I have to say the week started off a bit rough. I arrived on Sunday and thought I was 100% over the jetlag of traveling from Jakarta to Los Angeles to Houston and then back west to Vegas. I was in for a big surprise when I got to Mandalay Bay.
I’m a Type A personality. You know, I plan every minute if I possibly can and I had a plan to land, run a few errands with Nancy, check-in, work a few hours, eat dinner, work a couple of more hours, and get to bed for our leadership team meeting the next day. Things didn’t quite go as planned.
The check-in line was longer than the lines I had just seen at Disneyland the week before! Yup, I’m sure you are nodding your head if you checked in to the hotel on Sunday. It took over three hours. I was tired and exhausted and I knew since they only had five people checking everyone in, they were probably as frustrated as we were.
When it was finally my turn, I wanted to be sure I went in with the right mind frame as I have worked in the hospitality industry for the past ten years. So, I asked the girl how her day was going, tried to make small talk, and just asked if it was usually long lines like this. Instead of just saying, “No, not usually. It’s because we are a little short-staffed,” she says to me in her frustrated don’t you get it voice, “We don’t have enough people. We are coming off winter so we have all these people to train and they worked 12 hours today and had to go home. They can’t work more.” Of course, I wanted to say, “Chill! I just asked if it was normal” but I understood.
As we were completing the check-in process and I said, “I know this isn’t common but is there any chance you could do something since I had to wait so long?” She said she could comp the resort fees or give food credit. I knew I wanted wifi and that was probably the best value so I took it. To my disappointment, I received the bill and they hadn’t removed the resort fees so now I have to ask them to refund those.
I’m sure it was a tough day for her and she probably had no idea that it had been a tough few days for me as well between traveling and caring for my father who’s battling cancer. We have to remember that we need to do what we say we are going to do and we need to keep in mind we never know what someone is going through.
Next time you have someone at your center who comes off aggravated or downright mean, be kind. Take a step back and recognize you don’t know what they’re going through. When you tell them you are going to do something, whether it’s sending a person to fix a game, or fill tickets, or make a fresh pizza, do it. Don’t wait. Do it immediately and make things right. Trust me, you’ll be glad you did.
