different floor. Now my manager and the lady are pissed at me. Fuck, I was trying to help. But the people in the original suite stayed another day and it all got rearranged. Yeah, this is why we dont guarantee anything. It's impossible.

Not too long ago my friend who's a manager at a hotel had a guy who was staying a lot while he was shooting a new TV show. He was making a lot of last minute reservations. He calls one day and needs a suite on a day they are sold out of suites. He refuses to take a standard room. My friend says that's his only option. He threatened to call the CEO of the company who is a friend of his. Guess what? He did. He got his suite and some poor couple or family probably got bumped. Fucker.

Anyway, the whole point is that hotel Sales departments get all this business and have all these signed contracts and sometimes they involve getting someone a free upgrade or something, but in the end they are not dealing with it. So I'm a sucky sales person now. But I don't have to work weekends, or holidays, or overnights...