When you’re tired and checking into a hotel, the last thing you want is attitude and bad smells.

So, what would you do if you arrived at your hotel after an exhausting day of travel, only to find your room filled with paint fumes and a manager who dismissed you? Would you raise your voice and argue until you got your way? Or would you find a quieter, more creative way to make your point?

In the following story, one hotel guest finds herself in this situation and decides to make herself at home in the lobby. Here’s what happened.

How to maximize inconvenience to hotel management.

Counting transfers and flight time, it took my father and me 18 hours to get to NYC. We arrived for check-in and saw a raucous group of loud Germans at the counter, complaining about their rooms and being obnoxious about it.

My polite, small Brazilian self waited to get attention from someone, opened a smile, and politely asked for my keys.

The manager just pointed me to a Spanish-speaking employee, even though I was speaking English perfectly, and I considered that a downgrade, as in “talk to your own, I’m too good for you.”

She felt like a second-class guest.

Oh, I’m Brazilian and speak Portuguese, but just fell into the “Latino” category. But ok, I was exhausted and really just wanted my keys.

Arriving on the floor, I understood the drama. The walls were being painted, and the smell of paint was out of this world. We went to the room to see if it was better, but it was insalubrious, I mean, no human being, and not my elderly father, could possibly sleep there.

So we went back to the lobby, and the Germans and more guests were complaining. I wouldn’t outscream them, and also, I knew I was a second-class guest to the hotel staff.

To get attention, she started making herself at home in the lobby.

Idea time.

I went to the largest sofa in the main lobby, opened our suitcases on the floor, and made a point of being as messy as possible, spreading our coats and other belongings.

Then I took off my shoes and my father’s, took off all the shoes from the luggage, and made a beeline across part of the lobby so people would have to walk around them.

It didn’t take long to get a different room.

I also took off our socks and put them to dry on top of the leather armchairs. Then we both laid out on the couches, barefoot. The image of “classy.”

We didn’t have a room, right? So we might as well camp at the lobby!

In less than 10 minutes, we had a key to another floor, smell-free, while the Germans were still complaining at the counter.

Wow! That was one way to make a point.

Let’s check out what the readers over at Reddit would’ve done in this situation.

It’s basically what she was doing.

Here’s someone who can’t get over her knowledge of the English language.

According to this comment, it was a brilliant plan.

This about sums it up.

What a quick change of mind. It’s hard not to wonder how long it would’ve taken if she had chosen another way to make the point.

If you liked that story, check out this post about an oblivious CEO who tells a web developer to “act his wage”… and it results in 30% of the workforce being laid off.