Dear All,
Udhay has responded to my foolish remark by calling my bluff:
I also worked at the front desk of a hotel (part-time) for ten
years. Got some stories from that!
Please share (you too, Udupa!)
*cough*
Okay fine, here's one.
In the hotel business, there is an unfortunately common process
euphemistically referred to as an "involuntary checkout". This is where
the hotel obliges the guest to check out early, and against his wishes.
It's usually the result of the guest doing something stupid. One example:
I was standing at the front desk, minding my own business, when a woman
approached the desk, the smoke already coming out of her ears. Wishing
to avoid having one of my twenty-something colleagues muff the job, I
waved her over and said, "Tell me what's wrong."
She opened her hand and displayed a tissue containing a cigar butt. "The
asshole upstairs from me is smoking, which he shouldn't be doing in a
non-smoking building, and dropping his ashes and butts on my balcony ...
where my toddlers were playing!"
(If the geometry of this sounds off, know that the building is built on
a slant such that it's hard to drop something off one balcony without it
landing on the next.)
Seeing immediately that this was a matter well above my pay scale, I
promised to bring prompt attention to the right parties and nipped into
the office to inform my supervisor that the duty manager was needed.
At that point, I was taken out of the loop, but what followed was
amusing and instructive.
The duty manager went to the smoker's room, knocked on the door, and
explained that he was in a non-smoking building, and that other guests
had complained about his use of their balcony as his ashtray. Before he
got to the point of deciding if they could stay, the smoker says
something disparaging and obscene, and slams the door in his face. This
made his decision about whether to eject the smoker simple.
Fifteen minutes later, he knocks on the door again, this time in the
company of a maintenance man with bolt cutters, a security guard with
discrete recording equipment, and a county deputy sheriff (local police)
with all the tools that come with.
He shouts more dismissive obscenities through the door, upon which the
duty manager uses his pass key to unlock the door, and pushes it open
against the security chain. The maintenance worker cuts said chain with
his bolt cutters, and the deputy steps in and resumes the conversation.
After much high-volume debate, the smoker was given the options of
leaving in his own car or the back of the deputy's. Foolishly he chose
the latter, and was promptly cuffed and dragged off to face charges of
commercial trespass, defrauding an innkeeper, and resisting arrest.
The manager then turned to his wife, and informed her that the rest of
the family was also being evicted. She voiced the same opinion as her
husband, and challenged him to get another deputy to arrest her.
However, after hearing that her arrest would place her children into the
custody of the state child welfare agency, where she wouldn't see them
again for at least six months, and possibly never (since they lose kids
all the time), she elected to depart in her own vehicle.
The family forfeited the rest of their week's rent (paid in advance), a
$500 cleaning fee for both their room and the one below, a free night
for the family below, the cost of replacing a security chain, the
remaining value of their theme park tickets, and of course the cost of
bail, lawyers, and all that goes with.
Morals abound here, of course, from "complain politely but immediately"
to "don't piss off a deputy sheriff". Sadly, this little scene was
repeated on average of once per month in our 1000-room hotel. Sadly,
there is much stupid in the world, and it's not *just* in politics.
Cheers,
/ Bruce /
