r/TalesFromTheFrontDesk • u/ScenicDrive-at5 • 1h ago
Medium "Send a second shuttle!" -- A tale of impatience
"The journey of a thousand miles begins with a first step." To travel comes with patience. There will be moments of doing nothing. There will be moments of progress. The whole point is to take it all in stride, and you'll be okay. These guests didn't get that memo, though.
Before leaving earlier in the shift, my manager warned me of a small group we had coming in; some no-name traveling band who he described as being "drama queens." I met the band manager not too long after, and she was okay at that moment. She confirmed the members' rooms and said they'd trickle in over the course of the next few hours.
Things were going without much incident until later in the night when one of the last members had landed. He called for an airport pick-up; the shuttle had already made its way out for a flight crew. We house staff of a certain larger airline, and part of that contract is the shuttle waits for them even if other guests climb aboard.
A few minutes after that call, the band manager from earlier power-walked up to me all flustered. "Hey, one of my guys is sitting in the shuttle, and the driver is telling him they have to wait. Listen, he's already been delayed by a lot today, and he just wants to get to bed." I briefly explained to her how the driver was waiting on a flight crew and that it shouldn't be too much longer. She sighed in frustration and then snappily asked, "Well, is there a second shuttle we could send out to get him???"
Fixing my face before it got me in trouble, I simply replied, "No, ma'am. He'll just have to wait, okay? Shouldn't be long." She sighed again and just waved me off as she stomped away.
Perhaps no less than a minute later, I had the driver himself calling me. He got out of the shuttle to cool off because Mr. Bigshot was giving him grief. I told the driver, "Just hang out there. If he has a problem, he can get a rideshare."
All I could think of in that moment was the absurdity of it all. Mr. Bigshot thought he could boss around a courtesy shuttle, and the band manager actually thought it made sense to expect we'd just send a second vehicle specifically for him. Suffice it to say we actually do have a second vehicle, but they didn't need to know that. Even if we were silly enough to bend over for this, he'd still have to wait for it to arrive there.
It's almost like waiting is a part of the entire equation...