Update: '[This] gave me the perfect opportunity to strike back': Hotel front desk worker refuses to speak Spanish when work denies their language bonus

Author image for Remy Millisky
Remy Millisky • Writer and Editor
Aug 14, 2024 11:00 AM EDT

This person made a bold choice while on the job, and it's shocking that they weren't fired over it. 

If you've ever been at a job that's strung you along as you wait for a raise or a promotion, you know what an awkward situation it can become. Instead of just focusing on your job, you have to spend time trying to get HR or your boss to give you updates about your salary. You don't want to push so hard that you seem impolite or get fired, but you can't just let them push you around forever! 

This person had every right to get a nice bonus each month. They were working at a hotel, and since people visited from all over the world, speaking English and Spanish was a huge benefit for u/Classy_Pyro. They received a $100 bonus for speaking English, but their hotel kept stringing them along about that second hundred bucks for knowing Spanish. This person noted that they were trying really hard to better their Spanish skills too, so the hotel denying them was a real irritation. They provided a few updates, and gave more information about their boss and the hotel in the comments. Check out their full story below! 

Next up, this college professor discovered that a student was lying to their face, so they decided to let the student fail himself out of the class. 

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    Cheezburger Image 10389088512
    via Francesca Saraco on Unsplash
  • 02
    "Sorry boss, I don't speak spanish" TL;DR is available at the bottom of this post. I work at a hotel as a night auditor, and this malicious compliance begins with a small bit of information I was told when I was initially hired for this position.
    via u/Classy_Pyro
  • 03
    When I interviewed for the position, and this is very important later on, I was told by the HR lady that the hotel paid a bonus ($100) for each foreign language I spoke well enough to serve. our guests. Management cleared my $100 for speaking english after I passed through their evaluation period (my main language is portuguese).
    via u/Classy_Pyro
  • 04
    At first, I was glad to be working in the night shift, mostly because my colleague then, Mr. Castillo was from Guatemala, so whenever any guests that spoke spanis showed up, he handled it and in turn, I handled any english speaking foreigners. Naturally, he did a lot more work since the amount of spanish speaking guests we receive is significantly larger
    via u/Classy_Pyro
  • 05
    than our english speaking ones. Meanwhile, Mr. Castillo was in the process of learning english and I had taken an interest in spanish so we helped each other out. Not long after, Mr. Castillo got himself a job paying several times over what the hotel did and sadly, left me. My new colleague, a newly promoted bellboy didn't
    via u/Classy_Pyro
  • 06
    speak english (though he could understand some) and didn't speak spanish at all. In fact, he didn't even try to improve any of his language skills while I slowly kept improving my spanish, trying to use more and more of it everyday to serve our dear guests. As of the start of this month, I spoke to our frontdesk manager and asked him in plain spanish, what did I
    via u/Classy_Pyro
  • 07
    have to do exactly to receive the $100 bonus for speaking spanish. He was surprised but said nothing more since the front desk got busy with check-outs and my shift was up, but a few days later he mentioned he spoke to HR and informed them I was speaking spanish well enough to receive my bonus, and now he was just
    via u/Classy_Pyro
  • 08
    waiting to hear back from them. A few days later, the HR lady asked me what size shirt I wore since they were going to be ordering new uniforms in the coming weeks, and took the opportunity to ask her about my bonus for spanish and she mentioned they were talking with our director about it. A day later she informed me they
    via u/Classy_Pyro
  • 09
    wouldn't be paying me the bonus for a foreign language since it was on file that I was already receiving it. I replied I was receiving a bonus for english, not spanish and she said she would speak to the director again and within a few days, all would be made well. Now I'm not really in a hurry to get my bonus, but it would be nice if they had cleared it already, as it
    via u/Classy_Pyro
  • 10
    would show up in my next paycheck, but guess what? They didn't. Our director talked to HR again, and my boss and told them that, even though I am serving our dear spanish speaking guests, in spanish, I don't in fact, speak spanish. I'm far from fluent, but I can explain how the hotel works, direct guests to where they need to be and assist them with what they
    via u/Classy_Pyro
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    need, be it finding a pharmacy at 3am, getting a cab to go out and get drinks, or even hire an (yep), but apparently it isn't good enough for our director and my manager said he can't really afford to fight him on it. Okay, no biggie I guess, maybe we'll try again next year when I can speak a little better I thought. However, the cruel and unforgiving gods of the
    via u/Classy_Pyro
  • 12
    hotel industry gave me the perfect opportunity to strike back... Earlier last week we received a large group of 30+ spanish speaking tourists, which in addition to our normal occupancy, meant we were effectively sold out for the week. Big groups are usually a minor incovenience when you're checking them in, but an
    via u/Classy_Pyro
  • 13
    even bigger problem when checking them out. Especially if they're 1 person per room, which means you basically have a huge load of rooms to check-out, one by one, while an endless line forms in front of the front desk. 80+ checkouts aren't unsual for our hotel on friday mornings, but 110+ is a problem. Normally when the morning shift has a workload this big, our
    via u/Classy_Pyro
  • 14
    front desk manager comes in early to help, but he couldn't this time since he took a personal day since his mother fell ill. That left our director with only one choice, to ask the night audit to stay late and help until our reservations people clocked in and could then replace us at the front desk.
    via u/Classy_Pyro
  • 15
    See, my colleague doesn't like staying late, especially since he works at a second job with his father in the afternoon, meaning he only has the morning and early afternoon to sleep. I don't like staying late on fridays because of the amount of check-outs, which means it'll be forever before you can take a breath and even more so before you can leave. However this time
    via u/Classy_Pyro
  • 16
    our director didn't even ask my colleague and instead told me to stay late because we would have a sizeable workload and about a third of it would require someone that spoke spanish, or it would slow down everything to a crawl. I told him I would not be staying late that morning and before I could get another word him, he started yammering about how I'm
    via u/Classy_Pyro
  • 17
    wrong and I should be more of a teamplayer and the he would be very grateful for it. Wanting to get back to my sleep, I told him to ask my colleague and he said he couldn't, that they needed me and when I asked him why, he clearly stated "We need 2 spanish speakers that morning to make sure everything goes OK with the checkouts." Not one for
    via u/Classy_Pyro
  • 18
    missing an opportunity to get payback, I replied "Sorry boss, I don't speak spanish", turned off my phone and went back to sleep. UPDATE: Sorry for holding out on the aftermath. I wrote this during my shift and as I was putting on the finishing touches, we had a server crash and I spent the next hour and a half trying to restore our backups and
    via u/Classy_Pyro
  • 19
    get the camera system up again. UPDATE - Aftermath: After I woke up and turned my cellphone back on, I had several missing calls from the hotel and two missing calls from our frontdesk manager (good guy). I called back the hotel but the afternoon shift picked up and they didn't know anything so I called my
    via u/Classy_Pyro
  • 20
    manager's phone. He answered and asked me what was going on because the director was furious about me "hanging up on him" and that I was "refusing to work". I explained to him the situation in regards to my bonus for speaking spanish, and since the hotel was trying to hold out on me, I was going to withhold performance. Anyone who's
    via u/Classy_Pyro
  • 21
    ever worked costumer service know how much damage withholding performance can do, even if it just a little. In the end, my manager begged me to stay until our reservations people came in at 8AM (my shift ends at 07:20AM). I agreed on the condition that I would not check out anyone who spoke spanish. He reluctantly accepeted and said he would back me
    via u/Classy_Pyro
  • 22
    up in the following happen. I that would What happened was that the group came down for breakfast precisely at 6:40AM, finished at 07:10AM give or take and went back to their room to collect their belongings. At this time, the two front desk attendants of the morning shift had arrived, as well as
    via u/Classy_Pyro
  • 23
    our bellboy, plus, there was me and my colleague waiting to punch out and go. We had already started checking people out and this day was particularly busy, we had 3 or 4 people. waiting to be checked out, and it doesn't help that we only have 3 computers for 4 people to work with, with another computer for us to check the cameras. When 07:20AM came up, my
    via u/Classy_Pyro
  • 24
    colleague quickly picked up his things and left and I took over his spot. At this time the first few people in the group started coming down and they already had to wait since we were all checking out other people. A few minutes later I got the first one but I told them I couldn't check them out since I don't speak spanish and asked them to wait for my colleagues to become
    via u/Classy_Pyro
  • 25
    available. In the end I ended up refusing service to 10 or so people, which started forming a line right in front of the front desk, which only grew since other guests assumed they were all in line to be checked out. My colleagues on the morning shift were not happy at all, the guests were less than satisfied, and when the first of our reservations people showed
    via u/Classy_Pyro
  • 26
    up at 8AM, I logged out, punched out and went home. By that time, there was a 20+ line of people waiting to be checked out by 2 overworked recepcionists, only one of which spoke spanish. In the ensuing that happened, the hotel's director arrived at 8:30AM in an attempt to minimize the anger of the human
    via u/Classy_Pyro
  • 27
    centipede who formed in the front desk, started chatted with the guests and otherwise trying to distract them so they would be less. angry and avoid giving the hotel a poor review. I got a mild chewing out by my manager for "poor work ethic" instead of being written up. True to his word, he backed me up when the director called him and HR for a meeting regarding my
    via u/Classy_Pyro
  • 28
    actions (you can't demand someone speak a language. that you know they don't right?). I still haven't got my bonus for speaking spanish, and I let my manager know that I will not be speaking any spanish while on the job until they give in and give me my hard earned bonus.
    via u/Classy_Pyro
  • 29
    UPDATE 2 - TL;DR: Management denies my bonus for speaking spanish, demands stay I late to help check out spanish speaking guests. I agree, but refuse to speak spanish since management themselves said I don't speak spanish so they wouldn't have to pay me a bonus for speaking spanish. I refuse service to lots of guests, chaos ensues in the front
    via u/Classy_Pyro
  • 30
    desk, I clock out before the hotel implodes. UPDATE 3 - So due to the number of comments asking about how the bonus works, I'll just post it here. It is a monthly bonus, and the way to hotel pays it out is by adding it into the base salary, instead of specifically outlining it on a separate item on our pay stub. This means that it is
    via u/Classy_Pyro
  • 31
    straight up a pay raise, and as such it interacts with other things that go into our paycheck that use our base salary to be calculated. This means that the $100 bonus easily snowballs into being $150 - $160 when you take into account the +20% we get paid for working nights, +10% for handling. live money, + overtime, + paid time off, + vacations.
    via u/Classy_Pyro
  • 32
    froal Why is it that we have to fight to get people who hire us understand that we can get them more money... You're bringing a skill to the table that they didn't even pay the training for, and they try to squeeze you instead of enjoying it... Sad sad story.
    via u/froal
  • 33
    ChrystalWindDBugPone. Your boss is an arrogant dicksniffer.
    via u/ChrystalWindDBugPone
  • 34
    Classy_Pyro OP. Our hotel director is a great manager when it comes to the administrative spectrum of things, but less so when it comes to the people side of things. He recently forbade us from taking a spare blanket and pillow
    via u/Classy_Pyro
  • 35
    from the backroom so we could nap during our breaks because those are for "guest use only". However, my direct supervisor, the front desk manager is a chill guy. He goes by that "live and let live" kind of policy and backs us up when management is being
    via u/Classy_Pyro
  • 36
    stupid. A lot of times he takes the "live and let live" thing a bit too far and pretends he doesn't work at the hotel though.
    via u/Classy_Pyro
  • 37
    Classy_Pyro OP See... he comes and goes as he pleases. If he were a serious manager, we would get a lot more chewing outs and both recepcionists in the afternoon shift would have been fired and replaced at least 10 times by now.
    via u/Classy_Pyro
  • 38
    On the other hand, he backs us up against management whenever they're trying to impose something unfair or downright ridiculous on us. He is a good manager, but he's absent a lot of the time.
    via u/Classy_Pyro
  • 39
    Classy_Pyro OP. He doesn't creat any issues or any unneeded fuss. He isn't there sometimes when we need him, but he does prevent upper management from trying to with us, or just complicating things for us.
    via u/Classy_Pyro

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