We know more than you think

It was late one evening and I was the supervisor on duty at my old Comfort Inn gig.

The building had two wings. The original one had no separate climate control units, either the heat/AC was on or it was off. In the spring and fall months we tried to check most guests into the newer wing which did have individual units in the rooms.

A gentleman and his wife check in with me, I put them in the new wing, and everything goes A-OK.

In the evenings we did not have an engineer on duty, he was on call. In the event of burnt out lightbulbs and various things like that, we took care of ourselves. If a room had bigger problems, we just switched the guests to a different room.

A few minutes after checking in the couple, the husband calls me.

Great, I think. They only call right away if something's wrong with their room. It's the least desired phone call to answer.

"Ma'am," he says to me. "Our room is way to warm!" He sounds pretty pissed.

I am not about to call the engineer if all it ends up being is some idiot who doesn't know how to turn his A/C on. It happens all the time.

I tell him someone will be right up, and I ask a coworker to cover the desk.

I'm about halfway down the hall when I hear moaning and grunting, the unmistakable sounds of people screwing.

I get to the couple's room, stop in front of it, and realize it's the couple.

C'mon! I mean, I just told them someone was coming to their room. I wonder if maybe they were trying to get in a quickie before someone knocked, to create some kind of excitement I suppose.

I stand there for a moment, listening to the wife moaning really loudly, and I decide I cannot just wait for them to be done.

I go back to the desk, and I am too embarrassed to give them a call. I really don't want to go back either. I decide I'll wait for them to call again wondering where somebody is. They have to call back, right? Not my fault they decided to fuck when they were expecting someone.

They never call.

The next morning I'm back in and the horny couple checks out with me. Fuck! They recognize me.

"Hey! I complained about our room being too warm last night and no one ever came to take a look!"

As I look back and forth from husband to wife images fill my head of them doing it.

"I'm sorry, sir!" I apologize. I am at a loss. If I tell them I tried to help but didn't, what do I say?

He just sort of grunts and they walk away.

Lesson to you: We hotel people know that after we check in a couple that they are probably going to screw immediately upon entering the room. Watch the volume, k?

Option C

The boyfriend started a new hotel job last week. It moved us across the country, and it is a resort, so I figured he would get me some stories out of it. It took 5 days.

Couple Checking In with boyfriend: Would you recommend we rent a car or take taxis everywhere?

Boyfriend (thinks for a moment): Well, if you're only here for a day I think taxis would be best.

CCI: Thank you!

The next day...

The couple found option C.

Apparently the couple did not decide to take option taxis or option rent a car. They proceeded to get extremely drunk and stole a golf cart. They made it 3 miles into town on said golfcart. Mr. Crazy drives up to a very recent accident and asks the police if he can help in some way. Mr. Crazy claims to be an employee of the hotel (as if this qualifies him to perform EMT services.)

The police arrest him for drunk driving.

The hotel charges him several hundred dollars for the damage to the golf cart.

Mrs. Crazy bails out husband and sheepishly pays room bill.

Lesson: Listen to your front desk agent. He may be new, but he's got your best interests in mind.

Best Complaint Ever

We hoteliers hear lots and lots and lots of complaints. It's part of the job really, and at some point you develop a sort of standard reply for every different kind of complaint you can get.

The most popular:

Guest: I don't like my room (either the view, the number of beds, the size, the location).
Reply: your room type (or whatever) is not guaranteed. We only guarantee that you have a room. (People don't really like that answer usually. But it's the truth.)

Guest: I didn't order that movie (um, yeah you did, we even know you ordered Fuck My Wife Please and watched it for 8 minutes but who are we to argue).
Reply: I will remove that from your bill sir.

Guest: I am not paying for this phone call (who uses hotel phones anymore? They are notoriously overpriced.)
Reply: I can take off 40% (this is after we show them that they did indeed make the call to Ireland or somewhere fucking far but they keep screaming about the $500 bill so after while we wear down).

Anyway, this complaint takes the cake, and the most disturbing part of this is that it's not uncommon!

Guest: The water level is too high in the toilet and my balls are getting wet.

Reply: Uhhhh

Employee of the year goes to...

Our overnight Security officer won Employee of the Year. At first I was disappointed, I seriously wanted my supervisor to win because she is the best boss ever. But when you think about it, anybody who has this job, shows up on time every day, and doesn't ever complain is a valuable employee.

This is the guy who has to deal with drunk bar patrons who are insistent that they are not in fact too drunk for another one. He has to catch the thieves who walk in our bar and steal ladies (unwatched) purses. He's the one who gets called to deal with noise complaints which can be anything from a big party to a loud stereo left on to people fighting or fucking. He's probably seen more naked people than any other employee.* He's the guy that has to deal with the drunk crying chick who's been locked out of her room. Or the gaggle of superfans that figure out when a celeb stays with us and stalk the hotel like the lunatics they are. He's the guy that got spit on when a drunk bar patron didn't want to leave because he was cut off and was starting to cause a scene. And the prostitutes! Oh the prostitutes. ** When the police figure out through craigslist or whatever (note to ho's: don't solicit through craigslist) that there is a prostitute running her business out of a room in our hotel, Security gets called to make a report as well. Things in this report may be the fact that said prostitute had a credit card machine. And I won't even go into the dead bodies - or the DB's as we call them in the biz. But I will later.

*An inordinate amount of guests answer their door with little or no clothes on. Bellman and room service people see quite a few as well.

**Even the nicest hotels have things like prostitutes, doesn't mean a thing.

So I tip my hat to my overnight security guy. You protected me when I did my stints on the overnight shift (and damn if you don't worry about getting robbed at gunpoint every once in awhile especially after reading in the paper that it happened to the hotel 2 blocks away last night). You deserve the $500 dollars and 5 paid days off. But while you weren't looking some guy just stole a painting off the wall. Oops.

Please keep yelling, I like it

A gentleman walks up to me with a glass of complimentary wine in his hand and starts yelling at me.

"I don't have time for this! I need someone to help me right now!"

First off, yelling at me without even telling me what the problem actually is isn't going to get you very far, especially because you're dealing with a person who has 2 days left and nothing to lose.

"What exactly do you need help with, sir?" I ask between clenched teeth.

"I need to get in my room!" he bellows. "Whoever the idiot is that checked me in didn't put my name on it because someone else paid for it. The person who paid is at a very important dinner with his family right now and I need to get in my room to get ready for dinner in an hour. The lady at the desk has his number but isn't calling."

I look over. Yes, there is a line and unfortunately one of the girls is on break. The manager is doing her best to get through the line of people. We had very few check-ins for this day but inevitably all 30 of them arrived at once.

I stared at him for a second and then picked up the phone.

In any hotel in this country it against the law to give out a room number or a room key to a person not registered to the room. I don't care if you are their mom, dad, husband, sister, babysitter - your name has to be on that room and you have to have an ID. If you left it in the room a security officer will escort you and you can describe something in the room. It never ceases to amaze me the hissy fits people will throw to get a room key or someone's room number. Lots of people come to hotels to escape or cheat on their spouse or whatever. We don't judge, we just do our job.

Before I can handle the situation the manager calls me and tells me she's got it under control. The man had failed to mention he was extending his stay. I thought his key just stopped working (the bane of all front desk agents exitstences) or he lost it, but no. Someone else is paying so we can't just extend your stay without permission. Drink your wine, buddy, and calm the fuck down.

Plus, calling my colleagues "idiots" makes me want to just smack you.

What I will never understand is how people have utter lack of patience when waiting in line at a hotel registration desk. This has happened at every hotel I have worked.
At this hotel people will walk into my office and ask if anyone else is working or, my favorite, can you help check in? As if I'm not doing anything else important. The funny thing is, I can check people in, but only because I started off at the front desk. But my other concierge are not able to, and I know if I step in I'm going to get stuck at the desk 45 minutes and ignore all the people who need my help. Anyway, you don't see people walking up to loan agents at the bank and asking them to cash their check because they're sick of waiting in line. People aren't (generally) bitching out stock clerks because the line is too long at the register and can't you check me out?

I don't get it.

But like I said before, there is something about hotels that make people forget themselves.

I thought today, anyone who works a front desk must have some kind of sadistic streak. When things go wrong, its the front desk that bears the wrath.

Employee meals and how they all suck

Let's talk about a little thing called lunch. It's fairly important to eat I would say, but your employer doesn't have to feed you. I never cared that I lived on fast food and ramen. I was in college when I started working at Travelodge, so to me the 2 free pizzas from Papa John's was absolutely fucking awesome! It was the first perk I ever had. It was a welcome one too. I was practically starving what with my cigarette and alcohol needs.

Once I went to the morning shift I started eating the leftover Krispy Kremes. Let me tell you, they didn't have them up North at this point. I never in my life thought I would like any doughnut that wasn't Dunkin Donuts. I was wrong.
But I'm not a pig and when I left I was OK without my free pizza and doughnuts. It was nice while it lasted.

Small version of a huge hotel hotel chain

I worked a short stint at this property and not a whole lot of memorable things happened except I'll never forget my first "walk" in which I made a lady cry. We'll talk about walking later, folks. It sucks monkey's ass if it happens to the wrong person.

Anyway, I needed a job because I had walked out on Traveldoge, literally walked out on my shift which is the first and last time that will ever happened, but that is another story for another day.

My best option for work was to stick with what experience I had, I reasoned. I'd be graduating shortly anyway so why not just do it for a few more months? Little did I know that 7 years later...

It was a thousand times nicer than the other place. It was semi-new, had a partial kitchen, a bellman. It was like a real hotel. Besides the usual front desk stuff, part of my duties were to keep a bowl filled with apples and to bake cookies for the guests. (I do NOT bake), but you know, do what you gotta do.
The best part was that partial kitchen. Free Mountain Dew (and cookies)!!! I had to pay for my lunch, but if I was broke as a joke an apple and a Mountain Dew would suffice.
Soon I moved back home to home cooked meals and a fully stocked refridgerator and pantry.

Comfort Inn in a suburban setting

This place did have a kitchen but it was not meant for the hotel. It was meant for the huge banquet hall. Room service food came from the restaurant that was across the driveway, and it was owned by the sister of the Greek owner of the hotel. Not to say anything bad about the Greeks or the Indians or any race but simply when you work for a family-owned hotel, they do not exactly pay well or give many benefits to the employees. I made less as a supervisor than I did at the hotel before that. I understand why, but well. Let's just squash this part of the post before I say something stupid.

The good thing about this place is they had us set up a huge continental breakfast with everything that could be nuked or toasted. Fresh fruit, frozen waffles, yogurt, danishes, that kind of thing. You could always find something to nibble on. And coffee all day long!

Current property in urban setting

When I heard we had an employee meal program I almost shit myself. They're going to feed me? Everyday? And I have a choice? What started awesome almost 5 years ago has become one of the things I am sick of most.

We don't have a kitchen either (which I learned was odd for a hotel of our caliber.) There is a place for prepping for room service orders in which the food comes from a restaurant we don't own. We are strictly forbidden from grabbing drinks or anything like that. The option for lunch was a little voucher for a small store downstairs that we could get a sandwich and chips or we could use it as $3 worth whatever we wanted to buy. I was known for creating little gourmet meals out of my $3. You'd be surprised what you can do with Lean Cuisines, string cheese, and yogurt.

The other option (which became the only option after a few years) was White Hen. (Oh and it was 2.5 blocks away. This city isn't known for its weather.) We could get sandwiches, salads, soup/chili, soda, chips (not all at once). Here's the thing: you have to like sandwiches. I am not a big fan, hence my Lean Cuisines. But then White Hen started doing pizza! Whoo! We were all a twitter.

Until I got food poisoning.

I have never had it before, and it wasn't that bad I guess, but the only reason I could think of for suddenly getting so sick was from that damn pizza. Shit! Now what was I going to eat?

Today I am saving money. My colleague went to White Hen. My list went something like this:
Chkn soup or chili (if they don't have either then plain chips and a Mountain Dew.)
Turkey sandwich with tomatoes, lettuce, cucumber on white.
Hold the salmonella.

May I help you sir?

What would you do if you saw a sleepwalker?

What I have always heard is not to wake them. They may have a heart attack, right? Well, if you didn't know would you want to be the one to find out that's true? This may be an old wives tale, but when the staff had a sleepwalker one night they wondered the very same thing.

So this man manages to sleepwalk out of his room, down the hall to the elevator, and down to the main lobby. With guests and staff looking on, this man walked right through the lobby naked as the day he was born.

I shit you not.

He hung out in the lobby for a bit and then turned around and went back upstairs. They all watched in horror as he walked away.

(This was told to me by my overnight staff and who knows if they were exaggerating about him sleepwalking. He could have just been a pervert. But the fact that a man walked through the hotel in his birthday suit is absolutely true! I promise. And apparently it wasn't pretty.)