CrazyHotelWorkers

A guest enters the lobby...

2008-10-07T05:26:55Z

HIM: How do I get on the internet in my room?
ME: Just sign on to the wireless network w/ the password on the top of your receipt. (I had just checked him in & pointed it out...)
HIM: But there is no keyboard or anything in my room.
ME: ........? It's a wireless connection - you just sign into the network w/ that password.
HIM: There is nothing on my TV though or anything, just cable & shows.
ME: You sign in using your own computer, like a laptop.
HIM: Ohh... I don't have one.

Lol, ugh. He paid to use the guest computer in the lobby instead.

It looks as if the end is near

2008-10-07T01:51:24Z

I am one of the unfortunate souls who works for a hotel owned by Kronos Hotels, LLC. All the rumors have this company close to flatlining. Every employee at my hotel had their most recent paycheck bounce. And our controller cannot get in contact with anyone to get us our money. I'm owed $600. I can only imagine what the total owed is.

I hope I get called for an interview at one of the places I applied.

Hahaha names are fun.

2008-10-06T22:21:54Z

I just checked in two awesome last names.

Muffler. Which just made me chuckle and go "vrooom vroooom" in my head.

And "Poon"

Which for some reason just makes me want to watch Pootie Tang.

*snorts*

Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm, hot wings!

2008-10-06T11:52:45Z

Our hotel has the local franchise rights to a chain of jungle-themed restaurants based out of the Maritimes, and it opens tomorrow. Today, as kind of a trial run, they're opening it to the hotel staff between 4 and 7 this evening. And, if what the evening clerk told me last night is true, it's all free!

MOD POST: Just a reminder, please tag your posts.

2008-10-06T06:46:36Z

Just a friendly reminder, PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE make sure you are tagging your posts appropriately. If you have any questions, please let us know.

-The MOD team.

Stop me if you've heard this one

2008-10-06T05:06:54Z

I think this chick was at our hotel this weekend:

A blond gal from on up in a holler in Appalachia was on her first trip outside the mountains and staying in a hotel. She followed the bellman through a set of double doors. Everywhere she looked, she saw plush carpet and shiny brass and glossy wood. "This is a beautiful room," she said to the bellman, "But I was hoping for a bed!"

The bellman sighed. "Just follow me, ma'am, and I'll take you to your room when we get off the elevator..."

In-Room Garbage

2008-10-06T03:54:29Z

So I just had a guy call down from his room for help because he "accidentally" ordered a movie.
I'll take off the charges if it's been under 3 minutes, but that's it.
The thing that really annoys me about this is the ACCIDENTALLY aspect.
In our system, there is no way you can ACCIDENTALLY order a movie.
Not only is there a special button that you have to press - which is large, orange, and labeled - but you then have to press another two buttons to agree to the purchase.

So, I'm sorry, but there is no way you ACCIDENTALLY ordered the "All Day Porn Pass" for $34.01.
I cleared off the charges - but have added him to the "mass-stupidity" list.

How about no?

2008-10-06T02:31:42Z

I don't care how much you mutter, huff, glower, ask questions, or even have been here so many times before(which I can confirm), you will not get the coupon rate without a coupon.

Signed,

Front Desk Police

Why didn't you just give me to the smart one in the first place?

2008-10-05T23:36:55Z

I get a phone call from the hotel... there's a folio that won't bill out for a guest. It's mid afternoon; the hotel waited to call me because I'd worked the night audit shift. So, I remote in to the server, try to process the charge to the credit card, and it fails; the cc interface can process the pre-auth. Fine, I'll just void the pre-auth and start completely over. No dice; it won't void it out either. Time to call the PMS tech support, that we pay thousands of dollars for yearly!

And then it gets ugly.

I work my way through the automated phone tree, until I get to the right support department, and Barbie (not her real name) answers. Her voice sounds a little stoned and a lot vapid. I explain what's going on, get a session key so she can also remote login to the server, show her how the transaction fails when I try to process the credit card in the system, show her how I can't void out the pre-auth on the credit card. She randomly clicks around a few screens, and asks me to show her again. I do so.

She randomly clicks around a few screens, and asks me to show her again. I do so.

She randomly clicks around a few screens, and asks me to show her again. I do so.

She randomly clicks around a few screens, and asks me to show her again. I do so.

20 minutes later, she says, "So, you're trying to pre-authorize the account, right?" And I lost my patience. I told her that NO, I wasn't trying to PREAUTHORIZE the account, as I had just repeatedly SHOWN HER that the pre-auth had been done TWO DAYS and couldn't be voided. I was trying to BILL OUT THE FOLIO, because it wouldn't process when the guest checked out.

"Oh... so, the guest is checked in?"

NO!

"Ok, well, this will just sit there until the batch is settled." Honestly, I'm seeing red at this point. "THE BATCH WAS SETTLED BEFORE SHE TRIED TO CHECK OUT." I'm not yelling, but I am using my loud-and-stern "Outsdr is displeased with an idiot!" voice.

"Oh, so you need to pre-authorize it..."

GRRRRR.

Throughout the 30 minute conversation, she keeps putting me on hold for 1-2 minutes, and I'm getting increasingly angry and frustrated. And then, the call "disconnects".

So, I call back, work my way through the phone tree again, get the same department, talk to a different gentlemen who tells me Barbie isnt available because she's currently helping someone. I explain that it's actually ME she's helping, and he transfers me. She sounds annoyed that I got back through to her. I can see her still randomly slicking through folders, looking at my system tray icons ... she seems really confused by the Nvidia icon for some reason ... she puts me on hold again ... comes back and says, "Well, I don't know how to fix this, so since it's Sunday, and there's no one else her but the phone techs and my supervisor, I'll turn the ticket in for a liason (WTF?) and they'll call you back tomorrow to fix this."

"Tomorrow."

"Yes"

"You realize I can't sell this room tonight because I can't close out the folio, and you want me to wait until tomorrow?"

And I calmly but firmly told her I needed to talk to her supervisor. She outs me on hold AGAIN. I'm fairly certain I've been on the phone now for an hour with her.

She gets back on the phone, and she sounds desperate, scared, and tells me her supervisor isn't available ... she'll have them call me ... I'm fuming ... I'm giving her my number when she puts me on hold AGAIN. It's probably about five minutes this time, listening to the "soothing" crappy hold muzak.

"Hi, this is Jeff .. I'm going to be ... taking over from Barbie now." Literally five minute later, everything was fixed and my day was good. Jeff manually cleared the pre-auth from the SQL database, ran through the charge, manually entered the necessary numbers, and all was good. I thanked Jeff profusely, ended the call, and can now get back to my "day off" after having an hour wasted by stupid Barbie, Tech idiot. While it wasn't my goal and not something I tried to do, I'm pretty sure I made her cry a few times. I'm hoping I made her quit. Don't waste an hour of my time with incompetence.

Thanks a bunch, guests!

2008-10-05T10:47:31Z

Following on from "FUBAR" http://community.livejournal.com/hotel_workers/2666751.html
So, the guest went to the other local hotel for Friday night, then stayed with us last night. She's supposed to go to the other hotel tonight, then back to us for Monday thru Friday.

Housekeeping went in to clean room this morning - all her stuff is still there with a note that says "I've left stuff here as I assume I am here tonight (WTF?) but if this is wrong please phone mobile phone #########"

How's that for Passive-Aggressive? Basically she's saying "now I've got a key I'm bl**dy well staying put and I've switched my mobile off but I'll pretend reception was bad"

So - I've got to walk another guest - who made their reservation correctly.

Does anyone still think I'm giving guest 1 a bottle of wine and a voucher for a free stay? No. Guest 2 will get them instead.

-----------------------------------------------------------

And this is on top of the guest who checked out yesterday, leaving bathroom full of dog hair, and lawn full of dog sh!!!. I've already billed that guest £50 ($100) for extra cleaning, but normally we get a few weeks between guests from hell.

--------------------------------------------------------------

Grrrrrrrrrrrrr !

hotel_workers @ 2008-10-05T04:27:00

2008-10-05T09:29:35Z

Update from this post community.livejournal.com/hotel_workers/2666392.html

I just read this in the log book: 'Rm #, nightaudit guy told a guest that 'normal people check in before 3pm to a Priority Club guest. And she waited an hour before she got a room.'

This is a bold faced lie as I never told her that and she did not have to wait an hour for me to check her in. It was ten minutes at best. She's just pissy that she didn't immediatly get a room.

I've fired off an email to both my front desk manager and the general manager explaining what happened. I don't need this wack job of a guest to get my ass in trouble.

I need a new job!

2008-10-04T22:11:46Z

Sooooooooooooooooo I'm moving. Leaving Florida behind! (effing finally)

I'll be living in/near Madison, WI for a while - trying to save some move to move out to Philly with my best friend.

I need a job in Madison!! Anyone from there? Anyone wanna hire the most awesome-est person you could have ever met? Ever?

Anyone used to work there that can tell me things? Secret helpful things? LoL

I'll be up there November 16th!

You can e-mail me if you know something special arriscolwell@gmail.com

TY my lovelies! <3 <3 <3

hisssss @ "other" PBX person

2008-10-04T21:59:25Z

It: "Hello this is the Dumb shit in, calling for rate and occupancy"
Me: We are sold out
It: CONGRATULATIONS!
Me: (thinking to myself)Well gee thanks for the encouragement, we have had the highest occupancy of all of the area hotels for almost the past year. So glad to have YOUR pat on the back.

Also to snotty IRD loser: When you ask me to look up a room/reservation it does not mean I am stupid when YOU can't spell the name. It means YOU are stupid. It also means that the front desk won't find the person either. In fact, you will really piss off the FOM because he spent 15 minutes looking for a name YOU misspelled in YOUR incompetence. I was the one that actually found the VIP for you, because I tried several different spellings than your own.
The next time you call me back for anything, I will act as stupid as you think I am or I will refuse to speak in anything but French when you, specifically, call me for anything. Going to the front desk is not overriding me, it is going backwards, and you besmirch the hotel's reputation with your stupid high school antics.

two things that make me angry

2008-10-04T17:16:12Z

She has called and talked to my coworker to get directions. She and her daughter come in. They are really redneck and apparently from a little city about 2 hours from here. They are already peeved and tired because they've been driving around lost and they were complaining that they had a bad experience at a Comfort Inn in Georgia (why did you book with Choice again then?). So two strikes according to them. The mom claims that Choice told her on the phone that her reservation was with us and that they directed her to take exit 12 to get here (we're on exit 13). Low and behold I don't have her reservation. Strike 3. What annoyed me most is that she didn't have any documentation to back up any of this. No confirmation number, no nothing (yes, a double negative). Her and her daugter are snippy with each other which doesn't help matters. I start calling the five other local Comforts to check for her reservation and it's at the beach which is exit 12 but she claims she was given our address. She's on the phone bitching at Choice. I contact the beach hotel and they agree to cancel the reservation no charge. Cool. I start to put her in as a walk-in and then she has to argue with me over the rate. We evetually get past that and I ask her for CC and ID. She hands me her daughter's ID and I assume the mom's going to hand me her CC next so I tell her that I need the CC holders ID. To this she just blows up and storms out. I didn't appreciate how she was talking to me this whole time and belittling my whole company. I wrote her on our blacklist sheet. In the front desk log the FD manager asks why she's on the blacklist and I write why. Today I come in after being off the last two days and she has written a message "Only management is allowed to blacklist people." WTF? I dealt with the situation I think I'm experienced and old enough to make a decision like that. It's not like I'm blacklist happy. We have a whole 2 people on it now.

What is the blacklist policy at your hotel?

Ok, that was wordy. Second thing is I had to take care of this all by myself because my co-worker (P) had this so called emergency and had to pick up someone at the airport (which has been his excuse once before). He was gone for like an hour or two and he didn't even bother to write it on the schedule/time sheet. The FD manager gets on to me for not writing my time on it (don't know how she knows unless she looks at the camera). My big problem with this is I got cut down to 32 hours from 40 already and he gets paid to not even be here? Um... That's not all either. He doesn't make the keys in advance when he works 3-11, doesn't do the call around and doesn't do the courtesy calls after the guests check-in to make sure everything's ok with the room. In general he's a slackass and kisses ass to the manager. He apparently does the same stuff when he works with K the days I don't work with him. And she's told me some stuff he said that sounds like out and out sexual harrassment. Problem is, I don't know if I should any bring this up? Advice?

...Galveston Iked...

2008-10-04T16:09:07Z

I have been a bit busy. I have unlocked all the Ike related entries in my personal journal for those who might want to keep up with the damage or whatnot on the island & at my house, etc. Out of 140 vacation rentals I know of at least 41 that are just GONE off the face of the earth so far. More might have to be torn down. I know of only 12 to 20 that might be ready for vacation renters when power & water are restored. The office has power & water & we will have it staffed starting Monday. We paid all employees through this entire ordeal but are just now having to release some. THAT is harder than any amount of damage to our homes. We are coming back slowly...it is what it is...and it's all good.

Stupid guest

2008-10-04T13:37:19Z

Me:me
DG: Dumbass Guest

Me: Good afternoon
DG:Hi can tell me how we go about booking a ghost tour?
Me: I can do that for you, no problem, which one would you like to go on?
DG: We're not sure
Me:Ok, if you just grab one of the brochures from the table *points to table of literature* we can pick on out and I can book it for you
DG: *walks to table, looks confused* Which brochure is it?
Me: the one for the ghost tours
*headdesk*

FUBAR !

2008-10-04T10:00:59Z

A nice easy afternoon, yesterday. All arrivals were checked in by 3.00 and all was well.

Then, at 5.00, an arrival turned up. Unexpectedly. On Friday 3rd.

I checked my details. I had 2 bookings for this arrival, a "midweek break" (Mon-Fri 6th - 10th) and a "weekend break" (Fri-Mon 10th - 13th). I'd better point out that there are some web-sites in the UK that don't sell accommodation on a nightly basis, but instead they package it into short breaks and weeks - and we deal with two of these websites.

Despite the customer having booked what amounted to 6th-13th October, she thought she'd booked 3rd to 10th October.

I found her a local hotel for the 3rd, I've got a room on the 4th, we need to find her a room for the 5th, then she's with us 6th to 10th. I wasn't at all sure who was at fault - so I suggested that we "went halves" - so I paid for the night of the 3rd, but she's paying for the night of the 5th.

When she gets back on the 6th I'll put a bottle of wine in the room, and I'll give her a voucher for a couple of complimentary nights, so hopefully everyone will be happy - but my heart was beating double speed.

I just hope that I've been fair - I don't believe in giving a complaining customer everything they want just to keep them quiet - but I felt guilty and the lady was very nice, despite having a 10 minute drive to the local hotel and being in a bit of a rush.

I guess I'll know tonight how happy she is - I've stayed at the local hotel before, and you can be lucky and get a refurbished room, or unlucky and get a scruffy one. I phoned their front desk and explained the situation, so hopefully all will be well.

By the way - if you don't understand the title - it's 1940's slang for " F*****ed Up Beyond All Recognition" !

hotel_workers @ 2008-10-04T04:42:00

2008-10-04T09:43:51Z

</a></font></b></a>nightauditguy

Now tonight at the hotel has been pretty hectic, with people arriving at all hours wanting to check in and thus causing me not to be able to run the audit, which turns over the business date, until nearly 3:30am.

Maybe 15 minutes before I am ready to run the audit, I still have a few minor things to do, some guests walk in and say they have a reservation. I get their name and look it up. However, I find that they made it through Hotwire and tell them that I wont' be able to check them in for a few minutes and explain why.

This causes the woman to go off on me saying that's ridiculous and how they've been driving for a long time. I once again apologize to her and her group but there's really nothing I can do and it won't take long for the audit to run.

As I'm closing out my cashier so that I can run the audit, I'm asked this question:

Guest wanting to check in: Is this because we're black?
Me: *stunned* No ma'am, I can assure you it's not. *and then I go on to repeat what I said about third party reservations.

This mollifies them somewhat, but they continue to give me the evil eye until the audit rolls the business date and I can log back into the system and proceed to check them in.

I love it when the system works.

2008-10-04T07:51:12Z

Nasty, nasty looking girl comes to the desk, asks about a room, asks if a credit card is necessary to rent when paying cash. Not liking the looks of her, I say yes (we'll also take a cash deposit, but I like to use my Front Desk Clerk Discretionary Powers.) She inquires where else in town she can get a room. I tell her, and send her on her way, then duck off to the can to relieve my aching bladder.

Returning, I hear an impatient tapping on the front desk counter. I glance out and see the same truck the woman arrived in still under the canopy, and an equally nasty, nasty looking young man tapping a wad of cash on the counter. He explains that he should have a credit card on file from a previous stay...

I pull up a new folio, select his name from the guest records, and INSTANTLY a warning pops up that he is marked as undesirable! He lives here locally, and the last time he was in, smoked in the room and the credit card he gave us was declined. I politely informed him that the cc on file was declined and therefore I was unable to rent a room to him. He scowled and stalked out of the hotel, got back in his nasty, nasty truck with his nasty, nasty barfly, and drove off.

That's the first undesirable warning I've ever had; I'm glad to see it works.

Ungrateful Guests

2008-10-03T23:55:42Z

Another guest that completely angers me. Sunday night we had a couple of rooms walk in with the discount coupon. They came together, 1 car, on vacation from Missouri. A few hours after checking in one of the husbands comes to the desk saying his wife fell coming out of the bath tub and he needed the paramedics because she hit her head and was bleeding. The clerk called and the paramedics had her transfer them to the room so they could talk to him. The ambulance came and left with her. The next morning the other room came down to extend because the woman was at the hospital and awaiting surgery because now they claim she had broken her hip. We apologized for the situation, and comped the injured woman's room for Sunday night and comped the 2nd room starting Monday night since they were stuck here. We thought this was the right thing to do, even though we knew that we were not at fault. There is a bath mat and grab bar provided for all tubs, but of course we automatically get blamed for the woman not paying attention to where she was stepping.
So the husband comes with me to take his stuff out of the room the next morning and threatens legal action. I told him he'd have to talk to the manager but we didnt charge his room for the previous night and we wouldnt be charging the other family's room starting for that night. He left to go stay with his wife in the hospital, then called the manager later asking him what he was going to do about the situation and should he involve a lawyer. The manager advised him that he would need to send us bills and hospital information so we could look at it. We're not just handing you cc info over the phone buddy and tell the hospital to just charge it whatever. Today I come in to find that the guy has a res starting tonight for 1 week that is comped by the manager, AND a fax from Days Inn that says this:
"Gst called stating his wife fell at the htl. She broke her hip. They told the people at the desk and nothing was done. They did not fill out an accident report. He is upset and would like something done about it."
Hello??? What a jackass. He was told to ask the manager about filling out an accident report, which he never did, but to say that we did nothing??? We comped his room and told him to send us the hospital information, what did he want us to do, build a time machine so we could go back in time and stop his wife from falling?? As I'm typing this he just checked in, staying a whole week comped. Yeah, we're horrible people.

Dodging a Bullet

2008-10-03T22:44:25Z

So for only the second time in my fifteen frigging years here, the place was overbooked by a room. Kind of my fault, I guess as I sold the fuck out of all the inventory I had at the beginning of my shift, and a reservation I had in for yesterday showed up today after it was already put on the no-show bulletin board. My original plan was just to "lose" a reservation that one of the halfwits I work with took, but there weren't any suitable for it. By suitable I mean made a long time ago or inconspicuous enough not to be remembered by the pedophile that worked the day shift. My second plan was just to hope someone didn't show up until my shift was done and not answer my phone at the bar when they called to ask what to do. While this was a pretty much perfect plan, when a bunch of people dumb enough to stay here came in together, I explained we were overbooked and offered a fake upgrade to some of them if they would shack up together. While the first group I tried this with balked due to one uptight cunt, another person with them walked in and agreed to it! I certainly did not want to have to deal with begging the real hotels (ok, grovelling from bostonirishsox might not be that bad) in town for a room for whoever the last to show up is. Crisis averted due to my mad problem solving skillz.

Oh and the bitch who wouldn't sleep on a sofa bed? Paying for double occupancy her whole stay now, even though the dork staying with her isn't arriving 'til tomorrow. She can't help me out, she can pay full price.

Third party reservations

2008-10-03T22:28:32Z

I hate ALL third party booking agencies, but most of all I hate fucking EXPEDIA!! They NEVER get anything right and I'm sick of getting bitched at because they are dumbasses!! Lady checks in and has a smoking king room and wants switched to non-smoking, sorry I can't do that you used wonderful fucking Expedia to book. I'm also sick of hearing its cheaper to book through them, no really its not, if you call property direct its generally cheaper and you get what you are paying for.

Scammer!

2008-10-03T21:41:42Z

I am sure we've all come across scammers working in the hotel biz. We had one stay here a couple weeks ago and Days Inn rewarded her for it and screwed us. When she was here in the room she called Days Inn to complain about the room. She never called the front desk to tell us there was a problem, so the clerk called up to her room to offer her solutions, i.e. move to a different room, get a free upgrade, check out and we can help you find another hotel, etc. She refused all our suggestions and told the clerk that she felt like she was being held hostage here and felt like she had no choice but to stay. She also complained about other guests walking around outside their rooms and that they talked and looked "local". So after going off on the clerk nothing more was said and she checked out the next morning saying the clerk was rude. I knew this was bull so I just handed her the receipt and said we tried to help you but you refused everything so there's nothing we can do, you called Days Inn it's in their hands now. Now, 2 days ago, Days Inn faxes the case again and says they are sending her a $37.00 check (equals to half her charge) and we got charged $160.00 because they resolved it and we didn't. This is what the fax says:
"Gst called checking the status on their case". Gst stated that she has pictures of the room. The gst stated that the Htl did offer to move the gst to another room and they did refuse to move rooms. The gst stated they were in the room for 5 hours because they dropped their belongings off and went to eat. The gst stated that the htl did offer to find them another place to stay and they refused. The gst stated they were charged $75.06. Offered gst a check in the amount of $37.00 Gst accepted."
Now, I looked at the room myself and was it like she was claiming it to be? Of course not. Total exaggeration. So now that Days Inn caved to her and sent her a $37 check we have to pay a $60 processing fee AND a $100 penalty fee. $160.00. Thank you, Days Inn. And I'm sorry, but if you refuse all our help (which says scam to me since she also wouldnt let us in the room while she was there to look at the alleged problems) and you stay in the room and use it then you should pay what you booked. $75.06...one of the cheapest hotels in the area. I know a scam when I hear one. I am glad the money paying her back is not coming directly from us, even though we have to eat the $160.00 penalty charge. I hope she's happy with her $37.00 and that she chokes on it.

Special Edition!

2008-10-03T21:10:43Z

Muppet

2008-10-03T20:45:08Z

So I work with two of the most stupid people I've ever met:

Two nights ago the Guest staying in our only self-catering property called about a problem with the heating, I'm not sure how it came about but the call resulted in a note left for the early shift to let maintenance know that two of the radiators in the cottage needed bled. The early receptionist(who is not usually a stupid donkey) then forgot to tell maintenance and I was left on the late shift with a "shit, sorry, I forgot" excuse to the problem.

The guest called later about a different problem, so I went to the cottage to deal with that, while I was there I TURNED ON THE HEATING and OPENED ALL THE VALVES on the radiators, suddenly they became hot, fucking shocking!

What I want to know is what did the "two of the most stupid people I've met" do to resolve the problem? One of them is a receptionist(FDA) who has worked in our property for 10 YEARS and the other is a Duty Manager(I think you guys call them the Manager on Duty but you get the drift) , really one of them should have known how to turn on a radiator, right? or they just didn't bother their arses to go and look at the problem!
I don't blame the guest at all, the poor woman was sitting in there with her coat on and into the bargain she was lovely and totally understanding of the second problem she called about. She was worried about messing with things she didn't know about-understandable.

They honestly have one brain cell between them and they're using it to control breathing!