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Pity Party

I want to detach from my present reality. I am at work. I thought I would be finished in 2 hours. Not the case. Seems the person scheduled to come in after me called out. My manager called to see how long I wanted to stay. I don’t even feel like finishing out my own two hours let alone working another 4 to cover half the deadbeats shift. (I cried after hanging up with him. Apparently I’m wearing my feelings on my fingertips these days – more on that later) She told him she had an accident. She told me she was going to New York for 2 days and was leaving on Tuesday. Today is Thursday. I’m no rocket scientist and even I can see right through that. Pretty thin, huh? Unless of course she had an accident whilst in New York. If so, I guess you could say the Big Apple got a big bite of her ass-ets! And I got screwed again, as per usual.

I work in a hotel. It’s far from glamorous but it can be amusing at times. I believe everyone should work in a hotel/motel for at least 2 weeks. The inhuman side of human nature would astound as well as confound! It would make you laugh, cry, shake your head, and give you ample reason to drop out of the rat race and move to a deserted island in the Bermuda Triangle which hasn’t yet been discovered and therefore mapped! I’m convinced people will say and do things to and in front of hotel employees that they wouldn’t have the chutzpah to ask, utter, or whine about to anyone else on earth, not even their very loyal four legged friend. When folks are about to check into a hotel, or are already in-house, they will say and do just about anything, think nothing of it, and feel NO shame. Zero!

Inflation is kicking everyone’s ass these days. Prices are increasing by leaps and bounds. We don’t like it but what real recourse do we have? Stop driving so we don’t have to pay $4.00+ per gallon? Stop eating so we don’t have to pay the price of corn from the Midwest or the price of tea in China? Stop going to hotels so we don’t have to play ‘Let’s Make a Deal’ with the desk clerk? Do you go to the gas station and try to beg or barter a lower price per gallon because you’re a senior citizen, government employee, Masonic lodge member, or card carrying AAA member since 1983? Do you hassle the clerk behind the counter because the price of a cup of Joe has gone up, or the meatball sandwich is 3/4ths of an inch shorter this month than last? Do you cross examine the check out girl at the grocery store and make her justify the price of eggs? Do you hold her feet to the fire until she accounts for why the store won’t accept 5 coupons for the same item which means they will essentially be paying you to remove the item from the store as a favor to them? Do you snarl, grump, grouch, bitch and moan while grudgingly handing over your credit card to pay for your purchase? I’ll bet not. I’ll bet you make small talk, smile nicely, and commiserate with her over the exorbitant price of food, gas, vacation, and everything in between.

Why does it seem as if every day is open season on hotel desk clerks? Does anyone out there really believe that the lowly clerk is the dastardly mastermind behind hotel room rate increases? Do we look like villains? If, and that’s a BIG if, we had anything to do with ‘rates’ and ‘pricing’ that would probably mean we owned the hotel. If we owned the hotel do you think we’d be sitting behind the desk watching potential customers become increasingly pissed off with our pricing policy? Hell no! We’d hire someone slightly north of minimum wage and make them sit behind the desk and make excuses for our greed while we collect cash off the top once a week and vacation in places you and the lowly desk clerk never heard of and wouldn’t even begin to k now how to dream about.

Fuel and food prices seem to fluctuate daily in the present economic market. Some hotels do adjust rates based on projected occupancy, holidays, tourism, etc but others don’t. They raise their rates once a year, which is the policy here.

I don’t understand why people think it’s acceptable to be rude and argumentative with a hotel desk clerk about rates we didn’t set but those same people wouldn’t go to the gas station or grocery store and treat those clerks in the same fashion. We don’t set room rates just as the gas station attendant and grocery clerk don’t set the prices on their respective products. We’re just the messengers – please don’t shoot!

People call or drop by to ask the price of a room for the night. They’re shocked when I tell them. (It’s $109.99 which is the cheapest in this area with the exception of a roach motel that rents for $79.99) They proceed to list each of the lower 48 where they know for a fact they can get a room for $49.99 a night. I bite my tongue which helps me resist the urge to tell them to ‘have a nice trip and drive safely’. I don’t know why the rates are set the way they are any more than I know why gas is over $4.00 a gallon. The hotel owner and the CEO of Exxon don’t consult me about such matters. That’s probably a good thing because they’d both get an earful from me about their shabby business practices!

I love the people who ask the room rate when they call to make a reservation and gasp, choke, and sputter. Then they offer you 15 different groups/clubs/reasons why they should get a discount. If they have a valid one, such as AARP or AAA I offer them the group rate with that discount. HA! That’s not enough. They want you to accept every group rate and just keep discounting one on top of the other. At the grocery store it’s one coupon per item purchsed. It only stands to reason one discount per hotel room is all you’re going to get.

This next request totally flips me out every time someone asks me about it. They ask the price, freak out when they hear it, and then proceed to over-share by telling me they only need the room for an hour or two. Say it with me, TMI!!!! I don’t need that bad visual in my head while I’m trying to discreetly explain that we don’t rent rooms by the hour. They beg and plead with me to ‘make an exception’ in their case. They promise to clean up the room themselves if I charge them less. That grosses me out beyond belief. I mean, come on, do they not have a brain? If I would do that ‘for them’ why wouldn’t they consider I would do that ‘to them’!!! They don’t think of the consequences. If I agreed to do such a disagreeable thing they could find themselves romping between sheets someone else already used. Gahhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!! Ewwwwwwwwwwwww!!!! The bottom line is, it doesn’t matter if you use the room for a day or an hour. It still needs to be cleaned properly and someone has to be paid. Is that such a difficult concept to grasp? It makes perfect sense to me.

Most hotels these days offer ‘complimentary’ ammenities to make your stay cozy and comfortable. We offer free daily newspapers, wireless internet in the rooms, pay cable channels, and a hot breakfast from 6-10 am. Complimentary to me means it’s ‘on the house’ aka - free! Arriving for your ‘complimentary’ breakfast at 9:50am only to discover we’re out of your favorite bagel flavor is not a valid reason for me to give you your room for free. What it really means is that you should get up and get your ass to the table earlier in the morning so you can eat what you want instead of what we have left. Technical problems with the internet ISP, which is out of our control is not a valid reason for giving you a free room either. We offer free freshly made cookies at check in as a special welcome for our arriving guests. If a guest is already in-house and comes for cookies we welcome them to help themselves. If we’re out of cookies (which are free) that isn’t a good reason to get a discount on your room or to expect to get your room for free. Am I the only one who sees the logic in this? A problem with the room (which is what you’re paying for) is a valid reason to offer a discount or comp your room. If the grocery store you shop at is out of a sale item does that mean you should get the rest of your shopping order for free or is the act of offering a raincheck on the item or a substitute item enough of a goodwill gesture? Does this make sense to anyone else!?!