Appreciation post: I had to choose between a policy and a person, and I picked the person.

A few years back at a hotel in Omaha, a family arrived after a 14 hour drive to find their reservation messed up. I could either stick to the 'no rooms' policy and send them away, or give them the manager's suite we kept open for emergencies. I gave them the suite for the same price. The look on that mom's face was worth any trouble I got into. Has anyone else ever bent a rule because the 'right' thing was so clear?

3 comments

3 Comments

linda_knight513mo ago

How often do rules really matter more than people?

stone.sarah3mo ago

Ever tried to follow a recipe exactly and made something terrible? I think @linda_knight51 is onto something because rules can totally miss the human mess they're trying to fix. My own life is proof they often get it backwards.

anna_coleman2mo ago

I mean, is a recipe fail really that deep though? Like yeah, I've definitely had a few cooking disasters - tried to make a souffle once and it came out looking like a deflated pancake. But calling that some kind of proof that rules are backwards? That's a stretch. Sometimes you just misread the instructions or your oven runs hot. Rules are more like training wheels than some grand conspiracy against human messiness. A lot of the time they're just there so people don't have to reinvent the wheel every single time.