MARSHA has been taking her sweet time to auth credit cards this evening. About 10 minutes ago I had the best song ever start playing when I started the authorization process:

Lovin' Spoonful - Did You Ever Have to Make Up Your Mind

It was perfect.

So tonight was boring, I didn't feel very good, and I desperately wanted to go home.

We have this guest in house who mistakenly made his reservation for last night, so he had a no show charge posted. He came in tonight and was very sweet with all the reversal work and everything of that charge, and acknowledged his mistake.

He comes in to talk to me later and picks up a package, and asks about the local Frank's Diner and a coffee stand. I recommend him to a Brews Brothers nearby and he told me he'd go get me some coffee!!! I ask for a chai tea, and he was dead serious! Unfortunately, they were closed earlier than I thought and so I didn't get anything and he didn't either, but wow!!!! What a nice guy!!!

Have any of you had a guest that was really awesome?

EDIT: I felt bad about the hours being incorrect and so I sent him some of our complimentary peanut bruttle in my guilt. He called me back at the desk after it was delivered and exclaimed, "OH MY GOD! This is so much better than a double espresso! Thank you! Hey, have a good night!" *dances* Yay!

So, I had a guest today who is a truck driver and his truck is one of those tank trucks and it's carrying C02. He was telling us how it's very full, and may sound like a small explosion and start venting a bunch of smoke; but it's just carbonation. Which reminded me of this story. I started telling the guy about this, and he laughed, "Oh, I know that guy, he got fired because he didn't tell the front desk; he was an idiot anyway." he was surprised I knew, and I just told him; "We front desk agents have a small community that keeps everyone informed..." IMMD XD

Name: Jeremy
Age: 25
Position/Department: Front Desk Clerk
*Number of rooms: 48
Chain or independent? If Chain, which one?: Chain, Days Inn
Location: West Virginia
*Average Rack Rate: $55.00
( Read more )

So the fake 'Federal Agent' from last night? He checked out today.

His credit card declined. I almost choked on my salad when the Afternoon Supervisor told me.

And it's the little moments like this that keep me coming back to this place. This cup of coffee is sweeter than any other, for it carries with it the taste of victory.

We have a new member of the CrazyHotelWorkers family of websites. stupidhowo is dedicated to hotel owner/manager/co-worker stories that have made you say "WTF?" It is a 100% moderated community. All members must go through the application process, and all posts will be moderated/friends-only. There will be no guest stories posted to the community (unless it's relevant, i.e. a manager's response to a guest issue was so totally wtf.) To join the new community, please click http://www.livejournal.com/community/join.bml?comm=stupidhowo, then please apply at http://www.crazyhotelworkers.com/surveys/index.php?sid=26718&lang=en and we will make every attempt to get you approved as quickly as possible. Any questions/comments/etc. should go to the mod team at http://help.crazyhotelworkers.com/ or help@crazyhotelworkers.com

Thank you!

Once upon a time I worked at Stein Eriksen Lodge (Have now gone back to reservations supervisor at the Yarrow) and we were busy. VERY BUSY. And my manager was sticking me with all the super late shifts when she had told me a month or two prior that the late shifts would be split up between people so I could also have some nice daytime hours. LIES. The routine was set, and I was the middle employee, two others were hired after me and they got better shifts, even though I was at the top of the charts in work ethic. So I wrote my manager I nice email reminding her of what she promised me, only for her to not write me back.

That same day I made a facebook status update saying that I didn't want to be at work and that I finally wrote to my manager because my schedule was F-ing me in the ass.

The next day I got a phone call from her and the HR manager telling me I was fired... because of the facebook comment. She basically told me she took it personally and their excuse for getting rid of me was that I was talking bad about the company and it was public and everyone would know about it. AS IF. My status was public but nothing else. And I didn't even say where I was working and who my manager was. BS I say! Oh AND my facebook isn't even under my real name, she went looking for me under another employee's profile.

So I filed for unemployment, they say my firing wasn't my fault, so they think it's BS too and ummm yeah. I'm thinking I need to go after them for more money. I forget what that's called, but my step dad works for the Dept of Labor in Utah.

Anyhow, I'm back at the Yarrow... meh. It's a more relaxed job, and I like my coworkers. :) So yay.

Ok so do any of you have problems with people spending hours on your business center computers? I know some hotels have notices that say things like, "Please limit yourself to 20 minutes on the computer", etc. But there are no notices on ours, so I was curious....
Since we only have one, should I boot the lady who comes down here every day and spends at least 4 hours (not joking) on my business center computer so others can use it if need be, or just let her do it? I know I've seen another guest look over with a face like, "Heyyyyyy I wanted to use it tooooo. :( "

What do you think?

So I was reading cracked.com. And the new article and I read that cell phones may soon be used as key cards!
Lies! I thought (I should know better than to distrust cracked.com, because then I found this;

http://www.financetechnews.com/cellphones-may-soon-replace-hotel-key-cards/

Thoughts?

Tonight my bellman is full of win.
We're all slow, and I'm dying of boredom, and am exhausted.
I call my friend over at the Davenport front desk and propose that the bellman bring me a cup of coffee, to give him something to do. I'm joking of course, I don't want to make him do something like that.

AND he does it anyway! Brings me a cup of coffee, complete with 4 sugar packets and one of those warmer plastic pitcher things. It's even in a nice porcelain cup.

What a guy, huh?
I have coffee now and the shift is going by much faster. :D
Yay!

I've always been curious about this one.  How often are you paid at your hotel?  I've worked for some companies that pay every other week and others that pay on the 1st and 15th of the month.Poll #1531690 Pay Day
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 75

How often are you paid at your hotel?

There are 4 elderly couples here together, 4 rooms, all on the same floor. They just came down to meet in the lobby for breakfast, literally 10 feet away from me.

And they're ALL complaining about something to each other.

Couple #1 is saying to the others that their room is too hot, and they can't figure out the thermostat. Okayyyyy, why didn't you call us? This is a fairly common complaint, not being able to figure out the thermostat, there's actually a guide on how to adjust the temperature on the desk in their room. But cmon, if you had called, we would have sent someone up to show you how to work it.

Couple #2 is saying that there has been an alarm going off in another room that they can hear in their room since 3:30 am. It's 9:30 am. We're not freakin psychics, if you had called us, we would have found it and turned it off.

Couple #3 is complaining about the coffee in the rooms. Not that it tastes bad or anything, but that the wife drank regular coffee and is now too awake. There's two packets of coffee in each room, one regular, one decaff. They have HUGE lettering at the bottom saying which one it is. It's our problem that you can't READ?

And finally, the group as a whole. They're all standing there with their express checkout papers. The guy who made the reservations came down, and they're all joking, hey look, they forgot to give us your whole credit card number, guess we'll have to call back for that! (The main guy was paying for rm/tax and parking for all 4 rooms on his cc. We deliver express checkouts to individual rooms, unless told not to. So, they got a copy of the room charges and the last 4 digits of the card the room is being billed to.) The guy who booked everyone came up to me, all sorts of pissed. "I'm paying for these rooms, why are they being billed?!"

Me- "Sir, these are the last digits of the card the rooms are being billed to, this is your card, correct?"

Douche- "Yes."

Me- "Uhh....they're not being billed for the rooms, this is just a copy stating the total charges, and how they're being paid for."

Douche- "Well, I didn't want them to get bills. I'm paying."

Seriously? You're angry about this? I'm sorry, if we had know you didn't want them to get a copy of the charges incurred for that room, we wouldn't have delivered it. We do it as a courtesy for out guests, so they know how the room is being billed, and so they don't have to stop down at the desk in the morning, and you're MAD?

I need a new freakin job.

I hope this is okay - I will remove it if necessary :)

Can anyone help me with how to post a picture in comments. It is my own picture, but I can't figure it out and I would like to post a pic' with my comment on LJ.

Any help will be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

Holy giants!

I just checked in a guest who had to be at least 7'5 if not taller. I thought he looked familiar but couldn't place him until some other guy just walking through the lobby had a massive fanboy reaction to him. Poor guy looked like he was about to have a heart attack. The 'fanboy' started talking about the tall guy's wrestling career which didn't help much as I don't follow it and then mentioned Get Smart and it was then I realized he was the giant in the movie. Unfortunantly I had no rooms with kings left so I had to give him a room with two doubles.

Anyone on here in Bakersfield California? I'm gonna be there in 2 weeks and was wondering what there is to do there.

When I say we require a VALID credit card, yelling at me and telling me it valid it just doesnt have any money on it makes me cry. People are so stupid, and coming in a couple hours before you check in and paying cash will not make you an exception to the credit card rule. Thanks for getting bitchy with me and then hanging up on me, I really wanted you to ask for a manager or argue with me some more because I was bored and wanted to beat you down with your stupidness!

Last night I was freezing at the front desk, and no amount of adjusting the heat would get me to warm up. I chalked it up to the heater in the lobby not working. Nope, turns out I was sick and now I have a 100 degree fever.

 Ok, so I've got to be able to remotely login to CA from home to take care of some reports, but I use a Mac.  Does anyone know of a browser, aside from Firefox (which CA doesn't fully support) or IE (which...yes, sad day...I just installed only to find out it won't take me into CA) that I can use for this?