I WAS IRRITATED, THEN I USED IT 🤔

The strangest thing happened to me the other day. Margie and I both work extremely hard. It is rare we have 2 days off in a row. For me, I don’t even have one. This coming Monday and Tuesday I do. We decided to take advantage and treat ourselves to a mini getaway. We chose a local hotel about 10 miles from our house. We like the restaurant that they have, but never stayed there. I stopped by to book the room one day after work. That was about a week ago. Just yesterday, they called to say they were canceling my reservation. Why? You might ask. It was because I did not live far away from the hotel. It would appear this national hotel chain does not book rooms to anyone who lives in a 30 mile radius. To me, this makes absolutely no sense. Why, as a business, you would say “If you live 30 miles from our hotel, we do not want you as a customer.” is beyond me.

The more I thought about this, the more it confused me. I am an author, podcast host and blogger followed in over 200 countries. If my next door neighbor wanted to buy my book, do you know what I would do? I would sell it to him. If my good friend in Australia wanted a copy of one of my books, I would sell it to her as well. I would not eliminate anyone from my business because of how close or far they live to me. I was willing to pay a good sum to stay at this location, and they refused my money. Margie, who was also confused by the policy, called the hotel to see if there was some mistake. The lady informed her that was indeed their policy and added for good measure, “There is no way I am going to rent you a room.” Not only does it appear this business is not interested in serving their local community, but they seem bent on supplying poor customer service on top of it.

Then I do what I always do. I started asking myself empowering questions. What is this lesson trying to teach me? How can I use this? What is good about this situation? What I decided was that if a hotel was not concerned about alienating their neighbors and customer service that leads to negative word of mouth advertising, I probably would not enjoy my stay there. It also reminded me of the importance of taking care of your neighbors. It put into my head an idea for a great charity event that I am putting together for next month. (More on that in a future post.) Then I asked if perhaps there was a better location that Margie and I were supposed to stay at.

With this in mind, I began to look for other hotels that may be more interested in taking my money. This Not-so-best Western ‘plus’ seemed fine without me. I drove to a hotel a few cities over, just to make sure it was more than 30 miles. It was a Country Inn and Suites. Not only was it connected to 2 amazing restaurants, but the lady could not have been nicer. Just to be safe, I asked her if they had any distance restrictions. She wore a puzzled look. I explained my situation from the earlier hotel. “Oh no. You could live 1 minute away and we would be happy to serve you.” she assured me. This was so refreshing.

In the end, the first hotel may have frustrated and inconvenienced me with their silly policy and waiting until the last minute to inform me of it, but it served me well. It not only gave me the content for today’s blog, but reminded me how important taking care of those closest to you is. It spurred a great idea that I can use to serve my community. Hopefully, as you read this, Margie and I will be enjoying our getaway with a heated pool, hot tub and free breakfast. Let us all learn from the Mistake of the Worst Western. Let us not be so focused on changing the world, that we forget our own community. In every challenge, there is the seed for an even greater opportunity.