Had a weird experience a few days ago and I'm still wondering if I was in the wrong.

I was staying at the LHR Ren for a few days whilst returning from a trip elsewhere on the Continent. As many here know, the LHR Ren's CL is open 24/7 for beverages and little snacks and also 3 daily services (breakfast, lunch, dinner) of real foodstuff on weekdays. I had two rooms in the hotel, one a normal room upgraded to CL by virtue of my Plat Premier status and the other a paid CL room for my no-status employee. I paid for both rooms.

The morning of our departure we had an early flight from LHR and planned to leave on one of the local buses around 6 or 6:15am (I hate that stupid "Hotel Hoppa" bus and refuse to take it, but that's another post). We met in the CL about 5:30am for some caffeine prior to starting our journey.

A few minutes after we arrived and booted up our laptops, a food service employee from the hotel shows up with a cart and begins setting up the breakfast spread. Once she finished - and it is important to note that we waited for her to complete her work - my employee went up to the spread and plated a danish for himself.

Maybe 2 or 3 minutes later the hotel employee returned and, seeing a danish on our table and also seeing food on the tables of the 3 or 4 other people in the CL, proceeded to seize the half consumed contraband food and instructed us to not only wait until the 6am opening time for the breakfast service to gather more food but also to not fetch any coffee or other beverages typically available 24/7 in that particular lounge.

All I wanted was some coffee, so I was a bit miffed that I couldn't even get a cup o joe to keep me awake until I got to the AA Flagship Lounge at LHR. My colleague and most of the other guests in the CL found it a bit ridiculous that they had to sit and wait 15-20 minutes to eat food that was clearly ready to be served. The hotel employee had no further work to do.....she only stayed in the CL until at least the time we left (right around 6am) to guard the food and warn off the other guests trickling in as 6am neared. She wasn't working on anything else. I also noted that she seemed to be excessively rude and ugly, not only with us but also with the pour souls that came after the initial scolding.

So, were we in the wrong for collecting food a few minutes before the lounge's breakfast service opened? We were careful to wait until she was done so as not to interfere with her efforts. She wasn't even in the room when those of us in the lounge attempted to acquire our illegal pastries.