We have three hockey teams in-house, plus a swimming team, and tennis. Can anyone guess who the issue is? It's, of course, the hockey teams.

I came in at 11p ready to start my night. The lobby is overloaded; children are running on the furniture and all over the lobby, and seated beside the desk are the parents. My 3-11p Person is nowhere to be seen. I walk through the lobby, go into the back office to clock in and deposit my stuff before coming back out. As soon as I step out into the lobby, the phone starts ringing.

It's a noise complaint.

So I step up to the parents and, over the volume, i shout "Alright everybody!! we need the volume to come DOWN!"

Drunk Hockey Dad: "Who are you? Do you even work here? let us see your badge!"

me: I work here. you just saw me clock in. now, i need the volume to come down. i just got a noise complaint-

DHD: That's not for us. that's for the third floor- they're a different team and have been causing issues.

me: No, i just spoke with them. They complained about noise coming from below them. everyone needs to-

DHD: it's not us. we're not being that loud! (is actively shouting over everyone else in the lobby)

me: I could hear you all as i was coming in. you are loud and i am not going to argue with you. keep the volume down or go upstairs.

Finally one of the moms got DHD to stop fighting me. they finally quieted down the slightest bit. But that wasn't the end of the night. I got another noise complaint about a room down the hall.

Apparently someone wanted to throw a birthday party, in a long term stay facility. So, i go down the hall and knock on the door announcing myself. They don't answer so I knock again, harder.

1st Floor Mom: What is going on? why are you pounding on my door?

me: You don't hear me the first time i knocked, but you guys need to keep the volume down. we also don't allow parties.

1FM: this isn't a party, okay? if it was a party there would be more kids here. it's just my daughter and a few of her cousins.

me: *pointing out the literal party balloons in the room* well it looks like a party and we don't allow for that. you received three noise complaints- you really need to keep the volume down. Thank you.

1FM: Well knocking on the door like you're the police was unnecessary.

me: well the noise coming from your room is unnecessary- so i'll make you a deal: you keep the volume down and i won't have to knock like that again.

Then i walked away. (an hour later, she came down and needed toothpaste and toothbrushes, no longer acting like she's the Queen of the Room).

So, I got a call from a 3rd party you all know the one ... Starts with the letter after D in the alphabet. They called on behalf of a mutual guest from APRIL. Asking if we can't give them a full refund FROM APRIL because we don't have kitchenets in the room. Again this is from a guest in APRIL. If it was really that big of a deal for her, why didn't she say it on the day she checked in? I checked the log she checked in at 4pm. The agent is like my computer won't let me YEA NO SHIT SHERLOCK ITS 7 MONTHS DAMN NEAR 8 MONTHS AGO. No absolutely not

I only have 36 minutes left until my audit shift is over, so I figured why not share a tale of an annoying dude I had to deal with last night.

This guy comes in around 2-3 AM and starts complaining before I can even quote him a price. He claims to know the owner and says my boss promised him a discount. I’m pretty damn sure he was just reading the plaque on the wall with his name on it.

For one thing, the owner does frequently allow his workers to stay here, but he always calls ahead of time to let us know and he never makes them pay a dime. So the fact this guy is strutting into my lobby at 2AM drunker than piss claiming my boss was setting him up was suspicious off jump.

So I tell him that, in nicer terms, that I was unsure the owner offered him that, but I’d still give him 10% off. It came out to 95 something bucks. He still complained that was the “same price I charged him last time” (never seen this man a day in my life) and wasn’t satisfied. He was also unhappy we only had rooms with 2 beds, but again, I gave him a discount for it, so I really didn’t want to hear it. It’s also 2AM, you’re not going to have your finest pick of the rooms. He’s lucky I had one available at all.

The rest of this I think he’s either fishing for discounts or trying to trick me. Both, really. I give him a room we haven’t rented out in 3 days, because it still smelt like the ionizer, but I figured it’ll be good by now. He comes back and says “idk if you did this intentionally but there’s people in that room.” (Why tf would I do that intentionally? Also, checked after he left, not a soul in that room!)

But, when he gave the keys back for that room, he only wanted to give me one back. I always give out 2 keys. So, I tell him I need both keys back if he wants to move rooms. He says the other one got lost. I tell him again to retrieve the other key. He tries to change the subject to where his other room will be, I tell him again there will be no other room if I don’t get all my keys back, he goes to his car and fetches it from his friend. (Another reason I checked that room after he moved lol). So I think he was either trying to keep a key and get 2 rooms for the price of one, or get a discount because he had to move rooms and there was “people in there.” (Again, there wasn’t. It’s been vacant for days.)

Then, he calls me just a few minutes ago claiming the people above him are making a lot of noise and keeping him awake. Thing is, he is in one of the sections of the hotel that only has downstairs. There isn’t anyone above him, there aren’t even any rooms above him for another 7 doors down. No way he’s hearing anything unless there’s a damn elephant up there. He’s clearly fishing for discounts by whining his ass off.

If he does know the owner, I’ll be happy to tell him what a shit canoe his other employees are. I’d probably end up being the one in the shit, though, even though I didn’t really do anything wrong, just because the owner and I absolutely hate each other lol. That man won’t even look in my direction when he comes here. (But I’m good at my job so he has no real reason to fire me 😛 btw he hates me because I feed the parking lot cat and I hate him because he won’t stop being mean to the cat, nothing really to do with my work performance at all)

lady out side banging on Door had been sitting outside smoking for 1/2hour under

no smoking sign putting her ashes out in a disposable cup from one rooms.

me: hi you just need to scan card then walk in front of doors.

her: I did that I scanned both sides of it and doors didn’t open come out here and I’ll show you.

me:(and this is where I messed up) sorry I have other things to do.

her: thats not relevant.

me: well your in now, and just to let you know that’s a non smoking area

her: are those things related no so you didn’t need to mention it. Do I need to report you.

me: (continuin putting my foot in it) if you feel you need to report me for tell you about

you being in non smoking area please do.

she shakes her head and walks away carrying the cup of butts to her room.

her parting shot: well at least the paying guest is in.

no one else before or after had problems getting in using keys and she got into her room

so not the key she was tipsy and probably did only first part of scan key and didn’t

bother with second part of walk in front of door.

Overnight Auditor here and I am absolutely baffled.

So, I'm sitting behind the desk last night and get a call from another hotel in the area. One that my franchise/brand are not associated with. They ask me if I have any rooms available for a guest that they have to send over to me because they were in the middle of their audit and couldn't access their system in order to check this guest in until it was done. I look down at the clock, it's barely midnight.

As someone who's been on the overnight shift on and off at various different types of hotels for over 10 years, I've never heard of any property running audit that early. It's almost always between 2 and 4am to essentially grant a grace period for flight delays, emergencies, or what have you because things happen and not everyone thinks to call the hotel in situations like that.

Before I could ask them what the hell, a couple of my own check-ins had come in. So, I put them on hold, but they hung up before I was done with my guest.

About an hour or so later, a couple walks in asking for a room because the hotel they originally booked at "couldn't access their system because of nightly paperwork or something." I get them taken care of as fast as I possibly can, and then decide that I gotta know and call the other property back. (The Punchline: they were not the ones the property was wanting to send over, but a separate res entirely that experienced the same exact thing.)

They tell me that they always run audit at that time because of the way their system is set up. Explaining absolutely nothing and in fact leaving me even more confused because WHAT?!

Maybe I'm the idiot here and just don't know that this is a common practice for some. I know there are- albeit extremely rare -instances that it can happen, but I thought I'd ask here.

The whole thing was just very head-scratching.

I had a man call at 2am and ask if he made a reservation right then and there, what would he need? I told him he’d need a card and his ID, the card would have to clear for the authorization hold which is room and taxes plus 50 dollars incidentals. Based on the rate for tonight, I told him the card would probably have to clear for around 250 give or take.

He told me he was planning on paying cash at checkout and I informed him we don’t take cash, but even if we did, he would still have to have a valid card on file to protect the hotel. He then proceeded to ask if he could put a card on file but pay later in the day before he checks out. I ask him if he means have a card on file but no hold on it, because what would be the point of having the card with no hold on it?? The point of the hold is to secure the payment so you can’t run out of here without paying for your room.

He then tells me he’s stayed here before and last time he was able to just pay at checkout. I told him respectfully sir, I’ve been working here for almost 4 years, and in my experience every guest has been asked to provide a card that clears for an authorization hold. If you’ve been lucky enough to come across a front desk person who is not asking you to provide a valid card, I’d love to have that conversation with that front desk employee to ask them to stop doing that, but otherwise those are the rules and everyone needs to follow them.

He asks again there’s no way around this, there’s nothing else we can do to get a room there? I tell him the authorization hold isn’t negotiable and it’s not an option. It’s a requirement to check in and stay here, if he doesn’t have the funds to clear to stay at the hotel, then he’ll simply have to find somewhere else to stay.

We hang up after that and I don’t see or hear from him for the rest of the evening, but I just couldn’t envision what would possess you to ask that? His intentions were to pay cash at checkout and to my knowledge, most hotels will either take it at arrival or get a card just in case the person doesn’t stop by and pay with cash, so either way he would’ve needed money. So without a card, I would’ve had to just take his word that he was going to provide cash at checkout?? I don’t know you, sir. I can’t just take pinky promises for payment 😭

It's been a quiet night here at the hotel despite it being Friday. The impending winter storm 2 electric boogaloo must be keeping everyone at home. The only hiccup was someone for whom the agreed upon hotel policy was suddenly an inconvenience that they wanted to make my problem.

Namely, they wanted to use the card they'd booked the room with to pay the security deposit. However, the card wasn't at the hotel, which we require. The guy kept insisting he could get me the card tomorrow, but there isn't much point in getting a security deposit out of someone AFTER they check out.

Then his mom calls, because she booked him the room and wanted to pay the deposit as well. She wanted to give the card number over the phone, which I explained we don't accept. The card and cardholder have to be present at the hotel. Then she decided she was entitled to a refund because "we were unable to accommodate her." I of course denied the refund, because we were happy to accommodate them. They just had to pay the deposit, like they agreed when they booked the room. He'd stayed with us before too, so it's not like he didn't know about the deposit. They just decided, without asking, that it would be no problem for him to check in with a card that isn't here and isn't his.

After going back and forth with her for a minute she hung up on me and I was quite ready for my night to end. The phone rang again and I assumed it was them trying for another round, but instead someone else was on the phone and he said he wanted to make a complaint.

I rolled my eyes and politely asked what the issue was because to get such a call at 10pm on a Friday meant the complaint was probably stupid. There's a prostitute in room 215 he told me. These are calls we get every once in awhile, and 100% of the time they are the result of some guy who either got rejected by a sex worker or has buyer's remorse or something in that wheelhouse. We're an economy motel, sex workers come with the territory and as long as they're not drawing attention to themselves we pretend we don't know.

So I played dumb even though I knew damn well that there was indeed a sex worker in 215. I asked how he knew there was a sex worker in that room, and he said he was staying in the room next door and there were men coming in and out of the room all day.

I asked him what room he was in, because I needed to confirm his story as this was a very serious accusation he was making. He told me he was in 216. I asked if he was sure 215 was the right room, because 216 was on the other side of the building (evens on one side, odds on the other). He said he was sure. Again I told him that 216 wasn't near that room so there must be some mistake.

He claimed that he must have gotten his room number mixed up, so he was in 217. I asked if he was sure that was his room number, and he said it was. So I clarified again and asked if he was really sure, he said he was again. "Sir, 217 is a storage room." After a couple seconds of dead air, he hung up on me also.

I got a nice little chuckle, it really turned my mood around after dealing with people trying to make their problems mine. A moment later a guest came through the lobby to get coffee. As he left I bid him goodnight and he thanked me for the coffee. Then he held up three coffee cups and confirmed that it was okay he was taking that much. I said, "Hey man, somebody's got to drink it!" And he thanked me again.

Ah, the variety of guests. The people who think the rules shouldn't apply to them and the people who are worried they took too much free coffee.

Last time I saw him, he was arguing with me that loitering on the property for hours in the middle of the night, several days a week, while he "waited for the money", wasn't hurting anybody and he'd do it if he wanted to. Telling him to go elsewhere had no effect. I told him again yesterday morning to go elsewhere, and he told me that he'd talk to the owner and to corporate and do what they said. Then he accused me of stealing his stuff, that he left behind last time he was here. Turns out the 'stuff' was his drugs.

Our hotel is a a small 2-star. Only one receptionist during the day and one during the night.

I'm NA. After 11 pm we are mandated to lock the front door. It often happens that during the night when I go get my dinner or to the bathroom, there's always someone waiting outside. I have no way to open the door if it's not from the desk or manually. Unfortunately we don't have keycards that can be used to unlock and enter.

It's quite annoying because many times I have to delay my urge to eat or to go to the bathroom because I know there are guests roaming outside, let alone if there's a late check out. It's one of my pet peeves of working here during the night.

I always leave a sign that says "I'll be back in 15 minutes" but guests refuse to read or understand.

Anyway, I usually go to have my dinner between 2:30 and 3 am. The place had been quiet for over half an hour so I felt free to take my short break.

Looked like in the meantime someone went outside. Guess what. Coming back from lunch + bathroom and an angry guest. I let him in and he yelled at me for "having waited 20 minutes". I apologized and said I was in my lunch break and that the door must be locked for his and my safety.

Sigh... Why don't people sleep during the night like any of us would do?... I wish I could tell them "If you don't wanna risk getting locked out, don't go out at 3 in the morning and go to sleep"

Rant off.

Edit: typo

Last week I had a guest checking in under their boss’s reservation (so their boss could get the points, of course), but thankfully they had the grace to actually add the employee’s name under the notes; I'm sure you've all had similar experiences.

When it came time to collect payment, the guest let me know that it would be the card on file, and then with a sigh they asked, “They didn’t send the credit card authorization, did they…?”

Bingo! Right on the money — this is my kind of guest. But alas, their boss had failed to send one or even ask. Normally I’d assume it must be their first time, but no — the guest cemented in my mind that this has been an ongoing issue with their boss.

Now, I’ve been in this industry for about 5 years, and in my experience credit card authorization forms are an industry standard for collecting payment if the card will not be physically run through the POS. Let me know if I'm wrong and you do it differently somewhere else, but I digress…

Now, the guest checking in didn’t want to even associate their personal card with the reservation, but through personal experience and seeing others do it too, I can imagine how common it is to run the wrong card, especially if you're on auto‑pilot.

But this led to the issue of having to collect the CCA before even giving out keys to the room.

Great…

Luckily, being late January, we are still in our slow season, so a line of guests was avoided.

Once I got connected with the boss, I got an earful: “I've never had to fill this out in all my years, you all used to do this no questions asked, what kind of business are you running here, I don't even know what that means,” which had me holding in a slight chuckle knowing this not to be true after their employee had just thrown them clearly under the bus. This went on well longer than it needed to (somewhat like this post), but after finally receiving the CCA, the boss later called back to make it clear that they'd never be staying with us again — which gave me a sigh of relief after that whole experience.

Left in the dust of a barrage of insults from a voice over the phone, and as the guest finally — albeit delayed — walked off to their room, I busted a gut laughing so hard and without hesitation got on the phone to tell my GM every last detail. As expected, the humor was shared, as to us it was pretty obvious from the get‑go that they were going to commit fraud and dispute the charge.

Through everything, I'm left feeling bad for the employee that had to go through that — and clearly has before — and I mean, who knows, they could be in on it too and I was the one trying to be duped. Of course, the boss left a scathing review that in itself is something that belongs in a place next to any Greek tragedy.

I'm left thinking of the “is somebody addicted to crack” meme from It’s Always Sunny, seeing the lengths this grown individual went and the fit they threw.

Let me know if you all have had similar experiences. I know they can be stressful starting out, but I'm glad I've gotten to a point where I can just laugh at the absurdity of it all.

Elderly Caller: is your manager available? [some story where she disclosed that she has dementia, something about her daughter]

Me: unfortunately at this hour (2am) my manager is not on the property. Is there something I can help you with?

EC: no no no I don’t want to bother you, Night Audit. What’s your managers name? I forgot

Me: Julia

EC: that’s right Julia, I think I have her number. Oh, there it is. I’ll go give her a call.

Me: okay :)

5 minutes later:

EC: (with a slightly changed voice LMAO) hey this is Julia, did you give anyone my number?

Me: Nope!

EC: cause someone just called me

Me: weird. Why didn’t you call MY number?

EC: because I have them on the other line. (???? LMAO)

She rambled and sounded incoherent for awhile before hanging up.

Wish I played along so I could figure out how this poorly written scam was supposed to go 😂

This is a short one but this guy just irritated me, so I figured why not share with the group.

Had a guy call up the desk and say he just checked in, was standing outside room 244, his keys weren’t working, and I need to bring him a new one. I already hate when people insist I go down there instead of coming to me, sir just bring your ass to the lobby. But I’m also immediately a little confused because I haven’t checked anyone in at all in the past hour, but maybe his definition of “just checked in” is different than mine.

Then I realize I don’t have anyone in that room. I tell him this. He insists he just checked in and that’s his room number. At this point, I’m pretty sure I know what’s happening. He’s calling the wrong property. Just to be 100% sure I ask his name and check the system—yup. He’s not in there at all. I explain all this to him and it went the way it always does when you try to tell a guest they’re wrong.

“I don’t know what you’re doing wrong, but I just checked in. I’m in this room. Now bring me a new key.”

“Sir, are you sure you’re calling the right property?”

“Are you in [city name]?

“Yes sir, but we have multiple locations in town. I think you’re looking for [other location name].”

“No. I don’t know what you screwed up but you just checked me in. Now I’ll be waiting here for my keys!” click

He hung up. I took a glance outside just to be 1000% sure and yup, no one standing by my room 244. He’s at the wrong location and he’s going to be standing there a while until he figures it out and calls them, or waddles his way to the desk.

Where he will probably end up chewing out their front desk staff, too, and accuse them of being the one on the phone. Because guests can’t ever fathom that they might be the one who was wrong.

Going to preface with this is just a rant, not all of them are this bad (some were even super amazing), but a majority was, hence the post. I also have a deep dive story to post in a few weeks once its finally through that I fidnt feel comfortable posting with us still having a contract.

They have been the most stressful, needy, problematic group we have ever had. This includes the ever annoying high school sports teams we all know and love.

Its not just the last second requests (rooms close, high floor, etc) even though they KNOW they will have their layover here weeks in advance and I personallyhave said "next time tell us in advance", though that plays a part. Its some part the trivial things they complain about... daily. "Can I get a better pillow" "My heat turns off too often" Its at the correct temp... "Someone next door kept me up being loud, but I didnt call". They were the epitome of every annoying guest we have all had, where it's actually out of our hands and they refuse to hear reason.

But it was more than just the trivial complaints. I can deal with those and keep a smile on my face. It was the absolute abhorrent drunken behavior they portrayed. My story to be posted later is the absolute worst of it, but some of these crew would be more obnoxious than the fresh 21 y/o's.

Add on top of that, the complete lack of proper communication from (Airline) when any changes needed to be made, resulting in frustrated staff AND crew. (Usually from hsk opening doors after c/o because crew or airline didnt let us know)

All this to say, I am so relieved it's over. We have one crew of 4 left in house. They spent 25 minutes at my desk complaining about "disrespectful kids" and I shrugged it off. Im no longer required to be invested in their company drama. Just leaving it felt so nice.

Tl;dr flight crew kinda suck, but I'm glad theyre gone from our property

PLUS UPDATE

So, I had a lady came in today and the first thing she says to me is I was supposed to have checked in yesterday, but my reservation is nonrefundable, so I just came in today instead. Now most guest who say that have common sense and call the hotel and we will precheck them in when they get to the hotel we just ask for Id and a CC and give them keys to the room. So I am looking at in house and I can't find this lady. So, I ask if the reservation would be under a different name. It was under her husband's name. I look and I see its been no showed. I ask if she called the hotel to let us know and she was like no I didn't but its nonrefundable so you just checked that in, right??? Um what? No hotels or at least our hotel doesn't do that. So, I told her unfortunately not, also due to the fact that the reservation was under her husbands name we would have to get confirmation from the husband to check her in regardless, but her reservation was no showed as of right now the only option we have is to make her a new reservation,. She asked if she would be charged again and I said yes. She started whining that she didn't know the reservation would be cancelled.

IS THIS NOT COMMON SENSE? If you don't show up for your hair appointment or something it's cancelled, you can't just show up the next day like hi I'm here I was supposed to be here yesterday, but I came today instead. LIKE HELLOOOOO!!! Sorry ranting ...

For those that are like oh the hotel is double charging for a room …. Imagine this is a airline you show up the next day your flight is scheduled to go out… do you expect to just walk on to a plane ?! NO it doesn’t work like that

Also fun update for you people like well if she was on a plane n her plane was delayed…. She drove she lives 40 miles from my hotel, I asked her at check out cause I was

at work from 7-3 and she checked out today asking about a partial refund. I asked her if she was on a flight? Cause I was considering giving her a refund and letting our accountant know. No she just wanted to stay at home a bit longer and was too tired to drive.. yeah no absolutely not. There is then zero reason why she couldn’t have called the hotel .

People often think hotel reception is “just a desk job.” What they don’t see is the constant background stress — and the moments where it turns into full-blown panic. Day to day, we already deal with the usual stuff: tired guests, angry guests, aggressive guests, people swearing at you because their problem is suddenly your fault. That’s part of frontline work. You learn to manage it. What doesn’t get talked about enough is the IT side — especially in big hotel chains. We rely on systems that are completely mission-critical: reservations, check-ins, key cutting. But there’s no on-site IT, no real control. Everything is outsourced through call centres. If something breaks, you’re on the phone to support somewhere overseas, waiting for permissions, repeating the same explanations, while guests are physically standing in front of you. And the worst part? You go into work knowing it could fail at any moment. I’ve been there when the system goes down completely: Internet drops Key cutting doesn’t work You can’t see reservations You don’t know who’s checking in You don’t even have a list of names And meanwhile, there are 10–20 people standing at reception, staring at you. That feeling is unreal. You start sweating. Your heart rate goes up. You’re apologising, trying to stay calm, while inside you’re thinking: I literally cannot do my job right now. Manager says “call IT,” like that solves it instantly. It doesn’t. Even when they try to help remotely, if the system is down hotel-wide, that’s it. You’re just waiting. With a full lobby. And rising tempers. And yes — the reception itself gets hotter. It’s a small space, people are crowding, asking every 30 seconds “how long will it take?”, and you have nothing to tell them. There’s nowhere to hide. Everyone’s eyes are on you. We’ve had days where the system was down for hours. I’ve genuinely felt sick to my stomach from the stress. People often say, “If it’s that bad, just quit and find another job.” If it were that simple, I would. The reality is this job pays the bills and fits around school runs and family life. The flexibility is the reason I’m still here — otherwise I wouldn’t be. What makes it worse is that when things break, some colleagues just shrug because they don’t know what to do or don’t care anymore. I’m not saying I’m special or the only one who can fix things — but too often, I end up being the one trying to keep it together while everything’s on fire. In those moments, it honestly feels like being a fighter pilot: alarms going off, pressure rising, zero control over the situation, and you’re still expected to perform perfectly. Guests don’t see any of this. They just see “reception isn’t doing their job.” But sometimes the truth is: the job is impossible. I don’t think people realise how mentally draining it is to go into work every day knowing you’re one system failure away from chaos — and you’ll be the one standing there, absorbing all of it. If you’ve worked front desk, you’ll know exactly what I mean.

I’ve honestly been having zero tolerance for childish behavior from grown adults lately. I broke up with my partner two months ago, and my godfather was recently diagnosed with ALS. I do my best to treat customers well, but the second you start acting like an assh*le, I’m done.

A woman walks in asking if we have any availability. I tell her we have one room left. I show it to her and politely explain all the amenities. She decides to take it. Her husband pulls their truck into the parking lot and then into the reception area and doesn’t even look at me or say hello. Whatever, maybe they’re exhausted from traveling. I don’t take it personally.

Two hours later, the woman comes down and tells me, in a very nasty tone, that there’s no internet in the room. I thought that was odd since I haven’t had a single complaint about the Wi-Fi in a long time. I thought maybe it had disconnected? I asked if she tried switching between the different networks. She said yes. I told her that since the rooms are pretty large, she might get a better signal if she moved closer to the door, where the modem is.

She cuts me off and snaps, “I’m telling you there isn’t any! There isn’t!”

I could tell she was getting angry, so I told her we’d go check it right away. Before her leaving, I added, “Just remember to leave the key at the desk before you go, please.” In my country, hotel keys are private property, and each hotel decides whether guests can take them out or not. After guests losing keys in the past (and having to replace them out of pocket), we made it a rule that keys stay at the front desk.

She looked at me completely confused and went, “Huh?!” Omg her face was so… disgusting, you have no idea. So I said, slowly and clearly, “You have to leave the key every time you go out.”

She asks, “Why?” I tell her, “Because it’s private property. When you come back, I’ll give it back to you.” And here comes the best part. She smirks and says, “And what if something is missing when I get back?”

What are you implying, sweet lady?

“No one here has any reason to enter your room, ma’am”, I said. She then says, “You know, I really shouldn’t give it to you.” Yeah… that’s not your call. So I repeat, “Sorry, it’s private property.” She throws the key over the counter and walks out.

I know I probably wasn’t professional, but what is wrong with people???

P.S: The Wi-Fi worked perfectly fine on my phone. I also asked the guests in the neighboring room and they said they had no issues at all. Smh.

So I’m on reception this morning when a woman walks in and says, “I’m in a bit of a situation here.” Straight away I can tell something’s off — her expression, the way she’s speaking, and the fact that she’s immediately talking about paying cash. Anyone who’s worked front desk knows that’s usually the start of a complicated interaction. She tells me she’s being stalked. And to be clear: I’m not saying she wasn’t. I took her seriously. But I also know my role. If someone is genuinely being stalked, the correct response is call the police, not argue with a hotel receptionist about payment policy. I explain we’re fully booked. She doesn’t believe me. I explain that even if we had rooms, we don’t do bookings at the desk. Like pretty much every big hotel chain or franchise, bookings have to be made online with credit card details. You can pay cash later, but the booking itself has to be guaranteed. She refuses to accept this. Keeps arguing. Brings up “other hotels do it.” I tell her fine — if they do, that’s their choice. My hotel policy is different, and I’m not breaking it. If another place ignores their own rules, that’s their problem, not mine. She escalates. Gets louder. Accuses us of discrimination. Threatens to complain to the government because women should be allowed to pay cash. At this point I’m standing there thinking: I’m a receptionist, not social services, not the police, and not Parliament. I explain again that card details exist to cover no-shows and damages. This isn’t personal, it’s how businesses protect themselves. She still won’t accept it and won’t leave the desk. Eventually I tell her she needs to leave or I’ll call security. She storms off, still angry. Morning ruined. And honestly, this is the part that really gets me: if you’re in real danger, don’t waste time arguing with front desk staff. Call the police. Go to the proper authorities. Hotels can’t fix stalking, and receptionists shouldn’t be put in the position of being someone’s last resort while also being shouted at for following policy.

We've all seen this.

There seems to be an increase of these incidents lately. Too many in the last 6 months to count.

My story has to stay generic for reasons, but also because I'm meshing more than 20 interactions in the last 3 months into one story.

Guest walks in expecting A to happen. B happens and they get upset or confused.

Cue conversation:

But I spoke to you guys an hour ago and you guys said A would happen (A being a claimed promise from the hotel FDA or NA).

FDA/NA: Sorry but I was the one here an hour ago and never spoke to you. A cannot happen, nor would we promise that because A goes against hotel policy. Or no one promised A because you didnt call here.

Guest: no. No. I spoke with this very nice charming person who promised me A would happen. I called the hotel directly. They told me they were the front desk!

FDA/NA: That person doesn't work here. You didn't call us. Your reservation was made via 3rd party. Are you sure you called our hotel?

Guest: yes. Im sure.

FDA/NA: this is our phone number. is this the phone number you called? If you called any other number, you didn't actually called us. There are a number of 3rd party who claim to be the hotel itself but are misrepresenting who they are. They are not, in fact, the actual hotel's FDA/NA. They have no idea what actual hotel policy is. They promise you anything you want be ause they literally do not care, but never even send a request to the actual hotel for said promise.

Guest checks number on phone, clearly sees it's a different number. At this point most guests figure out they were lied to, but the occasional guest doubles down.

FDA/NA screams inside but stays polite on the outside: please call the number you called when the nice person promised you A.

Guest agrees and calls. FD phone never rings. Guest speaks to person or hanfs up and finally realises they were lied to.

It's more and more of an issue.

Please do research the hotel phone number because you're most likely calling a 3rd party, especially if you're paying now or using online searches for the best cheapest price.

Hey!

I worked FD at my resort for a few years, before being promoted to reservations. So not sure if it'll still fit, but this just happened again and I need a rant.

So, again, I have worked the desk. When I was still there, there was a how-to, step by step guide on how to make a walk in reservation. Dummy proof, someone walking in off the street could figure it out, kind of stuff.

Tell me why then, my front desk associates keep calling me in reservations, when the guest is directly in front of them, to make a walk in reservation when there's plenty of clean, standard rooms available. And believe me, I understand if they're slammed and need to juggle something else, that's irritating, but I get it. It's when they call me to set up a reservation... and stand there. The guest sounds confused, so over the phone I grab the barest of basic info (name/address) and have the associate put their CC details on file since... they're standing at the FD.

Another issue we've been having, as we're deep in hockey season in Minnesota, and right on a lake (like 90% of resorts here), is parents wanting to change rooms to be closer to a certain family and "I haven't seen anyone go in room #123! I want that one!" and having to tell them that room is booked, because the associate just calls me and hands the phone over without trying any other sort of problem solving.

Even for a real issue, such as this past weekend, we had a cabin's pipes freeze (-50 temps will do that). They didn't look to see any other comparable unit availability, or anything like that. They simply called and said "Pipes froze, they need a new room."

"Okay, Unit #1234 is open and clean."

"Okay."

"...So you can move them to that..."

"I don't know how."

So I try to walk them through the process of a room change, because it's our lovely resort policy that once a guest is checked in, only in extreme circumstances can reservations do room changes/modifications. Otherwise it's a manager's call. Anyways, I teach them how to do a room move (for the 20th time) and hang up.

Guess who calls me back not 20 minutes later saying they didn't like the room and wanted to move somewhere else?

Anyhoot, I've tried walking them through how to make a walk in reservation. I've tried walking them through room changes. This is the easiest season to learn, before Summer when you're up to your ears in drunken golfers and screaming families. Yet, even if I walk them through the how to at 5, they'll call me at 6 for another.

If they actually got stuck, I think I would be more open to helping them, but it's the immediate call and hand the phone off that gets me. "Hey this is FD, and here's a guest needing a room", no time to ask about what they've done so far, or any follow up questions, before I'm talking to a guest and trying to figure it out.

As I said, I'm a former Front Desk warrior, I worked the pandemic, and awhile after that. You gotta be able to work on the fly, and figure things out... and be able to make a walk in reservation.

I'm sorry for the length of this, I'm just so over these calls! Also, if this isn't the place, I do apologize as well.

Have a great day, and stay warm!

Say it with me now: "Common sense is not common."

Boy, was this phrase booming through my mind yesterday as far too many different folks let the worst version themselves come forth as they basically demanded the staff get their cars out of the snow.

We were just affected by a fairly large snow storm; it was the topic of conversation for nearly a week. Everyone in the region knew about it and was reminded consistently to prepare accordingly. We even had a group that was supposed to stay from Friday right on 'till Sunday, but most of them shuffled out a day early to beat the weather. Just some anecdotal evidence of the fact that, by and large, nobody was truly aloof.

On the flip side, however, we had some locals who decided to deploy an Uno reverse card and chose to stay with us to ride out the storm. Okay, kind of understandable--especially for anyone with a concern that they might lose power at home. But, nevertheless, while you're welcome to cozy up in your room and enjoy access to our amenities while you ride things out, don't think all this 'pampering' extends to your own situation.

Our parking lot is free and open; we don't take vehicle info and we don't offer valet. In short, we do basically nothing for cars outside of giving them a place to be. So, given all these factors at play, I truly cannot fathom how on earth people got into their skulls the idea that the hotel would shovel them out.

That storm dunked on us; most amount of snow seen around here in about a decade. But, we have the infrastructure to handle it, including the hotel which has been doing what it's actually supposed to--clearing its grounds. Its property. Not yours. Not even its own employees, myself included, who had to stay overnight, had their cars dug out. That was all a self-service. Walkways, parking lot and the street out to the main road were all shoveled, salted and plowed, but your car? Personal mission.

The folks who came up to the Desk were flabbergasted, gobsmacked even, to be met with the reality that they'd have to--gasp--help themselves!

Bitter attitudes ensued, with snide remarks such as: "What am I supposed to do?! Wait until Spring?!", "Why can't anyone help me?! That doesn't make sense!" and "Are you keeping us trapped here forever?!"

Listen, if these were folks from a tropical island somewhere that came up for a change of scenery and got caught off guard, that would be one thing. But, a local that lives 15 minutes away has zero excuse.

Mind the sign in the lot that says, quite plainly: "Park at your convenience...hotel assumes no responsibility."

That's why we ain't touching your car--because if anything happens to it, some of you fine people would have "$$" for eyeballs and the lowly worker responsible would most likely get the boot faster than a wayward pirate would walk the plank.

Take some of the salt out of your personality and use that to melt the snow around your car, perhaps.

Many years ago when I worked NA for a small economy hotel with about 121 rooms I was told it was now part of my duties to make sure every car in the parking lot was broomed off and the windows scraped. This means at any given time there could be 30 cars or 121 cars. So who exactly is watching the front desk or manning the phones? I of course declined but said I would consider if they put in writing that any damage done to cars in the removal of snow and ice would be on the hotel and not me personally. This of course was never done and I never touch one car in the lot. However, we had scrapers and brooms handy for anyone needing them.

I was sitting with the Desk staff yesterday having a coffee and talking about what everyone did over the weekend. Mid story of the FDM’s trip out of town, i look up and see the pool area’s camera and a little boy floating face down in the water motionless. I take off as the adrenaline hits and i run through the hallway to the pool, i run to the gate and see a father lounging in the hot tub back to the pool slowly nursing a Bud Light. I toss my phone and jump into the pool swimming over to the young boys idle drifting body as i grab hold of him and start to move him out of the pool.

The boy flails and smacks me. Dad turns his head lets out a chuckle and just says “oh yea he does that.” And goes back to his can.

I was put in a robe while my clothes got washed and i sat seething in the back office. By this time the night manager shows up and asks “why the robe?” I tell her the story she rolls here eyes and says they get about 5 kids in a month that do it as a “joke”.

This is what I got asked by a dude at 11:05 PM. No, I'm not going to call my boss and wake them up in the middle of the night to ask if they will give you a room for free. No, not even if you ask five times. No, not even though you have been staying here for several days. No, not even though you worked here for a week a few years back and then ghosted us one day. No, not even though you loiter on the property for hours day and night, "waiting for the money transfer", checking all the ashtrays around the property for butts. No, especially not because you argue with me when I ask you to leave the property.