A hotel in Boynton Beach, Florida went viral for all the wrong reasons recently.
Staffers apparently walked out en masse, leaving guests to fend for themselves. Unable to check in, check out, or even enter their rooms, it was a powerful reminder of how important staffers can be in an age when everything seems to be getting more and more automated.
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What would a hotel stay look like without employees?
The hotel experience is pretty straightforward. But it relies heavily on staffers: they help you check in, check out, set up your keycards, clean your room, and keep the facilities running smoothly.
Guests found out the hard way that their hotel was unstaffed.
A TikTok shot in the hotel lobby shows bored and annoyed guests who are forced to, well, pretty much just chill in the lobby. They can’t use their keycards or operate the computers.
This didn’t go so well.
Some guests tried to get on the computers and get things up and running again, but it doesn’t appear to have been successful. That isn’t terribly surprising, given the fact that most functions are probably protected by passwords.
It was a long, boring ordeal.
While some of the guests made the most of the situation, chatting amongst themselves or documenting the incident for social media points, it looks like a pretty boring wait.
After a few hours, police were called.
In a Reddit post , it was reported that guests were stuck like this for over four hours. After awhile, with no other recourse, one of the guests opted to call the police.
Police showed up.
They tried to help, at least.
“They called like 10 numbers thinking it was the hotel’s staff directory before realizing it was the hotel’s ‘do not book rooms to…’ list,” reported a Redditor at the scene.
Police got behind the front desk.
They weren’t there to try to operate the hotel’s software, they were trying to reach someone who did know how to.
It wasn’t clear why the hotel was unstaffed.
One Reddit user who posted an image from the hotel speculated that working conditions were subpar, writing “The staff walked out around +5 hours ago now – guessing due to [expletive] pay, [expletive] guests, [expletive] managers.”
By and large, commenters agreed that something big must have happened to cause such a walkout, and most were supportive of the workers’ right to leave.
Some folks online chimed in with their own experiences working for hotels.
And they didn’t paint a rosy picture.
“Worked for the Hilton for two years. Super [expletive] corporate, endless training for things that aren’t my department,” wrote one person. “This company will give you everything you need except for money.”
“[Four] years here, moment I left it felt like popping out of a bubble,” another replied .
For the stranded guests, at least there was a silver lining.
I don’t know if a couple of bags of free candy is enough to make up for an hours-long wait, but it’s important to acknowledge the good things. Candy is good, and it no doubt made the situation just a little bit better.
The hotel did later make a statement.
A spokesperson told Newsweek that the video wasn’t accurate, stating “Last evening, hotel management was alerted by law enforcement that the Hampton Inn & Suites Boynton Beach was inadvertently attended for a period. This was a one-time incident and we will be taking the necessary precautions to ensure this does not happen again.”
Here’s a TikTok of the ordeal.
Check out the video and the comments, and then let us know your thoughts. Have you ever found yourself in a situation like this because employees have walked out? What did you do? What would you do? Let us know in the comments!
