How to be a hotel guest.

[Getoutofmylobby]

I think the consensus on this site is that the general public, as a whole, is a bunch of greedy, ignorant, self-centered and rude sunsabitches. Everyone on the planet either needs to work a few years in customer service or take a class on how to be a good consumer. I have worked as a desk clerk at various hotels for years and have come into contact with all kinds of people. My job keeps a roof over my head so I do two things to keep it: 1. I am initially nice to everyone and 2. I always give the customer the benefit of the doubt. That said, there are a few things potential travelers need to know from a seasoned hotel clerk.

1. We don't owe you shit. Seriously. Just because you heard that someone got X for free because of Z doesn't mean you will have the same experience. If the hot tub is scalding hot, don't marinate in it for an hour and then complain because you can't feel your legs. If the couple having loud sex in the room next to you is keeping you awake, tell us. Please. Because if you don't and want your money back the next morning, it's really not our fault, it's yours. Take responsibility for your own actions because if you fuck up, you shouldn't be compensated for it.

2. Know where you're going. If you're on your way and the only directions you have are that your hotel "Is somewhere in the southern St. Louis area," sorry but you are hopeless. It's called Mapquest people, try it.

3. We know you watched that porno. And we know how long you watched it too. Fess up and pay for it. You only embarass yourself if you say you "accidently" ordered it. It's actually pretty hard to do that and we know it.

4. Be nice. Put yourself in our shoes for a second. If we're obviously busy with other customers and phones, don't make it worse for us by being pissed off when it's your turn. That never helps anything. Oh and never toss your credit card at us like you're Donald Trump or something, because we know you're not and we fuckin' hate that.

5. Hotels in other cities cost money. A hundred bucks per night in a city is about par for the course. If you want to stay for $39.95, there are plenty of fleabag crackhouse hotels down the street. I'm sure they'd love you there.

6. If something goes wrong, it's not personal. We dont cancel reservations for fun. Never have, never will. And remember that nothing is certain when you travel. As soon as you get that into your head, it'll ease tons of stress and add years to both of our lives.

7. Shut the fuck up. Sometimes hotel policies are complicated and need to be explained to you. Allow us to explain them and keep your mouth closed. Nothing gets solved by yelling and interrupting.

8. If we tell you the lowest possible rate is X, then the lowest possible rate is X. If your brother's uncle's cousin's former roomate stayed here three years ago and got a bigger discount, whoop-de-friggin do. That has no bearing on your rate so quit asking.

Sorry if anything like this has been posted before. I really needed to vent. It also seems like I'm missing something...

[TruthHurts]

Good to see another hotel minion in our midst, I'd add one thing to the Mapquest. If I don't know how to give you directions to our hotel and suggest Mapquest don't act all offended because "I'm not helping"

I don't spend my waking hours studying every map in existence.

[Crosshair]

Rule #7 can be appied to alot of different situations.

[Antisocial_Worker]

I love your screen name!

5. Hotels in other cities cost money. A hundred bucks per night in a city is about par for the course. If you want to stay for $39.95, there are plenty of fleabag crackhouse hotels down the street. I'm sure they'd love you there.

Indeed they do. And here's another handy tip -- there is an insidious thing in this world called "tourist season." During this witching season, everybody gets a notion to hit the road and they keep hitting it until they arrive right here. The entire populations of Florida, Atlanta, and Charlotte are in town to stay for the weekend, and the entire populations of Kentucky and Indiana are on their way to the beach and stopped halfway.

Deal with it. When there are that many people clamoring for rooms like stockbrokers clamoring for a hot option, rates are high. In other words, high demand equals high rates. Are we all clear on that? Better write it down!

That being said, we don't want to hear about how you don't like the rates. If you won't pay it someone else will, so get out of their way. We don't care what you paid in Palm Beach last night, and we won't believe you if you said you got a room at the Ritz-Carlton for what we're charging here at the Blah Inn. If you can get that good a deal down at the Ritz, you'll need to truck on back to Palm Beach. We'll stand at the doors and wave and flutter our handkerchiefs, frankly.

Lastly, if you want to pay $39.95, we too have a fine selection of crack houses for you to peruse. Take bugspray.

[orcprincess]

May I add something for the housekeepers?

Warning: this may be gross for some

#9Do not use the tub/floors for a bathroom.

Yes, I understand that there is only one bathroom in your room, and there are only 2 people staying(although there is enough junk for 25) But, how old are you?!! Do not crap in the tub, the main room floor, your bed, whatever. Use the bathroom like you were taught when you were I dunno, 2?

[hotelslave]

Some more rules for hotel guests in DC area

Let me start off by saying I am not in a good mood and stuck at work after doing a turn around. So I am a little cranky, tired, sick, and just dont care today. So on to the rules.
1.) If you book your reservation for a Monday thru Thursday stay and you book day of arrival and make your reservation for a smoking room do not start acting crazy when that's the room your assigned. I am not going to switch your reservation with some one who booked their reservation a month ago and have a nice quiet ns king. Yelling at me or asking to speak to M.O.D. does nothing. I am the MOD most nights and take great joy in telling you that.

2.) No we won't price match with the no tell motel across the street that rents by the hour. Our price is a lot higher for the simple fact that we clean our rooms, have working phones in the room. So I don't care if you take your happy @$$ across the street to be attacked by bed bugs. I would sleep in my car before I slept there.

3.) Don't try and say you stay here all the time during the week and always get a NS king walking in on a Monday night for less then $100. I will look at you and smirk. I work every monday night since that's one of our busiest nights and obviously if I don't recognize you then you probably have never stayed here.

4.) Don't walk to the counter and try to demand a NS king that your reservation "should of" been made for. Because you know you just made it like 20 minutes ago for a smoking double. If you try this game I will find a room that was occupied the previous night by a heavy smoker with great joy.

Don't mess with me people. I can be a sweetheart or I can be a total B-tch that won't back down and will do it with a smile.

[Getoutofmylobby]

Let me start off by saying I am not in a good mood and stuck at work after doing a turn around. So I am a little cranky, tired, sick, and just dont care today.

Another thing that needs to be mentioned is that hotel employees are tortured in ways unfathomable to the ordinary customer. Working 8 hours, going home for 8 and then coming back for another 8 really sucks. And it happens all too often due to managers who don't pay attention/don't care when it comes to scheduling or dumbass co-workers. Be extra nice to them, because i'm sure the above poster will not give you a courtesy upgrade no matter how you ask.

Also, since the hotel never closes (what sadistic bastard decided that huh?) someone has to be at the desk all the time, meaning sometimes the clerk who is helping you is going to be/has been there for 16 hours straight.

One last thing, there are holidays like the 4th of July, Thanksgiving, Halloween, Christmas, Ramadan, Rosh Hasana, The Stanley Cup Finals where the families of the desk clerk you are dealing with are getting together... while the desk clerk has to work. All because your ass wanted to travel during the holidays.

[karma_gypsy]

5. Hotels in other cities cost money. A hundred bucks per night in a city is about par for the course. If you want to stay for $39.95, there are plenty of fleabag crackhouse hotels down the street. I'm sure they'd love you there.

Not all $40 hotel rooms are crackhouse hotels . . . our town has very little tourism, so hotels are fairly cheap and fairly decent (except for the super duper spendy ones that are apart of a big chain). Granted, if the hotel is $40 a night, they might be having a special or somethin (our cheap hotel is the one that's like $20 a night and even has hourly rates).

[Antisocial_Worker]

Here's another hotel guest commandment.

Thou shalt, no matter if thou stayest a week, a day, or a single hour, verily thou shalt bring enough luggage to make an Atlantic crossing.

It's crucially important. If you're staying for a single night, and you have to make at least four trips to your car and load the luggage cart from stem to stern every time, then you're doing it right.

If you can, like I can, pack a week's worth of clothing, toiletries, and a couple of paperbacks into a single suitcase, then you are a bad hotel guest.

The best hotel guests know to bring full-size steamer trunks, and possibly heavy appliances such as refrigerators and stoves with them. A good rule of thumb is that you unloading your car ought to remind onlookers of that scene in Titanic when the rich people are boarding.

You as a good hotel guest score extra points when you remember to bring enough luggage to fill a full-size eighteen-wheeler, but the hotel has no elevator. You can elevate yourself even beyond the best guests in this situation, especially by getting a dumbstruck, goggle-eyed look on your face when you inquire incredulously, "There's no elevator?!" as though you have just discovered that we're running an illegal surgery in the laundry room, selling organs to the well-heeled ill.

At this point you must stomp your feet, or huff and puff as though you are trying to blow the house -- or hotel as the case may be -- down. We'll offer to help you take the entire contents of your house and all your relatives' houses upstairs, but you must decline. Look angry about it. Ooh! Angrier! That's better.

Let the lightbulb go off now with a cheery little *ding!* above your head. Now, you must claim to have bad knees, and we'll do our best to accommodate your handicap, despite the fact that your only handicap is that you brought in too much crap. We'll do what we can now to give you a room downstairs, taking care to ensure that you taking that room deprives a 90-year-old woman of that downstairs room.

That's too bad for her though. You followed the rules, and rules are meant to be followed, by gum.

[Slave to the Phone]

Now I understand why we got upgraded!

A couple of years ago, hub, me, 2 other couples and a couple of single guys (5 bikes total) went on a road trip. We made reservations in advance and on one of the nights learned that our rooms (the cheapest we could get) came with unfenced parking right next to the street.

When we politely asked if we could park the bikes in the more secure parking area, we were told "No." We didn't complain or anything, we just parked the bikes tight (only used 2 parking spots for 4 rooms) and chained them to the pillors. Then we went to the bar for dinner and drinks. We were good customers then, as well.

After we were done eating and were walking through the lobby, we overheard someone yelling at the clerk and demanding to move to a different (upgraded) room because his wife didn't feel safe staying next to a biker gang. We laughed amongst ourselves and thought nothing more of it until an employee found us in the middle rooms (so as to not make noise in one of the end rooms) and asked if we would mind being moved to nicer rooms with safer parking.

When we left the next morning, I saw loudmouth's car still parked in front of the room next to what had been our rooms.

Up until this day, I've always wondered why they upgraded 4 rooms instead of moving the loudmouth.

[CrazedClerk]

Let me start off by saying I am not in a good mood and stuck at work after doing a turn around. So I am a little cranky, tired, sick, and just dont care today. So on to the rules.
1.) If you book your reservation for a Monday thru Thursday stay and you book day of arrival and make your reservation for a smoking room do not start acting crazy when that's the room your assigned. I am not going to switch your reservation with some one who booked their reservation a month ago and have a nice quiet ns king. Yelling at me or asking to speak to M.O.D. does nothing. I am the MOD most nights and take great joy in telling you that.

I love doing this one, the look on my customers faces when I tell them I *AM* the ruling authority is always priceless.

[South Texan]

One last thing, there are holidays like the 4th of July, Thanksgiving, Halloween, Christmas, Ramadan, Rosh Hasana, The Stanley Cup Finals where the families of the desk clerk you are dealing with are getting together... while the desk clerk has to work. All because your ass wanted to travel during the holidays.

Now be fair. The hotels exist to make money off the people who are traveling (some just to be with families on holidays). Without the traveling public, the hotel would not be in business and would not be employing anyone - even at the ridiculously crappy wages they pay. Restuarants, hospitals, police, utility companies and a slew of other businesses also stay open through holidays.

[Rapscallion]

Here's another hotel guest commandment.

Thou shalt, no matter if thou stayest a week, a day, or a single hour, verily thou shalt bring enough luggage to make an Atlantic crossing.

Oh, that reminds me of when I was staying in the Marriot in Atlanta back in February.

I'd checked in and was leaning on the internal balcony ten floors up and saw a couple arriving with luggage.

This wasn't just luggage. It was a full-blown rack designed to carry many hangers, each one brim full of items of clothing. It was a substantial beast, and it looked to be something that went everywhere with the couple. It was also jam packed.

You know how you can see cars in third-world countries that have goods sticking out of every window and door so they can carry more? That's how full this thing was.

I was impressed and depressed at the same time.

Rapscallion

[hotelslave]

Being a hotel employee

Wow I didn't realize that there were more hotel employees on here I thought there was only one other. I think it would be fun to share the horror stories of being a desk slave. I have friends who love to hear my horror stories. If any one follows NCAA basketball my hotel is about 3 miles from George Mason who made it to final 4. Or about 20 miles outside of DC. I have worked the desk for 4 years.
I have worked every holiday missed family events worked on my birthday. Sadly enough I know most of the City cops and firemen from having to call them for what ever reason. I have read the SC stories from you retail people and feel sorry. Most of my stories would just make you do , ,, or . All those can and usually do happen many times in a 8 hour shift. Now if you excuse me I have to log off my favorite website to go get ready to go into work whether I want to or not. Keep the SC stories coming I will need the entertainment at work.

[Getoutofmylobby]

Now be fair. The hotels exist to make money off the people who are traveling (some just to be with families on holidays). Without the traveling public, the hotel would not be in business and would not be employing anyone - even at the ridiculously crappy wages they pay. Restuarants, hospitals, police, utility companies and a slew of other businesses also stay open through holidays.

True.

But that still doesn't stop me from resenting those who actually do have that time off. On top of that, I resent the managers who disappear on holidays and the co-workers who decide to quit on Christmas morning. Before i started working, situations like these never even occured to me. I thought everybody got Christmas off, hell even Scrooge gave Cratchet at least half a day off.

My point is that when, eventually, I have a real job and i come into contact with these poor people, i'll give them the respect they deserve... something 90% of the population doesn't seem to recognize.