Not many people my age can say that they've had the pleasure (or displeasure) of working at a hotel. Although this article is about the things that annoy me at work, there are many things I love about my job; after all, I've been working at a hotel for about a year now. Here are a few things I love:
1. Spare time means paid time to do my homework or read a book.
2. I get the incredible opportunity of creating a lasting impression on people who have never been to my city.
3. I meet new people every time I work.
4. I now have an understanding of how hotels work, so I never get anxious about making reservations for myself.
5. I have some really wonderful coworkers.
But, since this would be a rather bland article if I only mentioned the things I like about my job, here are the things that I don't like:
1. So many people come down to the desk in the morning to ask for the safe charge to be removed. I have no problem with making them happy, but they probably have to stand there and wait for me to adjust off the $1.50 (plus tax) and print a new receipt way longer than that $1.61 is worth.
2. People actually expect me to walk to their rooms and plunge their toilets.
3. We have a bell resting on the counter at the desk, and its purpose is to alert us to waiting customers. Well, I've discovered that the mere existence of this infernal bell irritates me. Firstly, it's annoying when I see someone on the TV monitor in the back, and they ring the bell when I'm halfway to the desk. Then, I hate when people just stand at the desk and don't use the bell and expect me to notice them on the monitor. Lastly, I think it's rude when parents lift their kids up to let them play with the bell...or worse, when they do the exact same thing as full-grown adults.
4. Unfortunately, with only one desk worker per shift, sometimes customers have to be asked to "please hold." No one likes being put on hold, but if you agree to wait, then I don't expect to pick up the phone less than a minute later and get an earful of dial tone.
5. The customer says that they are checking out, so you check them out and charge the card on file, only to have them realize that they don't want the card on file to be charged. (Also, we ask at check-in for the card the guest wants to use, which seems to imply "the card you want to be charged.")
6. They ask for towels to be brought to them, even though, as I mentioned before, there is only one front desk representative working at any given time.
7. "Can't you just send maintenance up?" (Maintenance workers aren't paid to be on the job around the clock, and they aren't on call.)
8. Being the front desk worker on duty apparently means that you have complete and total control of every single resident...meaning that you are expected to somehow contain little kids and barking dogs and any other disruptive guests.
9. They crank up the sound on the television in the commons area, making it extremely difficult to talk on the phone or communicate with guests.
10. They stay up until the early hours of the morning, drinking beer and eating pizza in the breakfast area without cleaning up after themselves.
11. You check some guests in, verbally tell them the username and password to the WiFi, show them that you stamped the username and password on the sleeve for their key cards as a reminder, and they still call down five minutes after getting to their room to ask for the exact information you just gave.
12. They expect breakfast to be served before the given breakfast hours.
13. They come in five hours early to check in without even wondering if they'll be charged extra, while assuming that a room will be ready.
14. You call around to other hotels for their availability, the person who answers asks for your availability in return, and then the same person calls back less than an hour later asking for the availability you just specified.
15. Potential customers don't understand why you can't just match the rate that was listed on third party sites online.
16. "Is that the best rate you can do?" Would I have quoted it to you if it wasn't the best I could do? (If they should receive a special rate or company discount, they would've mentioned it earlier.)
17. They yank their cups out from under the juice dispenser before the juice has stopped dribbling out.
18. They wait until the week before to try to book a room for a huge local event. (I'm sorry, but we've actually been booked for, like, six months.)
19. They want to be put next to pretty much every other person they know when their family is in town, as if being under the same roof or on the same floor isn't good enough.
20. They take all of the pool towels up to their rooms, ignoring the sign that asks for them to please leave them in the hampers to be laundered.
21. They grab the pen out of your hand while you're marking where they need to initial and sign the paperwork, then ask where they're supposed to sign.
22. They disregard the sign that says that we don't allow food or drink in the pool room.
23. They expect for us to pay for the shipping fee to send back their forgotten and left behind belongings.
24. They ask for directions, then ask for the address to put into the GPS.
25. Although several people per day leave the front desk workers with positive feedback on their time spent at the hotel, many people complain about things that could've been taken care of if we had known about them sooner. (The best we can do once the stay has been completed is to offer whatever compensation they believe is fair.)
Note: I love my job. This list is definitely not applicable to the majority of the guests I have dealt with during my time as a hotel worker. However, in this case, these experiences make for better entertainment than all of the many things I like about being a front desk employee.
