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...

My First DB

OK. I wasn't there. I haven't actually seen a dead body besides at a funeral. There is nothing funny about it. I am not relating the story for amusement but for the sheer fact that it is something that happens.

I was working at Travelodge. I was out of town this particular weekend, and my roommate was nice enough to work a double to cover for me.

Since there was always wacky people staying with us, I gave a call on my drive home that Sunday to ask how the weekend went.

Me: Any crazy shit happen this weekend?

Roommate: Actually...well...I checked in this guy last night.

Me: What's wrong? You sound weird. (My roommate was one of those people that was never shocked.)

R: I checked this guy in to 313. He, uh, Gus had to call an ambulance last night. (Gus was our overnight manager with diabetes who ate too much chocolate, and we were afraid he was going to lose a foot any day.)

Me: Gus went to the hospital? (My first thought is: Poor, roomie. He must have gotten called in to work or something.)

R: Noooo. He had to call 911 for room 313. Apparently the guy called down and asked him to call an ambulance because he was bleeding.

I mentioned in a previous post that my boss was a doctor waiting to start his residency.

Me: Well, what happened? Is he OK?

R: Gus called Rameez after he called 911, and Rameez came right away. When Rameez went to check out the room...it was covered in blood.

Me: Like how much? (I'd never heard my roommate sound so freaked out.)

R: Like the entire room. Floor to ceiling. There was a broken coffee pot in the sink. Rameez says he thinks the guy tried commit suicide with the broken glass and may have lost about 80% of his blood.

Me: (Silent)

I am stunned. I'm like 20 years old and barely even able to understand the concept of death really. When I get back to work the next day my roommate and Rameez are cleaning "the room." (This is a small hotel and the housekeeping sucks, asking them to clean blood would be like asking them to sing showtunes or something.)

I finally see Rameez and he's wearing one of those surgical type masks. He looks tired.

Me: So...he lost a lot of blood?

Rameez: There was a lot of broken glass in the room from the coffee pot it seems. (He gets quiet.) I don't think he could have lived.

Room 313 was out of order for 2 months.

Celebs I have Met

That's the first question people ask me when I tell them where I worked. Something about my last hotel definitely attracted the big names. Of course, if they were musicians and on tour they would come really late because they would be driving in from after their gig somewhere. Lots of them though would just check in under their own name in the middle of the day. You would get lots of guests going, "Is that Dan Aykroyd?" "I just took the elevator witrh James Blunt!" All you could do was smile. I can neither confirm nor deny, sorry.

I've been wanting to write about the really juicy stuff that celebs do like the one A-lister who made my friend cry because he was such a prick (that story will be told soon), but I'm still unemployed and if God forbid I have to work in a hotel again I am going to hold off, just in case.
So here's a brief list of celebs I have had an interaction with:

I ordered a sandwich for Art Garfunkel
I was working an overnight shift and it's a skeleton staff at night, so our cranky Operator takes the food orders for Room Service. Mr. Garfunkel comes to the desk looking all peeved and tells me that he's having communication problems with our order taker, and he just wants a sandwich. I hadn't been working there long, and he looks just like he always did, so I was a bit in awe. My reply? "It's very nice to meet you Mr. Garfunkel." What??? Fuck!!He just kind of mumbled thanks, but "can you take my order please?" (I don't remember what he ordered, but I hope he enjoyed it.)

I asked Ben Harper to sign a paid out slip
I was at the front desk and the concierge told me that Ben Harper and his girlfriend Laura Dern were going to be arriving soon in a limo he had ordered. The limo was to be charged to the room, but I needed a signature to do that so the driver could get paid. The concierge left me the slip knowing he was arriving late. I was so freakin happy I was going to get to meet him that I didn't realize I wasn't supposed to ask Ben, oh no, I was supposed to get the signature from the manager. Well, maybe I did know, but I asked Ben anyway just so I could say I met him. (He said hi and went to sign for it and then it kind of dawned on him that he doesn't do that kind of thing, you know, take care of his own money.)

Kristy Swanson hugged me
I got involved in creating her reservation for some reason I'm still not sure. So when she was checking in I was working, and I got up to greet her to the hotel. She threw her arms around me like we'd been friends for years. Sweet girl.

I brought John Mayer a phone charger
We knew he was coming in. I'm not the biggest fan in the world, but he looks just like my ex-boyfriend so I was intrigued. When he arrived he came to me to check in and asked if we had a box of chargers people left. We do, but it was in housekeeping so I was going to have to go through it. He drew me a picture of it! of the phone charger! I didn't have the heart to tell him that I had the same phone and knew exactly what it looked like. When I delivered it to his room he opened his door, he smiled at me, and he said "Thank you! You saved my day!"
Ha! Take that Jessica!

Bill Murray talked to me
I was a concierge at the time, and I knew Bill was inhouse. For some reason he called me saying how nice we were to extend his stay last minute, but he decided to stay by the airport. He was really just making sure we knew he wasn't going to use the room unlike some assholes who think if they just leave we won't charge them but how do we know it's unoccupied? Anyway, a few minutes later he was about to walk out the front door and he caught my eye (because I was staring), so he changed direction and came over to say thanks again. Then he said, "Are you in love? You look like you're in love!" (Yeah, with Bill Murray. He's one of my favorites.)

I checked in Jason Lewis without knowing who he was
I didn't have HBO like ever in my life, so I was not hip to the Sex and the City until I got them on DVD. One Sunday this incredibly good looking guy and his friend check in with me. I'm looking at him, and I'm thinking this guy is freakin hot! He asks me where to go on a Sunday night, I mention a few places and then I mention he could talk to the concierge. He wanders over there, and my doorman comes up to me. "I think that guy's on Sex and the City." I asked how would he know that. He tells me his sister and his girlfriend watch it all the time. I just shrugged. Years later I'm watching my DVD's and I realize it was him. Fuck!


See these were very harmless stories but still fascinating all the same, right? Well sorry to bore you. They were fascinating to me dammit!

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.