I was working the desk this past weekend and there were several high school swim teams staying for 3 days due to a big championship swim meet. Having high school athletes stay at the hotel means most of their parents will be staying with us as well. High school students are pretty annoying because they tend to run all over the hotel and play pranks on each other, but the only thing more annoying than that is the parent of a high school student. During my shift, I must have had about 10 different parents ask me if they could use the meeting room. The only problem with that is the first parent that asked me got approval for her team to use it. This was NOT OK for the next 9 parents. "Why are you showing favoritism to that team?" "How come they get to use it and we can't?" Chill out, people. If you would have asked me first, you would have gotten to use it. It's not that I like that team better than your's. I don't even follow swimming for Pete's sake. The only swimmer I know of is Michael Phelps and I don't even really care about him. So, if I don't care about an Olympic swimmer that won a gazillion gold medals, I surely don't give a rat's ass about your brace faced, squirrelly little hooligan and his swim team. It was never ending. First it was the meeting room and then it was "Why does Susan's room have a table in it and mine doesn't?" We have two types of rooms with double beds and one is slightly larger and has a small square table with 4 chairs around it. We only had 4 rooms like this available for the weekend and we had about 30 of the doubles without the table. I'm sorry that I couldn't get you into a room with a fucking table and 4 chairs, but you know what? Every single person that complained to me about not having a table and actually got switched to one with a table, ended up eating dinner in the lobby every single night. WHY THE FUCK DID YOU YELL AT ME ABOUT WANTING A TABLE IF YOU WERE GOING TO EAT DOWN HERE ANYWAY?! People are so petty. So once everyone accepted the fact that I couldn't just snap my fingers and magically make tables and extra meeting rooms appear, it was all peace and quiet. AAHHH WRONG! I got a phone call Saturday evening from a mom who was staying in the hotel and she said "I need you to ring room 318 so I can make sure my daughter will be ready by the time I arrive." I happily transferred her to the room and didn't think anything of it. Well, she called back 5 minutes later and asked me to ring it again because her daughter didn't answer the first time. This went on for the next 20 minutes and I must have transferred the call to her room about 15 times. Finally, I told her it didn't seem as though anyone was answering and maybe her daughter was at the pool. I put her on hold while I checked the pool and found no one. She then asked to be transferred to another room that her daughter's friend was staying in. No answer in that room either. She decided to give up for the time being and hung up. About 30 minutes later she called back and said she was on her way to the hotel and I needed to find her daughter. She was yelling this at me, by the way, which pissed me off to no end. I am not your fucking babysitter. I am the hotel desk clerk. If you want to leave your 14 year old daughter alone in a hotel, you are solely responsible for whatever happens to her. Anyway, I grabbed the cordless phone and told her I'd run up to the room and knock. She told me if I got no answer after knocking, I had permission to go in. When I got to the room, I banged as loud as I could for about 5 minutes. After no response, I opened the door and saw what looked like a person in the bed. I walked over to the bed and the girl was asleep. I lightly shook her and scared the living shit out of her by doing so. When she opened her eyes and saw me, a complete stranger, shaking her she must have thought I was surely a murderer. I explained to her that her mother had been frantically calling the hotel trying to make sure she was ok. About that time, the door flew open and this lady came running in and grabbed the girl. She was hugging her and asking why she didn't answer the phone, so I just started to walk to the door and make my exit. All of a sudden the mother of this girl says, "YOU STOP RIGHT THERE." I turned around and said "Excuse me. Did you need anything else?" Her response, "YES, ACTUALLY!!!! I need you to know that this is the hotel's fault and you should be glad my daughter was ok and still in the room because if anything had happened to her, you'd have a lawsuit on your hands." I was SPEECHLESS. How the fuck is it my fault your daughter fell asleep and didn't answer the phone?!?! I just looked stunned for a moment and she continued with: "The phone in this room probably isn't working and that's why she didn't hear it?!?! MY DAUGHTER WOULD NEVER PUT ME THROUGH THIS. IT HAS TO BE THE PHONE!" Thank God I grabbed the cordless before leaving the desk. I very politely said "I do apologize if the phone is broken. Just a moment and I'll test it out." I dialed 7+318 and... RIIIIIIIIIING RIIIIIIIIING RIIIIIIIIIIIIIIING. Take that bitch. The phone was as loud as it could be. She just stared at it and then looked at her daughter. Instead of apologizing to me for threatening a lawsuit and blaming me for her daughter's nap, she just started yelling at the girl. "HOW COULD YOU SLEEP THROUGH THAT? YOU'RE NEVER GOING TO GET A SWIM SCHOLARSHIP LIKE THIS, MADDIE!" What a bitch. I went back to my desk feeling so bad for that little girl. They exited through the lobby about 10 minutes later and you could tell the daughter had been crying and the mom didn't even look my way. I want my kids to be successful in whatever they do, but I will NEVER treat people that way to make it happen.
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