LAUREL COUNTY, Ky. — I’m a big stickler for customer service, both giving and receiving. I emphasize good customer service to my employees all the time. I’ve also gotten up and left restaurants, asked for refunds and hung up the phone on people when the service wasn’t adequate to a paying customer.

I was fuming under my breath Thursday night at the staff of the Embassy Suites in Lexington while attempting to check into my room for the Kentucky Press Association winter convention. They apparently gave me a bad room key and I couldn’t open the door.

There I was, standing in the hallway with a rack full of clothes draped over my shoulder, sliding that darn magnetic key into the door continuously from every possible angle. Sideways. Upside down. Backwards. Those things are a pain and never seem to work properly.

I slung the clothes back over my shoulder and marched down three flights of stairs to the front desk to return the defective key and to express my frustration for being put out. After all, I’d just paid $1,000 to Embassy Suites for rooms for the convention and should at least be able to check in.

After I ruefully explained my dilemma and handed over the defective key to the front desk clerk, her response was swift and concise.

“That’s not our key.”

Instead of a brown key with a big green E on the front, it was dark gray key with Marriott stamped on the front. I had just returned from a trip to Alabama a week earlier and still had an old key in my wallet.

All the advantage shifted to the clerk. She had me, but too her credit, she didn’t point out my foolishness or make a smart comment.

I put aside my righteous indignation, backed away sheepishly and went upstairs and opened the door with the correct key.

I posted the episode to my Facebook account and got several responses from friends who’ve had similar problems with magnetic keys. One of my buddies said at least I was in the right hotel.

Good customer service is something all businesses should strive for. But in some circumstances, the customer isn’t always right.

• • •

Finally found the gremlin that was bogging down our computer network here at the paper. An employee’s computer was trying to send a couple of photos in the background that were too large for a receiving computer to accept.

Every minute, the computer attempted to email about 60 megabytes of data to an account that would only accept 10 MB, creating a stream of errors across our network.

It took many man-hours, a lot of frustrating troubleshooting and about $700 in tech fees to smoke out and eliminate the gremlin.

But it had to be done. In these days and times, a business cannot operate without effective connectivity.

• • •

Congratulations to Kim Collier and Rodney Hendrickson for their appointments as co-directors of the London-Laurel County Tourism Commission.

Following Ken Harvey and Peggy Scott is no easy task, but the commission did a great job finding two candidates with demonstrated abilities to conceive and promote tourism-related events.

Collier is highly respected in tourism circles as the former director of the Cumberland and Harlan County commissions. Hendrickson has been chairman of the highly-acclaimed Redbud Ride the last four years.

Welcome aboard Kim and Rodney. We look forward to your work in promoting tourism in our region.





wsawyers@sentinel-echo.com