How to be a hotel guest.

[ArenaBoy]

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Basically, if it isn’t a hardwood floor or concrete, I can probably sleep on it. And I am not even sure about that last part, due to a few drunken times when I found the sidewalk a lovely place to rest…..

When I ran cross-country in high school, if you didn't bring a sleeping bag you had to learn how to sleep on hard ground. I can sleep just about anywhere if I feel like it. When I travel with my family, I prefer having my own bed so I can have some space. By the way Jester, I like the avatar.

[Slave to the Phone]

Yeah, we can do pretty much whatever we want when it comes to moving people around, rates (sorta), amenities, etc.

What we can't do is:... (snipped for post length)

I really laughed at your list until I realized that you had heard those demands so often that you typed up your list without having to think about it. Then I was all for you.

Not everyone necessarily lives near all of their family or even LIKES all of their family...

Point taken, thank you. I wasn't thinking very well when I made that post...60 hour weeks tend to make me foggy.

You have interesting mandatory days off. I would have thought that you would have made tons of tips on St Patrick's day and New Year's Eve.

the day after Thanksgiving (Arizona/Arizona State football game)

Did we use to be neighbors?

Maybe families' or friends' houses are already full and there's nowhere to stay, or perhaps they're visiting parents or grandparents in homes?...

If I had been thinking clearly when I typed that, I would have remembered that we always rent a hotel room on July 4th. For the cats. We don't want the cats to freak out and run away when we throw our one BIG party of the year, so the cats get to go stay in a nice motel room and I get to sleep in a house full of drunk bikers.

[Jester]

You have interesting mandatory days off. I would have thought that you would have made tons of tips on St Patrick's day and New Year's Eve.

These are just MY personal days off. Could I make lots of money on St. Patrick’s Day? Maybe. I have never worked at an Irish establishment, so there is no guarantee of that. Could I make lots of money on New Year’s Eve? Certainly.

Is it all about money for me? No. No, it’s not.

Did we use to be neighbors?

It’s always a possibility, though I have no idea where you live/lived. I have been living in Key West for the last seven years, but when I did live back in Phoenix, most of my residences were in Tempe or that area.

[zzapp the witch]

In response to Jester's ability to fall asleep almost anywhere on almost anything: Alcohol is great for its mysterious ability to help people reeeelaaaaax.

[Getoutofmylobby]

In response to Jester's ability to fall asleep almost anywhere on almost anything: Alcohol is great for its mysterious ability to help people reeeelaaaaax.

So is Valium. I am one of those unfortunate people who can only sleep in one position. I must have two pillows and no feet may be sticking out from under the covers. Trust me, this isn't by choice.

[alogram]

OK, some things at the hotel were bugging me, so I was going to start a new thread....but then I found this one.

Anyway......I would like to add:

1. LISTEN when the phone is answered. At the last hotel, we picked up the phone. I can not tell you how many times I answered the phone "Thank you for calling Z hotel, how can I help you?" Only to hear some idiot say "Is this Hotel Z?"

That drives me absolutely crazy.

Now I work at a hotel with the automated pick up (sorry, not to eloquent this morning!) that says "Thank you for calling Hotel X.....blah blah blah, press 0 for front desk.

So I answer the phone, and they say "Is this Hotel X?"

I can not put into words how much this irks the shit out of me.

...

Moving on...

2. DO NOT reach over the desk. I don't know why, but this bugs me. Leave your reg card on the desk....I can get it just fine. If you need a pen or a piece of paper, please ask for it. Again, do not reach over the desk. I consider that an invasion of personal space and have to physically restrain myself from slapping you.

3. Please have an idea how to get here. Don't call me from two states away and expect that I will be able to tell you how to get here. Take a little responsibility. At the last hotel I worked at, we had someone ask for directions to her house. I am not kidding.....and she lived near Long Island. Somewhere I have never even been near. Lucky for her my manager had been. Dumbass.

4. YES I do need to see your credit card. I know you gave the number when you made the reservation. It is called security. With all the identity theft cases now, I would think you would be happy about this.

5. Do not bitch at me because a third party website screwed up your reservation. I am sorry that they reserved you a smoking room, and sorry that we do not have any non smoking rooms available. No I will not move someone else, duh. It is called planning ahead. I don't like smoking rooms either, which is why I book directly with the hotel, or call to make sure that the reservation came through okay for the room type I wanted.

6. Yes the pool is swimmable.

As for people who forget "personal items"....I think that if I ever brought something like that to a hotel, I would try to keep track of it...ha ha....and if I did somehow forget it?

Buy new ones.....gah.

I could go on, but this is already getting obnoxious in length.

[DesignFox]

... we do get truckloads of condoms in different stages of use as well as a deflated blow-up doll. Fortunately, nobody asked for that one back.

I will never work at a hotel... What is so terrible about cleaning up after one's self!? I certainly wouldn't leave a mess in the room...especially of THAT nature...ewwwwww...

[alogram]

I would never work in housekeeping.

Could not do it.

But I will say that housekeepers do not get enough credit! My friend and I had to help out in rooms one day and I can honestly say that I could not do that day after day.

People are pigs.....and even when they are not it is hard work.

[Getoutofmylobby]

2. DO NOT reach over the desk. I don't know why, but this bugs me. Leave your reg card on the desk....I can get it just fine. If you need a pen or a piece of paper, please ask for it. Again, do not reach over the desk. I consider that an invasion of personal space and have to physically restrain myself from slapping you.

Wow, you nailed it. For some reason, I really hate that too. I guess desk clerks can get a little territorial (my name) and really, i'd rather watch a hockey game then check someone in. But think about it, if I were checking you in and needed your credit card, and your wallet happened to be open and sitting in front of you on the desk, I wouldn't pick it up and grab one.

Maybe customers feel as if they own the place or they're doing us some favor by not bothering us for a pen or whatever but there is a good reason for us to be mad about this. Our desk has things like a key machine, a file of premade keys clipped to reservations with guest names, room numbers, phone numbers, addresses printed on them, not to mention the cash drawer, nobody besides me should have access to these things.

And you're right about housekeeping not getting enough credit. People ARE pigs especially when, in their view, they're paying someone to clean up after them.

[Hotelboy]

*peeks head in*

....

*rolls around in thread like a pig in s**t*

[reformedwaitress]

Until I read this discussion, I never knew that some people voluntarily stayed at hotels/motels on a major holdiay. Why would anyone do such a thing? Don't they have any family or friends to spend the night with?

My extended family often does Thanksgiving and sometimes Christmas at the family farm where my Grandma and her seven siblings grew up. No one lives at the farmhouse, but it's only 6 rooms. There are a total of 10 beds there. So, when you have 60 or 70 people that are going to be there, some of those people have to stay else where.

The Holiday Inn in town knows us well and will usually give people in the family a small discount (as we are from that very very small south Georgia town and are probably somehow distantly related to the owners / managers / desk clerks anyway.

[Getoutofmylobby]

I just want to add one last thing to my list...

If you're checking in, please do not stare at me while I am working. Watch the Weather Channel on the TV behind you, read the USA Today, hell, look at the pretty flashing lights on our still-up Christmas Tree. But for f*** sakes quit staring at me.

It's not like whatever i'm doing is all that interesting.