A night of hospitality hell…

Back in the day I had the pleasure of working for two different hotels in the area. One was a dumpy Radisson the other was an upscale, privately owned resort property. Here is a glimpse of a very common yet insane night at work at the resort property…

Ah, my first night back after a week of moving! The resort is completely sold out (all rooms booked) and we have about 40 rooms arrivals tonight, two desk clerks and 3 valet. Here is a rundown of the events:

A guest in room 228 booked the stay as a surprise for her boyfriend. She arranged a Creekside room, dinner, massages, champagne, chocolate covered strawberries and candles to be set up in the room while they were dining. Upon check in she finds that she is unhappy about the room she booked. She thought it was a suite on the creek with a whirlpool tub, it is actually a standard room with a whirlpool tub and creek view. She talks at me about how disappointed she is about the mix up, I listen and apologize many times and assure her that her dinner and special romantic surprise will go perfectly despite the room issues.

Room 140 smelled like smoke and couldn’t be rented, I need to move the person who booked this room to another room but we are sold out so we have no extra rooms available. The guest still wants a different room so we have to play around with Expedia & Hotels.com reservations (since these room types/ bed requests are never guaranteed). We end up moving room 140 to 241 after bumping an Expedia guest from their deluxe two queen room to a deluxe king room with a rollaway that once smelled like smoke. Nice huh? I would be so mad if it were me but what can you do?

Another guest comes down from 255 who just checked in. They are unhappy because they think they were told we had stand alone cottages on the creek.. We only have hotel rooms so I refund them and check them out because we could really use the room for someone else anyway!

I leave a message for the guest in room 228 about how we have a Creekside suite that has freed up, she doesn’t call me back.

A guest that has a reservation for tomorrow calls tonight to see if we have any rooms available.. Since the angry Creekside room lady in room 228 has not called me back and since we make bonuses on sold out nights I offer the Creekside suite to this lady at the $309 rate. She wants to take it so I make her a reservation. I delete the message for the guest in room 228 about the possible upgrade.

The guests that checked into room 255 and promptly checked out due to the “creekside cottage” miscommunication called us because they left a wedding ring near the sink in the room they just checked out of, oops! I quickly head up to the room to find the lost ring before housekeeping or the new room occupant arrive and find the ring.

In the meantime the lady that just called and made a reservation for our last Creekside suite (that the other guests just checked out of) calls and says she is stuck on the I17 behind a huge accident and that she wont be able to make it after all. I cancel her reservation. I leave a new message for the guest in room 228 about the availability of the Creekside suite that she is welcome to upgrade to and hope she calls me back this time!

228 lady finally calls me back and says she wants the room and she gives me all these special instructions about her special night. The plan is that we will get a call from the hostess when the guests are seated for dinner, then we will move their luggage to the newly upgraded room, once the things are moved we will deliver the chocolate covered strawberries, candles and champagne to the room, then I will wait for another call from the hostess when the guests are presented with heir check. Upon receiving this call I will head up to the room draw the bath, pour in bubble bath, light the candles and head out [sigh]…

Working in hospitality is enjoyable when you get to make things special for someone, it is not enjoyable when you are forced to mess with people’s reservations, deal with complaints and get yelled at all night.

Eventually I found the lost wedding ring for the “creekside cottage people”, got the guests with the smoky room a new one, delivered champagne and strawberries, drew a bubble bath, aired out the smoky room so that the people I who were supposed to have 2 queen beds could have this one if they wanted, checked in about 30 people myself, helped deliver bags and did it all with a fake smile on my face!

Folks, don’t mess with your service workers! Food servers, hotel workers, airline employees all have crappy jobs with lots of control over how enjoyable your experience is. Don’t be nasty to them for no reason, they already get enough crap from everyone else but if you do treat them badly expect to be fu*#ed with cause it is so enjoyable to mess with a rude customer!