There's a reason why room service workers knock on doors before entering. Unfortunately, some guests just completely disregard the knocks and don't have a care in the world what happens.
*Comments edited for clarity.
Noticing His Wedding Ring?
“I used to do the overnight room service at a hotel. We would get a lot of weirdos and wasted people late at night.
Once, I delivered to a room where a guy answered in his underwear. I walked in and saw another man passed out on his bed.
At this point, he noticed my wedding ring and kept asking me personal questions about my marriage and then he asked me, ‘Have you ever been with a man?’ I tell him no and he asks, ‘Do you want to?’ I politely decline and try to hurry him along signing the check so I can leave. He then pulls out a small bottle and asks me if I want to do ‘poppers’ with him. I ask him what ‘poppers’ are and he tells me it some kind of lens cleaner that you sniff. I’m getting more than a little creeped out at this point, so I say: ‘Have a good night,’ grab the check and leave.
I miss that job. People don’t care what they do or how they act around room service waiters, especially when they’re wasted. Made for some interesting nights.”
He Was Just Trying To Fix The TV
“I’ve worked in hotels as a bellman for a long time, so I’ve seen some crazy stuff.
One night, this man called down complaining that his TV was broken. I went up to fix it. Before I could knock on the door, this beast of a man opened the door. A large black man wearing nothing but a towel and shoving the remote in my face to fix the TV.
As I entered the room, I heard a gasp come from the bed. I looked over to find three women, all clearly not clothed, hiding under the covers. I went about my business fixing the TV and quickly discovered he was trying to order adult content that he did not pay for. I put a call down to the front desk to unblock his movies and informed him that extra charges would be added to his bill. The best part was before I left I decided to test to see if the movies were working. I put on ‘Finding Nemo.'”
Sketchy Late Night Coffee Orders
“I used to serve room service in a hotel that was near a major national hospital, and the two locations had reached some sort of business agreement where people going into surgery could stay at the hotel the night/nights before at a discount rate. During my three years there, we had about six guests die during the night while waiting for surgery. It was always handled in a hush-hush manner.
We also had a couple of adult movies filmed go in the guest rooms.
Getting a room service request for four pots of coffee and a lot of drinks at half-past midnight was always a good sign that something sketchy was going on… as was opening the door to see filming lights and tripods.”
What Happens In A Five-Star Hotel
“I used to work in room service for a popular five-star hotel on the graveyard shift for a few years. A few of the things I’ve seen:
A well-known golfer who was fond of the drinks and smokes ordered some drinks and had three streetwalkers in his room. As I was leaving he said, ‘Hey, how about your tip?’ He directed one of the girls to give me a ‘special prize’ for my efforts.
At an after-party for a recording industry awards night, I was instructed to serve drinks in the main suite. After a few hours, I was given a platter with shitloads of coke lined up on it and told to go around the room offering it to people. Many family and kid-oriented celebrities didn’t hesitate to use it. One lady who stayed for a few days kept extended her stay on a daily basis and when serving breakfast to her in the morning she routinely asked not to open the curtains. There was a strange smell in the room which got worse the longer she stayed. It turned out the poor woman had had a miscarriage and kept cradling the fetus in the bed for a week.
I served Claudia Schiffer breakfast in bed one morning, and she was wearing very little.
Late one night at about 4 a.m., I was walking past the ballroom, and I heard someone playing the piano. I went into the room through one of the service entries and saw a middle-aged gentleman who had a bad squint playing really, really well. I lurked behind a partition for a while and enjoyed listening to the music. Security came in and booted him out into the street. It turned out to be David Helfgott jamming away who was staying in the hotel practicing for a concert that evening.
I spoon fed Muhammad Ali his breakfast.
One guy offered me $50 to think about getting his wife on the bed while he did stuff on the couch. I said no. I know this sounds ridiculous but I was on a break one day reading ‘The Alchemist’ and got called to deliver some food to a room. I tucked the book into the back of my pants and had my jacket over it so no one could see. Anyway, I knocked on the door and Paulo Coelho – the author of ‘The Alchemist’ was there. Got him to sign the book. That was pretty strange.”
Serving Corey Haim?
“I was a bartender at a restaurant that also took care of the room service to the connecting hotel. One of our guests was none other than the lost boy himself: Corey Haim! His entourage included his mother. They were staying the hotel for just over a month pitching an idea for a movie; a boy lost in the woods is taken in by a family of bears and raised as their own. Yeah, that didn’t get picked up.
I knew they were staying at the hotel because they ate at the restaurant every day and had the bill charged to the room. I’m working the night shift and just before the kitchen closes, I get a call for an iron order (in-room dining) and it’s a big one! Two entrees and dessert plus drinks! Woohoo! Tip time! I put on my red tie and grab a cart and head to the kitchen and collect the order. I make it to the room and knock. Corey Haim answers the door, my heart sinks, no tip for sure.
He’s in his undies playing the in-room video games which were outdated versions of Tetris and Super Mario, and he is stoked on them. Invites me to play I decline and say I need this bill signed, knowing a tip is out of the question. Enthusiastically he signs and as I leave, he grabs my arm and says: ‘Hey man, do you know where I could score some stuff?’
‘Uh yeah. I do actually, me,’ I say. He asks for me to bring him some and so the following day after my shift, I change into my own clothes and head to his room. His mother, myself and Corey proceed to towel the doors and have a smoke. Pretty neat, I’m hanging with one of the lost boys!
About an hour goes by and I’m making to leave he thanks me for the hookup and I tell him well hold on, I still need to be paid for this. There’s a silence between us while he’s thinking. Obviously, he has no money and is stalling. So I say: ‘Listen, it’s no big deal. But just make sure you get the cash to me in the next few days.’ Again he thanks me, and I’m off. My mistake was I forgot I had the next three days off and he checked out the next day, in the middle of the night, without paying.”
Paramedics Showed Up?
“Sometimes I would run room service orders for guests if the waiters were busy.
My second week working there I was taking up a meal to the third floor of the hotel just before the kitchen closed. I get off the elevator and I immediately heard faint moaning from the other end of the long hallway but I ignored it at first. I delivered the food to the room right next to the elevator, and the guest told me she heard loud screaming minutes before I came to the door.
As I was about to go back to the elevator, the moans continued, I looked towards the end of the hallway to see something on the ground next to the ice machine at the very end of the hallway. I walked over to see what it was and I found a man dressed as a woman, wearing a blonde wig, and wearing a short red dress laying in a pool of vomit while moaning. The strange part about it was that the dress was pulled up and this person had one of those nature valley granola bars shoved up his rear end.
Eighteen-year-old me, couldn’t comprehend the situation, so I immediately went downstairs and told security and went back to the kitchen.
About 20 minutes later, paramedics arrive and take the lady man away. Never did find out any more about that person, that whole ordeal is still a mystery to me.”
The Older People He Can’t Un-See!
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“I had quite a few people answering the door just shamelessly holding paraphernalia. Quite a few people not wearing anything.
I think my personal favorite story was when I was delivering an order at about 3 a.m. A 60-year-old guy answered wearing an open bathrobe, asked me to bring it in and put it down on the table. As I left, there was a boy probably about 18 standing in the corner of the room, covering his junk with a cushion, just awkwardly smiling at me.
I kept delivering meals to a weird, very botox-ed older lady who always asked me to help her with her wifi while I was there. She had her emails open with a specific line in the subject from various people each time. After a few days of seeing this same phrase, I was curious, so I googled it. Turned out she was running an online adult show from her room. Could not unsee. Using various pieces of furniture/accessories from the room as toys. I asked housekeeping to fumigate it after she left.”
Treating The Female Servers Differently?
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“I’m not a server, but a server’s husband.
My wife would have to take a man’s food to his room, and he would always answer the door in his underpants and tell the female servers to come in and put the food on the bed, then stand in front of the door and tell them how beautiful the waitresses were. My wife came home crying because of it, one day, so I went to work with her the next day with her boss’s permission of course. The guy got a shock when he saw me at his door and I told him if he answered the door like that again, I’d come kick his head in, and no I didn’t work there. So good luck getting me fired.
Funnily enough, he never called for food from there again.”
He Shouldn’t Have Entered The Room
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“I used to work in a hotel doing various jobs. I was once doing housekeeping and had my list of rooms that had been checked out of, and I was supposed to go and double check which rooms were prepared for new occupants. Make sure the bathroom had new cups, soap, etc.
I let myself in a room with my master key, it is all dark, as expected. I walk forward and there is a couple in the room with the dude on top of his girl. I freeze like a deer in the headlights and then the girl makes eye contact with me. We both are so surprised that we just stare at each other while he keeps going because he isn’t facing me and apparently didn’t hear the door open.
Eventually, I let out a little yip as I realize that I have just been standing there and I SPRINT out of the room, slamming the door shut behind me. I went to a hiding spot for almost an hour because I was afraid they were coming to the front desk to report me. Never heard anything about it.”
Dealing With The Wealthy
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“A long time ago, I was working as a bellman at a Westin hotel. We had a major snowstorm and people needed their cars dug out.
I was the only bellman, so I was shoveling cars out by the dozens. I injured myself, slipping all around in dress shoes and was stiffed on tips by numerous rich people after spending 20 minutes digging their cars out.
The owner was given the hotel as a wedding present, and the place was a nightmare. I hate rich people. I was by no means poor and made a great salary, but one thing I found was that middle to lower class people ALWAYS tipped, but rich people couldn’t be bothered. The worst people I interacted with were wealthy white women.
I spent 25 minutes cleaning off this woman’s car, and I got back after driving it up front, gave her the keys, and she said, ‘What took you so long?’ I smiled and said, ‘Sorry about the wait, the snow is bad and it is just me cleaning the cars.’ She snatches the keys from my hand and storms off in a huff, with no tip.”
The Kids In The Capes
“Kids from a youth group were at our hotel. I get a call to a room.
As I’m coming down the hallway, three kids run by, laughing hysterically, and all have capes and masks on.
I enter the room they just came from and there’s shaving cream everywhere and other things scattered around the room.
After talking to the kids, here’s what I gathered:
Older kids (in the capes) came to their room while one kid was asleep. They put shaving cream on him then pulled up the covers from his feet and turned an air duster upside down and sprayed his feet with freezing cold CO2. This startled the kid awake and when he sat up, there was another kid waiting with a handful of shaving cream who slapped the kid, then the third kid threw a blanket over him and they all ran out of the room so he had no idea who it was.”
The Most Terrifying Guest!
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“I came back from a trade show a few weeks ago. When I arrived and checked in, there was a guy standing in the lobby wearing some jeans and a striped shirt with a backpack just kind of looking around. I went up to my room and put my stuff down, took my shoes off and relaxed for a bit.
About two hours later, I went back down to ask the front desk guy about transportation to the event site, and that guy was still there, just kind of looking around, sitting on this chair and that chair, moving to the couch. I go back to my room and take a nap, and then head back down a second time for dinner. The same dude was still there. I sit down in a booth, facing his direction because I figure this should be interesting. When I went downstairs the first time, I asked the front desk guy what was going on, but he just gave me a look that said, ‘I have no idea.’
So I’m sitting eating dinner, and I’m watching this guy move around the lobby slowly, just touching the random stuff. He hits the amenities table at least five times and eats nearly the entire plate of cookie bars.
Finally, he stops moving around and just stands in the middle of the reception area with his head stuck out, looking at nothing. The front desk man comes around the counter and addresses blank dude, who just looks at him. This guy is not responsive. Not aggressive either, and not confused, but the information is obviously not reaching his brain. While I’m still eating my dinner, the cook comes out of the kitchen and brings this guy a box of food, which blank guy takes and sits on a couch. He opens the box and then closes it. Opens it. Closes it again. He does this five times, and then he closes it and just lays back on the couch and goes to sleep. The front desk guy comes back to the reception desk and looks at me mouthing, ‘Is he dead?’ I have no idea, so I just shrug and keep watching.
Finally, the guy sits back up, has a major chow down session with the food from the kitchen, drinks the rest of the water from the amenities table, and goes to the counter to ask for a ride back into the nearest city.
The guy who drives the shuttle gets back to the hotel bus and takes the blank faced guy, after which all this weird pressure leaves the room.
When I asked the front desk man what happened, he said the shuttle driver had taken the blank dude to the edge of the five-mile radius the shuttle travels and asked the guy what was going on. Shuttle man said the guy told him he’d been on a two-week bender, had stolen a car, hit somebody in it, ditched it in town, shot up some more, and slept it off in a bush before he somehow found his way to the Hilton. Needless to say, the front desk guy was terrified, and the shuttle driver called the police and ended up having to give a full statement.
It was crazy to watch that all unfold, and I felt so bad for the hotel workers.”
He Was Proud For Trashing The Room?
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“I once dated a guy that I swear was a sociopath. He was in a small band and they got a show in a town about six hours away. Naturally, he and his friends felt like little rock stars for being able to score such a gig.
I didn’t go with them on their trip, but after their hotel stay, the guy bragged to me about how badly they trashed the place. Writing on the walls, destroying the bathroom, throwing blankets everywhere, cans strewn about, items stolen.
The kicker? This guy’s own mother cleaned hotels for a living. I said to him, ‘You do realize you’re making a nightmare of a work day, for somebody just like your mother, right?’
He told me, ‘But it ISN’T my mother.’ Wow. Just wow. He was incapable of seeing this from anyone else’s perspective.”
Harassing The Delivery Guy
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“My friend, his brother, and I did something horrible when we ordered from the Domino’s delivery man. The website said, ‘Josh will be there with your order,’ and we decided that since we knew his name, we had to use that somehow.
So all three of us wore black robes with hoods that covered our faces, and we each carried wooden staffs marked with flame symbols. As soon as the guy knocks on the door, the brother and I run to either side of it and start chanting in low voices, and my friend goes to open the door. Josh, the delivery man, makes no comment about the two chanting hooded figures, and, instead, looks at the hooded figure who opened the door, and says, ‘Here’s your pizza.’
So the brother and I start chanting louder, and my friend takes the pizza box, throws it to the ground, spreads his arms, and shouts, ‘Welcome, Joshua! The prophecy is nigh!’
So Josh is looking creeped out, but he needs my friend to sign the receipt, so he pulls it out and gives it to my friend, amidst the rising voices of chanting. My friend looks at the receipt, then draws a pen from his cloak and signs it with a flourish. No joke, it was perfect. Josh looks at it for a second, then he shakes his head and tells my friend he ‘can’t accept this.’
At which point, the brother decides he can’t accept his chanting being ignored, so he points at Josh with his staff, and shouts: ‘Enough of this nonsense! Take him!’
And, because we are idiots, my friend and I advance toward Josh, and now all of us are chanting, and he looks freaked out, and we just keep coming toward him. My friend whispers hauntingly, ‘Joshua, if you know what’s good for you, you will come quietly.’ After which I reach out my hand toward his face and rasp slowly, ‘I can touch you now.’ It is at this point that Josh puts all the references together and bursts out laughing.
And thus ended the terror of one brave Josh.”
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