TalesFromTheFrontDesk: What story do you all want to hear about
Edit: Need a tale for my post to stay and since someone asked for one of the 3 at the bottom I’ll do “Go ahead and fire me”
I had been looking forward to this night for a while. Our FDM was going to start her shift at 7pm so she would get to be around for a bit to see the whole night audit process since she had 0 idea of what we did for night audit.
Now the audit at this hotel was a bit more involved than most hotels, it wasn’t just print some reports and stapling them together. We did a ton of accounting work and the whole thing took about 4 hours, 8 if you had to work alone. On any given night we had 3 employees working, 2 auditors and a shuttle driver. Our tale truly picks up with our shuttle driver. We didn’t run our airport pick ups on a schedule but rather the guest would need to call us once they had disembarked their flight and collected their luggage before we would send the shuttle. The reasons for this where simple, 1. The airport charges for shuttle pick ups, if the shuttle is only going to the airport when guests are guaranteed to be there it saves money. 2. There are about 30 airport hotels in my city, there are 2 airport shuttle pick up stalls for the airport. If you are there for longer than 10 minutes the airport slaps you with a big fine. 3. The most important reason, when you called the hotel we verify your reservation and ensure that your going to the right place. See when a guest gets on a shuttle, even if it’s not your guest, you become responsible for their safety. We don’t want to be responsible for other hotels guests, also it’s a huge pain in the ass for guests to end up at the wrong hotel by accident.
Now our hotel was owned by a group of owners, 3 of which had a ton of experience in the industry and all agreed that the guest comes first. The last owner was Mike. Now Mike held the smallest amount of ownership but was the most entitled. On this night of our FDM sticking around for the audit we are greeted to Mike on the phone, demanding that the shuttle be at the airport waiting for him when he gets off his flight. FDM is trying to argue that this isn’t how we run the shuttle and I can hear Mike losing his shit. FDM gives into Mike and sends the shuttle to wait for the entitled prick, despite the expensive fine we’ll be hit with.
Our shuttle driver goes to the airport and waits, and waits, and talks to the airport security, then he waits a bit more. Finally, a group of 8 guests show up and wish to take the shuttle, Mike hasn’t shown up yet. Our shuttle driver calls FDM and verifies that all 8 of these people are indeed guests, taking them and their luggage will fill up the shuttle and Mike’s plane just landed. FDM tells our shuttle driver to take the guests, she’ll wait for Mike’s angry call and then just tell him to take a taxi which the hotel will pay for, after all, guests should not be inconvenienced because of the owners.
Predictably Mike loses his shit. He’s yelling so loud that anyone in the lobby would be able to hear him. FDM takes the phone into the back and closes the door. Shuttle arrives and we check the guests in, no sign of Mike and FDM hasn’t come out of the back office.
Finally the phone rings and it’s FDM, she asks if I could come to the back office. When I do, I see her bawling. Mike has fired her. She’s a complete mess so I grab some tissues for her and tell her to relax, breathe and right up and incident report to the GM as well as the owners excluding Mike. As she’s doing this Mike has been checked in by the other auditor who said Mike came with 4 of his buddies and they went down to the garage not the suite he commandeered.
Few minutes later and FDM comes out, she still looks like a mess but she isn’t crying anymore. My coworker relays that Mike is checked in and that he and his buddies went down to the garage, where FDM is parked. She begins to panic and I stop her and tell her to hand me her keys, I’ll grab her car for her and drive it up to the entrance where she can then go home, sleep and wait for the inevitable call from the GM in the morning. She hands me her keys and tells me “Zombie, if Mike tries anything please don’t do anything stupid” I simply smirk. I am known for applying boots to asses when needed.
Mike and his cronies are waiting in front of FDMs car. I don’t even regard their presence and get into my managers car, this enrages Mike who starts tapping on the window as his fuck wits get in front of the car. I roll the window down “Can I help you Mike?” He starts shouting “Where is FDM, Your not going anywhere, get out of the car or your fired,…” I just let him blow his nut, I don’t even look at him which pisses him off even more. I start the car up and look at him, he stares back, spittle flying from his foaming mouth “Get. Out. Of. The. Car. Or. Your. Fired!”
I can’t help it, I’m an ass. “Go ahead and fire me” and with that I roll up my window and put the car into 1st. A few of his friends take a step back, now unsure about standing in front of a car with a driver behind the wheel who seems to give zero fucks. Mike is screaming at them not to move, I wouldn’t dare, blah blah blah. I do dare. I very gently press the accelerator and move the car forward ever so slowly. His friends aren’t as stupid as I thought and they get out of the way.
I get to the lobby, usher my FDM into her car as she’s understandably worried about what stupid thing I did. She drives away just as Mike and co step out of the elevator. I should note, Mike’s an albino, whiter than a fucking white board but in that moment he was as red as a tomato. He comes out yelling about how I’m fired and if I don’t leave the property in the next 30 seconds he’s calling the cops. I just laugh all the way to my car. Flipping him off as I drive away.
Then I sat at my computer at home, Dr. Pepper in hand as I write up my own incident report and kick back to relax, waiting for the inevitable call. It came a lot sooner than I had anticipated, it was also one of the other owners calling me and not the GM. I came back to work after being gone for maybe 2 hours at most.
The fallout was interesting. I was given a slap on the wrist in front of Mike, my best guess is that the GM was forced to. FDM kept her job and never did get to see the audit process. Mike however was banned from using the hotel he owned. If he had a problem with that he could sell his shares to the other owners.
I’ll admit. I could have handled it much better, I was young, stupid and full of anger. GM and FDM sure weren’t happy with how I dealt with things but they weren’t angry either. All in all, when I look back I can see how much I’ve grown as an individual and hope that while you enjoy the tale, you don’t try anything as stupid as I did.
I didn’t work hotels for a long time. I worked maybe 5 years total but holy hell did I have some of the worst luck.
I have a lot of crazy stories but not a lot of time to tell them so I figured I’d ask you all what you want to hear.
Night auditor vs the catering manager
Couldn’t cash that cheque
When guests should shut up
What’s the worst that could happen?
I probably have a ton more smaller stories and things that happened while I worked the hospitality industry but these are all the big ones. So let me know which one you want to hear about first and I’ll get to work on it.
prguitarman
annaxmalina
germansingergirl
kianamaiart
titsay
baratheonpilled
2087
