Santa Likes These People?!

Sometimes I Wonder Why He Bothers Anymore: Its been a while, but I have a hotel story for all of you. As you probably don't know, I'm working 3 - 11 pm on Christmas Eve instead of working Christmas Day. Yay for that! Well...I guess the Christmas spirit has worked their magic on a few of our guests.

When I came in to work today, our AGM was watching the desk. She informed me of a story about one of our arrivals that was upset that we chose not to serve the full hot breakfast for Christmas Day. She explained to him that we wanted the breakfast cook to be home with her family, and he threw away the suggestion like a toy that a young child didn't want. He said that the only reason he booked here was for the hot breakfast and that he would be writing into the big corporate company for his inconvienience.

A half hour later, that same guest called down and told me that he was experiencing some problems with his heating unit, that it was rattling. Well, sure enough, I went upstairs and the problem magically disappeared!

Around five o clock, I had about six guests check in, one right after another, and the last guy took the last of the three luggage carts. As he's walking out with it, this blonde woman, we'll call her Meghan, passed by him and yelled, "WHATS THIS? NO MORE CARTS?" I was sort of shocked at her rage, and I informed her that I just had a lot of guests check in so they were currently in use. "SO YOU GUYS HAVE APPETIZERS TONIGHT OR WHAT?" Still in shock, I said, "Well I explained to the gentleman--" "I'M NOT WITH THAT MAN!" I must have raised my eyebrows because she got this look on her face like she was going to jump over the counter. I told her about the pies served tonight and she turned around to her now-present husband and said, "Oh, honey, this Hilton only decided to have one luggage cart for the whole hotel so we're apparently out of luck."

One of those guests that checked in was a "SUPER VIP" member who had never stayed our branch of hotels before. I said that I hoped we made him proud. Nice guy.

An hour later, his teenage son came down and asked if we offered "dog walking service". I said no, then asked him and his mother if they had a dog in the room (I know, odd question, but I had to ask) and they conceded that they did. I told them there was a fee for it and the woman looked at me like I had cheated her out of winning the lottery or something. "Well thats just GREAT! I'll have my husband talk to YOU, because we don't pay that dog fee if we're SUPER VIP GUESTS, SIR." I told her not to worry about it, "Merry Christmas."

A little later on, Meghan's husband called me and said the gas fireplace in his room was out; of course, they were checked into the only room that has problems with the fireplace. I went up and started fixing the fireplace. They were watching "Man vs. Wild", a Discovery Channel show (that Amanda and I love) where the host shows how to survive in the most treacherous places on earth. In this episode, he decided that he was hungry enough to kill a frog and eat it.

Meghan started talking to her children about how she had learned how to do all of that in survival camp in Africa, and that to do it, he'll have to stab the frog in his head with a knife to kill it. A few minutes later, the host does exactly that. I fix the fireplace and get the heck out of that room as fast as I can... (!)

I get downstairs and realize that the pie must have made my stomach turn so I ran to the bathroom to do a #2. While I'm in there, the phone rings. It rings as such that I know its an internal phone call. I didn't answer it, of course, because, well, I'm going #2!! The phone rings about nine times, stops, then starts ringing again. I lean over and pick up the cordless I had taken with me and answer it.

"Yeah, this fireplace is still not working, and we'd appreciate it if you came up and shut it off so the gas doesn't choke out my family. Thanks."

I go upstairs just as soon as I can clean up and shut it off, apologize for the faulty fireplace, and get out of that room as fast as I can (again!).

When I got to the desk, the dog guy called and asked for some popcorn, so I ran it up to his room.

I got off the elevator and I could hear Meghan's family was in the lobby in front of the desk. I thought, oh man now what and sure enough, I could hear them planning to put hot chocolate and cookies in front of the Christmas Tree for Santa Claus. Once I turned the corner, the one child, around seven years old, was being launched up onto a luggage cart by his eleven year old sister so he could do pull ups! I ran over and caught the luggage cart before it tumbled over from his weight! Imagine if I hadn't been there! His parents were completely cool with it and they were fifteen feet away!

Unreal!!

Imagine what they would have said...

"Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuudge."

Except I'm sure they wouldn't have said fudge. :)

Merry Christmas All!!!