Actual conversation with hotel front desk
Apr 26, 2004, 1:01 am
#1
Original Poster
Join Date: Nov 2000
Location: Upcountry Maui, HI
Posts: 13,305
Actual conversation with hotel front desk
I'm planning to drive a vehicle x-country. I couldn't find information if a certain hotel in Albuquerque, NM had free high speed internet or not. So I called them. Here is the actual conversation:
Me: Hello, do you have high speed internet in the rooms?
Front Desk Clerk: Yes, but you have to dial out.
Me: <stunned silence>
After clarifying that she meant you can connect your computer to the telephone and use a dial-up modem, I said "thank you" and hung up.
Sometimes true life is better than fiction.
-David
Me: Hello, do you have high speed internet in the rooms?
Front Desk Clerk: Yes, but you have to dial out.
Me: <stunned silence>
After clarifying that she meant you can connect your computer to the telephone and use a dial-up modem, I said "thank you" and hung up.
Sometimes true life is better than fiction.
-David
Apr 26, 2004, 1:35 am
#2
Join Date: Dec 2002
Location: PDX, AMS, MSN, ORD. Dedicated to finding a cure for Republicanism in our time. "Won't you please help"? "For the children's sake"?
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Originally Posted by LIH Prem
Sometimes true life is better than fiction.
-David
-David
^
Apr 26, 2004, 7:18 am
#4
Join Date: Sep 2002
Location: Bainbridge Island, WA
Posts: 8,963
Originally Posted by LIH Prem
I'm planning to drive a vehicle x-country. I couldn't find information if a certain hotel in Albuquerque, NM had free high speed internet or not. So I called them. Here is the actual conversation:
Me: Hello, do you have high speed internet in the rooms?
Front Desk Clerk: Yes, but you have to dial out.
Me: <stunned silence>
After clarifying that she meant you can connect your computer to the telephone and use a dial-up modem, I said "thank you" and hung up.
Sometimes true life is better than fiction.
-David
Me: Hello, do you have high speed internet in the rooms?
Front Desk Clerk: Yes, but you have to dial out.
Me: <stunned silence>
After clarifying that she meant you can connect your computer to the telephone and use a dial-up modem, I said "thank you" and hung up.
Sometimes true life is better than fiction.
-David
No offense but I find your post is a little arrogant. There are still a great number of people out there who are not fimiliar with the internet and it is as if you expect everyone to understand all the lingo. I am not making excuses for this hotel clerk not to know what you meant when you said "high speed internet" but there are lot's of places where DSL, etc. are not available and to those users in such areas" high speed internet " is dial-up.....
Apr 26, 2004, 7:23 am
#5
Join Date: Feb 2001
Location: Austin, TX
Programs: lapsed UA 1K (now a lowly 2P), HGP Platinum
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People also sometimes only hear key words out of your question, so it's likely that she just heard you say "Blah Blah Blah Internet blah blah blah."
All the same, it goes to show that you have to ask the right questions, sometimes more than once.
All the same, it goes to show that you have to ask the right questions, sometimes more than once.
Apr 26, 2004, 8:23 am
#6
FlyerTalk Evangelist
Join Date: Sep 1999
Location: source of weird and eccentric ideas
Posts: 38,678
I find hotel front desks to be normally uninformed and wrong on this issue.
Most rooms I stay in have broadband. Often they also have wifi in the lobby. Occasionally the front desk will give the right info on this but more often it is wrong. I just check the room and take what I can get and normally it works out fine. I haven't dialed out in the US in at least a year and probably longer.
Most rooms I stay in have broadband. Often they also have wifi in the lobby. Occasionally the front desk will give the right info on this but more often it is wrong. I just check the room and take what I can get and normally it works out fine. I haven't dialed out in the US in at least a year and probably longer.
Apr 26, 2004, 8:34 am
#7
Join Date: Mar 2004
Location: Seattle, WA, USA
Posts: 45
and speaking of entertaining conversations
I recently flew to Amsterdam from Seattle. As I was checking in the eticket kiosk for Northwest, I overheard this gem from a confused teenager talking to a NWA employee 'so, what's an eticket look like?.
I was merciful, I let it slide........
I was merciful, I let it slide........
Apr 26, 2004, 10:05 am
#8
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Not everyone's a massively parallel technophile. In fact, hardly anybody is. It's wrong to assume that those who aren't, are idiots.
Apr 26, 2004, 10:21 am
#9
Join Date: Dec 2002
Location: PDX, AMS, MSN, ORD. Dedicated to finding a cure for Republicanism in our time. "Won't you please help"? "For the children's sake"?
Programs: ! "Ya can't tell da' playahs wit'out a program!" NW silver, DIRT everywhere else.
Posts: 1,194
Originally Posted by BearX220
Not everyone's a massively parallel technophile. In fact, hardly anybody is. It's wrong to assume that those who aren't, are idiots.
Apr 26, 2004, 3:21 pm
#10
Join Date: Mar 2000
Location: Santa Cruz, CA USA
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It's not just hi-tech stuff that confuses some people.
My mother-in-law - age 94 - received a mail solicitation from a charity. In the solicitation letter it said that "even putting a stamp on the return envelope will help us out." She did not want to contribute money to this charity, so she just put a stamp on the envelope and mailed it to "help them out."
My mother-in-law - age 94 - received a mail solicitation from a charity. In the solicitation letter it said that "even putting a stamp on the return envelope will help us out." She did not want to contribute money to this charity, so she just put a stamp on the envelope and mailed it to "help them out."
Apr 26, 2004, 7:54 pm
#11
Join Date: Mar 2004
Location: Sydney, Australia
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I'm still confused. When a hotel says "free insert-whichever-sort internet in room", what do they mean? Do you just plug your computer in & go? Being from Australia, I have no internet provider in the US so will this still work for me? Thanks guys!
Apr 26, 2004, 8:15 pm
#12
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Originally Posted by goosegreen
I'm still confused. When a hotel says "free insert-whichever-sort internet in room", what do they mean? Do you just plug your computer in & go? Being from Australia, I have no internet provider in the US so will this still work for me? Thanks guys!
Others offer wi-fi (wireless) internet access. In those cases, you detect the network, accept the terms and go.
If your machine doesn't have a wi-fi card or an ethernet (is that right term?) network connection, then these options won't help you.
Hope this is useful.
Apr 26, 2004, 8:30 pm
#13
Join Date: Mar 2004
Location: Sydney, Australia
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That's great info...thanks! I think my laptop has an ethernet doodad in it. 
However, if I'm buying a HP Ipaq which has wireless ability, does this mean that I can use this too?
However, if I'm buying a HP Ipaq which has wireless ability, does this mean that I can use this too?
Apr 27, 2004, 1:29 am
#14
Original Poster
Join Date: Nov 2000
Location: Upcountry Maui, HI
Posts: 13,305
Originally Posted by david4455
Did I miss something in this story?
No offense but I find your post is a little arrogant.
No offense but I find your post is a little arrogant.
I didn't comment that I thought the clerk was stupid or uninformed, I merely relayed the conversation. I just posted it because I thought it was funnny. Lighten up, will ya?
I didn't expect that everybody would think it was humorous. And I really don't care either. So there. Is that arrogant enough? To me it was like the old Monty Python "cheese shop" skit.
-David
