One Bad Apple Doesn't Spoil The Whole Bunch!
I'm Back.....We've been open for a few weeks and I've had nothing to write about. Which is a good thing! Unless you write a blog and your readers like to hear about the crazy stuff (and not the flowers or breakfast or beautiful sunsets, you know the typical "boring" stuff).
Here we were, on a winning streak. Almost 4 weeks and nothing but great guests. Until recently. We had a big group check in and they all were wonderful. Until one of their teammates, Mr.Wrong showed up. Right from check-in, it was one thing after another. First, the location wasn't exactly where this guest wanted to be, and made sure I knew it when he entered the lobby. After hesitantly checking in, he wanted to know where he can get some dinner. At 9:38 pm! Since 99% of the restaurants around here close at 9 pm, I thought, Oh boy, this isn't going too well. A disappointed 'hungry' guest. I've got to find this guy a restaurant. Luckily the nearest restaurant, The Rose and Kettle, serves a late night menu. Thank God! By the way, a fantastic place if you are in the area.
So off he goes to fill his belly. Things will be better with a full stomach. Right? No. Wrong! When he comes back, it is now 11 pm. I'm still at the front desk when he walks in and asks, "Was my luggage delivered?" No, I'm sorry, it wasn't. "Well, the airport said it was!" Well let me ask my husband and see if he put it away. No, I am sorry, but it wasn't delivered yet. "The airport said it was signed for!" Well maybe they delivered it to the wrong hotel. Why don't you call them. "I would, but my charger is in my suitcase and my phone is dead. Could you call the airport for me." How about you use our phone to call them, as I slowly pushed the phone towards him. Afraid to make any sudden movements around him. While he was talking to the people at the airport, I went upstairs and got an extra charger. As I was checking to see if it would fit his phone, he yelled at me "You can't keep my phone in here overnight!" No, I was giving the charger to you to take back to your room, you're welcome very much.
After about 15 more minutes of arguing with the airport, it was discovered that after losing his bag, they didn't actually deliver it anywhere yet. It was supposedly en route and they weren't sure when it would be here. I have been in this situation of lost luggage hell and sympathized with this man. I told him I would leave a note on our front door for the delivery man to bring it directly to his room. All was well, or so I thought.
The next morning after coming into the lobby, I noticed a bag in front of one of the rooms. They had delivered the piece of luggage and left it outside his door. I went and got it and brought it inside the lobby, so as not to have people walking around it. When he walked into the lobby, I said, Great news, your bag is here. He took it, with barely a mumble, and walked out.
About an hour later, he came back in. "I'm going to need to cancel the rest of my reservation. I would like to get something closer to where my son is playing baseball." Well, I'm sorry, but we have a two week cancellation policy. And considering we are booked and we have been holding your room since November. We can try and rerent your room for you though, if you would like to leave. "Are you kidding? But I want to leave now and I need better cell phone coverage." I'm sorry, all I can do is try and rerent your room. If we hadn't held your room for the past 7 months, we could have rented it to someone else. This was not what he wanted to hear and after some pretty harsh words he stormed out. A few minutes later, he stormed back in with some last minute harsher words and drove off in a fury.
Ugh, did I really want this guy staying 6 more days? I should just give him back his money and say sayonara. About a 1/2 hour later, we got a phone call from this nice gentlemen. "You ruined my laptop! You left it out in the rain and now its ruined." What? all we did was take a DRY suitcase that was left under a roof inside the 10 ft. to the lobby, where you picked it up and brought it back to your room a 1/2 hr later. "But it's destroyed. It's broken and wet and it's your fault. What are you going to do about it?" WHAT??? you mean you don't think that if your laptop is broken, it could have been damaged by the fact that you put it in a SOFT carry-on and checked it onto an airplane. Then it was on two airplanes, then lost, then brought in the middle of the night by god knows who to be left outside your door? You don't think that maybe, just maybe, they damaged your laptop? You are blaming us for having carried it the 10 ft into our lobby. Trying to stay calm, my husband told him that it wasn't our fault and maybe he should call the airport. "I need YOU to call the airport and tell them that my laptop is damaged." What? You want us to call the airport? We don't know your flight info, etc. You should be the one calling to make the report of damage. With that he abruptly hung up.
Three days went by and we never had to deal with Mr. Not So Nice. He never came in for breakfast or stepped foot near the lobby. Until the night of the storm. It was around 11 pm and George was asleep. I heard horrible banging on the front door. I walked downstairs in my pajamas through the dark lobby to see him standing outside the lobby door. Noooooo! What do I do? Do I run upstairs and wake up George? No. I can handle this. I knew why he was here. The cable went out with the storm. I had called the cable company and it was out in the entire area. I opened the door a couple of inches and said, The cable is out, the company is working on it. "But I need cable and internet!!" Well, there is nothing I can do, they are working on it. "But I need it now and so does everyone else here!!!" With that, I opened the door all the way and stepped out. Why are you so mean? You are the nastiest guest we have ever had here! You can't say anything without yelling at us! Another one of our guests opened their door to see what was going on. I am shaking and my voice is raised and to be honest, looking a little crazy. Mr. Wonderful, turns to this guest and rolls his eyes, and says "Honey, all I was asking is what was going on with the cable," in his nicest voice. He smiles, shakes his head and goes back to his room and leaves me there looking like a maniac!
I go upstairs and wake George up crying, "That's it, I'm throwing him out," he says. You can't throw him out. Maybe he will just leave us alone for the rest of the stay. And even as I say it, I hope and pray that it's true. All the other rooms, his friends, were wonderful, friendly people. Even asking us to come out to their barbeque. Which my husband nicely declined. There was no way he could socialize anywhere near this guy. And none of his teammates knew what was going on. He was putting on a nice friendly face in front of them.
Well, I am a true believer in karma and someday, somewhere this guy will run into someone just like himself. In the meantime, I can only hope that the rest of our season will be made up of wonderful nice people like all the other families that were here.
Oh yeah, and he did come back one more time. But only to check out. Doesn't this guy know you can just leave the key in the room!!
I go upstairs and wake George up crying, "That's it, I'm throwing him out," he says. You can't throw him out. Maybe he will just leave us alone for the rest of the stay. And even as I say it, I hope and pray that it's true. All the other rooms, his friends, were wonderful, friendly people. Even asking us to come out to their barbeque. Which my husband nicely declined. There was no way he could socialize anywhere near this guy. And none of his teammates knew what was going on. He was putting on a nice friendly face in front of them.
Well, I am a true believer in karma and someday, somewhere this guy will run into someone just like himself. In the meantime, I can only hope that the rest of our season will be made up of wonderful nice people like all the other families that were here.
Oh yeah, and he did come back one more time. But only to check out. Doesn't this guy know you can just leave the key in the room!!
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Great bedside reading, as I read this just before going to sleep last night. Suspenseful. I kept waiting to get to the next sentence to see if there was any redemption in this poor souls miserable spirit. How sad.
Thankfully there are more good eggs in the basket then the few bad ones that roll in.
Looking forward to our next stay. If any bad eggs roll in that weekend we'll put Hank and Lola on the job :)
Valarie,
No sadly there was no redemption this week. I never really expected any. I was just trying to get through the week without any more blowups. Another guest staying here said that she deals with people like this by telling them something like, "I see that you are a very unhappy person, and I'm not going to allow you to bring negativity into my life." The way she said it was actually a lot better than that, but in true Tina fashion, I forgot what it was 2 minutes later. Ugh! I gotta start writing things down!
OMG Tina -- I hope this "bad apple" will be the first and last you have to deal with this season. I love what your other guest had to say at times like these. But, sometimes you're so mad you can't even think straight, let alone come out with some brilliant statement!! I'm going to write that one down too. Love ya!
You are right Jean. When you are mad, you can't think straight. So I would just end up "reading" the statement that I wrote down. Which would just look silly and not at all empowered. But might be better than my usual - wide eyes, mouth open, quiet stare. That usually doesn't get me anywhere. Usually about 10 minutes later is when you think of all the things you should have said! Lol!
I think it's really cool that you just asked him why is he so mean?.
Wow, you are a patient person and a wonderful innkeeper for being able to handle that mess. I am glad to hear that the rest of his bunch were nice and cordial; the upside of this story of course is that every future guest will seem that much more sane in comparison. Great read, I like your blog because it is a little more in depth about the life of an innkeeper as opposed to just some glossy pictures and recipes....although, you do make proper room for that as well.
Thank you Marc for such kind words!