Hotels often make extra money by hosting various types of events. This not only makes money by charging groups to use their conference space, but also because the attendees will often book a room at the hotel.

What would you do if one of the events at your hotel was quite loud, which prompted one guest to get very upset because it was keeping him up at night?

That is what the front desk worker in this story experienced, so he tried to sympathize with the customer. He even told him that it was understandable that he was upset and recommended talking to the manager about it.

The next time he worked, he saw that the guest not only complained about the noise, but also that the worker (him) was rude, even though he couldn’t have been nicer.

Personally, I think the guest was just very frustrated and was complaining about everything he could think of. Read through the full story and see what you think about it.

I was on the guest’s side, he complained about me anyway

In today’s episode of “sometimes you just can’t please everyone,” our feature character is Mr. Misery.

Honestly, I don’t blame him for having to listen to a loud event.

Mr. Misery was big mad about the noise coming from one of our event spaces; this particular space being the bane of my front desk Team’s existence for several months throughout the year.

Its soundproofing is poor, so music will leak out into the majority of the guestrooms.

Seems like a very reasonable complaint to me.

During the day, it’s not too much of a problem. But, understandably, people are much less forgiving of this during nights where we have late-running events.

Mr. Misery called down to inquire when this particular event would end, which was 11pm.

He is obviously tired and grumpy.

When I told him this, he got even more upset: “Last night there was something, and now you’re telling me tonight I have to up with this again? If I had known, I would’ve left this morning!”

I apologized, and told him that we did send out notices via text as well as had letters posted up by the Front Desk. But, his retort to that was: “We should’ve been told of this when we made the reservation!”

What does he expect him to do about it?

Again, I heard him out and replied: “Unfortunately, our system isn’t designed for that. In any case, I do understand your frustration.”

There was a small pause before he snapped back: “Well I don’t really think you do understand because you’re not doing anything about it!”

I bet he is hoping for a discount.

At this point, I was too tired to even go into defense mode. Thus, surprising even myself, I was simply able to say back: “I wish I could help further, but we’re sold out tonight so I’m unable to offer a room move.”

He gave a sharp sigh and then demanded a manager, who I said was on break and that I didn’t know when he’d be back. Nevertheless, another one would be available in the morning as well.

He should ask for a refund before jumping right to disputing the charges.

To that, he said: “I’ll most certainly be disputing my bill, because I find this whole thing to be ridiculous.”

Again, I remained neutral in tone and responded: “That’s fine, sir. Do what you need to do.” He asked for my name, I provided, and before I could say anything else, he slammed the phone down.

Well, at least he got a free meal out of it.

I was off for two days after that, so I didn’t find out until returning and perusing through our daily logs that Mr. Misery did indeed visit the Desk the next morning.

During so, he made good on his promise to see a manager. She logged that she had comped his meal charges as he was “upset not only about the event noise, but especially upset at the way FD spoke to him.”

If she is dealing with that many complaints, maybe the hotel should make some changes.

To be honest, I chuckled when I read that. I had just so happened to be working alongside said manager when I made the discovery, and inquired about it with her.

She didn’t remember the length and breadth of that conversation because the entire morning was a torrential flood of compensations, apologies and firefighting as a result of what was overall a chaotic weekend for us.

At least he didn’t get in trouble.

I wasn’t reprimanded in the slightest anyway.

I just continue to find it funny that I heard this chap out, audibly was on his side, and he decided to escalate his frustration with the situation to me not helping him. Classic.

Just because you agree with someone doesn’t mean they think you are on their side. This worker didn’t offer any compensation or solutions to the problem, which is partly why he was so upset.

If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about a hotel worker who doesn’t want to let guests reserve handicapped parking spots in advance.

Let’s take a look at what the people in the comments have to say about the story.

Maybe the guest thought he was being uncaring.

The customer did have a legitimate complaint.

If the hotel doesn’t fix the soundproofing, customers will keep complaining.

Management needs to do something about soundproofing.

The guest shouldn’t have blamed him.

Sometimes there is just no pleasing a guest at a hotel. While this guest certainly had a valid complaint, he didn’t have a reason to be upset with the employee.

Fortunately, the manager knew that the employee wasn’t at fault and didn’t punish them in any way. Now that’s what I call a good manager.

If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about a customer complaint that led to them losing their VIP status.