When Hockey Teams Check In: The Wild West of Hotel Front Desk Drama
Picture this: It’s Friday night at a quirky, independently owned hotel, and you’re bracing for the arrival of two youth hockey teams and their parents—an impending tidal wave of energy, arguments, and questionable snack choices. You think you’ve learned from last week’s chaos, so you shoot off an email, kindly reminding team managers to tell everyone to bring their payment cards and vehicle info to check-in.
Sounds proactive, right? But suddenly, your coworker is fuming, your boss is battling broken lights from last weekend’s mini-mayhem, and you’re wondering if you’re the villain for trying to make things easier. Welcome to the front desk, where every day is a new script and the only rule is that there are no rules.
The “No Norms” Zone: Where Vibes Are the Only Policy
If you’ve ever worked at a smaller, independent hotel, you know there’s a certain…freedom. No stuffy corporate handbooks. No standardized policies. Just vibes, duct tape, and the occasional “Hey, what if we tried this?” That’s the scene our Reddit storyteller, u/frenchynerd, finds themselves in: software so old it wants your credit card’s imprint, policies that change based on the last disaster, and management so hands-off it might be fixing hallway lights while you beg for guidance.
When last week’s hockey crowd checked in, chaos reigned: cards were missing, arguments broke out, and front desk staff were left to bob and weave through the fallout. So, when the next hockey invasion loomed, u/frenchynerd did something radical—communicated ahead! An email to team managers: “Bring the card you paid with. Please.”
You’d think that would earn a gold star. Instead? Cue the rage from the day shift coworker, who was “pissed as hell” at the influx of parent phone calls and blamed the proactive move for making her day harder. As u/PleasantTangerine777 noted in the thread, “Even if what you did didn’t have the desired outcome, your intention was to make everything easier for everyone. You were trying to help.” It’s the thought that counts, right?
Hockey Groups: The Hotel Staff’s Trial By Fire
If you’re not familiar with youth hockey teams in hotels, let’s just say you’re missing out—on the kind of mayhem that makes ketchup fights and hallway light sabotage seem almost quaint. One popular comment by u/SkwrlTail summed up the experience: “Yeah, hockey teams suck. Moreso than other sports, apparently...they're like a bunch of wild animals who've never seen a building before, much less checked into a hotel.”
It’s not just the noise or the late-night games of mini-stick in the corridors. It’s the logistical nightmare: group bookings gone awry, frazzled parents, and the eternal quest for that one parent who paid online but forgot their wallet…again. As the community pointed out, the real terror comes from the lack of clear, consistent procedures—something every hotel desperately needs, but this one resists at every turn.
u/quasi2022 shared a war story from decades ago, where their hotel finally instituted a “team agreement” after disasters like flooded rooms and ketchup wars. The lesson? Policies work better when people know them in advance—a truth that’s managed to escape both the OP’s management and their infamously cantankerous coworker.
The Coworker Conundrum: When “Just Deal With It” Is the Only Rule
Which brings us to the real heart of this tale: the eternal coworker clash. Our OP’s day shift counterpart is a character in her own right—disdainful of advance planning, allergic to rule sheets, and, as OP reveals, a former hockey mom herself. “We have been doing just fine without that for several years, you're way too sensitive. Just deal with them like we all did,” she reportedly said.
But as u/quasi2022 and others astutely observed, her attitude might stem from a mix of entitlement and nostalgia. Maybe when she was a hockey mom, she never noticed the destruction because she was busy enjoying wine in another room—a detail OP wryly notes. (We all know those parents.)
The community consensus? Weak management enables the chaos, and without documentation, everyone’s left to fend for themselves. As u/SkwrlTail so perfectly put it: “A business cannot run off ‘vibes’ forever.” If only someone would write down the process, put it in a binder, and save everyone from this Groundhog Day of confusion.
Lessons in Hospitality (and Sanity)
So what can we learn from this saga of mismatched expectations and hockey-induced headaches?
First, hotels—no matter how small—need clear, written policies. Guests deserve to know what’s required before they arrive, and staff need to avoid reinventing the wheel every weekend. As one commenter joked, not having procedures is “unprofessional by not having consistent rules and procedures.” (And yes, they once got a team agreement after a room flooded or a ketchup fight. The stuff of hotel legend.)
Second, proactive communication is not the enemy! It might mean a few extra phone calls, but it beats the alternative: frantic refunds, angry parents, and late-night drama.
And third? Sometimes, no matter what you do, you’re going to be the villain in someone’s story—especially if that someone just wants you to “deal with it” like they always have.
The Final Word (and a Plea for Sanity)
So, is it time for our OP to find a new job? They’ve been looking for three years—so maybe send them your best job leads. In the meantime, let’s raise a glass (preferably not in the hallway!) to all the unsung hotel staff who keep the chaos contained, the lights (mostly) on, and the policies—at least occasionally—in writing.
Ever had your own run-in with a wild hockey team or a stubborn coworker? Share your stories below. And if you’re checking into a hotel this weekend, don’t forget your credit card… and maybe a mop.
Original Reddit Post: My coworker is pissed at me and I don't quite understand why