let's start a thread for hospitality workers

[smileyeagle1021]

ok, i just have to add my newest pet peeve... calling the day you want to arrive then get pissey when we tell you that you will need to do a room with one king and a pull out sofa rather than 2 queens... if having the very specific room was that important you should have called in advance. Oh, and when I know that we're the only place with availability and you hang up on me... i really hope we sell out before you get back to us.

[Jack7957]

"Sold out? come on you must have a spare room somewhere."

I've gotten the "spare room" before. It was a Hyatt, north of New York City. I and my co-worker were tired and didn't want to drive around trying to find a room, plus where we were working the next day was only two miles down the road. The hotel had a couple Parlor Rooms, basically it was a connecting room that was set up like a living room, plus it still had the full bathroom. Since the hotel had a couple rollaways we could use, we got those rooms for just under $100 that night, since the people staying in the connecting room did not rent the parlor room also.

... my favorite one was the guest who asked how I would know if he were from priceline...

The two times I've used Priceline, I know the reciept I was given had some mention of Priceline on it. It's been a few years, so I don't remember exactly what it said, but I know the desk clerk knew.

[smileyeagle1021]

The two times I've used Priceline, I know the reciept I was given had some mention of Priceline on it. It's been a few years, so I don't remember exactly what it said, but I know the desk clerk knew.

oh no, we know that it is a priceline reservation. The guest was asking how we would know whether or not he was an employee of priceline calling us to make a change (because our contract with priceline states that only priceline employees can change the reservation)... surprisingly there are guests who know this and will claim to work at priceline calling on behalf of a guest.

[HavingAWonderfulTime]

I work at *hotel chain you've heard of*, and probably my favorite one in recent memory was this guy who couldn't figure his door. So, seeing that sometimes they don't know that you have to pull up on the handle, and *hotel*'s guests aren't terribly bright, that's what I was expecting. So, I go up to his room, he's standing out there with his really annoying kid, explaining that his key card didn't work. I told him to go to the front desk and get a new one. He said he did, and was using the old one to try and get it open. I tell him to use his new card, works like a charm. He says there's still a problem. So I ask what he wants me to do, and he replies:

"Well, OBVIOUSLY, I want it fixed!"
Me: "Okay, I'll get right on it. I've got a few more urgent projects (playing Animal Crossing), but I'll take a look at that when i get the chance".

He checked out the next day without incident.

Another anecdote: the scheduling bastards at *hotel* made me work thanksgiving. This wouldn't be too bad, my mom brought me a proper dinner, no conferences to set up, and we were at about 30% capacity.

So. I'm my usual maintenance room, watching Fight Club on my iTouch, and over the radio I hear "hey, HAWT, could you bring a broom to the lobby?" "Ok, be right there"

I get there, and there's two kids playing unsupervised in the lobby. WTF. One of them had picked up one of those ever present glass ornaments off our giant christmas tree, and had thrown it. Great going. So, I sweep it up, corral the kids to the nearest parent, and head back.

30 mins later. "HAWT, could you bring some more pool towels?" Okay. I go to housekeeping, grab about 20, and head to the pool. I kid thee not, there was about 30 kids in our pool. And about three adults. Great, now I'll have to make sure that the chlorine is right, because there's probably more piss than chlorine in there.

Then, I'm in the lobby, talking to the front desk agent, and this kid comes up to me "Mister, where's the hot chocolate?" I'm assuming he's kinda confused, seeing that we have free coffee and tea, but no hot chocolate. I say we don't have any.

I go back to the lobby about an hour later, only to hear the same kid "Mister, do you have hot chocolate?" "FOR THE LOVE OF GOD AND ALL THAT IS HOLY! NO!"

THEN, there was this parent checking in, and we just had some snazzy new automatic doors installed, and one of his kids, probably like 5-6ish, was sitting inside the door frame, just SCREAMING. The door was closing on him, I was thinking I might just have seen something shiny and looked the other way. However, being fired for squishing someone's kid isn't a great thing to have on your resume.

I had to endure all this for overtime pay, which is 50% of what I usually get, so it's a princely sum of $12/hr. Which kinda sucks, because my usual pay is $8/hr, and min. wage here in Wa state is $7.93. Lovely.