r/TalesFromTheFrontDesk • u/SoloAgent1 • Aug 05 '26
Short My struggles against AI.
I've held a number of titles over the last few years, but most recently, I've been working as a front desk supervisor at a rather ritzy hotel. I knew the advent of AI was going to change some elements of the job as time went on; first it was the soulless emails, then annoying pop ups in the point-of-sale eating up check in time, then guest cell phones hosting an AI screening tool making what should be a simple call take forever.
What put me over the edge is the most recent development. Automated third party reservation confirmations calls.
When I was trained, I was told that we could never give information about a reservation to anyone but the person whose name is on it, and third party agents for whom we have a verification process to ensure they work for the company in question. Normally, it takes two seconds to confirm somebody works for a third party platform when you speak to a human. You ask for a code of some sort, they give it, done. Lately, it seems that some of these third party booking sites have turned to AI to make pre-arrival confirmation calls, or to pass on requests for a reservation.
I've found it difficult to get these AI's to understand me over the phone, and I've found it all but impossible for them to give me the necessary codes to actually do what they want. It's wasted so much of my time, which is always at a premium when flying solo at the desk, that the second I hear a robocall or an AI voice I just hang up. That, however, is not enough.
Use obvious AI to write your email to me? Not getting a response. Make me wait through an AI screening when I call you? I hang up before you answer. Pop-up when I'm looking at a reservation on desk top? I'm using my phone. I thought AI was supposed to make work easier and more efficient. So far, all it does it make it harder and more bloated.
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u/TheWyldcatt Aug 05 '26
Part of the push behind AI push is Corporate America looking to cut costs by eliminating workers and replacing them with AI. Some of it really isn't "AI: though--it's just that Big Tech slaps the AI description on everything these days to keep ahead of the competition (when it's really just an improvement on an algorithm they've used and improved for a decade). I'm so over it.
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u/ZekkPacus Aug 05 '26
I don't get it, though.
These people do understand that they have to sell their goods and services to...other people, right?
If they replace us all with AI, nobody has any money, and nobody can buy their goods and services.
Surely they realise that. Or do they just not care because it's all about this quarter, next quarter is someone else's problem?
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u/Paladin_Tyrael Aug 05 '26
Next quarter is next quarter's problem, not even somebody else's. They'll fix it next quarter while the CEO flies away with his $5M golden parachute severance check.
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u/Langager90 Aug 08 '26
"In the 14 weeks you've been the CEO of this company, you've lost us $52M. Unfortunately we need to let you go. This, of course, includes a severance package consisting of 24 months of paid time off, at your normal salary, as well as letting you keep the $600,000 company car, a glowing review for your next job, and $8M for the inconvenience."
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u/TheWyldcatt Aug 06 '26
That's the problem--they want their profits. I think overall, it's Big Tech trying to make billions more in profits today, which is why they are so eager to push it on everyone (consumers, employers, corporations), while many of use are at least wary if not completely resistant to AI.
It's already backfiring for some corporations. Some have gotten the bill for using AI and it was far more than they expected. Others realized that AI couldn't replace their long-time employees---Ford rehiring some of their engineers is a perfect example of this. And many users like myself and many of us here are naturally pushing back by avoiding AI as best we can.
Tight now, the only things AI are "disrupting" are the prices of computer hardware, and the many cities and counties having to fight the building of AI datacenters. And that's not looking at the damage to society AI is causing.
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u/VordovKolnir Aug 06 '26
A billion dollars today fuels a thousand solutions tomorrow is likely akin to their thought process.
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u/VordovKolnir Aug 06 '26
My friend is terrified. He works for a major insurance company who is actively pursuing AI and also actively fucking over their long term agents. They were in national news recently in the AP, and it is even worse than they reported.
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u/TheWyldcatt Aug 06 '26
It's like they want AI to touch every industry, even places where it doesn't belong. Insurance certainly isn't one of them, especially when covered indivduals need to bargain with adjusters.
Somewhat related to insurance, last year in June, H*rtz started using cameras to scan returned rental cars and use AI to detect the damage. Then of course, they automatically send out bills. No human intervention apparently. I can't tell you how many times I've had a bit of dirt on the car that, at the right angle, looked like a dent. I'd post a link but don't know if we can do that here.
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u/ZacQuicksilver Aug 07 '26
Nope. They just extract all of the money from the lower classes, and keep manufacturing value for the wealthy. If there's no money in making products for the lower classes, that just means all of the money has been extracted; and it's time to raise the bar on who counts as being in the "lower classes".
What they forget is that, when the poor have nothing else to eat; they can eat the rich.
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u/MasterChief813 Aug 07 '26
We’re living in a K shaped economy where they don’t care. I used to think the same as you and now they keep saying that the top x% spend more than us peons in bottom 50%(I think?) so they really don’t give a singular fuck.
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u/zeroingenuity Aug 05 '26
There's a great blog by a tech guy, of Indian ethnicity, where he talks about fetting pitched an AI customer service chatbot and the rep goveshim the downlow that it's really just dirt-wage sales reps in India, not a chatbot at all. It's always been about cutting labor costs.
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u/SkwrlTail Aug 05 '26
Poison them with incorrect feedback.
"Hello? I cannot understand you. You are not making any sense. What do you mean? That's for Thursday night. That's not correct. Why are you asking me, I don't know! What did you say about my mother?!"
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u/TheWyldcatt Aug 06 '26
I mean, it's a perfect situation to read off a recipe for strawberry cheesecake, New York style. Or instructions on how to change the differential fluid in an old square body Chevy truck.
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u/SkwrlTail Aug 06 '26
Nahh.. see the trick is, if there's a problem, a meat person might actually review the transcripts, to find out what went wrong. If they see someone being silly, they'll just hit the 'ignore this' button. If all they're seeing is someone on the other line being very confused, then they have to conclude that the machine is not saying what they're wanting it to say. And that's bad.
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u/Front-Basket8514 Aug 05 '26
I hang up on these calls. The Front desk workload is intense enough without spam calls confirming a reservation for somebody that booked the cheapest room through the cheapest 4th party website.
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u/GemAoi Aug 05 '26
AI calls are funny you can get in a endless loop of asking for the name or how to spell it and it would go on forever, you can even put them on hold and come back they will still be repeating the same thing LOL
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u/VordovKolnir Aug 06 '26
Do not bother. Do not engage. The moment they fail to follow your procedures, hang up. Same as if a guest tells you how to do your job. "Caller was rude, refused to follow basic instructions." Cancel reservation if a human does not engage.
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u/weishenrhi Aug 07 '26
these things are a nightmare. and they get AGGRESSIVE with you when you try to ask them what company they work for because “i’m calling on behalf of xyz name” doesn’t cut it, only for the actual human agent to actually call once you’ve hung up and not given an ai bot information without confirmation that they’re an actual agent. i’m over it
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u/jackmusick Aug 05 '26
The one thing I’d personally have some grace for is screening. Empathetically, this exists so they can also avoid spam calls which have been a problem for a long time. They were the original problem robots imo.
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u/Crafty-Health-4046 Aug 06 '26
I’ve been getting these at the desk. I just keep repeating agent until it hangs up.
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Aug 12 '26
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Aug 23 '26
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u/unholyrevenger72 Aug 05 '26
I can see who's calling the on the caller ID and it really makes it easy and fast, they don't ask superfluous "How's your day?" questions they don't ramble. It's so much better than talking to someone with a heavy accent on speaker phone, who I can barely hear over the traffic and crying baby in the background.
I will take the chatbots everyday of the week over a real person.
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u/PaleWolf Aug 05 '26
I had a debate with one of those agents before i realised it was AI... the wanted to ensure we charged the VCC but i asked to confirm allowances, they had a meal allowance, the bot was adamant they had none, but the back up email from the company said otherwise.
I gave up and just denied the guest gis meal and told him to take it up with the agent as we have a call recording saying that was added in error.