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Two from this morning. I haven't even been here two hours yet!
We're not your light-slaves
So this woman is very elderly and mobility impaired. She's been staying with us off and on for years, and we cut her a lot of slack. We'll help her carry luggage to her room. We'll go to her room to collect rent rather than make her walk to the office. We'll even get her food from nearby restaurants and deliver it to her room.
She's been turning a bit senile. She'll get into grumpy moods and start cursing at everyone. I tell people not to take it personally, as she's probably not fully aware of what she's even doing, and she's a sweetheart the rest of the time.
Last night, however, she pushed it too far.
She called up Night Auditor complaining that she had no lights on and no TV. Night Auditor went to the room. Her curtains were open, and he saw that her lights were fine, and the TV was in the room, so he figured that she must have figured it out in the meantime.
Shortly thereafter, she calls up NA, and starts cussing up a storm at him. NA calms her down. He goes down to the room and lets himself in, since she doesn't want to get up off the bed to let him in.
NA said that throughout the whole conversation she kept swearing at him.
NA: "So what's the problem? I see your lights are on."
SC: "The light here closest to the bed won't turn on!"
NA: *goes over and flips switch* "See? You just have to turn the switch to the light."
SC: "I can't reach that! I can't get out of bed! It's your job to help me with these switches!"
NA: *eye twitch*
SC: "The TV won't turn on, either!"
NA: *grabs remote that is on the nightstand next to bed, flips TV on, sets remote back down* "The remote works fine."
SC: *starts cussing up a storm...NA did not give me verbatim on this part*
NA: "I'm warning you now. I don't have to take this. It is not my job to come down and flip your light switches for you, and your TV is fine."
SC continued to cuss at him. NA left before he said something he regretted. When I got in, NA was very upset with SC and says he won't deal with her anymore and that we need to ban her.
I sort of hate the idea of kicking her out...she's old and has no family, so she just travels around. CW says she's going to die in a hotel somewhere and no one will know who she is. On the other hand, she has been getting progressively more abusive. We've been incredibly flexible with her, and a line has to be drawn. Expecting us to go out to flip her light switch every time is crossing that line. I wish we could see her get into an assisted living facility, which is what she really needs. The motel doesn't pay us enough to deal with her!
Either way, we're sold out tonight, so she has to go (she came in yesterday w/o a reservation). I plan to confer with Other MOD before making a final decision, but it's looking likely that when she goes today it will be permanent. I can't expect the staff to keep putting up with her like this.
We don't take checks
Guest came down this morning. She was upset because while she used a credit card to reserve her room, she didn't have the card in hand. We have to either have the card in hand, or have a 3rd party credit card authorization form. So she paid cash for one night because she didn't have enough cash to cover the rest of her stay.
Today, she came down wanting to pay by check. We have no way of accepting a check. Over the course of the conversation, I learned the following.
(1) The card she reserved with was actually her brother's card, and she had sent him a check to reimburse him.
(2) Her brother doesn't have any access to fax or email to do the paperwork.
(3) She only has a checkbook to pay for things, thousands of miles from home. She used almost all her cash to cover one night's rent. She has no credit cards or traveler's checks.
(4) She banks with a small local credit union back in her hometown. She has no debit or bank card she can use to get more cash from an ATM.
She announced that we were losing a lot of business by not taking checks. Lady, I'd love to take your money, but it has to be in some sort of form I can accept.
Fortunately she wasn't too sucky, just sort of clueless. You can tell she's from a tiny podunk town and isn't used to travelling out in the world. (I Googled her hometown...population is less than 300, with the closest significantly-sized town almost 50 miles away. Podunk seems to described the place well.) Her situation is an annoyance, but I feel more sorry for her more than anything.
She finally found a solution. Her niece lives in town, so she's going to write a check to her niece, who's going to cash it. Which is good, because I don't think she'll find any other place that will take a personal check, and 90% of the other places require a credit card or a large cash deposit regardless of the primary payment method. Just....gah, it annoys me so much to see someone travelling so far away without even a traveler's check!
We're not your light-slaves
So this woman is very elderly and mobility impaired. She's been staying with us off and on for years, and we cut her a lot of slack. We'll help her carry luggage to her room. We'll go to her room to collect rent rather than make her walk to the office. We'll even get her food from nearby restaurants and deliver it to her room.
She's been turning a bit senile. She'll get into grumpy moods and start cursing at everyone. I tell people not to take it personally, as she's probably not fully aware of what she's even doing, and she's a sweetheart the rest of the time.
Last night, however, she pushed it too far.
She called up Night Auditor complaining that she had no lights on and no TV. Night Auditor went to the room. Her curtains were open, and he saw that her lights were fine, and the TV was in the room, so he figured that she must have figured it out in the meantime.
Shortly thereafter, she calls up NA, and starts cussing up a storm at him. NA calms her down. He goes down to the room and lets himself in, since she doesn't want to get up off the bed to let him in.
NA said that throughout the whole conversation she kept swearing at him.
NA: "So what's the problem? I see your lights are on."
SC: "The light here closest to the bed won't turn on!"
NA: *goes over and flips switch* "See? You just have to turn the switch to the light."
SC: "I can't reach that! I can't get out of bed! It's your job to help me with these switches!"
NA: *eye twitch*
SC: "The TV won't turn on, either!"
NA: *grabs remote that is on the nightstand next to bed, flips TV on, sets remote back down* "The remote works fine."
SC: *starts cussing up a storm...NA did not give me verbatim on this part*
NA: "I'm warning you now. I don't have to take this. It is not my job to come down and flip your light switches for you, and your TV is fine."
SC continued to cuss at him. NA left before he said something he regretted. When I got in, NA was very upset with SC and says he won't deal with her anymore and that we need to ban her.
I sort of hate the idea of kicking her out...she's old and has no family, so she just travels around. CW says she's going to die in a hotel somewhere and no one will know who she is. On the other hand, she has been getting progressively more abusive. We've been incredibly flexible with her, and a line has to be drawn. Expecting us to go out to flip her light switch every time is crossing that line. I wish we could see her get into an assisted living facility, which is what she really needs. The motel doesn't pay us enough to deal with her!
Either way, we're sold out tonight, so she has to go (she came in yesterday w/o a reservation). I plan to confer with Other MOD before making a final decision, but it's looking likely that when she goes today it will be permanent. I can't expect the staff to keep putting up with her like this.
We don't take checks
Guest came down this morning. She was upset because while she used a credit card to reserve her room, she didn't have the card in hand. We have to either have the card in hand, or have a 3rd party credit card authorization form. So she paid cash for one night because she didn't have enough cash to cover the rest of her stay.
Today, she came down wanting to pay by check. We have no way of accepting a check. Over the course of the conversation, I learned the following.
(1) The card she reserved with was actually her brother's card, and she had sent him a check to reimburse him.
(2) Her brother doesn't have any access to fax or email to do the paperwork.
(3) She only has a checkbook to pay for things, thousands of miles from home. She used almost all her cash to cover one night's rent. She has no credit cards or traveler's checks.
(4) She banks with a small local credit union back in her hometown. She has no debit or bank card she can use to get more cash from an ATM.
She announced that we were losing a lot of business by not taking checks. Lady, I'd love to take your money, but it has to be in some sort of form I can accept.
Fortunately she wasn't too sucky, just sort of clueless. You can tell she's from a tiny podunk town and isn't used to travelling out in the world. (I Googled her hometown...population is less than 300, with the closest significantly-sized town almost 50 miles away. Podunk seems to described the place well.) Her situation is an annoyance, but I feel more sorry for her more than anything.
She finally found a solution. Her niece lives in town, so she's going to write a check to her niece, who's going to cash it. Which is good, because I don't think she'll find any other place that will take a personal check, and 90% of the other places require a credit card or a large cash deposit regardless of the primary payment method. Just....gah, it annoys me so much to see someone travelling so far away without even a traveler's check!
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