The Perils of Printing for Guests: Night Audit Adventures at the Mediocre Southern Inn
Let’s set the scene: It’s 4AM at the “Mediocre Southern Inn,” a place where the only thing more ancient than the lobby décor is the Wi-Fi router. Our hero, a seasoned night auditor and self-proclaimed boomer techie, is basking in the post-audit calm—coffee in hand, paperwork done, and YouTube video paused—when the doorbell rings and the night’s peace is shattered by a guest in desperate need of… the printer.
What could possibly go wrong? (Spoiler: Everything.)
Night Audit: The Quiet Before the Storm
Working the night audit shift at a small, rural hotel is a special kind of peaceful—until it isn’t. With the lobby and business center locked tighter than Fort Knox until 6AM, any guest needs are handled through a night window. It’s a routine as old as the “continental” breakfast. But even in the quietest hours, hospitality has a way of finding new ways to surprise you.
So, when a guest approaches at 4AM with an urgent printing request, our night auditor steps up with the kind of optimism only a seasoned front desk pro can muster. After all, how hard could it be to print a simple document from a phone?
The Great Phone-to-Printer Odyssey
As it turns out, the answer is: “Very, very hard—if not outright impossible.” The guest, a man of similar vintage as our narrator, brandishes his phone and asks, “Can you print a page from my phone?”
Cue the internal groan. Anyone who’s worked in hospitality knows that “printing from my phone” is not for the faint of heart, especially when you’re separated by a locked window and a chasm of technical proficiency.
Our night auditor, ever the diplomat, suggests, “If you can email it to me, I can try.” What follows is ten minutes of tech support that would make any IT helpdesk shudder: coaching the guest through the mysteries of email, watching him poke at his phone like it’s a suspicious raccoon, and waiting… and waiting… for the promised document.
When Attachments Attack
At last, the email arrives—except it’s not a neat PDF. It’s not even a Word doc. No, it’s a deluge of blurry, skewed .png photos: the kind that look like they were shot on a 2005 flip phone in a wind tunnel. The first image is so out-of-focus, it could be mistaken for modern art. And there are dozens of them.
The night auditor’s inner monologue says it all: “This better not be d!kpics.” Instead, it’s page after page of indecipherable document photos, each worse than the last. But a promise is a promise. Twenty pages of blurry garbage later, the “document” is printed, clipped, and labeled, ready for the guest to pick up on the way to work.
The Mystery of the Abandoned Print Job
6AM comes and goes. No guest. The stack of useless papers remains, a silent monument to late-night hospitality and the perils of technological optimism. When the next shift arrives, she’s unfazed—clearly, this isn’t her first rodeo. By the time the night auditor returns, the stack is still there, untouched and unclaimed.
No one ever mentions it again. The guest? Gone. The print job? Forgotten. The lesson? Never agree to do a thing without setting boundaries.
Lessons from the Night Window
If you’ve ever worked the front desk, this tale probably feels all too familiar. Whether it’s a simple request for directions or an elaborate tech rescue mission, there’s always the risk that your good intentions will spiral into chaos.
But that’s also where the best stories come from. The next time you’re asked to print something “real quick,” remember: set boundaries, ask questions, and brace yourself for anything—especially in the wee hours.
So, fellow night auditors and front desk warriors, what’s your wildest late-night request? Share your tales in the comments below!
Have a story from the front desk that tops this one? Drop it in the comments! And if you've ever printed a guest's "document" at 4AM, let us know how that went. Hospitality heroes unite!
Original Reddit Post: That time I agreed to print a document for a guest