A violent and insistent phone ringing woke me up at 6AM in the morning over the weekend. To my dismay, the phone was not on the night stand next to my bed as with most hotels. The phone was on a table across the room. I jumped out of bed to answer it, dreading some kind of horrible urgent news, only it was a pleasant recording informing me that this is my wakeup call. But we had not requested one.

“What’s going on?” my husband’s sleepy voice asked. And our two children began to roll in their bed, and rubbing their eyes.

So I dialed the front desk to find out.

“Your wake up call service just called our room at six, except we didn’t request this wakeup call!” I announced the complain in my most irritated quiet voice.

“….I didn’t do it.” the voice on the other end said.

What kind of answer is this?! I found out that the voice belongs to Aldrich.

“Well, who did?” I had to go along.

“…let’s see…the person before my shift…could be Cory,” Aldrich.

This surprised me even more than his first reply. I had not expected Aldrich to actually produce a prime suspect for me. It is too early to keep this going.

“Actually, I don’t care if it is you or Cory, don’t you think you should apologize to me?” I opted to suggest the most entry level customer service etiquette to Aldrich.

“Would you like to speak with my manager?” Aldrich asked me.

“Why?” wondering why he didn’t just issue me an apology.

“Because you sound upset,” Aldrich dryly stated his reason.

I declined Aldrich’s invitation. Because I much rather go back to sleep.

At 9AM, I went to the breakfast room to get something to eat, I didn’t find much I like to eat, as I walk by the front desk, and noted that it was empty of guests, I decided to see if another hotel representative might be feeling more sorry for me.

Marisol did not. Marisol was equally unapologetic, plus a tense and defensive face, minus the humor that Aldrich unwittingly indulged. The conversation with Marisol mostly consisted with a series of possible excuses to explain how none of this is anyone’s fault. The most interesting excuse is that their wake up call system will sometimes just randomly call and wake guests up. Marisol assured me that it only happens about once every 3 months, plus the one time, when their phone system kept call this one room everyday for no reason. She said they are machines, so mistakes can happen with machines.

So, I walked away with human or machine errors and no wording of apology or sorry. Actually, by this point, I had my own suspect in mind.

If it is intentional, it had to be the person that checked me in the previous day. I think her name is Yesenia. We wanted to check in early, and was told the room would be ready by 1:45PM. Well, we didn’t check in until a little after 3PM. Yesenia reminds me of someone who has been in the service industry for too long, and is so jaded, that she harbors a disdain for anyone walking around with luggages. She was unfriendly and rude. As I finally got my room card key, I couldn’t hold it in anymore, and I told her that she could be nicer.

Later that evening, as our family of four were getting ready for bed, I feared out loud what if the wakeup call happens again. Luckily, I married a genius, my husband picked up the phone and called the front desk, and requested a 9AM wake up call. Problem solved!

Not. Their menacing wake up call rang our room again at 6AM! I kid you not!

FURIOUS!! MAD!! I dialed the front desk again. Somehow my furor toned down a bit when I heard Aldrich’s voice on the other end again. He needed to be dealt in a different way.

“Aldrich, Cory woke us up again.” I informed Aldrich. At least this time, he came up with a slightly more appropriate response.

“OH NO!” Aldrich.