.....we're a GROCERY STORE!!!

[AirHostess]

Passengers who demand herbal tea/hot chocolate/iced tea/cappucino/rice milk/soya milk/Diet Dr Pepper/Diet Sprite/champagne from the free bar. It's not a flying Starbucks or supermarket!

Passengers who demand that I find them another sandwich. It's a plane not a Subway store.

Parents who demand baby food and nappies...nope we are not a supermarket.

[cinema guy]

Why no, I've not seen what people do with produce while surfing the web . . . honest.

I sometimes eat fruit while I surf the web.

[Fire_on_High]

I just bought some cucumbers...they're big, too...

TMI, TMI, TMI.

[StanFlouride]

'Do you sell sex toys?'

I wish. (We sell the usual condoms and lube, but other than that, no dice.)

I'm sure the produce section has a few items that might serve the purpose.

[infinitemonkies]

Here at the hotel, we sell rooms. That's it. Technically, we don't even sell those, we just rent them.

We have a vending machine as well, but it's contracted. We don't run it, we have no say in what goes in it. If it doesn't have what you're looking for, you can't get it here.

Guests frequently ask for things we dont have. Robes I understand. We don't have them, I think we should, but it's not my call. I've been asked twice now for slippers, which really struck me as odd the first time, but I learned here that some hotel chains do in fact offer them. Toothbrushes/toothpaste. Again, we don't stock or sell them, but we get asked enough that we probably should. Ditto disposable plates/forks/spoons/knives/etc.

What bugs me though, is that many people seem to be under the impression that hotel=convenience store. I get random people who aren't guests, all the time coming in trying to buy stuff.
Cigarettes is the most common request, and when I tell them they have to go 3 bloocks to the 7/11, it's cat-butt face, every single time. Look, it's 4am on a week night, if you're that desparate for smokes, 3 blocks shouldn't be that big a deal. Most then ask me to call them a cab.

I'm also not a coffee shop, nor an internet cafe, especially if you aren't even staying here.

I've had multiple people come in asking to buy umbrellas and jackets (wtf? Who goes to a hotel to buy a jacket? One time I actually did sell someone a sweater that had been in the lost and found for about 4 months. I made 5 bucks.)

I've had several non-guests come in looking for free 24-hour computer tech support, one guy who wanted to buy a new inkjet cartridge for his printer, and a woman who wanted to rent our photo copier. Not that she just wanted to make a few copies, she actually expected us to rent her our photocopier for a month, and deliver it to her home business.

Last night I had a woman call the hotel who wanted me to send a hooker to her house. Sorry lady, we're WAY too high-class to have hookers just hanging around in the lobby, and not high-class enough to have an arrangement with a professional escort agency. I'm honestly not sure if it was a prank call or not.

[smileyeagle1021]

I actually get the reverse language complaint... I have people complain that we don't have the spanish speakers 24/7 or the german speakers/japanese speakers/french speakers/(insert language) speakers.
It's like seriously people... this is Salt Lake City... we have at most 4 flights a day to non english speaking areas (one to tokyo, one to paris, and two to mexico)... we aren't exactly an international destination, so we aren't going to have translators for every language. Even if we were an international destination... I work at a two star hotel... it only has 93 rooms (the other has 51)... we aren't near large enough or high enough star rating to justify having translators on staff... now if we were one of the big boys like Grand America or Red Lion or Hilton that would be one thing... but we're not.

The one language complaint I will make, and they've since fixed this, is the Winco foods in Reno used to have products with signs and labels ONLY in spanish... now I have no problem with dual language because there is a bilingual clientelle... but not having english on the signs at all is taking it a bit too far, thank you.

[SailorMan]

IIRC someone asked about Panadol some years ago . . . we don't even carry it here in the US.

Panadol is what they call Tylenol overseas. Or, conversely, Tylenol is what we in the U.S. call Panadol. I still have some in my medicine cabinet here, on the ship, that I bought in the United Arab Emirates last year.

I don't get the 'language complainers' myself. I've been overseas in foreign countries all over the world, and if people had treated me like I heard Spanish-speakers described in the OP, I'd have been pretty miserable. And people overseas know this about Americans. It's a shame that it's one of the things we're '(in)famous' for.

[SecurityWench]

Cucumbers aisle three.

Oh, if only I could say that.

Well done, my friend. Well done.

[mikoyan29]

A long time ago, after Texas broke away from Mexico but BEFORE it became a U.S. state, it was an independent nation. Look it up, it's in the history books. It's a fascinating piece of history.

And sadly it didn't say that way....just looking at the past 40 years, its the state that spawned LBJ and GWB.....

[mattm04]

Just because supermarkets carry certain seasonal items such as fans and a/c's in the summer does not mean we carry every item ever made.

[Nekojin]

'Do you sell sex toys?'

I wish. (We sell the usual condoms and lube, but other than that, no dice.)

You use dice as sex toys?

...

Kinky.

[LadyAndreca]

Hmm. Around here I'm as likely to see something dual-language in French as I am in Spanish (NJ isn't THAT close to the Canadian border, but apparently close enough). Oooh! I know! Maybe I'll complain that my imported Japanese candy has Japanese labelling!

Incidentally, I LOVE the international aisle at the local Wegmans. Udon and rice candy and ramune and everything you could need to make homemade teriyaki...

[friendofjimmyk]

A long time ago, after Texas broke away from Mexico but BEFORE it became a U.S. state, it was an independent nation. Look it up, it's in the history books. It's a fascinating piece of history.

Yes. And that is why the Texas flag is the ONLY state flag that can fly at the same height as the US flag. All other state flags have to fly lower than US flag.

[DGoddessChardonnay]

-Children's Panadol (whichn weirdly enough we DON''T carry)

IIRC someone asked about Panadol some years ago . . . we don't even carry it here in the US.

The most recent thing I've been asked about that we don't carry are false eyelashes. And that was just yesterday morning.

Sorry, hon. We have a very small cosmetics section (if you call a 5 foot by 2 foot pegboard section cosmetics) and that's something I've not seen in grocery stores other than a SuperWM.

Now why it didn't occur to her to check with either the beauty supply store at the ROAD where she probably came in (right beside the Noid Pizza place on the outparcel) or the other beauty supply store 2 doors down from us (on the other side of the Dollar store) I'll never know.

[Bright_Star]

A long time ago, after Texas broke away from Mexico but BEFORE it became a U.S. state, it was an independent nation. Look it up, it's in the history books. It's a fascinating piece of history.