• The Hotel Diaries
    168 replies, posted
We need more stories!
[media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w6C9RBMCJOY[/media]
Oh wow, I need a new job. This is way cooler than mine.
So anything new? Impatient customers? Drug busts by Detective Frank?
I'm sorry if this is more for your personal stories BDA, but I worked in a hotel as a C&B assistant for a year and saw and experienced some pretty strange stuff. I have a number of stories I could probably tell, but there's one that sticks out. We had just finished catering for a massive wedding (About 300 people If I remember correctly) and we were setting up the banqueting room for the next day where, thankfully, a much smaller wedding than the last one had been was going to be held. Now the difference with being a C&B assistant to a regular hotel assistant is that you often have to stay long after your shift actually finishes and help out. It's a friendly thing to do and usually a good laugh because everyone ready to go home and go to bed. This particular night though, it was only me my line manager and another guy who'd stayed as everyone else had been working the massive wedding since the early afternoon. It was nearing 3AM and my manager came up to me and asked me to get 2 swimming towels from the linen room and take them to the Spa area, where we have a small pool for guests. Naturally I assumed he was fooling around, and was just trying to be annoying since it was so late at night, but I appeased him and did just that. I went into the Spa and, as expected at 3AM everything was closed, the gym, the sauna and the pool. I put the towels on the reception desk and was about to turn round and get back to what I was doing, when 2 completely wasted, completely naked guys crashed through the changing room door, right in front of me. I was frozen, as 2 nude men was not something I expected to burst out in front of me at this time in the morning and quite frankly I was too tired to comprehend quite what had happened. The both looked at me, one asked "Are they for us, mate?". I nodded and slowly passed the towels to them both and the same guy siad "Aww, you're a star mate!" and they, literally, ran out the room and down the corridor in nothing but towels. Turns out they were guests for the wedding the next day, who had broken the lock into the pool and decided to go for a midnight swim, buck naked together. When I served them at the wedding the next day there was a lot of awkward silence between them when I was around :V:
Are there any more interesting stories?
I'll ask my friend Austin if he has any interesting stories. He works at the local Hilton, so I'm sure he's seen his fair share of weird shit.
I have been working mainly as a receptionist at a somewhat large, although a bit run-down hotel located in the middle of Denmark for about a year and a half now, and I have also experienced some rather mad events since I started. I should probably write a story or two if I can focus my lazy mind. Just this morning I had a bald somalian man with sunglasses eat half a brie for breakfast with nothing but coffe on the side.
These are funny indeed. While I've never worked I have stayed in hotels. Weirdest time was staying in Derby, was heading to my room when a women came out of her room wearing stilts and walked around the landing for a bit and went back in. Could not comprehend why.
Okay :(
[QUOTE=Dahaka32;36469135]EPICNESS![/QUOTE] Did you just... really?
I work at fucking McDonald's and I just get a bunch of ignorant dicks who insult me :(
[QUOTE=Pink Spy;36616015]I work at fucking McDonald's and I just get a bunch of ignorant dicks who insult me :([/QUOTE] If it makes you feel any better, I love the people who work at my Micky D's because they upgrade me for free c:
These stories are golden
It's been a while, but I've got some good new stories to tell. I was stockpiling a few. One involves goats. Gonna poo, then I'll share a good one with ya.
[QUOTE=Big Dumb American;36654542]It's been a while, but I've got some good new stories to tell. I was stockpiling a few. One involves goats. Gonna poo, then I'll share a good one with ya.[/QUOTE] I was just about to sleep, I guess that can wait.
[QUOTE=Big Dumb American;36654542] Gonna poo, then I'll share a good one with ya.[/QUOTE] I hope you aren't possessed by the poop lady.
[quote][U]Numbers[/U] The vast majority of our guests are normal and boring and unremarkable, which is source of great comfort to me during the times in which I'm required to deal with those who aren't. Over the past few days, an exceptionally odd character has been lodging with us. She's white and middle-class, so the polite way to refer to her is "eccentric," but really she's just loony. She's got to be loony. The guest in question was an older woman, very short and plump, and with a pronounced waddle. Speaking with her was like trying to toss a coin through a fan without nicking the blades, as she prattled on with a nearly unending stream of complaints and strange observations and questions that she never seemed to actually care to hear the answers to. The only breaks in her spiels came during even more awkward periods of moaning, during which she would stop mid-sentence, lay her head on the counter and quietly moan, sometimes for as long as ten or fifteen seconds. I met her for the first time on the Fourth of July, when she waddled up to the desk, and interrupted my greeting with the first of many rants about the sorry state of the hotel, punctuated with off-beats compliments about my physical appearance. She also tried to con us out of money for the first time, by saying that the employee who had checked her in had promised her fifty dollars off her room for the night, and that she needed to get that refund ASAP. Since the employee who had checked her in was the hotel manager, a very thorough woman, and there was no note in my log-book or within the customer's profile, I figured that she likely had some bad information, and deflected her scam by telling her to stop by when the manager was in-house. She complained some more, and eventually waddled away. Two hours later, she appeared back at the desk, and launched into another stream about the noise levels in the pool, which she said she could hear from the elevator. Not from her room, but from the elevator. Just the elevator. I apologized for her noisy elevator experience. She then complimented my beard, and had me change her payment method from cash to credit card. I got her card information and refunded her the cash she had paid for the room, as well as the hundred dollar security deposit needed for cash pay customers. She complained about my not having bills larger than twenty dollars, accused me of not giving her the full refund, made me count out the money in front of her again, and then left. She came back to the front desk once more that night, to demand that we change her room. I asked her what was wrong with her room, and she told me "nothing, but the room's digits don't add up to eleven. I only stay in rooms whose digits add up to eleven." I didn't even know how to respond to that, so I just told her we were sold out, and that we couldn't change her room. It was truth, but I probably would have said it anyway, just because it was such a boggling and pointless request. The next morning, she returned, and told me that "the boy behind the counter last night (IE- Me, who she apparently didn't recognize)" had stolen her hundred dollar security deposit and had refused to give it back. I showed her the logs proving that he deposit had been returned, and she simply rolled her eyes and said, "if you say so!" She returned to pull that same trick three more times before she finally checked out this morning. When she left, she tried one last time to make us give her money by saying that she was promised the third night of her stay free, and that she needed to be refunded for that night. I informed her that this was not the case. She tried to convince me that I had not returned her security deposit. I showed her that this was not the case. She tried to convince me that I had not refunded her the cash from her first night stay, when we switched her to credit. I showed her this was not the case. She threatened to get the police. I apologized for her confusion, and again showed her the logs on her receipt, which she had signed, indicating that she had been fully refunded. I told her if the police were involved, that we could provide these logs, and our security footage, which would show me handing her the money. She said, "Oh." She said, "Nevermind, then." Before leaving, she complimented my hair, and told me that her stay had been very lovely, and that she would most certainly be returning in the fall.[/quote]
Words cannot express how well you dealt with that situation, and how flabbergasted I would have been in your place. I salute you and your tenacity, sir.
Best of luck to you next Fall, hahaha.
I worked on a tourist island for a few summers, and golf carts were street legal since the island was small and easier to access in certain areas with golf carts. I worked at one of the cart rentals, and I'd usually deal with a lot of very stupid people, pissed off tourists who just finished traveling all day, and drunks. I think it's worth mentioning that this island has around 14 bars in a 4 square mile area. Our cart rental had around 130 golf carts, and we'd have days where we were sold out for hours straight. This day happened to be one of those days. Later in the day, however, most carts were returning as we had a policy that all carts must be returned by 8pm. I was parking carts in our back lot with my boss, as was usual. We'd fill this area before parking carts in our main lot. There was a specific area where customers could return their carts. They'd park there, and workers, including me, would get in their cart and take it to a lot. As I was walking back from the back lot, I glanced at one of the carts just returning. As was normal, the people were unloading coolers, souvenirs, and other items off their cart. This cart in particular was a 4-seater, and three of the folks getting off were nothing out of the ordinary. The fourth, a man who I would guess was in his late 60s, was getting off the seat and wearing nothing but a shirt. I stopped dead in my tracks and turned to my boss, tapping him on the shoulder. He turns around and followed my gaze, and we both just lost it. By this time the guy was standing up, struggling to get a pair of shorts on, bits-a-danglin'. Once he finally succeeded, he just walked off with his friends, nothing out of the ordinary. I made sure to bleach that seat before I parked the cart. Other strange things would happen on this island as well. There were a few cases of drunks driving their golf carts off the end of a dock. One of the business owners had a small crane to pull them out when that happened. By the way, I don't mean to try and take over your thread, but I love stories like these and felt this one was worth sharing.
[quote] [U]Housekeeping[/U] True to many stereotypes, the housekeeping staff of our hotel is almost exclusively native to hispanic countries, and speak only a very broken English, if any English at all. There are at least three women on the housekeeping staff who are native English speakers, and act as a go-between for the management and desk to the rest of the housekeeping staff, but they're not always scheduled. The head housekeeper is a young black girl with fun colors in her hair, and she seems to communicate with the rest of the staff using some kind of shorthand that really isn't any language at all. Unfortunately, I don't know the shorthand, and so, when she and my other "translators" are absent, I have to speak with the assistant head housekeeper. The assistant housekeeper is a plump old Hispanic woman who only ever bothered to learn the key words and phrases that are strictly necessary to clean rooms (which, as it turns out, isn't very many). Communication with her breaks down to an elementary level, including impromptu sign language and partial charades. We'll never share ideas, but we can at least keep the basic functions of the hotel in order. Usually. The assistant housekeeper boss-woman's English vocabulary consists of a few basic words or nicknames with very general meanings, so that they can be applied to many different situations in the hopes that her true meaning will be contextually evident. Her tactic of communicating with non-Spanish speakers is to simply repeat these words over and over until they finally click. Anybody who's ever been on the receiving end of this, however, knows that it never actually works this way. For instance, anything involving paper is "books," which is extremely confusing because the majority of my work involves papers! She'll approach me and simply keep saying, "give me the books?" "The what?" "The books?" "The books?" "Si, the books." "The vacant list?" "No, the books." "The departure list?" "No, the books. The books? I need books, por favor." Eventually I'll guess what papers she needs, and we'll awkardly conclude our lingual dance with a weird exchange of "sorry I can't understand you" laughs. For anything more advanced, it's often impossible. Even just trying to find out what cleaning product they use to get rid of cigarette stink in a room wass an uphill battle ending in defeat, with all three of the housekeepers I was trying to get the information from just repeating, "room smoke? What room? Donde?" Eventually everybody just shrugs and gives up. Sometimes I wonder if they're just fucking with me.[/quote]
This is great stuff. I thought I dealt with dumb/crazy etc people as a food runner for a restaurant, but I can see I am off. As I'm on the topic of food, I still haven't fully comprehend how people forgot what they order in the short amount of time it takes to cook there food and deliver it. Blows my mind.
[QUOTE=ACupXOfXNoodles;36662500]This is great stuff. I thought I dealt with dumb/crazy etc people as a food runner for a restaurant, but I can see I am off. As I'm on the topic of food, I still haven't fully comprehend how people forgot what they order in the short amount of time it takes to cook there food and deliver it. Blows my mind.[/QUOTE] Wait, people actually do that?
Why do I get the feeling that the lady you described in the last one, is some kind of scammer who actually makes her living on doing things related to that.
[QUOTE=Jawyen;36663145]Why do I get the feeling that the lady you described in the last one, is some kind of scammer who actually makes her living on doing things related to that.[/QUOTE] I don't know if she could ever pass as a con artist, but she sure had "crazy" and "unsettling" down pat.
thank you bda for giving me so much to laugh about.
These are great, I read the entire thread even though I should probably be doing my research essay.
[QUOTE=Silent-Bob;36658391]I worked on a tourist island for a few summers, and golf carts were street legal since the island was small and easier to access in certain areas with golf carts. I worked at one of the cart rentals, and I'd usually deal with a lot of very stupid people, pissed off tourists who just finished traveling all day, and drunks. I think it's worth mentioning that this island has around 14 bars in a 4 square mile area. Our cart rental had around 130 golf carts, and we'd have days where we were sold out for hours straight. This day happened to be one of those days. Later in the day, however, most carts were returning as we had a policy that all carts must be returned by 8pm. I was parking carts in our back lot with my boss, as was usual. We'd fill this area before parking carts in our main lot. There was a specific area where customers could return their carts. They'd park there, and workers, including me, would get in their cart and take it to a lot. As I was walking back from the back lot, I glanced at one of the carts just returning. As was normal, the people were unloading coolers, souvenirs, and other items off their cart. This cart in particular was a 4-seater, and three of the folks getting off were nothing out of the ordinary. The fourth, a man who I would guess was in his late 60s, was getting off the seat and wearing nothing but a shirt. I stopped dead in my tracks and turned to my boss, tapping him on the shoulder. He turns around and followed my gaze, and we both just lost it. By this time the guy was standing up, struggling to get a pair of shorts on, bits-a-danglin'. Once he finally succeeded, he just walked off with his friends, nothing out of the ordinary. I made sure to bleach that seat before I parked the cart. Other strange things would happen on this island as well. There were a few cases of drunks driving their golf carts off the end of a dock. One of the business owners had a small crane to pull them out when that happened. By the way, I don't mean to try and take over your thread, but I love stories like these and felt this one was worth sharing.[/QUOTE] Out of curiosity, was the island in North Carolina?
[QUOTE=stupidass;36686341]Out of curiosity, was the island in North Carolina?[/QUOTE] No, Ohio (Put-in-Bay)
Sorry, you need to Log In to post a reply to this thread.