What are you working for? The almighty dollar.....or are you working for the passion you have for what you do?

I had an incredible day the other day at work, it was very busy....don't get me wrong.....we were full with appointments. I was running around like a crazy person, my fellow colleagues didn't even know where I was for a spell.....I had a guest approach the desk and I couldn't for the life of me find her appointment. OH MY GOD......what do I do??

I am trying desperately to not show that I am struggling to find her appointment but the guest knows something is up. So, I excuse myself, explain I need to speak with the coordinator of their group and I would return momentarily. I tear out of that reception area so fast your head would spin. When I reach her, she is struggling herself to determine what happened. AT this point, the coordinator is merely wondering out loud: " I don't know what happened to her appointment".........she is looking in the computer system here and there and everywhere but NOT assisting me at all. She keeps muttering to herself I am not sure how this happened.
I can see she is not going to be of any assistance at this point so I am going to go and find someone else. My Director, she will spring into action.
By the time I ran down to see her, she was up out of her chair, literally running to find a therapist to pinch hit for the team. We don't find exactly what the guest wanted, but offered another solution for her.

WHEW........after 20 minutes of this poor guest waiting and wondering, we offered her another appointment the very next day. NOT exactly what we wanted to happen, but we found a solution. OK.....carry on folks. Crisis averted.

Or so I thought.......next thing I know, I have a therapist racing out of their treatment room only to run into me saying: "I have a guest, 8 months pregnant from the US with me and we were 20 minutes into her massage and now she is feeling faint and sick. Her husband is having a treatment right now as well and we don't have a room key for her". ARE YOU KIDDING ME HERE???

I sprint down to the Front Desk of the Hotel, retrieve a new set of keys for the guest, I run down to the treatment room where the guest is waiting patiently but she looks HORRIBLE. Forget the pregnancy glow, this women looks SICK. (sorry to say). I tell the therapist I am going to personally walk her to her room. I lead the guest to the elevator we have in the Spa and explain what I am going to do for her. I am asking her questions about her trip, what they have done since they arrived, in Canada, how many children she has, etc. She is getting more and more weak, looking horrible and not really even knowing where she is. I am almost forced to call our security team at this time because I think she needs to see someone, however my main concern is getting her to her room to lay down. We can worry about everything else after she is laying down.

Up to her room finally and I lay her down and explain what I want to do next. I find housekeeping in her hallway and retrieve bottles of water for the guest. I grab her ice bucket, retrieve ice and face clothes. I soak the clothes with cold water to place on her neck and face because she is nauseous. I asked 3 times if in fact she wanted me to contact my security team to assess the situation( this is something I adopted from my time working with Disney, as they have to ask 3 times if you require medical attention...thank you Disney Training) and she refuses of course and merely requests to get her husband there asap. I didn't want to leave her alone, but at this point, the husband will be like 13 minutes from joining her and we have already alerted the husbands therapist to send him up to the room asap.

I planned on calling the guest that night around 8pm to check in on her. I got a call at the desk @7:30 from the guest, Mrs.Smith (name has been changed to protect the innocent) explained her deep gratitude and explained that she was still not feeling the best but she wanted to personally call and thank me.

Next day I get this in my email from work:

The moral of my story today folks, I didn't do it for the recognition, I honestly feel like I didn't do anything special, merely looking out for a fellow human being. I would hope that if I was in fact in the very same situation that someone would do the same for me. It's karma. However, my Director explained that what I did was sincere and completely above and beyond.
My question I guess is this..........was that going above and beyond? If so, why don't more people do this? Why if we are in guest services do we do the minimum for our guests? Don't you want them to be taken care of?



What did you do today to go above and beyond for your guests?