Stop trying to 'outsmart' service workers

I have yet to understand why guests/customers think that they're playing some hyper-strategic match of 4D chess. They try to outmaneuver and outwit workers who are there to help and serve, within reason. And with that being the case, the cards are almost always on the workers' side.

A few days ago, a family man hoisted himself up to the Desk asking about our breakfast policy. He was speaking to one of our newbies, and although she's still fresh, she handled it masterfully.

Basically, he kept asking in circles, rephrasing his questions and asking several supplementary questions one after the other to see which direction he could tug her words. But she was pointed and direct.

How our system works (much to our chagrin, if I may add) is that our prepaid breakfast package covers up to 2 guests in a room, indicated by a voucher they receive at check-in. Even if there are 4 occupants or 40, each room only gets two adults covered. Some folks try to fight us on that, and to an extent, I agree with them. But it's not within the power of us humble worker bees to try and constantly bend or break said policy.

That wasn't working for Mr. Chessmaster. Seeing that he was staying for multiple nights and therefore received multiple vouchers, he would just hand multiple vouchers over to the restaurant staff to cover his entire party. When informed that couldn't be done, he moseyed off to try it anyway. Knowing this, my other coworker quickly phoned over to the restaurant and alerted them of his sick game.

Not even 10 minutes later, one of the waitresses there called back saying how much of a character he was. Chessmaster gave her the same runaround and kept trying to manipulate the situation into his favor. She cut him a little slack and said: "If you order from the buffet, we'll at least let your two kids eat free." Then, he inquired about some menu items, which she then said: "That's fine, but those you'll be charged for outside of the 2-person limit."

Chessmaster got mad: "See! You're contradicting yourself! You just said my kids could eat free!" The waitress responded: "No, sir. I told you I'd do you a favor and waive the buffet charge for them; I can't do that with the menu items."

He did end up going the buffet route, but the fact that he kept trying to bend whatever new face he could find was just annoying for all of us. Listen, we all know as CS workers that the biggest part of our job is, well, serving the customers. We endeavor to make them happy and help where and when we can. But it's folks like this that make the job so much more difficult than needed.

If the answer is no...then the answer is no.