| Originally posted to Reddit. See Thread |
This took place on a quiet and otherwise uneventful night during audit this past summer.
A man and his fidgety woman friend come into the lobby at 3:30 AM. They enter through the side door, which requires a guest key to enter. I couldn't understand half of what they said because despite my requests that they speak up and/or repeat themselves they are mumbling and speaking very quickly.
They needed keys to a room. "What is your room number?"
We're not sure. It's on the third floor, a few rooms from the elevator. 316, I think? Maybe 320.
That's a little unusual for non-plastered guests, but alright. "Can I see your ID please?" I'll bring up the reservation by name instead of room number. Whatever, just a few more keystrokes.
It's in the room.
"Okay, what is your last name?"
It's under, uh.... Smythe? Or maybe Smith. Do you have a Smith in house?
Oooookay. Clarification time, because no way am I writing you any keys but I really wanna know what your angle is. "Did your keys stop working?" (This is a distinct possibility at our property; our locks sometimes refuse to recognize a key for no reason.)
Yeah we can't get into the room.
"Alright, do you have the keys with you?"
If a guest presents me a key I can read it with the writer, and see what room it is/was good for. I only use this as a last resort if a guest (A) has convinced me otherwise that they are who they claim to be but can't prove it and (B) hasn't raised a whole fleet of red flags like these folks. At this point I just want to see what room key they're carrying, to see what puzzle pieces I can put together.
No.
Then... how did you open my side door just now? Biggest red flag of all. You have a key but you don't want me to know what room it's for. Meanwhile my computer has found a name in-house similar to what they're trying to communicate, but I'm not telling them anything.
"You're staying with these people?"
Yeah, she's upstairs outside the room. We just kinda walked away and said we'd go see if we can do anything about it at the front desk. You can write us new keys, right?
"I can write new keys for the guest registered to the room."
So you can write new keys?
"If the guest registered to the room shows me ID I can write them new keys."
The guests nod, and turn and leave by the same door through which they entered. I haven't seen or heard anything since.
There are several things that might have been going on there. Maybe they were trying to steal something, or harass or even attack someone. My best guess is that they were probing to find (A) if the Smooths were in house and (B) what room they were in. I bet these were the folks who called an hour ago from an outside number asking to be transferred to the Smorths' room, which of course I refused.