Flying Headboards and Other Comical Complaints

Over the years, I've heard a lot of silly complaints people will launch against a hotel.

On a visit to present the hotels I represented to the reservation agents and group sales department at Choice Hotels International's call center in Minot, North Dakota, I was invited to "double-jack" with a representative in the customer relations department. "Double-jacking" is where the agent lends you a set of headphones so you can monitor the calls they're receiving, allowing you to hear both sides of the conversation. I was slightly more than entertained by the call from a woman who insisted that she had been injured by a headboard in her hotel room.

"I was sitting at the end of the bed, not doin' nothin', and it just flew off the wall, fell and hit me on the head."

I looked at the customer service representative, wanting to see if she was buying it. The woman continued on with her description of what happened, painting a verbal picture of what appeared to be an encounter with a flying headboard. The call was referred to the hotel general manager, and I'm not at all sure what sort of "restitution" this guest may have been offered.

Seriously. It just flew from the head of the bed to the foot of the bed and whacked her on the noggin. I asked the agent after the call was transferred how she was able to keep a straight face when calls like that come in. "This is what I do," she said.

Then there's the complaint from the guest who wanted a refund because the window in their hotel room wouldn't close properly. I'd be upset, too, if I were a guest and couldn't close the window to my room, but the fact in this case is that the guest was staying in a hotel where windows in the guest room don't even open!

Fine. These people want something for nothing, and I suppose there will always be people who will say or do anything to get just that. But it's the ones who cause destruction and still expect the hotel to somehow reward them for the damage they've caused that get my goat.

This recent post on Journals of a Hotel Manager, in my opinion, receives the "Takes the Cake" award!