The Poster

I am a front desk agent and I am collecting stories of my time as a front desk agent and fellow front desk agent stories, enjoy.

Monday, September 5, 2011

Reading Signs. - Miss Agent

An average human can red a sign. “Do Not Touch”, “Do Not Enter”, “Exit Only” and “Caution” are some examples of signs that people know and follow. Yet signs a hotels are beyond meaningless.

In the hotel I work at we have a soda dispenser because we have a breakfast every morning and a small dinner in the evenings on selected nights. When the machine is not in use there is a sign on it reading something along the lines of, “Complementary Soda is available during breakfast and dinner. Soda is for sale in the vending machines for your convenience.” Rather basic and easy to understand right? Nah… people will walk up to the machine, lift the sign and attempt to fill their cups or bottles with soda. When it doesn’t come out they show up at the desk to complain. I than repeat to them what the sign says and their expression that they give me is one of utter shock normally followed by, “What?! Nowhere does it say that that’s a rule!” I’ve yet to have the heart to point out their stupidity.

If you were to check in with me at the front desk you would see a sign over my right shoulder that has an arrow pointing down the hall with the word “Restrooms” along it. Simple, yes? Not so much. “Where’s your restrooms?” is a question I answer at least eight times a night if not more.

There is a sign on my pool door that reads, “No food or drinks allowed in the Pool room.” Again, a simple straight forward sign; again, the sign is ignored. I’ve pulled soda, beer, wine, bread, pizza, cookies, coffee and an assortment of other things out of my room. The one person who got offended that I took their drink away was a man in his late thirties and I took his juice; yes that’s right, his juice. As he left, he stormed to the desk and informed me that I should focus less on taking people’s drinks and more on restocking the towels. I kindly responded, “You’re right, that is part of my job and I really do need to pay more attention to the towel count in my pool. Thank you for reminding me that it’s just as important as making sure nothing spills into the pool that would cause a chemical imbalance that would cause me to have to close the pool for the whole night.” He left in a huff and I laughed inside; but I am more mindful about the amount of pool towels left in the pool.

To all Front Desk Agents who read this, remember that some people will overlook the obvious and to not let it bother you. For the other readers, please understand that the signs are there for a reason; the pool will have to be shut down if something gets into it, and soda is expensive. So serving it twenty four hours would hurt the hotel. But coffee, coffee can be twenty four hours. So enjoy the free coffee and complain to the soda companies about how expensive it is.

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