Losing Faith In People - Thank God For My Children

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Calm, cool and collected.  The marketing phrase that was popular for years extolling the benefits of using Secret, the body deodorant, aptly describes my personality make-up.  I am the calm in the storm.  I am cool amid the stress.  I am collected among all the chaos.  Very little gets to me and my buttons are very difficult to find let alone push.  I would admit that my work in hospitality has frequently taken me closer to my meltdown point than I care to acknowledge.  Taking care of the customer becomes more challenging each year.     

This past weekend I experienced three different events that once again gave me great pause about the human condition.  I experienced anger, frustration and a feeling of hopelessness coming from all three of these experiences.  Each of them made my face grow red and my blood boil.  As calm, cool and collected as I am, my emotions were starting to get the best of me.    

The weekend started with a couple who reported that they had an IBM Tablet stolen from their room.  They immediately accused one of my housekeepers of stealing it.  Responding in a prudent and responsible fashion, I investigated the matter with haste along with my security counterparts.  The housekeeper was questioned and believed to be innocent.  Security reported back to the guest that our investigation found no theft on the part of the housekeeper.  The guests then made a point to search our 32-acre property to confront me and demand compensation. 

I was at our oceanfront restaurant having a light salad for lunch when the couple interrupted me with their loud, accusatory voices.  I explained to them that we were still investigating the matter but we believed the housekeeper was innocent.  They believed differently of course and made a point with their loud voices to make sure everyone else knew as well.  Later in the day, I returned to their unit to make a visual inspection myself under the guise that our insurance company would want to know that we did a search of the unit for the missing computer.

Finding nothing of course, I thanked them and indicated I would be calling the police to come by the following morning to complete a police report.  The husband showed up at the Front Desk the next morning and reported that they found their Tablet.  Funny how the couple just happened to find it prior to the police arriving.  Filing a false police report is a felony in South Carolina.  Funny how they chose not to search the property for either the housekeeper or I to apologize for their false accusations.

The second experience was a guest reporting to the Front Desk that their unit had bugs in it.  They had just arrived to their unit and found roaches all over the place.  I immediately went to the unit.  It was true.  There were roaches everywhere.  I acknowledged to the guest that the unit had a bug problem and made arrangements to have the guest moved to a different unit.  As I was walking out of the unit I noticed that there was a jar in the trash can by the kitchen.  This was a clean unit and there would have been no trash in the trash cans.  This guest, using the word loosely, emptied out the roaches into the room in hopes that they would receive a nicer and closer unit to the ocean. 

My third experience over the weekend and the one that still bothers me is seeing a three-year boy sitting on his mother's lap in the  passenger seat of their SUV.  They were driving on the property looking for a parking space.  There were two young girls in bathing suits walking toward one of our pools.  The little three-year old flips them the middle finger.  Mom is laughing watching her young son obviously emulate her or his father. 

Three wonderful experiences at the beach.  Every time I experience such behavior from my guests, I am reminded how proud and pleased I am with my three grown children, Timothy, Jennifer and Daniel.  I have truly been blessed with three wonderful children.   It is of great comfort to know that not one of my three would behave in just a boorish and ghastly fashion.  They restore my faith each and every day and help me overcome my frustration with disgusting and shameful people.