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So, I finally turned in around 8pm in my room here at the motel (ftr, I don't get any meaningful sleep between Friday and Saturday nights. Since Friday morning I have gotten 3 hours of sleep, and they were not consecutive. It is 10:30pm Saturday night. I'm not in a mood to be cheery or give concessions to anyone.)
9pm and I haven't really fallen asleep yet, and CW calls me. SC is broke and wants someone to pay for the room for me. I tried to talk CW through creating an email and attaching a 3rd party CC auth form, but that failed, so cue me getting dressed and going to the office to do it myself (turns out someone moved the form to a different folder on the computer and I had to do a search to find it...grrr...). I email the form and go back to bed.
9:30pm I'm back in bed, and at 10pm SC calls me. It is far too late for me right now to give the conversation in verbatim but (1) he is a business professional who always stays at [my chain] of motel, (2) his sister can't fill out the form because the forms don't have an option to fill it in on the computer, (3) he NEEDS a room HERE because he doesn't have a car and "can't just walk down crackhead row to find an alternative motel" and thus his only alternative is to "crawl under a bush somewhere and freeze to death", (4) he understands that we need the form, but is there anything I can do as a manager to resolve this? He is a business professional, after all, (5) yes, he understands the form, he doesn't want to talk about the form, he wants to know what I can do as a manager to solve his dilemma, (6) yes he gets the form is policy, enough about the form already!
I told him that I kept bringing up the form because he clearly wasn't getting it. Out of the policies we have, CC auth forms are something I can't be flexible on. Well, sometimes if we get one in email and the printer breaks but I have the digital copy then okay run the card, and sometimes if they have an authorization form for X days but they need to add another day and the boss won't be in until the morning and they promise to send it first thing and I know the boss is good for it, go ahead and run the card. This SC couldn't even give me the vaguest hope of ever seeing the form, though, so no. (And the reason you can't fill it out on the computer: we are going to need the cardholder's siggy anyhow. That's sort of the main point of the form.)
SC said he was going to call Guest Rel and find "someone up there who can help me" and that he'll "probably wake you up later, even though I don't want to, but I'm GOING to get a room."
I called CW about 20 minutes later to see if he was still there (I was thinking about offering to call the police to give him a lift to the Mission if he was so desperate for lodging), and learned that he had stormed out after hanging up on me. I gleaned the following from CW:
(1) SC called before ever arriving at the motel wanting to pay for the room using PayPal. If you need a moment to let that sink in, I'll wait...
(2) SC then asked how he could get someone else to pay for the room. CW said we could fax a 3rd party CC auth. SC asked if we could email it. CW said that would take more time. SC said okay and then rudely stated that "you'd better have a room for me when I get there!"
(3) SC tried to run his card, but it was out of money (he had told me his credit card was "messed up").
(4) He at some point told CW he was an engineer doing a bunch of big projects up here.
So, we have a "business professional" engineer who is in town for some big payday project, who is without a vehicle, who has a maxed out credit card and no cash or any backup CC, and who apparently knew this before ever arriving at the motel. Yeah, he can take his suitcase full of BS and go "walk down crackhead row". Bye bye.
Really, PayPal to pay for a motel room? Really? I'd probably laugh at that if I wasn't so tired.
Bonus
As I was typing this, the walls started vibrating with the bass of the car just outside. I went out to give them a noise warning (My bedhead is surely awesome right now). The guest gave a half-assed apology, and I got a nice contact high as she's apparently hotboxing in her car. I also neglected to close my door and my dog came charging out barking, apparently to defend me from the horrible SCs. Love you, pup, but you're not actually helping.
It is 10:50pm. I need sleeps now.
9pm and I haven't really fallen asleep yet, and CW calls me. SC is broke and wants someone to pay for the room for me. I tried to talk CW through creating an email and attaching a 3rd party CC auth form, but that failed, so cue me getting dressed and going to the office to do it myself (turns out someone moved the form to a different folder on the computer and I had to do a search to find it...grrr...). I email the form and go back to bed.
9:30pm I'm back in bed, and at 10pm SC calls me. It is far too late for me right now to give the conversation in verbatim but (1) he is a business professional who always stays at [my chain] of motel, (2) his sister can't fill out the form because the forms don't have an option to fill it in on the computer, (3) he NEEDS a room HERE because he doesn't have a car and "can't just walk down crackhead row to find an alternative motel" and thus his only alternative is to "crawl under a bush somewhere and freeze to death", (4) he understands that we need the form, but is there anything I can do as a manager to resolve this? He is a business professional, after all, (5) yes, he understands the form, he doesn't want to talk about the form, he wants to know what I can do as a manager to solve his dilemma, (6) yes he gets the form is policy, enough about the form already!
I told him that I kept bringing up the form because he clearly wasn't getting it. Out of the policies we have, CC auth forms are something I can't be flexible on. Well, sometimes if we get one in email and the printer breaks but I have the digital copy then okay run the card, and sometimes if they have an authorization form for X days but they need to add another day and the boss won't be in until the morning and they promise to send it first thing and I know the boss is good for it, go ahead and run the card. This SC couldn't even give me the vaguest hope of ever seeing the form, though, so no. (And the reason you can't fill it out on the computer: we are going to need the cardholder's siggy anyhow. That's sort of the main point of the form.)
SC said he was going to call Guest Rel and find "someone up there who can help me" and that he'll "probably wake you up later, even though I don't want to, but I'm GOING to get a room."
I called CW about 20 minutes later to see if he was still there (I was thinking about offering to call the police to give him a lift to the Mission if he was so desperate for lodging), and learned that he had stormed out after hanging up on me. I gleaned the following from CW:
(1) SC called before ever arriving at the motel wanting to pay for the room using PayPal. If you need a moment to let that sink in, I'll wait...
(2) SC then asked how he could get someone else to pay for the room. CW said we could fax a 3rd party CC auth. SC asked if we could email it. CW said that would take more time. SC said okay and then rudely stated that "you'd better have a room for me when I get there!"
(3) SC tried to run his card, but it was out of money (he had told me his credit card was "messed up").
(4) He at some point told CW he was an engineer doing a bunch of big projects up here.
So, we have a "business professional" engineer who is in town for some big payday project, who is without a vehicle, who has a maxed out credit card and no cash or any backup CC, and who apparently knew this before ever arriving at the motel. Yeah, he can take his suitcase full of BS and go "walk down crackhead row". Bye bye.
Really, PayPal to pay for a motel room? Really? I'd probably laugh at that if I wasn't so tired.
Bonus
As I was typing this, the walls started vibrating with the bass of the car just outside. I went out to give them a noise warning (My bedhead is surely awesome right now). The guest gave a half-assed apology, and I got a nice contact high as she's apparently hotboxing in her car. I also neglected to close my door and my dog came charging out barking, apparently to defend me from the horrible SCs. Love you, pup, but you're not actually helping.
It is 10:50pm. I need sleeps now.
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