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The Return Of The Booking Office
Holy crap it's been a long time! I've been off moving (three times), dealing with health (and the immense suckiness thereof), therapy (much needed) and a truly psychotic ex-neighbour (the reason for two of my three moves). It's been a hell of a time.
And yet I still have tales from the Booking Office of Doom. Sigh. Almost two years and this crap's still burned into my brain. Featuring some returning cast from the last two booking office adventures, and a whole lot more suck!
Suck the First: Make Me Pay More!
This one was just plain weird. As mentioned here, there was this kick-ass voucher set up where customers could get pretty epic discounts on their stays if they stayed for three or more days.
Most people got it. Some people... Well. This one's a killer.
A few times I was left all alone in the office for a day while my co-workers went to different locations in the chain to do the yearly reviews. I got to do a couple in the city where I live and it's quite an involved process, so they really did need entire days just to get a couple done.
So there I am, all alone, rain pelting down outside like a waterfall, and the phone rings. A gentleman wishes to book five days with a voucher. But...
Me: Yours truly, learning why customer service is the worst possible industry for my mental health.
BR: Brainiac, apparently not as good at maths as they thought.
BR: I'd like to book five nights for two at Most Expensive Hotel.
Me: Certainly. Is that one bedroom or two?
BR: One. I need it for X date to Y date.
Me: I'll just check that we have a room available. *checks* We have a room open for those nights.
BR: I'd like to use my Useful Voucher for the $79 discount.
Me: Actually, they've changed the system now, for five nights in Most Expensive Hotel you'll be saving almost $200.
BR: But that's not how it works!
Me: Well, like I said, they changed it recently.
BR: I liked it the old way! Give me the $79 discount!
Me:
Are you sure? You'll be saving a lot more-
BR: Just do it!
Me: Okay...
That was fun to explain the next day.
Suck the Second: Sometimes You Can Sense The Trouble Coming
Some of the attempts to get money back from us were... insane. The lengths people will go to to get free stuff is ridiculous.
My first encounter with this particular brand of jerkery came when the front desk of one of our southern locations called up in a right fume, letting us know that a family staying in one of their two-bedroom apartments had broken several items of furniture and cleared off before they could be called to task. The staff knew the furniture hadn't been broken the previous evening because they ordered food delivered from the on-site restaurant.
Sure enough, about half an hour before closing time, the father of the family called us to rant about rude staff refusing to replace broken furniture in the apartment for their entire stay.
LB: Lying Bastard
Me: Welcome to Chain, this is Tolly.
LB: Hello, this is Lying Bastard, and I want to complain!
Me:
I see.
LB: We stayed at Southern Location for three days with broken furniture and the staff refused to replace it!
Me: That doesn't make any sense, Southern Location has-
LB: Shut up and give me a refund!
Me:
Yeah, no.
LB: Ex-CUSE me?
Me: You are not excused. I happen to know for a fact that Southern Location has spare furniture for just such an event, there's no way that they'd leave broken items in your room for an entire week.
LB: Listen to me you little bitch-
Me: *twitch* You will be billed for the broken furniture, failure to pay immediately will result in the account being forwards to collections, GOODBYE. *slams phone down*
I hate people.
LC: What did he call you?
Me: A female dog.
LC: And you managed to stay calm long enough to threaten him?
Me: I have six lawyers in my immediate family.
LC: Christ.
Suck the Third: Not All Suck Belongs To Customers
I have mentioned in the past that one of my coworkers was significantly less awesome than the other. This is one of the many, many, many reasons why.
Me: *sleeping, for tis my day off*
Phone: *rings*
Me: Mbrgr. Hello?
LC: Where are you?
Me: Sleepin'.
LC: You're supposed to be in today!
Me: ... *brain booting* But 's Wednesday. Sleep day.
LC: But you're on today.
Me: But it's Wednesday.
LC: I sent you an email yesterday.
Me: Huh? I didn't get any email from you yesterday.
LC: I sent it to your work email after you left.
Me: ...You mean the email I can only check in the office?
LC: Yes.
Me: After I left.
LC: Yes.
Me: ...
LC: Are you coming in?
Me: No.
LC: But I sent you an email!
Me: It's too damn early for logical fallacies. Ask AC. *hangs up* *goes back to sleep*
LC apparently got a tongue-lashing from AC over that. Hah.
Suck the Fourth: The Perils Of Sharing A Building With Truckies
Gonna be honest here. Chain did not put much money into giving us a decent office. They didn't put much money into giving us a crap office. As a result, we had half of a building. A trucking company had the other. I have known nice truckies, awesome truckies, backbones of Australia truckies.
These truckies were none of those things.
A short list of their crimes against good taste:
Suck the Fifth: MY EYES!
We took bookings through email quite often, which meant we often got all kinds of signatures attached to booking requests.
I'll leave the signature of the professional pornographer to your imagination, and say only this: BRAIN BLEACH NEEDS TO BE A THING.
And yet I still have tales from the Booking Office of Doom. Sigh. Almost two years and this crap's still burned into my brain. Featuring some returning cast from the last two booking office adventures, and a whole lot more suck!
Suck the First: Make Me Pay More!
This one was just plain weird. As mentioned here, there was this kick-ass voucher set up where customers could get pretty epic discounts on their stays if they stayed for three or more days.
Most people got it. Some people... Well. This one's a killer.
A few times I was left all alone in the office for a day while my co-workers went to different locations in the chain to do the yearly reviews. I got to do a couple in the city where I live and it's quite an involved process, so they really did need entire days just to get a couple done.
So there I am, all alone, rain pelting down outside like a waterfall, and the phone rings. A gentleman wishes to book five days with a voucher. But...
Me: Yours truly, learning why customer service is the worst possible industry for my mental health.
BR: Brainiac, apparently not as good at maths as they thought.
BR: I'd like to book five nights for two at Most Expensive Hotel.
Me: Certainly. Is that one bedroom or two?
BR: One. I need it for X date to Y date.
Me: I'll just check that we have a room available. *checks* We have a room open for those nights.
BR: I'd like to use my Useful Voucher for the $79 discount.
Me: Actually, they've changed the system now, for five nights in Most Expensive Hotel you'll be saving almost $200.
BR: But that's not how it works!
Me: Well, like I said, they changed it recently.
BR: I liked it the old way! Give me the $79 discount!
Me:
Are you sure? You'll be saving a lot more-BR: Just do it!
Me: Okay...
That was fun to explain the next day.
Suck the Second: Sometimes You Can Sense The Trouble Coming
Some of the attempts to get money back from us were... insane. The lengths people will go to to get free stuff is ridiculous.
My first encounter with this particular brand of jerkery came when the front desk of one of our southern locations called up in a right fume, letting us know that a family staying in one of their two-bedroom apartments had broken several items of furniture and cleared off before they could be called to task. The staff knew the furniture hadn't been broken the previous evening because they ordered food delivered from the on-site restaurant.
Sure enough, about half an hour before closing time, the father of the family called us to rant about rude staff refusing to replace broken furniture in the apartment for their entire stay.
LB: Lying Bastard
Me: Welcome to Chain, this is Tolly.
LB: Hello, this is Lying Bastard, and I want to complain!
Me:
I see.LB: We stayed at Southern Location for three days with broken furniture and the staff refused to replace it!
Me: That doesn't make any sense, Southern Location has-
LB: Shut up and give me a refund!
Me:
Yeah, no.LB: Ex-CUSE me?
Me: You are not excused. I happen to know for a fact that Southern Location has spare furniture for just such an event, there's no way that they'd leave broken items in your room for an entire week.
LB: Listen to me you little bitch-
Me: *twitch* You will be billed for the broken furniture, failure to pay immediately will result in the account being forwards to collections, GOODBYE. *slams phone down*
I hate people.LC: What did he call you?
Me: A female dog.
LC: And you managed to stay calm long enough to threaten him?
Me: I have six lawyers in my immediate family.
LC: Christ.
Suck the Third: Not All Suck Belongs To Customers
I have mentioned in the past that one of my coworkers was significantly less awesome than the other. This is one of the many, many, many reasons why.
Me: *sleeping, for tis my day off*
Phone: *rings*
Me: Mbrgr. Hello?
LC: Where are you?
Me: Sleepin'.
LC: You're supposed to be in today!
Me: ... *brain booting* But 's Wednesday. Sleep day.
LC: But you're on today.
Me: But it's Wednesday.
LC: I sent you an email yesterday.
Me: Huh? I didn't get any email from you yesterday.
LC: I sent it to your work email after you left.
Me: ...You mean the email I can only check in the office?
LC: Yes.
Me: After I left.
LC: Yes.
Me: ...
LC: Are you coming in?
Me: No.
LC: But I sent you an email!
Me: It's too damn early for logical fallacies. Ask AC. *hangs up* *goes back to sleep*
LC apparently got a tongue-lashing from AC over that. Hah.
Suck the Fourth: The Perils Of Sharing A Building With Truckies
Gonna be honest here. Chain did not put much money into giving us a decent office. They didn't put much money into giving us a crap office. As a result, we had half of a building. A trucking company had the other. I have known nice truckies, awesome truckies, backbones of Australia truckies.
These truckies were none of those things.
A short list of their crimes against good taste:
- They urinated on the side of the building.
- They ran into everyone's vehicles at least once.
- Including my bike.
- Which was parked where no truck should have been able to fit.
- They sang drinking songs at 10am.
- They hit on anything remotely female within eyeshot.
- Tried to steal our mail whenever we got a package.
- And then inevitable threw the brochures and guidebooks into the dumpster.
- And don't even start me on what they did to that poor innocent dumpster.
Suck the Fifth: MY EYES!
We took bookings through email quite often, which meant we often got all kinds of signatures attached to booking requests.
I'll leave the signature of the professional pornographer to your imagination, and say only this: BRAIN BLEACH NEEDS TO BE A THING.
This might be one of my new favorite quotes...
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