"It says a lot of things in the brochure."

It’s never a good sign when the person who is supposed to be helping you is named “TRAINEE.”

The new guy at my apartment’s front desk is going to fit right in —he is not only completely incompetent, he is also insulting. One evening last week I arrived home to find a note under my door saying “Mr. Hennon, you have an outstanding balance. Please remit £56.00 upon receipt of this notice.” OK—a few things wrong here. Bypassing the name issue for now, why am I getting billed for phone calls and internet charges in the middle of my stay? My credit card is on file, and I’m not due to check out until August 3rd, so why the sudden urgency to settle up? Was I being evicted? Could I be so lucky? I went downstairs to find out.

That’s when I met TRAINEE. I presented the bill and explained my confusion. TRAINEE asked my room number (which coincidentally was printed on the bill), looked at his computer monitor, and then asked me –seriously—“And are you… Mister Hennon?” Ouch. When I explained that I am in fact MISS HANNON, with an A, he didn’t even have the courtesy to blush. Not surprisingly, considering that gender assessment was beyond his grasp, sorting out my bill was going to require help from the Supervisor. TRAINEE told me to come back later.

Having met the Supervisor before (Miss “Check-in is at 2:00”), my expectations were low. Here’s how our last exchange went down:
Me: “I’d like an alarm clock please.”
Her: “We don’t have any alarm clocks.”
Me: “Oh. Okay. But it says in the brochure here that each room has an alarm clock.”
Her: “It says a lot of things in the brochure.”

Right. The alarm clock situation, or lack thereof, is actually a daily source of amusement to me. In lieu of clocks, the desk offers a wake-up call service—using the terms “offers” and “service” loosely. I’d estimate that over the last fourteen days I’ve received my wake-up call at most 10 times, each time within a half-hour band of when it was supposed to be. Thomas the Night Manger makes the early calls personally. He’s actually the nicest of all the desk attendants. I almost look forward to hearing “6 O’CLOCK WAKE UP, YEAH???” each morning. Thomas is an older gentleman, so I try to be understanding when he forgets to call.

Miss “Check-in is at 2:00” on the other hand, I have no patience for. Apparently she and TRAINEE put their heads together and determined that, if I prefer, I do not in fact need to pay for my daily charges prior to checking out. I was so pleasantly surprised by this outcome that I decided to leave the name issue alone—probably best not to push my luck.