We Have To Do Better To Make Up For Your Shortfalls

Hello again TFTFD! It has been many moons since I posted on this subreddit, but here I am back in the saddle and brimming with new hotel tales of customer crazies and managerial mishaps!

(Obligatory I am on mobile here)

So after a brief stint of trying to work at a large department store chain to get out of the previous hotel hell that I found myself in, I made the change of getting back to my calling and setting up at a newer hotel under entirely different owners! What can be better than a clean slate, right? (RIGHT!?!?)

Since I had about two and a half years worth of experience working my previous system, I picked up the basics again like I had never left the desk for three months. I was especially surprised at the hotel's use of ALL the functions that I had never had the ability to play with before! ie Trace listings, in house food purchases, etc. I had good feelings about this hotel and took to getting to know who I could when I saw them, since Night audit means you don't get to see most people.

Over the course of this getting used to things situation, I happened upon the dark underbelly of the hotel. Sure it's a newer hotel, but would we be able to get actual piping to drain the water from the massive sink and NOT have it splash over a filter that is a literal breeding ground for mold?? I also got various mentions from my coworkers that had been there for years themselves saying the owners have problems paying their bills.. Well, maybe we've just been hit by COVID just like any other hotel. No jumping to conclusions too quickly.

Fast forward a couple weeks...

We are due for up to 5 hockey teams being in house and already my anxiety is high. Our scores have been dipping lately and my GM took the time to explain to me 'the game'. Long story short, statistics show that lowest tier honors members tend to be the ones that file reviews with us, and we need to be doing our best to 'Wow!' them at the Front Desk. I told him I'll still try to wow every guest regardless of status because... we should be doing that anyway. Of course snowflake tier members are nearly impossible to please but I still take the time to treat them like human beings.

Judgment day comes, and yes, it's chaos.

To briefly go over some of the things that happened, we had parents that laxly signed their forms saying their Spawn won't be from hell and to be respectful of others staying at the hotel, both of which weren't followed by about 80% of everyone with these groups. Our TV's went down for a period of time also, so that added to the fun we all were dealing with.

In the morning, I made sure to set up our breakfast buffet which hadn't been used in quite a while due to lack of business so everyone could get a variety of things that they wanted. (Also cause bags for over 150 people everyday would not be logistically sound)

Morning time comes around, and all the parents HATE the food. 'It was supposed to be hot, this is bullshit!' No sir, it's not bullshit, it's outlined in your contract.

Evening rolls around, and we lose one of the two elevators in the hotel. Rather, it won't go up to our top floor. So now for anyone on the fourth floor, they'd need to send the bad elevator up and have the good one come down for them, which some people had to wait 15 mins just to get to their rooms. (Cause taking the stairs is unacceptable ofc). We COULD have gotten a tech to come out and fix it, but since it was a weekend, the owners would have to pay extra, which they opted to wait it out instead. (Bad move guys!)

In addition to the uncontrollable kids and the parents consuming enough alcohol to euthanize a pair of blue whales daily, of course no one was wearing masks or following the rules outlined by the papers they signed.

I would like to think a good manager would pinpoint the problem individuals, remind the parents of the waiver they signed, point out they're not following the rules, maybe give them a second or third chance, and then ask them to leave. BUT GUESS WHAT FOLKS! If you guessed that everyone of these parents were entry tier honors members, you get a gold star!

GM was INTENT on getting good ratings from these people. The result one week out? Multiple poor reviews about the cold breakfast, the broken elevator, TV's being down, no room service (even though we explained why we couldn't handle room service at the moment to everyone), and despite all that, we got a posting today in the office showing how low our scores are and how we all need to be doing better.

I think you guys need to take a look at hotel infrastructure before starting to nitpick our individual flaws. Just saying...