I don't know if this is a Marriott thing in general, or just TownePlace Suites, but the staff there have taken to the habit of asking me upon checkout, "Did you have a perfect stay"?

I never know how to respond to this question. Perfection is a platonic ideal, never to be achieved in real life--it is a goal only to be sought. To ask someone whether or not they have achieved it is to put one on the spot. I can lie, and say yes (which no doubt many do, just to get out and on their way). Or I can tell the truth, and say no, or in an attempt to avoid the quandary, to inform them that perfection isn't possible. This doesn't get me off the hook--the inevitable response to either of the latter is "...well, if it wasn't perfect, what could we have done to make it perfect?"

I don't know.

Make it so the teevee can be viewed while working on the computer? Have wine glasses? A slightly firmer bed? Protein with the overcarbed muffins in the breakfast room? A quieter room, away from the street? Move the entire hotel to the beach? Move the entire hotel to Cabo? Open bar happy hour? Hot and cold running nymphomaniacs?

It's an unreasonable question, and whatever marketing genius came up with it should rethink it, because it's gotten to the point of making me not want to stay there. I think the next time they ask, I'll say, "My stay would be perfect if you wouldn't ask me if my stay was perfect." Ask if it was good, if it was great, if there were any problems, but please don't place the burden of your failure to achieve the unachievable on me.

Pretend to be distracted -- be looking somewhere else and say, "Hmm, thank you."

Are you having a perfect life?

It's not a reasonable question. Excellence is high enough for me.

"...well, if it wasn't perfect, what could we have done to make it perfect?"

I'd answer, "you could make the room free" and see what they say.

I think we (as scientist and engineers) are being to literal. My wife is perfect. Does she do anything wrong, yes. She is still perfect. In the vernacular perfect means really good. Just let it go, IMHO.

Genuis! This post is pure genuis.

Now, everyone have a nice day. 'kay?

> the staff there have taken to the habit of asking me upon checkout, "Did you
> have a perfect stay"?

I haven't heard that before, but one I hear all the time, in stores, is, "Did you find everything okay?"

What is that supposed to mean? I wasn't looking for everything, so why would I find it?

> In the vernacular perfect means really good.

So, Mary Poppins was "practically very good in every way"? :-)

As a sometime marketroid myself, I had the same reaction from the inside in the 1990s. It was hard to get through a marcomm meeting (or trade show, or analyst conference) at any Fortune 500 company without hearing about their commitment to exceeed customers' expectations, surprise and delight the customers, blow customers away, or all three. And the mission/vision statements -- no, it's too painful.

On one hand, I made a very good living helping them find (slightly) better ways of saying those things. On the other, I kept wanting to say: "Hey, guys, maybe you should aim for three consecutive quarters of competent execution" -- and leave the transcendent pleasures to customers' experience with families, friends, or any random sunny April day.

-Monte

Edward-

Unfortunately, it's the times that I CAN'T find what I'm looking for (because Target shuffles their Pharmacy/personal needs shelves on a monthly basis) that they DON'T ask me if I found what I was looking for.

Though, I suppose I could take a page from Cecil's book and reply "Nope, still no free Plasma TVs."

I don't think Rand is being too literal. I think that Sunny Disposition behind the counter really needs to find something better to ask his/her guests.

"The less I seek my source in some definitive, the closer I am to fine."

An Indigo Girls song lyric, which I take to be an elaborate way of saying that the best is the enemy of the good. If no stay is perfect, then all stays fail to meet the goal, and consequently there's a reduced impetus to be excellent.

Perfection is an illusion of a limited mind.

Hey, it beats Radio Shack asking for my phone number or zip code when I try to buy a 29 cent adaptor.

Whenever a store clerk asks me if I found everything I was looking for, I answer "No, thank G-d.If I ever do, what will there be left to live for?"

OTOH, I like the stupid "Have a good one" remark. I tell them I do. She's waiting at home for me.

I love this site. People getting dissed for using a colloquial expression because it isn't mathematically equivalent to the word's most common usage. I can just see the propellors on those nerd beanies twirling.

Hey guys, HANG LOOSE!

I would reply "It was perfectly ordinary." and let the clerk decide how to interpet that.

As someone who actually works the front desk at a hotel, I humbly beseech you to find a way to say: "It was fine, thanks," (or words to that effect) and leave it at that. We've had initiatives like that where I work. It's always the idea of some idiot manager somewhere who doesn't have to ask it themsevles, and thus doesn't reflect on how contrived and awkward it sounds. We front desk people hate having to deliver such a phony line as much as you hate having to hear it (well, most of us do--you do get the occasional sunshine-vomiting bobblehead who'll cheerfully go along with anything). If you want to help stop that sort of foolishness, leave a quick written comment on a feedback form. Management gets and actually tends to read those. Giving the clerk a hard time over it won't do anything to stop the problem, as managers never listen if clerks say that customers don't like something. Unless they hear it from the customers themselves.

Peter is confused.

He's getting paid to say the line. Rand is the customer. If Rand has a problem with it, it is Peter's job to deal (perhaps by passing the relevant info on to said marketroid), or to find a new job.

Would Peter rather that Rand found a new place to stay? I suspect that they won't keep Peter on for old-time's sake.

Note that Peter may understand this. Rand didn't suggest giving the clerk a hard time. Peter had to imply that he did to make the "pity the poor clerk" argument approach reasonableness.

In general, if you have to exaggerate, you don't have an argument.

Make it so the teevee can be viewed while working on the computer? Have wine glasses? A slightly firmer bed? Protein with the overcarbed muffins in the breakfast room?

See the problem is you are staying at Towneplace and not Residence Inn. The latter (at least in Greenbelt, near Goddard) has free hot breakfast and dinner with wine and beer. No hot and cold running nymphomaniacs though.

I think Cecil has a novel response. It twists the question and accomplishes the task of illustrating the stupidity of the question.

A sunshine-vomiting bobblehead who'll cheerfully go along with anything

Would that be a bug or a feature?

See the problem is you are staying at Towneplace and not Residence Inn.

I'd love to, but it's not within the per diem.

Sigh. Peter would like to thank Andy for his brief but brilliantly illuminating treatise on the role of the worker in the modern free market economy. Thus chastened, Peter will of course denounce his willful ways and embrace Andy's progressive take on customer relations. Furthermore, Peter acknowledges his poor arguing skills and feels great and irredeemable shame about that, but he also does wonder if Andy actually read Rand's original post?

Rand complained of the stupid phrasing of a hotel's customer service question. Rand pondered various sarcastic rejoinders (some of which were funny, particularly the nymphos one), and concluded that he'd thought he'd instead go with a remark that admonished the clerk for asking the question. Rand stated that the question is asked by "the staff", and not a particular staff member, which would tend to imply that asking it is policy. Thus, throwing the question back in the face of the staff member will have little effect. It won't stop some future staffer from asking him the same question; indeed, it won't even stop that same staffer from asking the same question of the very next customer to come along.

If you have a problem with the hotel's facilities, of course tell staff members directly. They will pass that along to management, and management will pay attention. If, however, a staffer says to a manager that "a customer didn't like it when I asked him whether or not his stay was perfect", the manager will either take that as bellyaching from the staffer, or assume that the staffer didn't ask the question in the right way. Either way, the negative attention garnered from management will ensure that the staffer learns not to bring to a manager's attention problems that they're having with customer interactions. Yes, I wish it were otherwise, but Dilbert isn't an immensely popular cartoon by accident.

Thus, I stand by my original suggestion. If you have a problem that has to do with the staff, bring it directly to the manager's attention. A couple of quick sentences on a comment card, or a letter or email to management. If you suspect the problem is the broader policy of the chain, send the complaint directly to corporate. The more people it has to go through before getting to someone with decision-making power, the more dilute will be your message, and the greater the chance that the message won't be heard at all.

And Rand is most welcome to stay at my hotel anytime. He will find that Peter is always polite and professional with guests, and will even make sure that Rand gets a good deal and a free upgrade. Oh, and we have free wi-fi throughout the hotel (and, somewhat ironically, we also have an open bar on Wednesdays between 5:30 and 7:00).

Sounds like the management are perfect idiots.