101 has called three times asking for a wake-up call. For the SAME TIME. On a football weekend, this wouldn't be abnormal, but considering who this person is, I find it endlessly entertaining. Update: four times.
215 failed to mention to me while making his reservation that he's in a wheel chair. He asked for a ground floor room, but not a handicap room. So when his girlfriend came to check in, I got an earful of "that's illegal" and "this is unacceptable" when I explained to her that none of our rooms are accessible to him. If anyone else had taken this guy's reservation, I could understand how the mistake between "ground floor" and "handicap accessible" could be made, but seeing as how I was the person who MADE and CONFIRMED the reservation AND made special considerations to leave a note in his guest file, I can say beyond a doubt that this information was not effectively communicated with the fault being on the guest's end. I don't make it a habit to blame people to their faces, but this time I had to make the point that the mistake was not my own. I explained to the nice lady, as calmly as I could, that I was the manager-on-duty and I would do my best to arrange for alternative arrangements for her and her handi-capable friend, but ultimately I was limited in what I would be able to accomplish given the time frame.
I spent a good hour of my time calling around to various other hotels begging them to match our rate, or at least lower their rate so I could find a place for these two to sleep. It was a fucking nightmare. I thought I found a solution with my friends down at the Super 8, they agreed to match our rate and bill the amount to us (so that I wouldn't have to spend another hour on the phone with this guy's bank begging them to release the pre-authorization) only to find out that their handicap rooms aren't big enough for a chair-bound person to wheel himself around freely.
I called my other friends at the BW (again... 'cause our first attempt at making arrangements didn't work out) and we found an agreeable solution. Tonight, they stay in a standard double queen and tomorrow move into a handicap double queen. BW would match my rate and bill the balance to us, so that I could charge the guest's card without him having double or triple authorizations to send him into overdraft (NOTE TO EVERYONE: please don't use a debit card at a hotel unless you have plenty of funds available. Just don't fucking do it).
In the end, all my frantic efforts paid off. I got the guests in a place they'd be more than comfortable at the rate they were promised, I handled this guy's finances so that he wouldn't suffer any bank overdrafts (while I don't consider worrying about bank issues to be part of my job, I'm proud that I was able to be sensitive to his issues), aaaand I managed to sell a room for two nights for my BW friends, since their weekend business is hurting much more than mine is.
Problem solved, but my heart's still beating loud. Oh mon dieu.
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