Upon checking out of a hotel room suite, I found a large black knife and an unopened condom underneath the sofa cushion. I was totally shocked and in disbelief. My friend opened the knife and the blade was razor sharp. We couldn’t figure out how to close it so we panicked and left it on the dining room table over a white hand towel with a note to housekeeping.
I was thinking to myself what if this knife was used to commit a crime and could be potential evidence. I proceeded to go to the front desk to check out and notified the front desk agent about the discovery. I told them the knife was razor sharp and should be handled with care. I advised him that it could have been used in crime or a lost and found item. The front desk agent didn’t seem to worry one bit as if this was a regular occurrence and told me that they would take care of it.
I went on my merry way to the airport to catch a flight. A week later, I received a hotel survey and filled it out accordingly noting my discoveries and that housekeeping should look more carefully when cleaning the rooms. I was not looking for any compensation or anything since I had a pleasant stay despite the last minute discovery while checking out.
The General Manager contacted me and told me he would take care of the issue and compensate me with some Starpoints. Here’s how our correspondence went:
“I wanted to drop you a quick note to thank you for your recent stay and for completing the guest survey. We are a new management team to the property and appreciate you letting us know of your experience. I am completing embarrassed to read about your recent stay and this has been addressed with our housekeeping department and the inspectors. I apologize that the Front Desk staff did NOT resolve your issue and I will investigate this. They as a team are completely empowered to resolve our guests issue and apologize this did not occur during your stay. I reviewed you are a SPG Platinum member and will be extending additional points to your account due to the experience you had. Again, please accept my apology regarding the experienced issues. ”
“Thank you for responding to the survey. Upon checkout, I was trying to look for stuff left behind so I lifted up the sofa cushions and I found a large black knife! In addition was a condom right next to it. I was shocked, went to the front desk to check out and mentioned to them what happened. Front desk male agent didn’t seem to care as if it this might be a common thing. I didn’t know how to handle the large knife situation so I put it on a towel in the dining table. I don’t know what housekeeping did with it but please follow up… It could be a murder weapon, lost and found item? I was very shocked.”
In this last correspondence, the General Manager said “Again, I appreciate you bringing the situation to my attention and I want to assure it was addressed with our Rooms Director, Inspector and Room attendant. Changes have been made in regards to that area of employment. In addition, we have hired additional inspectors to help reduce the number of rooms being inspected to ensure better accuracy in our Rooms Department. These type of situations are UNACCEPTABLE and should not occur in a hotel. I also reviewed security reports and did not review any guest incidents prior to your arrival. “
I was shocked by his response “Changes have been made in regards to that area of employment.”
What does this mean? Changes such as additional training or termination? I certainly hope no one got fired from this ordeal and I feel really bad about it. The last thing I want to do is get a service employee fired from a job.
Who overreacted? Did I overreact or did the General Manager overreact?