The Turkish Delight's Hotel and Hospitality industry Shenanigans

[Tar]

I was on my rant mode, basically part of their moving boxes have gotten wet to say the least, maybe they threw their wet laundry or whatever the fuck they're doing. That room was pretty much trashed.

Speaking of which, the hotel did have those issues a couple years ago with hookers where people check-in just to I never yet seen one now so far, knock on wood.

people "moving" into a hotel is pretty wild to me. I know some people stay for longer periods of time but it seems to stay somewhere like that for weeks+ Unless there is some total loss to a house or something.

Agreed, that's weird. Cash rent on a monthly might mean the dude is at large with the cops, credit so bad that nobody will lease him a place, witness protection, or chopping out of the hotel.. sketchy!

[Desertbreh]

Dude... it sounds like there is some hookering and "dealing" going on in that hotel. Do randoms come and go all the time?

Still unclear on wet box

They do in practically every extended stay hotel.

[wap]

As posted in the OT, I worked 16 hours straight yesterday as someone didn't show up for the pm shift, so I had to cover for her. She was in urgent care as it turns out and had meds that made her overslept, she was physically unable to work.

Anyway. We've been having issues with this one guest whose staying with us for 4 months now. Approximately right before I started working there. Things were ok until recently. Then once the interim GM decided to be more serious to prevent some chaos, they were being fucking karens about it. They look like they grew up in a trailer park, tattoed blondie with a husband, always wearing a wrinkly pink sundress with torn flip flips and so on. She didn't seem to like the approach that we did, also the reason why they're staying with us is because they got evicted cause they were hella irresponsible with their money, they showed up with a Lexus IS appears to look like 2018 that has dents everywhere. (I mean fuck, I might as well get a g80 m3 then )They were so pissed that they not only demanded refund for their last weeks stay, and they used 5 luggage cart runs worth of wet boxes. Oh and it gets better, since we had couple of housekeeper members and the supervisor had to suddenly have time off (one of which has a family member passed away and had to go to Cambodia for a week).

The other day, I checked their room for departures, which means to see if people have checked out on the intended day so I can mark it as vacant dirty. My oh my, the bed sheets has burnt cigarette holes, and the smoking smell was just unbearable, they left the window open. Broken the remote control. it was ridiculously bad. Then yesterday, the cleaners said they took care of everything of that particular room. Assuming the smoke smell is gone. However, when I checked in a Platinum member, mind you it was the last studio room available. When he came back, he proceeded to ask me that is it a smoking room, at the time I thought it was one of those rooms until a minute later I realized it was that room, so needless to say, I had to upgrade him to a studio. Also charged $300 smoking fee for their irresponsible ass and denied refund. I spoke with the GM on the phone this morning about this as today is my day off. Fuck those people, disrespectfully, I'm glad they're fucking gone.

Also we have a who essentially lives in the hotel, he pays $1,200 a week every monday and always pays cash. The management has agreed upon for cash payment as long as he pays in full every monday.

Oh and yesterday morning, @wap, we have greek guests staying with us for three weeks, the wife yelled at one of our members cause it is that front desk member that was being lazy. I pulled the guy in a different part of the hotel outside of the front desk, he knew I was from constantinople, and told him I have relatives live in athens. He was born in Athens too but moved to US at a young age. I simply told him, between you and us, some members here are malakas. Their heads don't work like we do and they see that as normal. Because when I catered turkish business travelers, I always get "the hotel staff in the US are stupid", and I try my best to not to be the example of that. I told him the right time to request certain things to make them less inconvenient as possible, and just ask me, told my scheduled hours, etc. Things are 5/7 so to speak.

Nice way to deal with them.
Also, on the trailer trash smokers.

[Desertbreh]

I was unaware you could get a smoking room in any hotel.

[MexicanYarisTK]

I was unaware you could get a smoking room in any hotel.

the thing is we don't have smoking rooms. Its just a few hicks just simply trash the place. Also our prices aren't that cheap (regular rate on a non busy day, ie non memorial day weekend) is $109 for the cheapest room. For some reason they had a discounted rate that somehow qualifies her deadbeat husband. Hence why. But thats ok, they can make it a smoking room, as long as they're willing to pay a grand price of $250 for it.
Already dealt with 3 guests already, one that was super high (when i was being trained) and room charged 5 bags of chips, ya no shit, she was stoned out of her mind.

Shortly after i got on my own, i had this guest lying about smoking when i can clearly smell the nicotine from his room. I walked in with my access to all the rooms, locked the door inside and closed it so he won't have him come in.

[MexicanYarisTK]

On the positive side, most of our guests are happy with us, its just a few apples that were brutal to deal with.

[datgrundle]

Wooooooow!!!

Amazing write up! Customer service is the poop, I feel for you dude

[Desertbreh]

On the positive side, most of our guests are happy with us, its just a few apples that were brutal to deal with.

Per the usual.

[MexicanYarisTK]

So today. I have yet again dealt with another domestic dispute. This time, we had 8 cop cars showed up to our property. I did not know about it until the neighboring guest happens to be a law enforcement officer that happens to be off duty and he called the police on that. The abuser literally jumped out of the window (so the glass is broken) once the cops busted the door open. K9 dogs are involved and he is now in prison with a pending court date.

Unfortunately, my assistant general manager and general manager had to show up to court for witness suboena.

[wap]

[Desertbreh]

Need booking info for this hotspot.

[MexicanYarisTK]

Need booking info for this hotspot.

I have more to say about this place and the previous management

[Johnny_P]

Jumped out the window. Wow. Awesome.

[SAWCE]

Jumped out the window. Wow. Awesome.

You know you’ve fucked up when you feel the need to…

[MexicanYarisTK]

Jumped out the window. Wow. Awesome.

Dat wife beater.

Also that family can no longer come to our property. If that lady and her kids continues to stay and marriott corporate finds out, we are

[MexicanYarisTK]

Jumped out the window. Wow. Awesome.

You know you’ve fucked up when you feel the need to…

And now hes paying the price, currently behind bars now awaiting for court date.

[SAWCE]

You know you’ve fucked up when you feel the need to…

And now hes paying the price, currently behind bars now awaiting for court date.

Glad they caught the POS.

[MexicanYarisTK]

Your boy got 1 month off for Turkey, I only got a PTO for one week and the remaining 3 weeks is unpaid. Already got my flight ticket and is coming too.

[MexicanYarisTK]

Now things have been quite mellow at the hotel so far, but here are some things that I observed.

As Zillion rants about the indian dudes at the dealers, I have my own share of rants. For instance, all indians or similar descent who are platinum, titanium and ambassador elite. For those who don't know, they are marriott members and they're eligible to get those aforementioned levels after spending a number of nights per year staying in the hotel. Which means, they're eligible for an upgrade with the same price for the room they originally made a reservation for. My hotel in particular has 3 types of rooms, studios, one bedrooms and two bedrooms. All of our rooms have queen beds and a pull out sofa couch at minimum.

That being said, one indian dude that pulled up in a base model 3 (judging by the wheels), asked me for an upgrade. But that upgrade can only be granted with a caviat, if those rooms are not fully booked, and it was booked for today. So it was him, his wife and 2 kids. Cause I know our 2 bedrooms are not cheap. I can see where his heads at, but I can't kick others out like that.

2 ladies asked either for a refund or lied about that they're "overcharged" and they claimed that they checked out the day before.
1) She told me that theres ripped courtains, etc etc. I just pretend that I'll let the manager know about this and see what happens (kinda like how a simp asks a girl on a date and the girl said she has "other plans", meaning I don't wanna see her). I checked the room, and there was none of that when she checked out, she was platinum elite. That shit does not fly like that with me unless she was honest. Just because I'm a white looking dude (assuming she thinks im just a clueless white boy that happens to look almost 10 years younger). Nahhh
2) lady number 2. An ambassador elite, she booked for one night, typically we call the room and the number to reach, she's also eligible for a late checkout (4PM). None answered. Turns out shes staying for another night. The next day, same fucking thing, even the GM was frustrated. But she checked out in the afternoon on the next day (when I was off). Then proceeds to call me a few days later stating that we overcharged her for one night. Our system has the changehost thing where we can see the changes in everything on the registration file. I noticed a different card on file got changed right before she checked out. So she was trying to get a free night. Again I responded, "I can't do any refunds unless I get the managers approval, I will be here tomorrow and she will be here tomorrow and I will discuss this with her" and the manager was actually here, I was politely giving her a hard time for giving us a hard time and also politely telling her I ain't buying your bs. We know she spent the night that she falsely claim that she didn't.

Other than that, we're improving a lot. Our outdoor pool was finally open, we waited for the permit to come for a few weeks, have the pool inspected, etc. On top of that. The permit procedure turns out to be a covid aftermath based on how things are delayed, so we weren't the only hotel that dealted with this.

I've got emails from management that we are fully stocked on everything.

I will write more of the backstory of this hotel sometime this week and how we managed to get an interim manager. Cause the management that hired me did some negligence that caused our hotel a bad rep.

[MexicanYarisTK]

This is a little overdue as promised on the OT last week, but now I have time to explain it all.

With the pics I've provided on OT recently, I gave a little teaser on what I'm about to explain.

But let's start with the transition that has motivated me to out of that place, granted I didn't even see myself there for long term. Now that I'm no longer there, this is where I worked for 10 months. https://www.marriott.com/en-us/hotels/w ... lsrc=aw.ds

I switched from a 3 star Marriott Extended stay that's pretty much on a lower tier than Residence Inn, which provides a full kitchen (including oven and crockpot, good for someone like who can fully prep his meal like he can do at home). to a 4 star luxurious boutique hotel. Only issue is, it's not a marriott property because I won't get room rates and tax for a steal, even in bumfuck nowhere, I can spend a night for $45 without tax with the marriott benefit, but I digress as it is a much better place to work with benefits.

That being said, lets start from day one.

As most of you know, my career life (or employment life) mostly composed of the travel industry, which includes groups, business travelers and so on. That includes some sort of event management skills, hell I was an event manager when covid started for a local latin entertainment company. Since most of my clientele are from Europe and Turkey for the last few years prior to covid, things have became questionable. Our client traffic dropped like a rock, but every now and then we had some decent work, but it's just not stable from time to time. So I decided to apply to hotels in the past, never have gotten a chance before I got hired for event management for the aforementioned Latin company.

Fast forward to Fall 2021, that's when my long hiatus for Turkey was over. I got back to the mom and pop tour operation/travel company that I've been working for pretty much 7 years, after then the amount of work just skyrocketed. That was at the time when lot of covid flight restrictions were eliminated. I also have (and still do) have something else in the works, I may probably mentioned it, but I don't wanna disclose just yet. So I drove from Savannah, GA to Orlando (where one of the main partners are located) to Miami just to do some "inspection" in relation to my job at the time, as Miami is one of the popular destination for my business travelers, plus of course to relax. Venturing around.

Then about 2 or 3 weeks later, I went to New York to do some sight seeing, go to hotels to talk to the sales staff, talk to some restaurants to set up for events, maybe a separated 3 courses, a rooftop bar in brooklyn where you can see an amazing view of Manhattan, etc. They were for the upcoming business travelers from China and from Turkey, who work for a phone company that does not exist in the US yet (or probably never will be), it's not Huawei. Also for another competitor for uber eats, door dash. For some it might be familiar https://getir.com/us/

Turns out, one of the agents that guided those to NYC was actually a good friend of my uncle who also works for hospitality. So we chatted a lot. He was also into cars so we talked about that, and how things are shaping with the industry in general. Fast forward to Thanksgiving, I stayed in NYC (well Weehawken, NJ) for 8 days and went to one of my parents friends in Long Island for Thanksgiving. Then I went to Turkey for almost a month a week after that. By the time I come back shortly after new years, I had plans to go to Vegas followed by LA (I was ), then I had a trade show for the thing I aforementioned in the works, then drive to Orlando again for the following week as I had to take some cargo where I don't trust to put it on the plane. But other than the trade show, when omicron entered the chat, all the trips were done. Travel went down again to a point where I got really bored. Shortly after that I met for the first time, but at the time I started applying to bunch of hotel jobs, going to interviews left and right, as nothing really picked up from travel, so I decidedly go for the first one that they accepted while it's a reasonable commute. I was happy and relieved, but that was at the time when things were decent at the hotel.

Onto the hotel.

Fwiw, I barely stayed at 3 stars hotels that are typically along lines of Hampton Inn other than one night stays during road trips, which is the vibe that I've gotten. So my expectations maybe a little different. Down the road, I kept getting complaints so at first I thought they were exaggerating but eventually found out they were right. During covid, they only served grab and go breakfast with a paper bag. I had a few sunday mornings where we were really short on breakfast and end up serving it as such as an only alternative, that of course upset some people. Almost 2 months later, the management we're contracted out from the higher-up who owns the hotel, cause they did not keep up their particular policy. The higher up which I realize was a toxic place to work in general. We had another guy works for the company staying at our hotel for free to help start digging through it. Couple days later, the guy who works for the higher up, asked me if I can come 1.5 hours earlier than scheduled, which is at 5. Mind you, I've seen the text at 5:40, when I woke up.

Things has been helped with the interim manager though, but one of the problems I have encountered at the hotel for the past few months or more, was constant out of shampoo, body wash, blow dryer, etc. etc. We had a housekeeper supervisor who both speak 2 languages, which she can easily translate of course, knows how to use the system, so the front desk won't have to do it. (Which I had to do for pretty much since May). She was always on point with the essential items that is needed, always stocked regardless.

Fast forward to July, we got our new GM and AGM. AGM is a very nice lady, GM on the other hand. Ever since one of us quit, it put us burden. Constantly getting called for work at last minute, constantly getting most off days to work. By the time in October, I worked 6 days a week regularly, that also includes double shift too. Then someone else quit. The GM at one point, asked me to ask another employee to come to work on her ONLY off day for the week, again only off day for the week. I never even bothered and pretended that I couldn't reach out to her. The scheduling is soo inconsistent, it almost seems like you have no life outside of work, that's the impression I get from GM's perspective. That coworker shortly put her 2 weeks notice, I began to apply to some places as well. We have another employee on her vacation in december for almost a month. I didn't really had much plans, so I took advantage of the overtime. One week I worked 72 hours (which I was prepared for) and I get to stay in the hotel free for it. To put the cherry on top of the cake, she leaves like 3:30 to 4 PM, out previous manager wasn't like that, at all. She took total of 4 weeks of vacation once she made us work like slaves.

Around 20th of December, I got a call from my current place that I got hired. At that very moment, it almost felt like my long time crush who kept rejecting me for years said yes to the prom, I felt a million pounds off my shoulder. So on the next work day, which was tomorrow at the time, I put in my 2 weeks notice. Had an entire week off, which I went to chicago.

Shortly after that, our main house person whose 70 years old, used to work for front desk, so he has been on the property for 16 years. He quit. Our sales breh, whose been there for 5 years, quit. So all 3 of us pretty much quit or resigned on the same week. That says a lot on the management. It has became a terrible place that shouldn't even be in business.

I will post more of the problems I have encountered with the property. as it's late right now

[wap]

Dang, what a cluster fuck of a place. Glad you got out of there. Liking the new place much better I imagine.

on future potential gig...

[max225]

Working 72 hrs a week... did you make major over time ? or what's up?

[MexicanYarisTK]

Working 72 hrs a week... did you make major over time ? or what's up?

Yup, my bi weekly has doubled because of it. Atleast I did get to book a free room for my old property.

[MexicanYarisTK]

Since I'm yet again overdue.

Instead of negatively ranting at times, which we do a number of times here on DFD. I decided to talk a little more about my new gig first and what I experienced. Or as a matter of fact the kind of guests that stayed in my hotels.

First I now work in the hotel that has 38th rank out of 155 on trip advisor.
It has rewarded by travelers as top 10 hotel in the city.
Needless to say it's a huge upgrade!
After my 90 day introductory period ends, I get 2 weeks pto + total of 8 paid days.
For every viceroy property, I get $100 per night as I work for the hotel. Regardless even if the cheapest room cost $400, like the LA property.
It is a luxury boutique hotel, which means I typically deal with much better and more well rounded people.

We had a comedian stayed with us! Theres also a documentary netflix series based off of him called Mo.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mohammed_Amer

Also the mayor of San Francisco! One of my coworkers told me Bernie Sanders have stayed with us as well.

__
Now thats out of the day, from a 148 rooms 3 star hotel to an almost 200 rooms 4 star along with a rooftop + bar.

We have lot more staff than we have before, so I won't have to run around doing things on my own (basically doing what a housemen should do). Plus working here is like a vacation in comparison to the hell hole I came from.
__
Now remaining things to address and the I went through from my previous property.

There are plethora of things I have dealt with with the old place, while the manager who hired seemed to be nice people, I do notice some negligence nor from the higher up.

Shortly after I started, they couldn't seem to keep up with the inventory for the breakfast, which is the only thing we offered for food and beverage outside of our little market. As a result, there was a few mornings (especially on weekends) we had to make grab and go breakfast, which in no question was embarresing but certainly better than nothing. This did piss some people off and hell I would be pissed too, especially if the reason was free breakfast, the most important meal of the day.

At one point when our interim manager came in as the management I got hired to were contracted out. Shortly after that transition, we had a major problem. The hotel had 3 different varieties of tv, one of them were Panasonic which looked outdated as hell. Well we had a thunderstorm one night and it threw out those panasonics signal. So for good 2 weeks, I had guests complaining left and right, left and right. No matter how many rooms I put out of order, cause I can't continously compensate for the guest due to inconvenience. Needless to say, it ran with a tight budget.

Then summer is here, well memorial day that is. That is when pools are supposed to be open in my neck of the woods, so it really did take a while based off of finding the permit where we have to legally operate + hire a few lifeguards. And by while I'm talking a month!! Which of course threw some people off, but apperently that also seems like one of those covid setbacks as I've been told and other properties in the area seemed to be having the same issue as well. Well that was taken care of now.

Shortly before I went to Turkey, I met the new/current gm at the time. When I got back from Erdoganland, I noticed a lot of differences. I noticed better items in the market, guests seem to be happier than before, it almost seems like the current gm does want to upkeep the property and into a standard as it should. But there are other issues for me along with others I work with. The GM became my worst nightmare, lets say I work 40 hours a week/5 days which I am totally fine with, which means I get 2 days off per week. I have plans with , the day before the day of the plan, I got called for work and I asked that I have plans and I wasn't expecting to work on that weekend. Well she responded as "you didn't request time off" this is the first time I ever had that, and it's inconsistent. My off working days were not my off working days. I started doing night auditor a little before that, before overworking hit me. At times, I was fine doing a double (16 hours continously). On Friday night into saturday morning, I started working from 2:30 PM to 6:30 AM on the following morning, I was expecting to relax on the remainder of my saturday as long as I don't work. Well I thought wrong, being a light sleeper that I am, I woke up at 1 in the afternoon and I got called to work for literally an hour before I got the fucking call. I ended up another double. Granted I got overtime, but still that was too much. Couple weeks later, I was supposed to be off the whole day and had a relaxing/recharging day and went to gym around 9 pm, by 10 pm (in the middle of my workout) I got a call to work. I had to say that give me 45 minutes, cause I had to shower and get dressed. I felt like a first responder.

One of my co-workers quit, then a month later another one quit, we hired someone who eventually flaked on us, we also recently hired an assistant gm who was willingly wanted to partake for all front desk shifts as needed. I began applying to bunch of places, after about a few weeks later, I have gotten an interview at my current place, I had to tell one of the guys to cover me for 2 more hours as I got an "appointment".

Then with the problems. First the power went out one night, well partially, but that was also included in the area, such as the traffic lights were not working. The next day, 60% of the property has no hot water. No hot water!! This especially pissed a lot of people off, I had to close reservations every single day for a week, to prevent guests coming in, I had to make designated shower rooms, run back and forth once its done so that it's clean. For all the marriott bonvoy members, each guests receive 10,000 points per night when they have faced the inconvenience. This was when GM was on vacation, so I don't really always have management on duty. I can temporarily handle that place without management, I just don't have their access when I needed it. Because of short between shift windows I have, I stayed at a few different neighboring marriotts with my employee discount. The day when people are finishing to install a new boiler, I decided to go to the property at 1-2 am to check and see the update and assist the new night auditor. I was super happy I heard the good news from one of the boiler guys that the hot water was back.

That all being said and done, we lost a huge construction group that was originally planning on staying with us until March. So after another week, most of them are gone. On one of my last days as I was heading to the hotel, I was getting gas near there and I saw those guys truck entering Residence Inns garage thats down the street from us.

Then we experienced extreme cold, down to about 5 degrees fahrenheit. It was terribly cold. That caused one of the pipes frozen shut. I couldn't recall exactly what caused the pipes to basically burst down and ruin all eight floors, so needless to say, all 8 rooms are out of order. This was the worst experience I have ever had in this property. I am just gonna leave it at that, as you can imagine, it wasn't a pretty scene. I found out about it cause that triggered the fire alarm, and it's a good thing I called them and that is when I found out about the situation.

Those bunch of people that we kicked out of, there people either book through price line or marriott bonvoy app. Not only cheaper, but also they think they can get away because we get a smaller incidental fine for it. They book another reservation by one day, then another following day, then another following day, etc. I have felt something shady about these people, so one night I got multiple calls from guests on that particular room. Turns out it was a domestic dispute so I had to call the police.

Another one of those was booking through the marriott app, but they changed rooms a few times. Well one guest I checked in into one of those rooms found syringes on top of the desk cabinet, which is probably what the housekeepers missed the spot as it was a long term guest that was staying there, so he was storing his stuff. I had to transfer rooms, which took him a lot to move, but can't let him stay there.

On my last fucking day, that was after coming back from a 4 day NY trip as I requested off. Which I worked double, from 6:30AM to 10:30Pm and I did quiet quitting, doing the bare minimum requirements, so I can atleast get paid. Since we got 2 new team members, one of them checked in a guest that we did kick them in the past, so these new members would not recognize them. Night auditor somehow had to transfer him to a different room, because the guest claimed the sprinkler just "burst open", which caused flood on the entire first floor. Thank god whoever booked him, did not book on the other floors, cause that can make the situation worse. Also sprinklers doesn't just burst open, unless they did something to it that instigated it in the first place. The fire marshall came and it turns out the guest broke the head of the sprinkler, as it appeared to be like it. Therefore intentional probably for obvious reasons. The chief engineer told me the smoke alarm was also taped and on top of it, he stayed another night before fucked up another. Which caused, wait for it.... over $10k in damages. The drug addict (who caused this catastrophical mess) asked me how much to stay another night, I randomly gave him a rate that costs 50 percent more to make him leave, which he gave up and left. I asked the GM if I can charge his cc due to the damages in some extent. I only got $1,200 off of him cause anything more is declined.

I may have a few more that I'm forgetting, but that is enough imo. And good for