You've Got Mail

The past two nights I’ve fallen asleep to and woken up during the night to what sounds like some sort of construction, mostly hammering. The first night, I couldn’t be bothered to complain, but after the second night I figured fine, I’ll give it a shot. I left a complaint at the front desk to investigate what the noise is and to get back to me if it will continue so that I may switch rooms. The friendly, but most likely incompetent, front desk employee wrote down my name, room number and complaint and said he’d leave a message for me after he found out what it is.

So tonight, I get back to my room, and voila, there is the blinking “you’ve got mail” light. I was pleasantly surprised, and I picked up the receiver to listen to the message, which is simply “Please call the hotel operator”. Ok, fine. I delete the message and call the hotel operator. The conversation goes like this:

Operator: Good evening ma’am. How may I direct your call?
Me: Hi. I had a voice mail message that instructed me to call the hotel operator?...
Operator: Yes, ma’am. Let me connect you to your voice mail.
Me: No, I already listened to my voice mail. The message was simply to call the operator.
Operator: Ok, ma’am. Let me check…..Ma’am, you don’t have any voice mails.
Me: Yes, I know, that’s because I deleted the message.
[Ok, I knew the conversation would go like this; I was just waiting to the point where she could actually do her job…]
Me: I had registered a noise complaint this morning. Perhaps there is a message for me regarding that?
Operator: Let me check ma’am….Yes, there is a message for you. [Ok, what part of “is there a message for me” earlier did she not understand?]
Operator: The message is from the engineering department. They are aware of your complaint, and if the noise continues, please let us know so we can switch your room.
Me: [Dejectedly] Ok, thank you. Good night [you idiot of a hotel employee]

May I point out the obvious? That they didn’t find out what the noise actually was, and although they are willing to accommodate me switching rooms (which I don’t even want to do), they still haven’t really solved the problem or really investigated it. This response is code for, “yes, you crazy American who makes up things like construction in the middle of the night which can’t possibly be occurring because I don’t know about it, and I’m the incompetent hotel employee who was never taught actual customer service; I was just told to smile and ask how I can help you, even though I can’t help myself out of a wet paper bag.” So typical, and still, after two months, so frustrating.

At the end of this month, it appears that our 12 person non-local team will be switching to another hotel, due to contract negotiations with our penny-pinching client and the hotel themselves (I think it’s how much alcohol we drink during the free club lounge happy hour when we make it back in time that’s breaking the hotel’s budget for our discounted rooms). Even though I am at least already used to this hotel, it will be interesting to see what another one is like, and if this famed wonderful Indian customer service is as terrible there as it is here. I just hope they don’t keep thieving my iron.