How to be an SC in a hotel....

[slick]

Just a bunch of common issues I constantly run into with SC's....

- hotels can be sold out, trust me. why is it so hard to believe that we have no rooms left to rent at midnight on friday? did you think the sign on the front door that says "sorry, no rooms available" was for everyone else but you?

- i dont care how many times you stayed at "other" hotels in our chain. if you never stayed at mine, you are not my "preferred" guest. so you spend 200 nights a year at hotels, and in 12 years of travel, you finally got to mine, do you want a cookie for finding us?

- continuation from above. just because you travel a lot and stay at a lot of inns, doesn't make you an expert in running a hotel. i drive a car everyday, i guess i should work for honda since i "know the business".

- kids stay free means we do not charge extra money for you having your two heathens in the SAME room as you. they do not get a free room for themselves, if you honestly believe this, get help, now.

- know what the discounts are when you ask for one. if you are 25 years old and ask for the AARP discount, don't be surprised if i ask if you are serious or not. knowing that you can get a discount for something like AARP, doesn't mean you get it, you must provide proof that you have an AARP membership.

- rates change. maybe the rate for a friday night two months from now is $79 for a king. a few weeks later, this might be re-evalutated and the rate may be changed, maybe to $89. we have a limited number of rooms to sell everyday, we need to consider supply and demand in order to maximize revenue, like every other business. dont call me and tell me that you remember the room being cheaper a month ago, nobody cares, its $89 now, live with it.

- if you need something in a hotel, if its important that you have to have this "something" in a hotel, ask about it before checking in. dont assume we have a fitness center, and then, hours later, become dissappointed when we dont. its not like it was there when you checked in and we magically just eliminated the room from the building after you got settled in.

- the pool hours are clearly posted, "i didnt know it closed at 10pm" doesnt mean that you now have a free pass to our pool 24 hours a day. if it was that important ask, or learn to read.

- i dont control what HBO shows on TV. if timmy wasnt supposed to see real sex 26, YOU should not have let him watch TV at 11pm. unless you are new to this country, you know exactly what HBO is and what they show. get over it lady, your 10 year old saw a tit, its probably not even the first time.

- we do not offer trial periods on rooms. you cant rent a room, use it and the pool, and decide to check out because "its not what you were looking for". But the pool and hot shower afterwards was, right?

- sorry, you cant all get first floor rooms. believe it or not, in this three story building, there are rooms on all three floors, wierd isnt it? sorry for putting you on the second floor and having you take that dreaded elevator up.

- if you walk in looking for a room and need smoking but we are out, this does NOT mean you are allowed a non smoking room to smoke in. if you choose to accept a non smoking room, we expect you to NOT smoke in it. we also expect you to be pissed when you see a $100 fine on your credit card for smoking in a non smoking room. its called a retard fee, all hotels have them.

- do not take the follow items from a room: iron, ironing board, hair dryer, coffee maker, tv, tv remote, tv remote batteries, sheets, pillows, blankets, towels, lamps, bulbs, smoke detector, toilet seat, ash tray, or the guest directory that states "do not remove this from room". if this stuff is missing, you will charged for "stolen items" on your credit card.

- nobody is responsible for your children but you. you CANNOT send a 9 year old to use the pool unless you accompany them. telling me that "the other adults in the pool will watch her" is grounds for me to call child services and give the kid an opportunity to have real parents. i do not care if you are tired, its your kid, deal with it.

- housekeepers have lives also. do not tell our housekeepers to "come back later" when its already 4pm. if you want your room cleaned at 8pm in the evening, bring your own staff, mine should be at home with there family by then.

- if there is a problem with the room when you check in, thats when i should hear about it. if you stay in the "problematic" room all night and complain at check out, you are going to be very dissappointed when nothing gets resolved. as far as i am concerned, there is no issue. if the room stunk like pee when you checked in, why did you spend all night in it?

lastly

- no one in the hotel "stole" someone elses job (translated, the arab/mexican didnt take a white persons job). if seeing an "arab" person behind the counter makes you uneasy, you may need to find yourself an RV to stay in while travelling. 60%+ of midsize hotels are owned and operated by east indian people, and trust me, that number isn't getting smaller.

end rant, good night.

[AirHostess]

Wow.

I promise I'm a good little air hostess when I stay in hotels

[digilight]

no one in the hotel "stole" someone elses job (translated, the arab/mexican didnt take a white persons job). if seeing an "arab" person behind the counter makes you uneasy, you may need to find yourself an RV to stay in while travelling. 60%+ of midsize hotels are owned and operated by east indian people, and trust me, that number isn't getting smaller.

I spent a year working at a Motel 6. It was grunt work, I was the Evening laundryroom shift. But I got to see the housekeepers do their thing for the couple of hours that our shifts overlapped. These were hard working mexican ladies who could run circles around my white behind most of the time. Speaking as a hardcore conservitive republican I've got to say, that no one is stealing jobs from the white man. Maybe sometimes we have to see it with our own eyes and put in our time in the treanches (something that the racist asshats that we all have had to deal with from time to time have never done).

Also I've gotta say, wow, just wow. I know we had a few problems at the motel. Things like a murder a few suicides and a couple of rooms that were trashed so bad that the manager had to call the cops in (the rooms, happened twice, had to be fully redone. Almost needing to be gutted). But for the most part we got lucky. Just a lot of truckers, weekend travlers, and teens looking to score.


Edit: Please, I'm not trying to make this a controversial post, just a little praise for the hard working galls who taught me to suck it up even when I wanted to quit. This shouldn't be a Dem/Rep debate, just a little bashing of the idiots who call 'em wrong.

[Jade Panurple]

I used to work in hotels myself, always as the desk clerk. My addage to this:

Do not pay for a room for one night, then disappear a few hours before checkout, and leave all your stuff without paying for another night. My housekeepers will put your stuff in lost and found, and will clean the room for someone else. You cannot pay for one night and expect to stay a week and pay the next few nights when you leave. I'm not stupid. Try someone else.

[Noelegy]

- no one in the hotel "stole" someone elses job (translated, the arab/mexican didnt take a white persons job). if seeing an "arab" person behind the counter makes you uneasy, you may need to find yourself an RV to stay in while travelling. 60%+ of midsize hotels are owned and operated by east indian people, and trust me, that number isn't getting smaller.

end rant, good night.

Gahh, you just reminded me of a Psycho2 story. Before we became coworkers, we undertook a road trip together, one that will remain seared into my memory for many years to come. I am adopted and had recently become reunited with my biological family (they found me, through the Internets!) and was driving down to South Texas to visit them. She wasn't working at the time and wanted to go along. Along the way, we stopped in Austin to stay the night. For those of you who haven't visited Texas, you can drive all day and still be in the same state.

She had some kind of coupon/discount book, and so I let her handle reserving our room. She requested nonsmoking, and when we got there we found that the room most definitely was not nonsmoking, and reeked of smoke. So we were going to go ask for another room. However, there was some sort of event going on in Austin that weekend that caused large numbers of school buses to be parked at every hotel, a sight guaranteed to terrify most travelers. So hotel rooms weren't going to be easy to find.

I was going to go to the clerk and politely request another room, but she said, "Let me handle this," and she barged in and demanded another room. The clerk, who appeared to be Indian or Pakistani, judging by his name, appearance, and accent, explained to us that there were no other rooms available because of this event. I stood by helplessly as Psycho2 became an SC. "Well, we'll just see about that," she huffed, and we proceeded to go next door to see if that hotel had any rooms available. On the way over there, she ranted and raved about "damn Iraqis" trying to screw Americans over.

Hold the phone, I said. He didn't try to screw us over. He gave a reasonable explanation, and our reservation had been last-minute anyway. And what did his nationality have to do with anything? I told her I thought he was probably Indian or Pakistani, and she said, "It doesn't matter, they're all the same. Just trying to screw Americans." I'm glad she didn't say that TO him, but I was still appalled to find that my friend nurtured such horrid views.

Oboy. Well, the hotel next door had a room available, nonsmoking, two beds, and she marched in triumph back to tell the "damn Iraqi" (yeah, this was post 9/11) that we wanted our money back. To his credit, he was very polite and professional and I made sure to thank him.

She pretty much ruined the whole trip, but that's a story for another time and another forum.

[air914]

she said, "It doesn't matter, they're all the same. Just trying to screw Americans." I'm glad she didn't say that TO him, but I was still appalled to find that my friend nurtured such horrid views. (

I've never understood this - don't people realize the only REAL American are the American Indians? The rest of us ALL came over on some boat or another.....

Then again, I don't understand the term "African American"- I don't ask to be called "Swedish-Welsh American". And not all black people trace their ancestry back to Africa - black people have lived in other places - like Jamaica.... I actually knew a girl once from Jamaica and I asked if she was insulted by the term "African American" or anything - she just said "I'm black".

I don't mean to single out "African Americans" - it's just the only "group" I know of that seems to have thier "country of origin" on forms & stuff - like the "ethnicity" section of forms..... I hope I didn't offend anyone... not my intention.

[MadMike]

sorry for putting you on the second floor and having you take that dreaded elevator up.

At least your place has an elevator. The place we used to stay when we went to the beach did not. Believe me, the last thing I wanted to be doing after driving 4 or 5 hours was to the entire contents of my car up a flight or two of steps.

We tried a new place last year, as the other one was getting too expensive, probably because it was right on the boardwalk. They put us on the third floor, but it had an elevator, and several luggage carts. Made things so much easier.

[Jade Panurple]

They put us on the third floor, but it had an elevator, and several luggage carts. Made things so much easier.

I once worked at a motel that had several luggage carts and no elevator. It didn't have that many rooms downstairs, maybe 20, so it didn't make that much sense. The whole time I worked there, only 1 guest used it, the rest of the time the owner used it to lug things out of his car and into his apartment. Go figure.

[TruthHurts]

Just a bunch of common issues I constantly run into with SC's....

housekeepers have lives also. do not tell our housekeepers to "come back later" when its already 4pm. if you want your room cleaned at 8pm in the evening, bring your own staff, mine should be at home with there family by then.

That is one of my major pet peeves in housekeeping. People who stay holed up in their rooms until the end of my shift and then get pissy when I don't postpone my life in order to wait for them. Luckily my hotel has a rule that if it's the end of the day, the guests either vacate their room or not receive service.

[Antisocial_Worker]

Well, that's a fine list and all, but I fear you're informing people of how not to be SC's, and a lack of SC's would clear this board faster than diarrhea clearing the hotel pool. So, let me add to your list with some helpful tips on how to really be an SC in a hotel.

-- Ask the desk clerk where you can find a hooker. Remember your Beavis and Butthead: "Huh-huh... Where can I... heh heh... find a... huh huh... pretty... heh heh... lady?"

-- Ask if the hotel rents by the hour. If not, demand a discount because "I'm only going to use the room for an hour or two," anyway.

-- Remark to the desk clerk, after your long and tedious drive up from Mississippi, how "It sure is nice to see a white person finally."

-- Tell the hotel owner to go back to her own country.

-- Ask the desk clerk where the best strip clubs are. Get upset if he doesn't know.

-- Ask for recommendations on where to eat, and shoot them down one by one. Also disdainfully dismiss some suggestions by sniffing, waving your hand and saying, "There can't be any good Mexican food up here, so don't recommend it." Another one that will win friends and influence people is to say, "You don't know what real Italian food is."

-- State "These aren't mountains. There are mountains out west, but these are just hills, so I don't know why you're charging so much because it's 'tourist season'." Pay no attention when the desk clerk points out that the tallest mountain, which tops out at nearly 6700 feet, east of the Mississippi River is located in the next county.

-- State "They call this fall? They call this autumn? They don't have fall colors down here. Massachusetts has fall colors." Be sure to state this in early October, when perhaps one tree out of the 50 billion around here is starting to show some color on the topmost leaves.

-- Hold a conversation with your husband via cell phone in the lobby, in which you say loudly and repeatedly, "There aren't any good hotels in this town."

By following these handy suggestions, you too can be CS fodder for years to come, and thus become a living legend in the annals of stupidity and rudeness.

[MadMike]

-- Ask the desk clerk where you can find a hooker. Remember your Beavis and Butthead: "Huh-huh... Where can I... heh heh... find a... huh huh... pretty... heh heh... lady?"

You forgot to add, "...with really big thingies! Yeah yeah!"

[TruthHurts]

-- Ask the desk clerk where you can find a hooker.

We never had that happen but we did this one dude come in and peruse our DVD library. He then asks if we have any adult films After being told that we did not carry such things he then asks where he can get some "action". It just skeeved me out big time.

[Getoutofmylobby]

I used to work in hotels myself, always as the desk clerk. My addage to this:

Do not pay for a room for one night, then disappear a few hours before checkout, and leave all your stuff without paying for another night. My housekeepers will put your stuff in lost and found, and will clean the room for someone else. You cannot pay for one night and expect to stay a week and pay the next few nights when you leave. I'm not stupid. Try someone else.

See, we can't do this. We have policies about touching people's stuff because lots of people complain about it. or accuse us of stealing. For instance, if they leave clothes or a suitcase on the bed we can't make it (which leads to different complaints, but that is for another thread. )

What we CAN do is charge their credit card for another night. Heh heh.. bastards...

[hotelnpa]

Great post slick!

I love it when people try to use frequent traveller credits at the WRONG place. They say "Oh you don't accept Hilton Honors here?" HELLO! No, this is a COMFORT INN. I also love it when they expect the same rate they got, say 5 years ago, and are just simply amazed that we have gone up on the rooms since then.

[slick]

You guys definately added some great ones to my list, here's another one:

- People that want group rates. Cool, we can do that. How many rooms did you need? Three. Wait a minute, you want a group rate on 3 rooms? I have guest walk in and get three rooms all the time. I don't know about everyone else, but I consider a group to be 10+ rooms. Three rooms for one night is no group. Arguing about how three rooms should be considered for a group rate doesn't make you an SC, it makes you not smart (NS).