Last week I talked about a meltdown that happened in the hotel, and how a third shifter stormed out over something stupid. We also covered some tips and tricks and what not to do. This week we’re going to cover a more serious yet still entertaining moment, now that I know everyone is OK, from the hotel. The incident I’m dubbing “The Accident”.
This one took place at some point last year during the spring. We have groups of people that come in and work as temps from Mexico in some factories around the area. They book a lot of rooms and get a good rate, and usually are nice people. This really was no exception, as the party involved that was part of the group wasn’t too bad, plus oddly enough, he was German and not from Mexico.
So this company, we’ll just call them Encase because that’s the first word I happened to see when looking at a book this morning. Encase had booked eight rooms with us, all in the back of the hotel. This is important later. The stairwell in the back didn’t have a camera yet, it had broken the other day and the owner was going to replace it as soon as the new one came. Typical of Amazon the order didn’t come the day before as it was supposed to, or we would have caught on quicker. The closest camera was in the elevator hallway of the hotel.
At this point in time, I was working the first shift two days in a row, and then I’d switch to the second shift three days in a row. The two first shifts would be on the weekend, and then the next three days were the second shifts, so it was pretty easy to adjust. Mornings were pretty busy until noon, checking rooms out, maintaining the breakfast area, assigning rooms for the check-ins that day, and making sure the Karen’s didn’t get what they asked for.
When It Comes To Hotels, The Customer Isn’t Always Right
This is a great time to jump over to the nice tips and tricks portion of the story. This week is, DO NOT BE A KAREN. We can, and will, make your stay as horrible as we possibly can. 3 AM wakeup calls happen by “accident”. You will get a bad room. An example of this is a guy who will be featured in a couple of weeks who wanted the following:
Top floor
Extra Pillows
Extra Blanket
Quiet room away from people
Must be facing away from the freeway
Turn AC on before arrival
Cheap price
The room must be at the end of the hotel
The room must be clean
The room must have 1 bed
Contrary to popular belief, the customer is not always right. If you make demands like this? That’s not going to happen. Never make demands like this. If you want a good stay, don’t be a dick like this. If you want a few things extra, ask nice. We’ll try to accommodate you, but if you’re a dick like this, you can forget it.
Someone like this, I can guarantee you if you’re at a decent hotel that’s not say, Hilton, and by Hilton, I don’t mean Hampton, I mean a full-blown 5-star Hilton resort, the desk clerk is going to put you in the worst room possible with an excuse. So don’t be like this guy. Be nice. 2 AM accidental wake-up calls happen. Ask the clerk nice, be kind about it, and we’ll accommodate you. Put all this shit in requests? Yeah, piss off.
Back To ‘The Accident’
So back to the story. This morning I remember was fairly quiet, it was a Saturday or Sunday, I don’t remember, the days blended together for me. But I got a strange call from someone saying their daughter was in a fight or something and to call the police. I was confused because the names I was given and the room weren’t the right ones, so I sort of blew it off and was like ok sure I’ll go check.
So after taking care of a couple of things that popped up, I go upstairs to check on what’s going on, and in the stairwell where we were going to install a new camera, I find a young girl bleeding quite a bit out of her head. So I grab her right away (not literally) and we take the elevator down to the main floor and head to the front desk. I get the girl some bandaging for her head and call the police department.
The girl didn’t speak a word of English, she was visiting from Germany. It turns out finding a translator for this is really hard, so we had to use a phone translator to get the gist of what was being said.
After about 20 minutes, I hear a commotion and yelling in the elevator coming down, and the police drag this girl that looked like she was hyped up on drugs and alcohol out of the elevator in handcuffs. She was screaming and causing a scene, to the point the cop finally tased her to shut her up, it was that bad. When she got back up she actually bit the cop on the arm and was then shoved in a cop car never to be seen again.
About an hour goes by of them talking to her, talking to her brother, and talking to me while I was trying to do my morning duties. Eventually, they leave, and life goes on, I’ve forgotten it happened and I’m working on mid-day duties, which really isn’t much, but I used to take extra time to clean up and clean the breakfast area. Being winter, I also had to shovel and keep the lobby clean. Then I get a call….
“Thank you for calling Riley’s Chateau Hotel how can I help you?” No that’s not the name of the hotel. Or how I answered the phone but moved on.
“Hi, I was in room 3241, and my stuff is in there, I didn’t get a chance to get my stuff out because of the accident….”
I cut him off right there.
“Accident. Where your wife beat your sixteen-year-old sister over the head so bad she was bleeding badly and had to go get a ton of stitches? The same psycho that bit a cop? You’re calling it an accident? My boss wants you out, come get your shit, you have one hour then we’re throwing it away.”
Ok, I didn’t say all that. But I did tell them to get their stuff and get out. I was appalled. Accident. It was an all-out assault, it wasn’t one hit, I heard him tell the cops that she pinned the girl down and repeatedly hit her on the head. Needless to say, when I got up on the stand in court to testify what I knew, I buried her.
She got sentenced to 180 days in jail as well as fees, plus the hotel pressed charges against her because we had to throw away the bedding, towels, and mattress and redo the carpet from the blood from the poor girl’s head. She came back later to help move her brother out and hugged me and thanked me for helping her with her broken English. A nice ending to the story. He dumped the girl as well from what I understand. Good ending all around.
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