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Hotels have busy times just like any job, but the guests typically don’t know (or care) about that when they ask for a service.

What would you do if you were working the front desk when a customer kept calling to have their room cleaned even though you said it would be done as soon as possible?

That is what was happening to the front desk worker in this story, and finally the guest came down to yell at her in person. The worker, however, was not going to take this abuse, so she put the guest in her place.

I’m not sure that she was as professional as she should have been, but it was definitely funny. Read through the full story below and see if you think she handled it properly.

Let me just go annoy the front desk during the check in rush and I will get everything I want 🙂 /vent

I clock into my mid shift and my coworker is expected in an hour, no worries.

Is she ready for a busy shift?

I am used to mid shift at 600+ room hotels and currently work at a 150 room hotel, so a steady check in rush doesn’t bother me when I’m on my right meds. But it’s pride weekend and we’re 100% occupied, I get an energy drink and just hope for the best.

This hotel is small, all correspondence is done via a messaging app to all departments- housekeeping, maintenance, etc.

Guests don’t care about busy times.

What DOES bother me when I’m in this situation is when a guest constantly calls asking for a complete room turnover during the check in rush and telling me morning shift said it would be done by 3pm (beginning of check in time).

It was 3:30pm when I receive call number 1 telling me the above.

I tell her I will reach out to housekeeping and can call her back WHEN I get a response. I message the HK manager, no reply.

This guest must really want that room turnover.

I’m checking in one guest after another. 10/15 minutes goes by, no update from housekeeping. The guest calls again, 3:45ish, I tell her I haven’t received a response from the housekeeping manager, so that’s why I haven’t called back yet but will follow up with housekeeping again.

I say goodbye as there is a line of guests out the door. She calls again 5 minutes later and I repeat verbatim what I say 5 minutes before as I’m making keys for a guest filling out their registration form and I’m registering their parking.

I just know who this guest will be.

A couple minutes later my coworker finally makes it in a few minutes early. We work through the rest of the check in line, I’m completing the check in for the last person in my line but there’s a lady staring at me who will not accept the help from my coworker.

When the guest I just finished with walks away I see the housekeeping manager finally got back to me. The housekeeping team is small and there was almost a whole room turnover today, so I know they are BUSY.

Wow, this is a bold way to start a conversation.

The lady who has been staring at me, not saying anything storms over to me as I have the front desk phone in my hand- I pause and say hello how can I assist you.

“You’re the rude girl on the phone who dismissed my request for room service”

I just dead pan and say “Sure, but I communicated what I could do in my capacity and was picking up the phone to call you right now actually.” She rants about how long she’s been waiting for her room to be cleaned, the miscommunication of our departments blah blah.

She is trying to stay polite.

I reply “I’ll apologize for the overestimated timeframe for room service provided by the morning team but our staff is working as diligently and quickly as possible with the high demand due to room occupancy turnover.

Housekeeping is aware of your request, I know you were told 3pm and it wasn’t completed by then. I’ve reached out multiple times to housekeeping, who was just able to get back to me and *reads her the housekeeping managers response*”

Nothing will make this customer happy.

She says “I need towels, paper towels, trash refreshed. Everything.” All I say is ok I’ll be right back and grab her a set of towels and paper towels from the back office, bring them out to her

She says “NO I want house keeping to deliver it and DO THEIR JOB. And I want you to apologize for your lack of communication.”

Well, this is not going to make the customer happy.

I literally LAUGHED 😂😂 then say “no, thanks I told you I would call you back when I received a response from the housekeeping manager, which I JUST received, and who is working very hard with her housekeepers to service the rooms as quickly as possible. I was also checking in 22 guests in the past hour while delegating the communication necessary to complete your service request.”

I don’t even remember what she said because she started going off and asking for a refund and I just go indifferent and print out my GMs contact info and tell her “At this point we’re not reaching a resolution so you can email everything you told me to my manager and have a great day.”

I have to say, this isn’t very professional.

The look of shock on her face😂😂😂 I’m sorry you have this gen zillenial all the way messed up if you think I’m paid enough to be talked down to and as if I’m going to let you rant about our housekeepers who work hard in the lobby for everyone to hear. No.

She tried to double down on her rudeness and I just say “Yep! You can take that up with my manager because I’ve completed all I can do in this role! Housekeeping will service your room shortly make sure your DND sign isn’t on the door! Have a great day.”

Convenient, the manager isn’t even on site.

She makes sure to get my name and walks away.

I KNOW this hotel doesn’t have the most efficient system for situations like this but at the end of the day all departments get everything done.

My FD manager is on vacation and the new AGM is working 7 days straight starting tomorrow, so this was the only day this week we didn’t have a formal manager in office, of course.

I guess she doesn’t care much about this job.

I use to night audit and am about to go back to night auditing and I’ve literally worked a shift where the building caught on fire without a manager, who did have to come in when the building evacuated, so I feel comfortable in most situations, so honestly nothing phases me anymore especially someone complaining.

I just got hired for a night audit role at a 400+ room hotel, so I look forward to something different. I’ll remain at this smaller hotel for a couple days out of the week but I won’t miss mid shifts.

When you don’t care too much about a job, you can usually get away with a lot.

Let’s see what the people in the comments have to say about it.

People can be pretty gross.

These guests are not welcome back.

I love this person’s way of handling upset guests.

People love to scam the hotels for a free night.

This commenter has a great way to handle guests like this.

You have to be firm with some guests, or they will walk all over you. I’m betting that this guest thought that they could get a discount, or even a free room, if they complained enough.

While the worker may not have been professional, she did handle the difficult situation in a way that got the guest to go away. That is certainly something.