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There’s only so many times you can give someone the same answer before you start wondering what they expect to hear.

In the following story, we’ll meet a hotel front desk employee who runs into that very thing after a man called looking for a one-bedroom suite that was unavailable.

Even after he explained it several times, the customer kept asking the same question like the answer might somehow change.

Then, not long later, he called back and acted like they’d never spoken before.

As if that wasn’t bad enough, another customer showed up expecting the same room type that was still unavailable.

Read on to see how the shift played out.

The crazies are out

I don’t know what is in the air this week, but whew!

I had a man call around 11:30 p.m., and I could tell he was kinda drunk. He tells me he’s trying to book a one-bedroom suite for tonight, and it’s not letting him.

I inform him that’s because we don’t have any available.

The guy wouldn’t take no for an answer.

He’s like, well, your app says you do, and I say, unfortunately, we simply don’t have any available for check-in tonight.

I tell him the only thing I have available for him to check into would be double queens.

He says, I thought all [insert select service brand here] had suites, and I say that the brand considers suites anything with a kitchen in it, and all of our rooms have fully equipped kitchens, so technically they are all suites, but we only have one room type with the actual separate bedrooms.

He says, “So you’re telling me you don’t have any rooms with a separate space in it?”

He laid the phone down for a moment and the customer hung up.

Like, yes! That’s exactly what I’m telling you. I’ve already told you like three times now! As if he keeps asking, suddenly I’m gonna have one ready.

As we’re discussing, a man comes down to the market and picks out a few items, and I start ringing him up.

The man on the phone asks about our breakfast. I briefly pull the phone away from my mouth to tell the man at my desk the total for his items. It takes all of two seconds to relay this info.

The man on the phone immediately starts going, hello? hello? hello? hello? I can’t hear you. Hello? hello? hello? I return to the phone, relay the information about breakfast and what we offer, and then he hangs up.

When the guy called back, he acted as if he was a different person.

Not even five minutes later, the same man calls the hotel, and he acts like he has no idea who I am or anything relating to our first conversation. He says he’s trying to book online, and it’s not letting him because it’s past midnight, so he just wanted to see what kind of rooms we have available right now.

I tell him the same thing because the same info is the same! We only have double queens, no kings, no one-beds. He asks me again, “So you don’t have anything with the separate living space?”

Craziest part is the caller ID has his name on it, so I knew it was him when I answered the phone!

I tell him again, no, nothing with the separate living space is available for check-in tonight, and he asks if the double queen has a pullout sofa. I tell him it does not, and he hangs up.

Then, someone else tried basically the same thing.

I then had another man who had called right before my 3 to 11 left, and he got her on the phone, and he told her he was looking to stay tonight and he wanted to upgrade into a one-bedroom suite. She tells him we don’t have any. All we’ve got is double queens.

He books thru the app and shows up to check in later on with me, and he asks me for a free upgrade and tells me that he checked the app and it says we have them, so the lady from earlier must’ve been wrong.

I tell him we don’t have any one-bedroom suites available, and he’s not exactly, like, rude about it, but he’s very, like, well, I’m a shiny elite member, and you see my status in there, right, and why does the app say something different?

I just tell him sometimes the online inventory isn’t always up to date with our actual current inventory. I give him a snack from the market for free as an apology and send him on his way. I was so glad when it hit 12 and inventory for yesterday closed. I had never been more relieved.

Wow! When customers are acting like that it makes for a long night.

Let’s see if the people over at Reddit can relate.

Sometimes, you just have to know what to say.

This is probably the case for some booking software, but not all.

Good point.

If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about an employee who thought HR was doing them a favor, only to realize they were really saving the company money.

There’s nothing like a little passive-aggression to get your point across.

Some people love to test your patience.

Once the front desk employee told him there were no rooms available, he should’ve just let it go.

But rather than call another hotel, he decided to call back and pretend to be someone else.

The employee was probably never happier to see the end of his shift.