Damned if you do, damned if you don't, with bonus gender-bending!

[shanarocks]

And that, bhskittykatt, is why I'm glad I don't work in hotels anymore.

[Mr Hero]

at which point the grumpy old man told her that he was retired Coast Guard and that if he was younger, he would have jumped the counter and throttled me because I was rude, I did not know my job, and if I'm going to be working with the public, I need to know how to do my job.

And who's going to teach you to work with the public? The grumpy old man who threatens violence on the public?

[Sapphire Silk]

I really don't get making the employees hand-write personal notes to customers.

No, thank you.

It's some sycophant telling his superiors he "did something" about the problem.

Honestly, I wouldn't even bother. After all, how the hell is corporate going to check compliance?

Answer: they can't.

[Antisocial_Worker]

It's some sycophant telling his superiors he "did something" about the problem.

Honestly, I wouldn't even bother. After all, how the hell is corporate going to check compliance?

Answer: they can't.

Oh, but they can. We have to keep a log of which guests in which rooms have received letters, and corporate makes a policy of randomly calling past guests to survey them about their experiences. That's how we found out our scores were dropping. If they get a guest who the records show as having received a letter, but never actually did, there will be hell to pay.

[MoonCat]

It's like once they get our names, we become their personal servants and no one else can help them.

Yes, this! I hate giving out my whole name. There's only one person in my office with my first name, anyway, although many people don't listen when I give my name. And whenever I fax an ad proof or receipt to someone, it shows MY name even though I might not have taken the ad. Then two years later a customer will call and say "Don't you remember me?" Hell, lady, I don't remember what I had for dinner last night!

As for that grumpy old man, the moment he told your CW he would have throttled someone, he should have been told that's a threat and he can either leave now on his own, or wait for the police to take him away. Stupid old fart.

[XCashier]

Can you at least make your signature illegible?

[Food Lady]

Ugh. At least my customers aren't that bad. They sometimes come to me and say "I talked to Bob and he said..." because they did, and then I take care of whatever it is and they're perfectly happy. They just want the situation resolved and if they really like someone, they'll let corporate know. I know I have a lot of stories about crazy people that shop at my store, but most of them are nice people and the ones who aren't super-friendly I think are just tired or busy. I don't know what it is about hotel guests. I'm one of those who feel it's a special privilege to stay in a hotel (really, I get excited about it because I can rarely afford it), and I have never complained about anything. But some people are just so whiny. I could not work in a hotel.

[wolfie]

We shall call the guest Lulabelle Murphy, because it was something equally feminine. I wrote a nice little note to Ms. Murphy, thanking her for her stay, hoping that her stay had been pleasant, and wishing her safe travels. In the morning, Mr. Lulabelle Murphy came to the front desk to extend his stay another four days. Mr. Lulabelle Murphy had biceps the size of cantaloupes, probably as a result of having been beaten up every day of his childhood as the result of having been given a woman's first name and eventually tiring of it. He was a good sport about it, electing not to mention it. Good man, Mr. Lulabelle.

Glad to see that he didn't get mad and threaten to (boy named) Sue the hotel over being mistaken for a woman.

If they get a guest who the records show as having received a letter, but never actually did, there will be hell to pay.

I hope the letters are hand-delivered to the room. If they're mailed to the guest's home address, it would suck to catch hell over a letter that didn't arrive due to a post office screwup.

[CrazedClerkthe2nd]

Some years ago, a cell phone retailer I worked made us all start sending out "Thank you" cards to customers we sold to as they felt it would help us drive repeat business.

That lasted about three weeks.

[Ironclad Alibi]

Our solution in our house (because the house rule is "you have the whole outside to live in, you come inside, you a dead bug") is to flush stink bugs down the toilet.

You shouldn't do that. They'll make the sewer stink.

I hope the letters are hand-delivered to the room. If they're mailed to the guest's home address, it would suck to catch hell over a letter that didn't arrive due to a post office screwup.

The danger with mailing them to the guest's home is the chance a spouse will open the letter and find about a hotel stay they had known nothing about. Similar events have resulted in law suits from guests who wished their philanderings be kept secret.

[Ben_Who]

I wouldn't feel bad about Mr. Lulubelle. After 1/3 of every female born in the 1970s was named "Jennifer," parents went a little overboard trying to give their kids unique names, which resulted in a lot of names being co-opted across gender lines. I guarantee you that Mr. Lulubelle has heard it all.

A little off-topic, but I've always had a fascination for names that used to be male names that are now not just female, but exclusively so, like Marion, Evelyn, and Ashley. Oscar Wilde, who had his own issues, had a son named Vyvyan, and Lindsay Buckingham and Carroll O'Connor probably had some stories to tell, as well. (My parents got the idea somewhere that I would be born a girl, so my own name was Elizabeth until my birth required a hasty reassignment.)

[wolfie]

Lindsay Buckingham and Carroll O'Connor probably had some stories to tell, as well.

You can include Marion Morrison in that group, Pilgrim.

[siskaren]

You can include Marion Morrison in that group, Pilgrim.

Which I assume is why he changed his name.

[dalesys]

You can include Marion Morrison in that group, Pilgrim.

Entering Marion: NSFW for insinuendo...

[fireheart]

I wouldn't feel bad about Mr. Lulubelle. After 1/3 of every female born in the 1970s was named "Jennifer," parents went a little overboard trying to give their kids unique names, which resulted in a lot of names being co-opted across gender lines. I guarantee you that Mr. Lulubelle has heard it all.

And that trend is still going strong today, except with stupid spellings. Hell, ye "local" trashy magazine (publishes "real life" stories instead of celebrity crap) has a regular section on why parents opted to give their kids weird names or spellings.

I currently have a Tahlia at work-on my first day of meeting her, I kept calling her "Tayla" instead because I thought the PARENT had spelt it wrong!