When 'Tech Savvy' Guests School the Front Desk (and Everyone Loses)
Let’s set the scene: The hotel lobby is humming with the usual check-in bustle, coffee brewing, and the gentle click-clack of staff on their computers. Suddenly, one guest approaches, phone in hand, frustration painted across his face. The problem? “Your WiFi keeps dropping my calls!” he insists. What unfolds next is the classic hotel front desk showdown: Guest vs. Reality, with technology as the ringmaster.
If you’ve ever worked in hospitality, you’ve met this “tech savvy” traveler—the one who knows just enough to be dangerous, but not quite enough to be right. And as the Reddit post from r/TalesFromTheFrontDesk reveals, sometimes, no matter how clearly you explain the facts, you can’t convince someone to abandon their WiFi myths.
“I Know How My iPhone Works!” (Spoiler: Maybe Not…)
Our tale begins with a guest convinced that his Apple phone should be making calls over WiFi, not the cellular network. The front desk agent, u/Drew-, calmly investigates, only to discover that the guest’s phone doesn’t have WiFi calling enabled. No setting, no secret hack, nothing. Still, the guest is adamant: “Apple phones always use WiFi for calls first!”
Here’s where the fun starts. Anyone who’s actually poked around their phone settings (or, let’s be honest, Googled it in a moment of desperation) knows that WiFi calling is a feature you have to enable. Your phone doesn’t just magically reroute calls through WiFi because you’re in a hotel lobby with spotty cellular bars. As u/Ducky602 pointed out, “It has to be enabled on the phone, and is carrier dependent. At least that's true in Canada. YMMV.” In other words: Sorry, sir, you’re not the Steve Jobs of this story.
But logic rarely stands a chance against “tech facts” that have lived rent-free in someone’s head for years. As u/NotThatLuci hilariously imagined, maybe the guest once heard someone say, “One thing I love about my iPhone is that it will use WiFi for phone calls.” He filed that away as gospel—settings, carrier limitations, and actual tech be damned.
When Explaining Isn’t Enough: The Wisdom of the Front Desk
The struggle to correct a determined guest’s misunderstanding is as old as customer service itself. And Reddit’s hospitality crew has some hard-won wisdom about it. As u/No_Philosopher_1870 so perfectly put it, “You can explain it to them, but you can't understand it for them.” (This gem, by the way, belongs on every hotel staff member’s T-shirt, mug, and, frankly, forehead.)
It’s a sentiment echoed by many: you can lead a guest to knowledge, but you can’t make them think. u/RedDazzlr summed it up: “You can lead them to knowledge, but you cannot make them think.” And if you try too hard? As u/streetsmartwallaby quipped, “You can lead a horse to water. You can even hold its head down. But some of them drown instead of drinking…” Ouch.
Sometimes, the best the front desk can do is what u/SkwrlTail suggests: “I'm sorry, but I'm showing a strong connection on our end. It sounds like you may be having issues with your phone, try calling Apple.” Translation: At some point, it’s not the WiFi—it’s you.
Myths, Misconceptions, and the Relentless Power of “I’m Right”
So why do some guests cling so tightly to their tech beliefs, even when presented with irrefutable evidence? u/TheJosephMaurice nailed it: “You can’t reason someone out of, a position they didn’t reason themselves into.” If the “fact” that iPhones always use WiFi for calls fits into a guest’s worldview, then no amount of Settings app tutorials will shake it loose.
There’s another layer, too: pride. As u/NotThatLuci observed, if the guest admits he was wrong, he’d have to accept that his phone has never functioned the way he’d believed. That’s a tough pill to swallow—so much easier to blame the hotel WiFi than to confront the existential dread of being a little bit clueless.
Of course, not all guests are entirely off-base. As u/AllOneWordNoSpaces1 noted, “Many phones have WiFi calling capability, so he wasn’t that wrong.” True! But as the [OP] and others clarified, you still have to turn it on, and sometimes jump through your carrier’s hoops. It’s not default magic—it’s opt-in wizardry.
The Real Experts: The Unsung Heroes Behind the Desk
At the end of the day, the real tech wizards are the ones patiently fielding these questions, calmly untangling myths from reality, all while keeping a smile for the next guest in line. These unsung heroes have seen it all: guests who know how to run the hotel better, guests who insist their tech is never to blame, and guests who, no matter how kindly corrected, will defend their misconceptions to the bitter end.
So, next time you’re tempted to school the front desk about your phone’s secret features, remember: they’ve probably heard it all before—and yes, they probably do know how your phone works better than you do.
Conclusion: Share Your WiFi Woes!
Have a tale of a tech myth gone wild? Maybe a guest who tried to plug their blender into the Ethernet port? Join the conversation below! And next time you check into a hotel, give a nod to the front desk pros who keep the real world—and the internet—running smoothly, one “WiFi issue” at a time.
Original Reddit Post: Guests who think they are tech savvy