Source: Reddit
The other night I had a guest come down to the lobby and sit and begin to listen to music on her phone. She didn’t have headphones in and the music was very loud with explicit lyrics, but it was 11 at night and fairly slow and I didn’t want to give her trouble so I let it go on for about 10 minutes. Eventually the lounge closed and 3-4 stragglers came walking through the lobby back to their rooms. A few glanced between me and her with a strange look, I just raised my eyebrows to them in acknowledgement, but at this point it still didn’t seem like a huge problem and it wasn’t bothering me. Minutes later one of my last arrivals comes in. It’s an older lady with the air of someone who’s definitely going to leave a review with nothing but complaints, and right off the bat the music from the phone gets ridiculously explicit. I’m hurrying to check this woman in as fast as possible while she’s constantly evil eyeing the lady on the couch and shaking her head in disappointment at me. I get her checked in and she leaves for the room, and at this point I realize I have to do something, so I politely address the lady on the couch. “Ma’am, I’m sorry but the sound on the phone will have to be off while you’re in the lobby.” She shrugged, got up, and walked to her room. That actually went well, right?
Cut to the next night. I had ran to the kitchen for about 5 minutes to help the restaurant staff close a few things down for the night, and as I’m walking back to the desk I notice the same lady sitting on the couch, and in a chair next to her is a guy about her age. They both appear to be in their mid-20’s, way too old for childish behavior, but I immediately knew that’s what I was about to get. As I say hi to them, I notice the girl look at the guy and nod. He nods in return. It was obviously an attempt at clandestinely saying, “Yep, that’s the guy.”
Oh good, what’s this gonna be. I get behind the desk and brace for what these two are about to try to do. The guy asks the girl something along the line of, “Hey, have you heard such and such song?” He’s saying it loud enough for me to hear, in a tone that is so obviously planned and staged. He then says he’ll play it for her, and immediately starts blasting some weird-ass song from a genre of music I can only describe as hardcore circus-themed EDM and every other word is f**k, sh*t, or a**. I’m not going to let this get to the point it did the night before, so I immediately and politely tell the guy the sound has to be off. He replies with, “I’m not going to turn it off but I’ll turn it down some.” I shut him down and say that no, it needs to be off. He obliges, then begins having a conversation with the girl that is, again, aimed at me. They’re basically throwing backhanded insults my way just loud enough for me to hear and acting like they’re having a private conversation. At one point the woman actually calls her mom on her cellphone and begins to tell her how badly the hotel is mistreating her. Whatever, I’m not easily offended and I’ve seen my fair share of a**holes.
Eventually someone coming from the lounge passes through the lobby while talking to someone on his cellphone. The lady yells at him and tells him he is being too loud on his phone and is going to get kicked out. That was enough for me… now you’re messing with business, you’ve got to go. I tell them both they are going to need to go to their rooms for the night. They ignore me and act like they didn’t hear, so I picked up the phone and pretended to dial security. Security doesn’t actually have a phone, they have a radio, but I was hoping the bluff alone would work. It did, and they both got up quickly and scurried off to their room.
I got a call from my GM the next day asking me what had happened with these guests. He said that the girl’s mom drove to the hotel and demanded to see a manager and screamed for 15 minutes at how rude I had been. I told my GM what had happened and we shared a laugh. He told me if I had any more issues to just go straight to the cops and have them escorted off the property.
Then came night three. The lady came back down to the lobby holding hands with another girl. They both made sure to hold their hands up so that I could see it and shoot me a passive-aggressive grin. I currently live up north, but I’m from the south and have a thick accent that most people immediately pick up on. I honestly believed that they were trying to bait me into saying or doing something homophobic, assuming that I must be a stereotypical hardcore southern Christian gay-hatin’ klansman or something. They stood at our local brochure cabinet and “browsed” while talking under their breath. Not loud enough for me to hear, but I’m sure it was aimed at me. A few minutes later the guy joins them and the conversation becomes loud enough for me to hear, and it’s definitely more insults thrown my way.
At this point I decided it was enough. I told them they were going to need to return to their rooms or I would have security escort them off the premises. They demanded to know why, and I told them the truth as best as I could put it. “Because none of you have emotionally matured past middle school and I won’t sit hit and be disrespected for a second night because you fail to understand why we can’t have curse words blaring in a place of business.” The girl said something along the lines of “Did you not learn your lesson today? I guess I’ll have to call my mom again.” I told her to go ahead, her mom could be escorted off the property as well, and they stormed off to their room.
Got a call from my GM the next day. Mommy had been back. He had promptly ended their reservation a day early. I love my GM.
