Complimentary rooms have their price, directors from hell and toilet zen (Palm Beach)

Working for a hotel company has its privileges: free hotel rooms!  On the downside, you are never truly away from work, and sometimes you are not quite treated as a regular guest.

When I arrived in Palm Beach early afternoon, my room was not yet ready. I was given a pager and was invited to relax by the pool, go for a walk, relax at my leisure. So I waited. And waited. And waited some more.  Finally at 5 pm I went to the front desk where I was greeted with apologies that my room was in fact ready, sorry no one had paged. I thanked them for my key and stepped into the elevator.

My apprehension began to grow as I walked down a very long hall, counting numbers. I began having flashbacks of my stay in Los Angeles when, as a new and very keen employee, I excitedly asked the front desk clerk checking me in if I had been given a nice room.  He glanced down at his screen, paused, looked up and very suspiciously extolled,

“It’s CUTE!”

“Cute”, as it turns out, was code word for a cramped, musty room in an abandoned wing of the hotel overlooking the HVAC system with no so much as a single roll of toilet paper.  Ugh. Having spent a number of hours waiting for my room to be ready, I had a pretty good sense of which rooms in the Palm Beach hotel were desirable, and which ones were not.  Of course, my key led me to the very last room, exactly where I had hoped I wouldn’t end up.  The room was substantial, but the view was appalling.  It was one of three rooms recessed behind the main building, creating an effect similar to looking down a sound-proof concrete tunnel.

The bellman who delivered my bags was a couple years younger than me, good looking and friendly. We got chatting, and I asked casually if there would be any possibility of changing my room. I was only asking, not insisting; I just didn’t want to have to move twice. Ethan tried to call down to the desk but couldn’t get through, so he said he’d go to take care of it.  For about two minutes I twiddled my toes until the phone rang.  It was Sandy Itoe, the Director of Marketing with a formidable reputation as a ball breaker. I was surprised that my mild request had been elevated to such extremes.  The gist of our conversation was that I should be extremely grateful to have even gotten a room, I shouldn’t be complaining, and we wouldn’t want the General Manager to get involved now, would we?

Quite taken aback I tried to explain that I had merely requested whether a room change would be possible – it was certainly no problem to stay in my current room.  I apologized for any trouble I caused [please don’t hurt me] and said I just didn’t want to pack and unpack twice. She responded, “Go ahead and start unpacking!” which was perfectly acceptable.

As I began unzipping my bags I had a sudden urgency to go to the bathroom. Convinced this was my room, I freely lightened my load in the toilet when, mid-action,

<Ring>

It was the telephone, not 45 seconds after I had finished speaking with Sandy. I panicked, not sure what to do, and decided to use the toilet phone for what it was intended.  It was Alan from Reception saying my new room was ready. Huh?

I sputtered that I thought everything was sorted, that I was happy where I was.  But he insisted that everything had been arranged and that Ethan was on his way back to the room to help with my bags.

!!! Aack

I quickly rushed my business and was appalled that no only was the bathroom now unpleasantly fragrant, but my deposit had not made a clean flush. Madly I kept flushing the toilet, throwing in bits of toilet paper to encourage the whitening while waving my arms in the air to dissipate the smell.

Embarrassed not to leave the room in the pristine condition in which I had found it, I tried to impart to Ethan as he patiently waited at the door that I was more than happy to stay.  He insisted that my name had already been changed in the computer and joked that I really would be in trouble if I refused to move.  Sheepishly acquiescing we moved to my new room where I could see, hear and breathe the ocean in all its glory, unpack and use the loo in peace.