Things I have learned working at a hotel (sarcasm!)

[Mr Hero]

Another thing, GPS sometimes sucks. If you are driving around for an hour and still can't find the hotel, just call. Don't slam us on our guest survey when you couldn't find the hotel. 99.99% of the other guests made it.

And if you do call for directions, be prepared to have more than one street location. Saying you're on Major Road is not going to help at all.

[Ironclad Alibi]

Since we're talking about finding a hotel, there is a classic story of one person who was looking for a hotel. They pulled off of the Interstate into a gas station and asked how to get to a certain hotel. The gas station attendent told the that it was right over there. The person told they them that they knew that. They had been looking at it for the past hour, but how in the heck did they get there?

[dawnfire]

or you have here in Melbourne 3 similar named hotels within minutes of each other (Crown towers,Crown promenade and Crowne Plaza)

[Seshat]

The other day when we had 93 checkouts the GM was up stripping beds with the housekeepers. I love my boss.

That's a good boss.

[Seanette]

Believe me I've wished I had a beeper for them sometimes, but they're actually pretty good about responding when we need them. The other day when we had 93 checkouts the GM was up stripping beds with the housekeepers. I love my boss.

That's a good boss.

Agreed. IMO, the good bosses will pitch in instead of standing there surveying the peons' labors.

Where I work, I've seen management get on registers, round up carts, help shelve merchandise....

[WishfulSpirit]

Yeah he is good. The front office manager also has a finely-tuned BS detector. He's from Brooklyn. . Overall I love my job. The SC quotient is low (our price point is high enough to scare off most riff Raff and low enough to keep really snooty people away) and my coworkers are all great now that Boy Wonder is gone.

[Kogarashi]

They had been looking at it for the past hour, but how in the heck did they get there?

We actually had this sort of happen while driving to the in-laws' house for Thanksgiving. FIL'd gotten us a reservation for a particular motel for the night so we could rest before continuing our drive in the morning, and he gave us the address. It was on a frontage road. Not too difficult, we figured. Frontage roads are easy, right?

We get to the area, only to find that the frontage road was windy, didn't branch off where one would think, and required driving through what amounted to a parking lot to get to from the highway. We ended up passing the motel some four or five times trying to figure out how to get over there before we finally figured it out. Every other attempt just ended up taking us away from the area, so we'd turn around and try a different route. The whole business area was seriously not well-designed. We didn't ding the motel for it, though. It's not their fault that the roads there look like someone scribbled on a map and then tried to build the roads following the scribbles.

[bhskittykatt]

At the motel, we were behind a sit-down Mexican restaurant and a tex-mex taco place at the end of a dead-end street. I once took a call from a trucker who couldn't find us. He was at the tex-mex place and was like, "the road ends and I don't see you!" I told him he needed to just pull forward a few feet so he could see past the restaurants and he would see us as well as a driveway where he could turn his rig around. It seriously took 5-10 minutes to convince him he just needed to pull forward ten feet to see us.

At the resort, we're away from the interstate and out in sort of middle-of-nowhere, and we're actually at the end of a little peninsula (about a mile long), the base of which is barely wider than the road and is dark at night. Once you get there, it's just the one road. I had a guest one night call me saying she was at the base of the peninsula and she couldn't see us. I told her she needed to follow the road all the way to the end and we would be there. She absolutely did not want to drive out there. She kept saying "This doesn't look right!" Um, you're at the right landmarks, that is right, just keep driving one mile and you'll practically run into us. But nope, she didn't want to drive down the road. Then she complained at check-in that it was a weird spot to build a hotel. Any glimpse at a map beforehand and she would have gotten an idea... (our guests seriously either don't look at maps and whine about how far from the interstate we are, or don't look at maps close enough and call thinking we're on an island instead of a peninsula and asking where the boat is.)

[WishfulSpirit]

I guess I'm lucky with where we are. We're right off a major road, there's an interstate exit a mile and a half away, and we're right next to a Starbucks and a Barns and Noble. For some reason as soon as you mention the Green Mermaid people know where you are!

Occasionally we get confused with a hotel down the street (the names aren't actually that similar but they start with the same letter and they're in the same family of brands, so if someone is tired or frustrated it is a semi-easy mistake to make). If I can't find a reservation my first response is to call that hotel and ask them if they have one for the guest.

[South Texan]

When I worked at a hotel, I learned quickly that guests who order room service seem to think that coming to the door in their underwear or other stages of undress - especially when drunk - is perfectly acceptable. I got many a nightmarish view of sagging/wrinkled/bloated forms that were supposed to be human.

[Racket_Man]

When I worked at a hotel, I learned quickly that guests who order room service seem to think that coming to the door in their underwear or other stages of undress - especially when drunk - is perfectly acceptable. I got many a nightmarish view of sagging/wrinkled/bloated forms that were supposed to be human.

I deliver to enough hotels does that count too?????

[WishfulSpirit]

My AGM has many stories of guests who sleep in the buff and who either sleepwalk or get up to go to the bathroom and wander out their door. I haven't experienced that yet, but I think I'll be ok with that. Once you've helped bathe elderly people who aren't able to do so for themselves, there isn't a lot that'll phase you.

[Mr Hero]

My AGM has many stories of guests who sleep in the buff and who either sleepwalk or get up to go to the bathroom and wander out their door. I haven't experienced that yet, but I think I'll be ok with that. Once you've helped bathe elderly people who aren't able to do so for themselves, there isn't a lot that'll phase you.

I've had this happen at my hotel a few years back. He wandered downstairs to our kitchen. Luckily this was at 4 in the morning when no one was awake to be traumatized.

[bhskittykatt]

We once had a gentlemen who was a bit of an...exhibitionist. He enjoyed answering the door naked. He would also walk around in only a towel. We were a motel with outside entrances and his room was on the second floor, so if you were downstairs and looked up as he walked by...yeah.

I once knocked on a door at check-out. A guy opened the door and said they'd be out in half an hour. On one of the beds, his buddy was passed out. Half an hour later I knock again. No answer. Second knock. No answer. I opened the door. The original guy was on the second bed with a lady friend who screamed when I entered....apparently he thought he had a few seconds left to finish before I opened the door? On the other bed, his buddy was still passed out and hadn't moved an inch.

[WishfulSpirit]

A song sung by Lisa Simpson comes to mind: just don't look. just don't look.