Knowing when to separate 'yourself' from the 'inn'

[Innkeeper To Go]

I can tell you from personal experience that it's easier from a "front desk" perspective to handle some situations...like having to apologize to a guest, give a discount for some perceived slight, ask guests to quiet down, kids to behave, etc. Tell them it is an insurance issue/fire marshall issue to have guests in the basement, and that you were simply shocked to see them coming up from down there. Then, ASK HER if she thinks you should put a sign on the basement door..

Yes, that was part of her email, 'You should have signs everywhere you don't want guests to go!'
OK, obviously she doesn't realize what this would look like if there were 'NO!' signs on all the verboten doors in the house. We do allow the guests a little common sense and I do mention that the doors with the names on them are guest rooms.
Would there be a corollary that doors without names are not guest areas? I guess this winter I put locks on those doors rather than signage.
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I guess this winter I put locks on those doors rather than signage.

I would. Easy enough to key them all alike for your convenience, and that would put the kabash on wandering around. AND by the way....so people look around, they open a door and can see it's the basement. Why in the hell would they go down there?
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so people look around, they open a door and can see it's the basement. Why in the hell would they go down there?

Because they are teenagers.
And whose job is it to supervise them during stays at a B&B? Certainly not the innkeeper!
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so people look around, they open a door and can see it's the basement. Why in the hell would they go down there?

Because they are teenagers.
And whose job is it to supervise them during stays at a B&B? Certainly not the innkeeper!

So then it's also embarrassment on the part of the parents that they couldn't leave the kids alone for an hour while they went out? All around, a bad situation.
I've had kids follow me around asking a million questions and that's fine. I've also had parents want 2 minutes alone on a long vacation and push the kid out the door of the room telling them to go play in traffic and that's mostly been fine as long as the parents don't leave the premises. (Seriously, if the kid will sit still and listen to me or even follow me around but stay out of mischief, I'm ok with mom & dad having a few (FEW) minutes to themselves. A glass of juice and a bowl of cereal few minutes is what I mean!)
But apparently I really irked this family by not 'minding my own business.' Har har.
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So then it's also embarrassment on the part of the parents that they couldn't leave the kids alone for an hour while they went out? All around, a bad situation.

I think you've nailed it. Folks who are embarrassed by their own shortcomings tend to overreact. Sounds like the kids did that when they went running to mommy. And sounds like the mom did that when she blamed you for the bad behavior of her kids.
There are a million different ways that each of us might have handled that situation. None of them may have changed that dynamic.
The responsibility for those kids is not yours. The safety and well-being of your guests is. You had not only the right but the responsibility to say something to those kids. Shame on that mom for making you have an ounce of worry for that.

 

[user 26]

that is a tough one and not my strong point.
as for the teens, they were trying to get mom's sympathy before you did. i wouldn't apologize.
have your 'boss' contact them if you must. i like kathleen's statement.

 

[gillumhouse]

woah, deja vu ....
because this exact same thing happened before ... down to the demand for an apology ... that basement door needs to be marked. private or staff only or something. and locked. really, it does. i sometimes felt like an old prison matron with keys on a ring but i had a basement door in the front hallway and occasionally guests would open it ... it is the youngsters including teens or those with difficulty on stairs who seemed to want to venture down (i have no idea why!) ... so we removed the original doorknob and replaced it with a lockable. not convenient for me but i had to do it. and it made my life easier in the long run.
as for the current situation. have you responded? i'm not sure i would because my response would likely not be what that guest wanted to 'hear'.
but your question was really how to separate yourself from the business. and that, my dear, is one of THE biggest challenges of being an innkeeper. it is very personal ... right down to the decor and the choice of dishes ... to the financial challenges and the pain in the butt toilet in room xyz ... it's hard to separate the business from the personal when it is also your home and i always found it to be so..

but your question was really how to separate yourself from the business. and that, my dear, is one of THE biggest challenges of being an innkeeper. it is very personal ... right down to the decor and the choice of dishes ... to the financial challenges and the pain in the butt toilet in room xyz ... it's hard to separate the business from the personal when it is also your home and i always found it to be so.

I was just wondering if anyone had some sort of visualization they do before making that call or writing that email. Picturing yourself as just a lowly employee with the task of placating guests but at the end of the day you go home and that's it. Water off a duck's back sort of thing!
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In answer to your original question of how do you separate yourself from the inn, I don't. I cannot. The inn IS me. In dealing with guests I have bitten my tongue very hard to NOT tell a little twit that you do NOT talk to parents that was (the twit was 21) and smiled pleasantly when I wanted to snarl.
It is the same with dealing with certain people with the City. I survive with my mental concersations. There is one woman who has finally gone too far. As many times as she has "slapped me around" I have taken the high road and been civil, even giving her a chance to be in the forefront recently (and she got sick and could not be there for her glory). She killed something she knew was very important to me - mainly because she is too stupid to understand what it was - and I will now turn my back if I see her at the Library or anywhere else.
As innkeepers we put too much of us into it to really separate - and that is my opinion on it.. It is my beautiful home.

 

[bbinnsitters]

Firstly, if you really want to try to make it all better with the guest, CALL her, do not email. It's more proactive, and I think it's too easy to mistake tone and intent in written messages. Just explain what happened and that you didn't mean to scold, you thought you were just letting the girls know not to go back there, you're truly sorry if they took it any other way. If she insists on an apology and you want to go there, then talk to the girls.

I agree with the above - after explaining your side of the story you could also say: "what did the girls tell you exactly?"
The girls didn't come down to breakfast cos they were embarassed and thought you might say something to their Mommy. Notice THEY didn't say anything until they were safely in the car with Mommy! They were covering their butts and probably didn't think Mommy would call! Keep us posted on what you end up doing!