For those who do not know, Burning Man is a week long Bacchanal in the desert near where I work. Back in the 90s, it was more inclusive, but now it is mostly for upper middle class or rich people. There are art events, music events, drug events, and sex events. Basically everything goes at Burning Man, and numerous famous people have gone. Both Elon Musk and Chris Rock have been there recently.

Many people take months to prepare for Burning Man- You need to provide your own food, water, possibly electricity (If you're fancy), costumes, working materials for any art, lube for any sex. If you are international, you need to rent/purchase an RV. Also, international guests need to pay airfare for the US, plus shipping for anything they want they can't bring over.

You'd think a bunch of Bohemian drug users would be, in general, fine right? You would be dead wrong. They are the rudest guests, and I need to warn new agents every year that they are unpleasant. They do not prepare their shipping, but will blame you for the shipping. They will complain about the price that is only inflated by all of them coming in. They will complain about the dirt they actively tracked in.

I have been yelled at by so many Burners I feel numb at this time of year, mostly. I get infuriated by the trash they irresponsibly throw basically everywhere, and the waste of throwing away so many vehicles every year. But hey, That's what I guess I signed up for. A bunch of hedonistic millionares laying waste to as many states as they an.

As we all know, many hotels have incidental deposits. It’s not complicated in my opinion, we hold the money til check out and then it’s all yours again minus what you spent if you bought anything from the market.

As we also all know, third parties are trash. My new favorite scam from them, I have learned, is they tell guests to PAY them $5 and check the little box and that will cover their incidentals. In what way does that make sense? Genuinely asking. It’s a $50 temporary hold, how can one possibly think paying $5 will waive it?

Well this guy wasn’t super pleased with that. And insisted he doesn’t have to put a card on file and he does this at all hotels. I told him I can’t help what other hotels do and idk what the 3rd party is doing but no in no way shape or form does $5 and a box on a website waive the incidental deposit.
Then he tells me he doesn’t have a card…while holding his wallet open exposing several well known major bank cards. I didn’t point that out though, felt too snarky.
He storms out and I begin to check in 2 other guests that had been witnessing this.

As soon as he walked out “he booked with this specific 3rd party didn’t he? Yeah we’ve been through that lol” and basically they were of the mindset that yeah that sucks for him and oh yeah that specific 3rd party is especially bad. Had lovely interactions with those 2.

He comes back in shoving his tablet at me because he can pull up on the 3rd party. By this point he’s yelling and dropping F bombs all over the place. We go back and forth about he does this everywhere and that’s nice but not how our policy works.

He then demands I call the 855 number. No. You’re acting like this and now want me to do you a favor? No. I tell him I won’t be doing that as I have all the information right in front of me and can see there is no card for incidentals and no notations about it being in the portal as all the rest are if they have it.

He demands a manager “I’m the front desk manager, thank you” admittedly that was snarky as all hell. So that gets me a new tirade of “BULL F-ING SH-T!!”

Now it’s 10 minutes after I’ve already clocked out but my next front desk agent is busy setting up some food for long term guests. This guy is still hollering in my lobby. I tell him he needs to stop yelling. It gets to the point that I say I’m done and just walk to the back and get my stuff to the tune of “F-ING LAZY B-TCH!!”

When I walked out I cancelled his reservation, DNRed him, and let my front desk know that he no longer has a reservation and that if he didn’t want to leave we’d be happy to provide a police escort.

Learn how to treat people and handle your problems like a big boy.

We all want things. And sometimes, acquiring something may require a favor. In the service industry, certain folks genuinely believe that requesting a favor with an air of politeness should mean an instant win. Should you dare deny them, you are no better than historical tyrants.

One of our Night Auditors had a wonderful interaction with a lovely couple. Due to some flight mishaps, they ended up landing far earlier than expected: 5:30am, to be exact. They scooted into the lobby just after 6 and, while acknowledging how tall of an order it was, asked if getting in early would be possible.

Seeing that the place was sold out the night before, the NA had to be the bearer of bad news. This went fabulously.

When my colleague and I came in for the first shift, she told us about her interaction with this couple. She didn't go into great detail but just summarized that they wanted an early check-in, and after being denied, they ventured off to the business center to wait around.

About two hours later, the husband came up and spoke to my colleague. He lamented how "the last lady was so extremely rude to us!" My colleague soothed him a bit with her warm charm and simply focused on his desire to get in early. He came up a few more times. Finally, around noon, something was ready, and so she got him in. He was all smiles and laughs by then.

Despite ultimately getting what he wanted, it's not really a surprise he recently left a review recounting the ordeal. In it, he retold the details about the flight debacle and admitted that while he knew he was asking for a lot, he couldn't believe how the "first lady treated us like third-class citizens!"

He didn't elaborate on what exactly he meant by that. He simply pivoted to contrasting that interaction with that of my other colleague who got him in later on. Despite the fact that even she reiterated that the hotel was sold out, it's her explanation that he praised, saying, "The way she handled and informed us is a model of how patrons should be treated." He also made a weird mention of how he "knows that some hotels keep extra rooms for flight crews." Again, no elaboration. And even still, not sure where he was going with that thought.

I wasn't there for the initial conversation with the Night Auditor, though I do know she can be a bit of a sharpshooter. Even so, asking to check in about 9 hours early (for free) is a request that can only be denied so politely.

I'm pretty sure that most of us who work the front desk have some kind of notation system on the computer, it's just a matter which one our respective hotels have chosen to go with so we can document guest requests and concerns, or where we put things that other departments might need to know, etc. Most of the time the notations put in there are pretty normal and don't register a second look. But every now and then, you read something that makes you say, "What the hell?"

And over the past few days, when checking my notation system at the start of my shift, I've seen some stuff put in there by the AM and PM shifts that has had me saying that. Here are a few of my favorites...

The police had to be called when guests on their way to and from the parking lot reported that there was a strange man on the property who was at first talking to himself, who then proceeded to start stripping and began dancing naked to music only he could hear. Since they called the cops instead of giving him dollar bills, I'm assuming he wasn't very good or wasn't very attractive.

Another guest wanted to file a complaint because as he was coming back in from taking his dog out to do it's business, another guest was on her way out to take her dog to do the same. As they were passing each other, the dog exiting barked at his dog, scaring it. After talking with the AM shift, I know which guests these are. The first guy has a 70 pound German shepherd. The other lady's dog who apparently frightened such a beast? Her dog is a 5, maybe 10 pound Yorkie with pretty pink bows put on her fur.

And finally, a guest became upset because she was called and asked if she was going to move her vehicle since it had been parked in the fire lane for almost 45 minutes after she checked in. She moved the car, but then she came back in and -- this is the reason for the notation -- wanted to know why our valets hadn't moved her car for her, after all, "I left the keys in the ignition for them." Despite not seeing any valets when she arrived, and upon discovering that we actually didn't have valets, she suddenly wanted to speak to the manager the next day (this one happened at like 9:30 pm) to discuss why we would mislead her into thinking we did.

There was a follow-up notation about her. Apparently, now that she was upset, she turned into the kind of guest that was now finding everything wrong that she could and was adding it to the list of things she would speak the manager about, obviously to use as ammunition to try and get compensation. By time I came in, the list included: she could hear the elevator from her room. We didn't have a selection of non-alcoholic beers. She wasn't told we don't have room service. Breakfast didn't end late enough in the day for her. And how dare we schedule renovations to coincide with her stay.

Some guests, and non-guests, sometimes make sure our job is not boring.

When I initially started at the Nugent (not it's real name), it was in bad shape. The former owner was beloved by the community (and starred in his own commercials), but 9/11 took a huge toll on our tourist based city, & hotel/casinos suffered from that.

He would also comp guests dinner or even a night if he liked them, and he wasn't about to stop because people were afraid of flying or the DHS was making travel far more difficult. He thought he was doing the right thing for the business, just as he had for the previous 40 years.

Turns out, he was dead wrong. By the time the new owners announced the sale, they had already been paying employees for a few months just to finalize the deal. And the new owners made no secret that they were going to be cutting every corner just to make a profit & possibly flip the place. Because the previous owner was so popular, many trusted people left. Including engineers, because they provide upkeep.

When I arrived a few months after the sale, we had fire alarms go off nearly every 2 weeks. I learned from engineering that there was a stripped wire in our gift shop that would trip the alarm every time it rained or there was a leak. We had an alarm that told people to evacuate immediately, so everyone did do this in a 1,200 room 28 floor hotel/casino. It was then up to the FD to determine what kind of compensation to give, as well as calm panicked guests down. It was a nightmare.

One time, the new restaurant (basically Hooters but with cowgirls) lit one of their stoves on fire, setting off every goddamned alarm on the property. It wasn't even close to being able to touch rooms (there was a marble floor and later I learned asbestos between), but sure. Every room needed to know.

This did not stop until the new owners did what they implied- they sold the company to another person. The newest owners seemed to actually think they could make money off the property, and spent a good amount of time fixing the facility, but alas, they sold the property a few years ago to a gambling company in Colorado.

They say brevity is the soul of wit, and unfortunately I am not witty.

I'm not a front desk person anymore, in this case I'm a guest. I'm staying at a Schmilton next to the original mouse place.

Being thirsty and wanting cold filtered water, I stuck my room key in my pocket, grabbed my water bottle, and walked down to the ice machine and water station. Walk back to my room and my key card didn't work. Well, crap, at least I'm wearing shoes, even if I don't have my ID on me. Down to the front desk I go.

No ID, so I have to wait for security to let me into my room and show him ID; no problem, I get it. There are already 2 people waiting for the same thing, luckily, we're all on the same floor. While waiting I see at least 3 other purple getting new key cards and the line is starting to build, about half with no luggage.

I see the life start to leave the front desk staff's eyes. While getting walked to my room, I here the security drone's radio dispatch 2 more of them to the front. All I can surmise is the entire system tossed its cookies, but maybe it was just my floor. Glad it got me early. I'm going to wait a couple of hours to go get new key cards.