Monday's Musings

Too bad most restaurants don't serve decaf tea or I'd be sleeping now! But I did go to High Tea at a prominent hotel in Beverly Hills -- think Pretty Woman and you've got it -- and though the company, four good friends celebrating a birthday and decades of friendship was great, the service and pettiness of the hotel was quite appalling. I don't care if you're in Beverly Hills or in middle class suburbia, when you order a glass of ice water, that's what they should bring you. No, not so, apparently. Instead we received a bottle of cold, not iced water poured into a wine glass. We were so busy talking and having fun, we didn't make a big deal out of not getting that iced cold glass of water, but later, when we again asked for water, what did we get -- another fancy blue bottle poured by no other than the waiter. Now, I'm not a suspicious person normally, but it occurred to me that we might be getting charged for fancy water we didn't order. And sure enough we racked up a $12.00 water bill. It wasn't the money, though that was quite a shocking amount of money, but the principle more so than anything else. How much more clear could we have made it? We wanted iced water, like any other restaurant would serve. So we spoke up, and the manager came over with a newly adjusted bill. No apologies were made, only that he had to charge us for "one" bottle of water, so he made a magnanymous gesture in crediting us for the other one. Well, I have news. A two-bottle adjustment would have made us grateful -- you know, that sense of rightness one feels in being justified and we'd have walked away satisfied. But that pettiness cost the manager more than he knew because none of us would go back there again for High Tea or anything else. And to top it off, I had planned to make another reservation for another friend, party of 5 for the next month. That didn't happen. The ill will generated over that $6.00 cost the hotel, big time. Don't the managers get that? Or maybe they don't care. Either way, I still had a great time with my friends. I'd do it all over again -- at a different hotel. :)