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Things can easily go wrong when you are traveling, but getting angry about it is not going to help.

What would you do if a guest was trying to check into your hotel, but he had already cancelled his room, which was booked through a third party, and now nothing was the way he wanted it and it was going to cost him more to book a new room?

That is what the hotel worker in this story was dealing with, and no matter how helpful he was trying to be, the guest kept getting upset and didn’t understand what it meant that he booked through a third party. Eventually, the hotel worker kicked the guest out, but the guest finally calmed down and apologized, which made it possible to help him.

These are the types of things that hotel workers have to deal with all the time, unfortunately. Read through the full story below and see what you think of how it was handled.

“What is the 1st, 2nd and 3rd party?”

Yes, that is the exact quote from a guest I had earlier today who is a GROWN MAN in his 60s, mind you.

Things like this always happen at the most inconvenient times.

So, about an hour and a half ago as I’m writing this (7pm which of course, is when things like this happen when I’m about to eat dinner) a guy comes in looking to check in.

I got his name and he said “Town”. (Not his actual name but unironically his last name is the same as the town my hotel is located in)

Does he even have a reservation?

I try to find the name and I can’t find anything. I ask for a confirmation number and he looks at me for a second like I got 3 heads. Then I say, “I can’t seem to find anything under that name.”

And this is how that conversation went….

Let’s see what happened here.

“What do you mean?”

“I’m looking up that name Town, T-O-W-N and I can’t see anything in my system for today.”

“How is that possible?”

pause “I don’t know, sir. Did you just make this reservation?”

“No, I made it like 4 days ago!”

There is no need to get upset about this, sir.

At that point he raises his voice and angrily starts tapping on his phone. He then grumbles that he needs to go outside to get his glasses. He takes two steps then turns around and then gives me his full name to try.

I had already done that because I had a feeling that this name sounded familiar. It’s not an uncommon last name, but for a guest to have the same name as where the hotel is located will stick with you.

Oh, great. This guest has been trouble in the past.

Lo and behold, it was the name of a guy I was hoping I’d never have to deal with…..

So, the story behind this guy happened last Wednesday, which was my day off. My coworker was working my 3-11 shift and he got Mr. Town who had booked 2 reservations through Priceline and wanted to cancel.

Why do some people get so upset over the littlest things?

My coworker told him the usual thing that we are unable to cancel the reservations because it was a 3rd party reservation, etc. and Mr. Town got VERY upset and angry, started screaming and yelling over the phone.

He demanded that my coworker call Priceline for him and we already know we can’t do that…My coworker tried to help him and explain it again, but he got sick of being yelled at, so he told Mr. Town to call back for the General Manager and hung up on him.

It is good to warn your coworkers.

Mr. Town called back and my coworker told him again that he needs to call for the General Manager after 9am tomorrow.

Now, I was working the morning shift and I saw a note he left for the front desk quote “Mr. Town is a rude ******* guest, please read notes before helping him” and y’know….We’re not supposed to curse on any communication between the hotel obviously, so it was a surprise to read.

Nobody should have to deal with a guest like this.

I found the reservations and I read the note. My coworker doesn’t really write detailed notes and is absolutely horrendous with basic grammar and spelling, so he rushed through the note.

All it said basically was that the guest was screaming at him over the phone, he did hang up on him and told him to call in the morning for the GM and that he wasn’t going to help him if he was being screamed at. Which, fair enough.

Hopefully this got taken care of.

But, I was in that next morning and to my knowledge, he never called to talk to the GM.

I assume it was taken care of or my GM talked with him, so both reservations were cancelled by my GM and it was up to Priceline if they refund him.

This guy is not worth the trouble.

So come today, only one of those reservations were supposed to be cancelled and not both of them. Apparently he messed up and made a reservation for 1 night instead of 2, so he made another one for 2 nights and wanted the reservation with 1 night to be canceled.

I told him that I understood, but the note I have says that he wanted to cancel and they were canceled on our end at his request. He said that wasn’t his fault and I told him I understood, but again, he wanted them to be cancelled.

Ok, problem solved. Right?

So, he looked down, I guess trying not lose his mind and asked if we have rooms available for 2 nights and I say yes we do. He asked for the price and I gave him the cheapest room type which is 1 King Standard and he asks why it’s so high for a Monday.

I told him we have much fewer rooms available today than tomorrow and it’s also the first week of the state fair. He says he doesn’t have a choice so he’ll book it.

There is nothing they can do if it wasn’t booked directly through them.

I get his ID and start filling out his information and then he starts getting agitated again. Said that the website was confusing and whatever entity still hasn’t refunded his money, making it seem like it’s our fault.

I told him yeah they would do that to you and it’s a pain dealing with 3rd parties and we haven’t charged him, so they would need to take care of that.

Has he never heard the term 3rd party before?

He then said “You people keep saying 3rd party what is that? What’s the other 2 parties?”

I’m baffled. “What?”

“What are the 3 parties?”

The concept should be pretty easy to explain.

“Oh, no sir it’s not like that. It’s just by definition it means they’re not associated with the hotel.”

“You’re not answering my question. What are the 1st, 2nd and 3rd parties?”

Sometimes, even simple concepts are too difficult.

“Again, that means they’re not associated with the hotel.” at this point, I open a tab to search up what a 3rd party is defined at because I can’t believe I needed to find a definition of something that a man 40 years old than me didn’t know.

I was right btw but I was trying to be simple because my brain wasn’t working, but I thought I got the idea through his head….but I guess not.

Dealing with someone like this would be very frustrating.

So, then with all the attitude I’m given, I’m on my last straw with this guy. I then tell him, “I’m not going to have that conversation with you, I’d rather just get you taken care of and checked in.”

Then he says that what I said was rude and then I started handing back his ID and card. I then told him that he can leave and have a good day.

People hate it when they are already talking to the manager.

Then he asks “What’s my room number?”

I told him that he needs to leave and he can have a good day.

Then he sighs and asks for the manager. I smile and tell him I’m the manager on duty.

Just because you are angry doesn’t mean you can take it out on the staff.

Then he goes silent, looks down and I’m just standing there like. 😐

He then tells me again that this wasn’t his fault and I tell him it’s not my fault either. He said he’s very frustrated and that whole thing made him mad.

I told him I understand.

Some people get so upset about the smallest inconvenience. And they need to be called out for it.

Then he complained about the coworker that hung up on him and I told him because he was trying to help but you were yelling and shouting at him.

I told him I was trying to help him, get him a room despite the trouble and he’s being very nasty. I told him that whatever Priceline did is out of our hands, he just cannot behave the way he is because won’t be able to help him.

Maybe he will behave now.

He starts to look defeated and then apologizes. He said he understood and he told me he has nowhere else to stay for the next 2 days. I asked “Are we cool now?” and he said yes.

I guess he realized how screwed he would be if I was firm on having him leave. Because believe me, I was 2 seconds away from calling the cops if he didn’t relax and calm down.

Is the drama really over?

So, I start over the check-in process and I go through the usual things and I even got him a floor preference. He then thanked me and went on his way.

And believe me, I still feel like he’s not done yet because I don’t know if he will complain about my coworker and I to my GM in the morning.

He handled the situation very well.

But, I’d like to think I handled this better than I have in the past.

Instead of shutting down I stood my ground and remained as respectful as possible.

It is crazy how some people think that getting upset will get them what they want when the opposite is normally true. Sadly, these people tend to get away with their bad behavior too often.

Let’s see what the people in the comments have to say about how this hotel worker handled the very difficult guest.

The guest’s head would explode if there were a fourth party.

This commenter explains it quite well.

I think this commenter is correct.

He did handle the guest very well.

If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about an employee who gets fired, then ends up with extra cash due to a loophole in the termination letter.

Well, this is a bit extreme.

Getting angry rarely makes a difficult situation any easier. People need to learn to control their tempers and remain rational, even during hard situations.

Sadly, the person in this story isn’t likely to learn his lesson anytime soon.