Out of Office: The Story Behind

'Yours Is a Very Bad Hotel'

 Published on August 6, 2014

Shane Atchison
This post is part of a series in which LinkedIn Influencers and
members share their business travel advice and stories from life on
the road.

Have a bad hotel or airline experience? Today you can fight back with
social media, but it wasn’t always so. In 2000, my colleague Tom
Farmer and I rolled into Houston at 2 a.m. and headed straight for the
DoubleTree Club. We had guaranteed our room with a credit card and
called in advance to say we’d be late. But the soon-to-be famous Night
Clerk Mike had given our room away and had none to spare. As you’ll
see he was also not very helpful. In fact, he was the opposite of helpful.
He and helpful lived in separate zip codes.

Sitting around the lounge that night, we talked about creating a

presentation about the experience called “Yours Is a Very Bad Hotel.”
(For the record, Tom Farmer wrote it.) We sent it to the DoubleTree and
a few friends.

Of course, we didn’t expect anything, because in those days nothing

really went viral. Most people didn’t even know what the word meant.
But there’s a first for everything, and in the following weeks our
presentation was seemingly viewed by every person with an email
account. We got thousands of replies and calls — and even made
national news. Believe it or not, 14 years later the presentation lives on
as a part of the curriculum at many business schools.

If you’re wondering what happened to the hotel, they offered to refund

our money and give us a free stay. Instead, we asked them to donate
$1,000 to a charity, which they did. Night Clerk Mike kept his job,
though he and the rest of the staff had to go through sensitivity training.
And we never stayed at a DoubleTree Club again.

So if you haven’t already seen “Yours Is a Very Bad Hotel,” please

enjoy!