thoughts on threats and violence.

Today's MVP (most vicious pig) award goes to:

That lady.

I don't know what her deal is, but hot damn.

First, she spent all last week complaining the the housekeepers were servicing her room when she didn't want it. She didn't want people touching her stuff.

Then over the weekend, she was complaining that her room hadn't been serviced. AS SHE REQUESTED. The weekend person told her that her shit was all over the place and the housekeeper can't service a room when a person's personal belongings are sprayed all over the place.

[Take a note next time you're in a hotel. Housekeeping will NEVER move your stuff. They have to clean around it. So, if you leave your suitcase on the bed, you're fucked.]

Then, she was pissed that there was no juice HALF AN HOUR after breakfast ended. Usually I'm pretty lax about shutting things down, I like to wait 10-15 minutes for those last-minute kind of jerks. But half an hour is no longer gracious, it's sloppy. Next time set an alarm, lady!

The next issue on her agenda was to accuse the hotel of screwing her out of a day. She kept saying "I checked in on a Sunday and paid for eight days, that means my checkout is Tuesday." No. This is how numbers on a calendar work: 8 days = 1 day + 1 week. Sunday + 1 day = Monday, Monday + 1 week = MONDAY. One week after Monday is Monday. There is no arguing with that, but oh holy hell she tried.

Then, she wanted a free day. She felt she should be comp'd "for all her troubles." Yeah... no.

Then, this is where things got ugly, she wanted to stay another day but she wasn't going to pay. She wanted to speak to the manager, but since we couldn't make that happen for her she insisted on staying without payment. Abso-fucking-lutely not. I got the "I'm a single mother with 2 kids, I have class, I can't pay, so I'm going to stay and you can't stop me" speech.

Funny thing is, I can stop her. I wonder if people realize that about hotel properties? It's not YOUR property, your rights are seriously limited. I don't like to flex my legal muscles, but the law is mostly on my side and I take threats seriously. She threw a pen at me and called me a bitch. I thought the bitch thing was funny, I told her "thank you" which really seemed to set her off, but I draw a very serious line when it comes to physical contact and the pen more than crossed it.

There's a certain degree of bullshittery that follows this job, but I have a seriously low threshold when dealing with threats of any nature, it's a slippery slope allowing any person at any time to treat me badly when I know first-hand how ugly things can get. I allow my guests exactly one chance to carry themselves respectably in my presence, and after that the smallest infractions are treated with a swift response.

Throw a pen at me, get a rap sheet. I don't fuck around.

Today's Most Vicious Pig gets to find that out the hard way.

on ethics and ethical codes.

For the love of God,

Please,

[to anyone who ever stays at a hotel ever]

{I really mean EVER... even if you read this 1,000 years from now}

do not, I repeat: DO NOT

wait until check-out time to report problems in your room.

Okay okay, I take that back (kinda). If it's a minor problem and it didn't affect your stay, then yeah... you can mention it at check-out. You probably think you're doing the hotel a favor (and you totally are, so thanks).

HOWEVER.

If it's big. If it's serious. If you think you deserve compensation for the diminished quality of your room, listen up:

DON'T WAIT UNTIL CHECK-OUT.

There is nothing anyone at the front desk can do for you. There is nothing management can do for you. Even if you got your entire room for entirely free, that will NEVER [ever] erase the bad feelings you had during your stay. So please,

please,

do yourself (and the hotel) a favor and report that shit STAT.

*****

Walked into work to find a stack of paper jammed into the fax machine: it was a district press release for a certain hotel chain that I will not name. Boss is a franchise owner and he gets these all the time, but never this thick. Never this important.

It was basically the minutes from the last meeting of the Board of Directors in which it was found that a certain someone had committed 11 violations against the corporation's code of ethics. Eleven violations and he still holds his job.

The details of the case are seeeeeeriously disturbing, not even taking into account the financial implications this will have to franchise owners. It sounds like a nasty legal battle, but I guess it hasn't gone public yet because all my Google searches have come up empty.

I'd hate to be the one to break this news to the world, so I'll stay mum on the details.

The lesson of this story is: damn I am glad I am not in management. Also, note to self: never join a board. Ever.

Since switching my interest to human resources, I've been tingling with excitement realizing how perfect this shit actually is for me. Lots of rules, a heavy dose of law, checklists galore. I am so glad to be done with the business-end of business.