Friday, August 14, 2009

10 Things Guests Do All The Time That Really Annoys Me o_O

Well, it's been sort of slow around here lately. Nothing big has happened that's been blogworthy. So, I thought I would combine 10 tiny things, of which the combined blogworthiness should be more than enough the warrant a post. As the title suggest, these ten things are stuff guests do all the time, and it's really annoying. To me, anyway.


1. Cutting Through the Truck Parking

I suppose what annoys me about this is that I just don't get it. When you enter our facility, you have to go around (or through as so many do) the truck parking lot, which is nothing more than a large graveled over patch of land. If you take the road around the parking you have to make a u-turn to head towards the rooms and the lobby, but it's a wide u-turn. When you cut through the gravel like many people do, you have to make a much sharper turn that many people simply can't make, resulting in people having to shift it into reverse to get around.

But what really gets me confused by this is why they want to do it. Are so many people that impulsive that they would want to kick up all of that dust and gravel, getting their cars completely filthy and perhaps putting a scratch or two in their shiny paint jobs, just to get checked in a couple of seconds sooner?

2. Using the Scanner/Printer as a Table

We have one of those scanner/printer combos sitting at the counter of the front desk. The top of it almost comes up even with the counter. For some reason, so many people seem to think it's a table and instead of simply handing the things I ask for to me, they'll sit it on the scanner. Now, you don't need perfect eyesight to figure out that the top of it isn't even close to being flat. So what do you think happens when somebody sits something on it? It slides/rolls off. And I have to get down on my hands and knees to dig it out from the tangle of cords that's at the bottom of the hole the scanner sits in. So many pens have been lost this way, but naturally when a credit card or a drivers license falls back there we can't just leave it.

3. Stealing Pens and/or Simply not Putting Them Back

Ok, well these are really two separate, yet related, annoyances.

What the hell people would want a Days Inn pen in with their pen collection is beyond me. However, believe or not, there are many people out there who steal the pens we put out on the front desk because they say they collect them. It's not like Days Inn gives us these pens for free, either. When people steal five pens at a time as one drunk did, it costs us money.

The other annoyance is that guests simply won't put the pens back in the cup or hand them back to me when their done using them. It seems like common courtesy to me, considering how easy it is to knock one of the counter (and how easy they roll of the damn scanner).

4. "Bu-But in These Economic Times..."

We get quite a few people who think our rates are simply through the roof. I can't help but laugh (on the inside) at these people when they walk out the door, because there isn't anybody in the area that that charges less than us. One of the more common things that these people will say is "How can you charge so much these days when the economy is so bad?" To these people I, in my mind, will say that this is not a damn charity. It is a business, and as a business, we too are affected by the economy. Considering everything that we offer and the rates everyone else charges (the Holiday Inn across the road from us charges at least $40 more than us), it's a damn bargain. So fuck off.

In the cases of the first weeks of May and October, when James Madison University holds graduation and family night causing every single hotel in the state to book up and raise their rates to well over $100, I can only point to one of the most basic laws of economics: Supply and Demand.

5. Not Having Their Shit Ready When Making a Reservation

We front desk "associates" have more to do than listen to you babble on as you scrounge around for something to write your confirmation number down on or while you go out to your car to get your credit card. These are things ALL hotels ask you for, so it makes perfect god damned sense that if you call us with the intentions of making a reservation you need to have your shit ready. While you're searching around for the items you should have known you needed, I'm going to have a bajillion other callers whom I can't answer because you lacked the common sense to be ready to make the reservation.


6. Not Throwing Their Trash Away

We don't have anybody dedicated specifically to the continental breakfast. The same person who works the front desk in the mornings checking people out and listening to their complaints (this is when they usually bring them up) also has to manage the continental breakfast by keeping things clean, refilling trays with food, etc. So very often dickwads will leave their trash sitting out, either on one of the tables or on the counter where all of the food is. Also people will frequently put used sugar packets back into the basket with the unopened ones. Occasionally they'll do the same with the half-and-half. Often times I'll find newspapers strewn across the tables and brochures people picked up off of the stands lying around too. It's fucking ridiculous how these pigs are.

7. Calling Me in the Middle of Me Doing Something

Ok, I can't get mad at people who do this. How are they supposed to know that I'm extremely busy checking people in? Or I'm already on the phone with someone else? I suppose I can get mad at those who call while I'm already on the phone and also call back two seconds later after not getting through, though. For fucks sake, your time isn't that important. And if I'm so busy that I can't answer the phone, then it will surely take me more than a few seconds to finish what I'm doing and get around to listening to your problems. When you call your mama and get a busy tone, do you call back immediately afterwards? No? Well why the fuck would you do it with a hotel?

8. Bawing at not Being Able to use a Coupon on the Weekend

It says right there on the coupon that it's not valid on the weekend, people. So don't get so fucking pissed off when I say that I can't accept it and that the rate is higher than what's in the book.

9. Paying with $100 Bills

Paying me with a $100 bill isn't that bad when the rate is $60 or $70. But when use a coupon and the rate costs less than half of what you're paying me, that causes us problems. Most people pay with credit cards, so if you give us a $100 bill forcing us to fork over a huge difference, it makes it difficult to give change to those who come after you. We also have to drop all of the cash we took in during our shift into the safe. Now if I've only taken in $49.95, but I was given a $100 bill... See the problem?

10. Giving me More Information than I Need

This applies especially towards cars. All we ever ask for is the make and model. Yet for some reason, some people seem to want to tell me everything about their clunker. They get all hung up on trying to figure out what year it is, then when they figure that out the tell me the make, model, color, and license plate number when I only asked for the make and model. And every once in a while I'll get somebody who doesn't want to give enough information. I ask for the make and model, and all they tell me is "Chevy." I ask "What kind?" and they tell me "Chevy pickup." Now I'm no expert at automobiles or mechanics, but I'm pretty darned sure that GM doesn't have and "pickup" models of trucks. I'm pretty sure they're all something along the lines of Chevy Silverado or Chevy Avalanche.

1 comment:

  1. Wow man, that all sounds really annoying considering it happens pretty often. But I couldn't help but chuckle at a few of them. ;)

    ReplyDelete