Memories Of My First Trip To San Francisco

Posted by Travel Blogger on May 14, 2010 in hotel accomodations |

Back up in San Francisco tomorrow until the 19th, I believe. I’ve stayed at this SFO Airport Hotel on a number of occasions in the past, and have yet to be disappointed with the service, rooms or the general care the staff shows the customers. And when you’re travelling for much of your life, getting treated well is always something that one appreciates.

If I’ve learned anything over the years it’s that what you put out there usually tends to come back to you many times over. Not trying to get all “woo woo” or but my experiences of almost 15 years on the sales road bear this out to be true.

When I first started out with this company and was really inexperienced at the process of traveling, I figured it was all about the customer being right. Now I realize that this is definitely not the case. In fact, my first trip to this area was about 13.5 years ago, and I can still remember it like yesterday.

Obviously much younger, I didn’t appreciate the hard work and effort that service folk have to exert in order to make a travelers experience exemplary. And to be sure, many of the folks employed to make travel great just do enough to get by.

After landing at SFO I grabbed a taxi to the hotel (back when I spent way too much money on transportation. Now I take the shuttle or share a van to help stretch my per diem further.) Well, it seemed that one of my bags had not gotten removed from the taxi’s trunk at the hotel. Of course this was the bag with my suits, dress shirts, etc. And it wasn’t until I was into my room that I discovered the error.

As you might imagine, I was livid. I called the front desk and demanded they find my bag. The manager was actually quite the professional and let me know he’d check things out. The bellman was interviewed about the incident. He was ready to take a polygraph to indicate there was no garment bag in the trunk of my cab.

Next the taxi company was phoned and through a series of radio transmissions, it was determined that no cabs having dropped off at my hotel contained any forgotten or lost bags. As you might have felt, I was ready to blow my stack. Fortunately, I held off.

Within an hour or so of the incident, the airlines had delivered my “lost” bag to the hotel, which had subsequently discretely placed it inside my room. Apparently, in my rushing and haste, I’d simply forgotten to retrieve it from the carousel!

You cannot imagine how long it took me to wipe the egg from my face! But that one lesson taught me several things about my job: don’t rush if you don’t have to; pay attention to all of your belongings; and don’t take things out on those that are doing their best to provide you with great service.

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