Concierge Confidential (17 page)

One whirlwind day, I ran out of cash and had to use my credit card with the broker. The
Phantom
seats cost me $75, and the guests were willing to pay $200—each. But what I didn't realize was that when you buy a ticket with a credit card, they print your name on them. Abbie and I stood there staring at the tickets, wondering what we should do.

In our paranoid wisdom, we decided we were going to strike through my name with black marker. Somehow we thought they wouldn't notice a thick black line on the face of the ticket. Since the printing was glossy, we had to take the marker and dab it over and over until it took. It was so glaring that it had practically the same effect as using highlighter.

Tickets were pretty much the only time we had guests sign the paid-outs. We usually gave a little speech about how the face value was, say, seventy-five dollars, but it was hard to find seats so we used other sources. Most affluent people could not care less and were bored by what we were telling them. But then there were some people who really did listen to the whole spiel.
Them,
we got to sign off.

When the people came to get their
Phantom
tickets that night, I was so worried that I oversold the whole exchange. It practically became a show in and of itself, on the house. “Wow! Row
D
! You're going to have
such
a great time! That's just
wonderful
! Have a
wonderful
night!”

Not even an hour later, the phone rang at the desk. “Yeah, this is John from the Majestic Theatre box office. Is Michael Fazio there?”

I heard him talking to somebody and the sounds of a crowd in the background. “I'm Michael Fazio.”

“I have people who I assume are guests of yours. Where did you get these tickets?”

“I gave my credit card to someone who bought them for me.”

“Okay,” he said. “I just wanted to make sure these were good.”

I was horrified. I wanted to crawl under the desk and disappear under a trapdoor. I knew there would be drama when the guests returned. Sure enough, they came waltzing back from the theater—and they weren't happy.

One of the guests put the ticket stubs on my desk. “Can you explain this to me?” he said.

“I don't understand.”

“Why did you put a line through your name?”

I tried to play dumb. “Huh? Oh, that? Yeah, sometimes we have to order on a credit card. I guess they printed my name on the card.”

“Well, John at the box office said that a lot of times concierges will come the day of the show and they know that there is probably some last-minute availability. I want to know how you want to settle this, because you paid eighty dollars for these and you overcharged me. I would tip you, but you know this is not how it's done.”

Technically, that
was
how it was done. “I absolutely did
not
get these tickets today. We work with brokers, and it's a gray market. We don't really know how they get the tickets, but they do.”

“Well, you know what? Whoever you need to sort this out with, please do. Let me know what you intend to do. I'll speak with you tomorrow.”

I called Abbie and we figured out a plan to put out the fire. The next day, I called the guest in his room. “I spoke to the broker who we got these from,” I said. “Apparently there was a glitch. I apologize, and want to make you feel good about this.” The paid-out was already on his room bill, so I went upstairs and counted out the money to him face-to-face. In a very classy move, he slid a hundred dollars back to me as a tip.

Going forward, I actually did sometimes get desperate again and have to use my credit card. But I never tried to blur out my name, and I made sure to have a speech prepared if the guests noticed anyway. “I don't know how brokers work exactly, but sometimes I think they have to just take my name. I'm not sure, since it's a gray market. But were your seats good?”

THE OVERCHARGE

No one thinks that tipping a waiter is really optional, even though that is what it looks like at face value. Things get trickier when you're dealing with other service professionals. People often believe there is a big distinction between paying for service and paying for a product. Somehow, because you're not physically making something, it's not valid to seek a profit. And if you're occasionally willing to do your job without getting a tip—as concierges are—to some, there's no
real
need to tip at all.

That's what the overcharge compensates for. When the Citigroup meeting planner wanted to find something that cost $500, there's nothing wrong with me doing all the work for him and saying that I found it for $300 and charged him $400 (at a profit of $100 to myself). If he wanted to go find it for $300, let him go spin his wheels. But in the end he saved $100, and no one got hurt. It's not like this was a group of old ladies on a volunteer vacation to help inner city kids. For the Citigroup-type people, the thing that they wanted meant much more to them than a few hundred bucks—and a few hundred bucks meant much more to me than a ticket.

Part of it is also a sort of Robin Hood syndrome. If someone is brazen enough to say that they need front row center, tonight—and the seats “had better be good,” then they'd better be prepared to step up with the cash. (As if the show was going to be horrible and insufferable from the second row, right?) Nickel-and-diming many of these affluent guests was almost insulting to them. They told you what they wanted; why were you
haggling
?

But if people were looking for “decent” seats, it would always soften my approach. There were plenty of guests that used to come up and ask where the discount ticket booth was. I'd offer them the coupons and let them know that you could still see perfectly fine if you sat in the second mezzanine. I played to the crowd. All they had to do was ask me where the subway station was, and I knew what they needed. But if they came up and demanded “Service!”, then I put on a different show. I checked out their coat and checked out their watch. Then I set the price and charged them for service; there isn't a concierge alive that doesn't do that. If you have the nerve to snap your fingers, there's a responsibility that goes with it.

9.

The Keymaster

The unions are very powerful in the hotel industry. It's a closed shop, so certain positions have to be staffed with union employees only. The union then dictates their shift and other parameters of their job. The bellmen's union is a good example of this. The hotel is only encouraged to hire so many bellmen, according to a formula based on the number of rooms. The union doesn't like the hotel to “overstaff,” because it impedes on the bellmen's revenue. What actually happens is that the bellmen are chronically
under
staffed. I don't know if that's the goal or if it's just them being uninformed. What I do know is that we had four bellmen to cover over six hundred rooms—and there was never anybody standing at the bellman counter. The door right behind the counter would be locked, with all the luggage in there. People would just have to stand and wait their turn.

The guests would often start to pile up, and it was embarrassing. Even though I wasn't technically supposed to have one, I'd scammed a key to the bellman closet. Once, I decided to be the hero and save the day. The guests were lining up and I could feel their consternation. I walked around and opened the door. “What's your ticket number?” I asked the first guest. It wasn't rocket science. I gave the person their bags. When they tried to tip me, I refused. I still had the door open when the bellman finally came down. He and I had been friendly, but now I was standing between him and his meal ticket.

It was the closest I ever came to being fired.

His union representative contacted the hotel, and management let me know just what a big deal it was. Complaint cards and letters from annoyed guests were often met with a shrug. This was met with much wringing of hands.

I never tried to “save the day” for the bellmen after that, believe you me.

The U.S. Open was one of the groups that would always stay in the hotel. One day Anna Kournikova came down to leave for the day, and she needed things that she had in the bellman's closet. She was gorgeous, and you couldn't miss her long blond hair. Within a couple of minutes there were fans around her. In another couple of minutes, there were more people. She just stood there, looking around. “Where's the bellman?” her handler asked me.

I stood there, explaining the whole absurd situation. Skip, the ninety-three-year-old bellman, came pulling a cart. He was renowned for having the ability to fall asleep while standing up. As the place turned into an autograph session, he slowly shuffled his way across the gigantic lobby with no sense of urgency at all.

When I explained the bellman situation to most people, they were irritated but understood that it wasn't my fault. Sometimes people would argue with me about my inability to get in there. “There
must
be a way.
Somebody
has a key, right? What happens if there's a fire in there? You're telling me no one can get in? What happens if a woman's giving birth?” If it got really bad I'd pick up the phone and pretend to be making a reservation, having long drawn-out conversations with the dial tone just to avoid the inevitable venting.

Things reached a boiling point one day with a particular businessman. He kept hovering in my periphery, even though I was busy helping other people as a concierge. “This is crazy!” he huffed. “This is outrageous! I can't believe you can't just come out from there and get my bags!”

I paused with the people I was helping. “I really wish I
could
help you. Is there somebody that I could call? Do you want me to get the manager to come and explain it to you? We don't have the keys.”

He kept shaking his head, getting more and more annoyed. “This is totally unacceptable and ridiculous.”

I tried offering things to mitigate the situation. “Do you want to go sit at the bar? I'll have someone bring you your things. Just leave your ticket with me.” To be fair, the man did have a point. It
was
ridiculous to pay $600 a night and not be able to get a bellman. But he was acting like I was part of the big amorphous “hotel problem,” rather than the person who was trying to make things better for him. He really thought I was trying to spite him. Much like most people's approach to service, his perception became a self-fulfilling prophecy.

I made a decision to disengage from the people I was helping. I gave them a few restaurant review clippings to flip through for a minute, so they could decide where they wanted to eat. Very calmly, I spoke to the man. “It's
not
fair,” I told him. “I agree with you. But honest to God, if I
could
go in there, I would.”

“So where are they?”

“I don't know,” I admitted.

“You mean to tell me that you have
no idea
where the bellmen are right now?”

“No, I'm sorry. There's no way for me to tell where they are.”

He kept right on challenging me. “I can't believe you don't know where they are. What kind of system is this?”

“Well, there are four of them, and there are six hundred rooms, and I imagine that—”

“Don't you have a record of who checked out last?” he interrupted. “Maybe they're up in that room. Can't somebody go up to that room?”

I had to end it. He was forcing me to ignore the guests who were waiting in front of me at my desk. “We have not implanted the doormen with locating devices yet but when we do, I think we will have a much better handle on this.” I didn't sound sarcastic, just totally businesslike. “Thank you for your input.”

A few days later, I got called up to the manager's office. “We've received a complaint from a Mr. Nader.”

“That name doesn't sound familiar,” I said. I hadn't gotten the guy's information—he was just standing there and complaining.

“He's a very important executive at AIG.”

I hadn't realized who I was talking to. A bigwig at a major corporate account was the worst-case scenario; losing a corporate account could have cost the hotel something like ten thousand rooms a year. We wouldn't be losing one guest, but dozens or even hundreds. “What happened?” I said.

“He sent in a comment card,” the manager told me.

I relaxed, but only a little bit. A comment card was less poisonous than a letter to the hotel's corporate hierarchy. “Oh?”

“This is what he wrote.” The manager read, verbatim, my conversation with Mr. Nader. “I think it was a little outlandish what you said. You said we were going to put
tracking devices
on people?”

“No, I can't say I remember this.
Tracking devices
?”

“He thought that you were being very sarcastic.”

“Hm, I don't know.” I didn't want to pretend he had made the whole thing up, but I still wanted to cover my ass. “The only thing I could think is there was a man, maybe a week ago, who was very, very impatient and disruptive of my other guests. I explained to him that I wasn't able to go into the luggage closet.”

“Ah, of course. It just sounded too outlandish.”

“Yeah, who would ever say a thing like that?”

HOW TO HANDLE BAD SERVICE

In a perfect world, we'd all get good service all the time. But in real life, bad service is something that happens fairly often. There are people who are effective in getting a change in service—and people who aren't. My friend Annette was at the Peninsula in Chicago, and asked the concierge what he thought of a certain restaurant that she'd been recommended. “Eh,” he said, “it's okay.” That was the extent of their exchange. It rubbed Annette the wrong way because he was being dismissive of her suggestion. She gave the concierge a glaring look and walked off—and he let her walk off. The whole thing was unproductive, because Annette walked off without service and the concierge learned nothing.