Not Exactly a "Renaissance" in Business Travel

I'm in Columbus, Ohio right now. (Stop wrinkling your noses -- I'm actually here for a conference which, at the end of Day 1, has already proven to be worth the price of admission.)

Thank goodness the conference has been good because I'm not having the best of luck with my accommodations. I'm staying at the Renaissance Hotel downtown and when I got in (quite late) last night, I ordered a bowl of soup since I hadn't eaten all day. The room service attendant told me it would be about 45 minutes, which in most hotels actually means it will be there in about 30 minutes. I placed my order just before 11 pm.

I caught up on some work and emails and before I knew it, it was midnight already... and still, no room service. I called them to check on my order and they proceeded to put me on hold for over 5 minutes. When the attendant came back on the line, he said "your order will be up shortly!" Savvy business traveler that I am, I didn't let him off the hook that easily. "What does that mean?", I asked. "Five minutes? 30 minutes?" He assured me 5 minutes, maybe 10 at the most.

By this time, I'd completed my work and I just wanted to put my pajamas on and crawl into bed. At 12:20, my soup had still not arrived and I called room service again. I explained the whole situation including the fact that at this point, I have now been waiting for this elusive bowl of soup for nearly and hour and a half. (An hour and a half!! For a bowl of soup! ... heck, I would have even gone downstairs to pick it up myself!)

I politely explained to the person on the other end of the phone that this was not acceptable customer service and that they should simply cancel my order now because I needed to go to bed since my alarm would be going off in less than 6 hours. She had clearly been well-coached in all the annoying, placating "customer service" phrases like "I understand" and "I can see how this must be frustrating for you". You know what, if you could REALLY see how frustrating this was, YOU would bring me my soup yourself.

And then, the most ironic thing.... at 7:15 this morning, there is a knock on my door and a cheery "room service!" called out from the hallway... but I didn't even ORDER breakfast.