Doom and gloom

Well it's only 2 pm and so far today has been one disaster after another. The computer signup system was down when we got here so we called that in. The IT folks had the signup part working when we opened but then we realized we couldn't access the staff client software. This is after having both printers in the adult area go down yesterday, so we were having to move print jobs to the teen printer, but we couldn't access the staff software to do that. So we called that in. About an hour later we realized that nobody could print anything anyway, so we had to call THAT in. Apparently when they re-started the system this morning they neglected to re-start all of the parts, so we had to keep calling them in individually. Weekend tech support. Sheesh.

In the middle of all this a group showed up claiming they had the meeting room reserved. They didn't. There were at least 75 people in the lobby waiting to get into the room for this presentation, but a different group was already scheduled to use the room. The organizers got very, very belligerent with us about it, claiming it was our fault. They have caused lots of problems in the past so I wasn't feeling at all apologetic, and heated words were exchanged. In the past they've had the room booked for one date but advertised a different date, so we would have all of these people showing up with flyers saying they were going to be there, but the booking was for a completely different date. They are impossible to reach and never call us back when we leave messages. They often mess with the equipment, unplugging stuff and moving things around. So I do not have any warm and fuzzy feelings towards this group.

Unfortunately I cannot ban them from using the room due to political reasons. It would be a public relations nightmare if I cut them off from using our room. I won't go into any more detail, but that's not really an option. If only.

I ended up booting out the group that was legitimately scheduled in the room - they were a smaller group and could fit in a smaller room (albeit somewhat uncomfortably) and let the loudmouths have the large room. The whole time we were getting them into the room they were verbally abusing us. I was trying to stay calm but I didn't really succeed. This afternoon when they are finished in the room I am going to have to talk to them again to confirm the rest of their bookings to make sure this doesn't happen again in the future. Do you think I want to talk to them again? I do not.

Unfortunately I found out in the interim that at one point they WERE scheduled to use the room today, so it looks like this actually WAS our mistake. The person who used to be in charge of the meeting rooms was very careless and probably accidentally deleted their booking. So now we do have to make nice and apologize to these jerks.

Only 3 and a half more hours to go today. I can't wait until closing time. Sigh...