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Boy, did I pull a blooper yesterday! New guests check in, are thrilled with the house, I do the welcome thing, answer some questions, wish them a good stay, and leave.
15 minutes later I get a text “Hi Kim, the place is lovely! There doesn’t seem to be a fitted sheet for the middle room, is there one possibly in a closet?”
Horror of horrors! We made the bed and forgot to put on a bottom sheet!
How in the heck does anyone manage to do that, you ask?
Well, we put a fitted sheet on, then found a tiny speck of something that didn’t come out in the wash. So we pulled it off and my assistant went down to the basement to get another sheet out of the dryer. In the meanwhile, I have been taking pictures of listing because we updated/changed a few things. I needed to take pictures of that room. So I made the executive (and ultimately idiotic) decision to put on the top sheet and bedcover to make the bed look made up for the photos.
I take the photos and wander off to do something else. My assistant comes back from the basement with a clean bottom sheet, sees the bed looking made up, decides I must have gotten a clean sheet from the linen closet and made the bed and so folds that sheet and puts it away.
Of course I apologized profusely to the guests, explained what happened, and we all had a laugh at my expense. Totally my fault and I bet I never make that mistake again!
I had two that make us chuckle. I had a father and son staying for an fairly long stay so I asked the father if it was a good time to change sheets. He laughed and said yes. When I pulled back the covers his teenage son was still in it! He thought it was funny, but I was a little embarrassed. We have a handful of repeat direct books. One day I told my husband that something was supposed to happen that day but I couldn’t find any notes as to what it was. At 11 PM my husband, in a very strange voice, said “Bob and Cheryl are here”. It was one of our direct book parties. Fortunately I had a room all ready to go and sufficient food for breakfast. I don’t think they ever knew that we were surprised. In addition I frequently send text message to a guest intended for a friend or famiy member - “where did you put something?”, " are you going to the such and such event? Vice versa occurs when I text a family member asking for their arrival time, lol.
My room is separate but connected to my part of the house by what is, in effect, a closet at the end of the hall. One time I opened the door to the guest room to take one final look to make sure everything was ready and the guest was in there, sitting up in bed. I guess he was as shocked that someone was coming in the door as I was to see him there. I didn’t hear him check in. 99% of my guests have a car, but he had taken an Uber.
I just said “Oh! I didn’t hear you check in. Sorry. Thank god you have your clothes on!”
LOL. He was a military kid and just spending a couple of nights away from the barracks. I think they are so used to not having privacy that it didn’t really bother him. I got a 5 star review and he didn’t warn future guests about me.
That kind of thing is why guests should have a lock on the inside of their doors.
Oh I can relate to texting the wrong person on a few different occasions. Nothing bad has ever come from these conversations but there was one that stuck with me even after things had been straightened out. I had saved the contact name of my guest because they were staying for a couple weeks and communication had been strong through out his stay. A couple weeks in to their stay I had some issues with my phone and ended up losing the conversation with this guest. Long story short, I texted them apologizing for any delay or miscommunication during the time my phone was out of service. Turns out I texted this to my boss (who shared a name with my guest) at work and he nonchalantly accepted my apology and told me he appreciated that I was trying to reach out directly. In the end, I got back in touch with the guest and explained the situation and we both had a good laugh. My boss still does not know that I did not mean to text him that day but is very keen on using me as an example of communicating within our team. Guess it all worked out in the end!
