This could have been anywhere

The city, and indeed the country, that this happened in are not important. All I will say was that it was overseas and took place a couple of years ago. As my brother advised me “Change the names to protect the guilty and prevent the victim from being sued”. In the wider scale of things I suppose its no big deal. No one got hurt, no one died. It happens every hour of every day throughout the world. Its only when it affects you that it assumes any importance. It marred what was otherwise a great experience in a beautiful country where I had the pleasure of meeting some truly wonderful people. An episode like this can easily bring out the worst in people - and I include myself in that observation.

I had arrived in the country a few days earlier and spent a couple of days working at one of the company’s offices in the one of the major cities. Saturday evening saw an internal flight of a couple of hour’s duration to the nations capital: a sprawling mass of humanity where extreme poverty and relative wealth shared the same streets. I think it was the sheer scale of deprivation that I witnessed for the first time that really took my breath away. Images that I only seen before beamed in to the comfort of my own front room, glass of beer in one hand, a warm fire next to me, were now in my face. The Taxi pulled out of the rank at the airport and we left the beggars behind.

A 30-minute journey followed through the humidity and the masses. The driver had locked all the doors and seemed immune to the other road users. I soon learnt that this was standard practice as 5 lanes of cars squeezed into the three-lane highway. The traffic lights all had electronic counters telling you how many seconds to go before the green light: An innovation that was designed to encourage motorists to cut the engines in a bid to reduce the pollution that choked the city. Few drivers seemed to be aware of this, or if they were it was largely ignored. Car windows that were previously opened to allow a breeze to cool the heat of the night were religiously wound up at each junction as mothers with babies in their arms knocked on the windows seeking money.

The Hotel itself was standard issue western world comfort, with a daily rate that was lower than you would find in most European cities but which still comfortably exceeded the monthly take home pay of most of the staff. Once within its walls you could have been anywhere in the world: The uniformity of the reception, bar and restaurant reflecting that this was part of a large chain of hotels that seemed unwilling or unable to accept any local influences in its interior design.

I had arranged to have lunch with a couple of colleagues from the local office in the Hotel restaurant on the Sunday. At 12.30 I locked my room and met up with them in the bar. A couple of very pleasant hours passed in good company and I returned to my room at about 3 o’clock. I nodded at one of the staff in the corridor outside my room and unlocked my door.

My mobile phone and wallet were missing.

I noticed within seconds of entering, as I needed to call home and looked for the phone that I had left on the bedside table.

Fortunately one of my lunch colleagues was also staying in the Hotel. I called him and he came up to my room. Together we took the lift down to the reception area and asked to speak to the manager. Surprise, surprise – he was not on duty. We asked who was in charge and were told that the duty manager was “resting”. My colleague demanded that he be called immediately. We sat down and waited.

After about an hour, and after several reminders from us, he finally appeared. By his manner we could tell immediately that he wasn’t interested and seemed to take great pleasure watching as my blood pressure rose to a dangerous level. His line was basically that he didn’t believe that the items had been stolen and the only thing he could do was to refer it to the Senior Manager of the Hotel who would not be in until the next day. My colleagues had advised me that it was pointless reporting it to the local police as they usually turned a blind eye to such events and I could draw whatever conclusions I wanted to from that.

Monday evening arrived and I duly turned up at reception at 6pm as arranged. By 7 O’clock he had not appeared. By then I was getting more than slightly angry with the whole charade and the total indifference shown by all the staff from whom I had sought assistance. He finally showed up at about 7.30 without a word of apology and motioned me towards a pair of high winged-back chairs in the corner of the reception area. He was in his mid twenties and was wearing what was obviously a brand new suit. I was pleased that his share of the contents of my wallet had been well spent.

This guy obviously fancied himself as the next villain in a James Bond film. The only thing missing was the cat on his lap that he could stroke whilst talking. As domestic animals seemed to be at a bit of a premium in this part of the world he made do with an imaginary one, and kept making these ridiculous sweeping movements with his right hand.

“So, Mr Lunt. What brings you to our country?” (Stroke, stroke)
“In order that I can experience at first hand the pleasure of having valuables stolen from my LOCKED Hotel room,” I replied through somewhat gritted teeth,
“Do not play games with me Mr. Lunt! How do I know that these items were actually taken from your room?” (Single stroke)
“Because I’m telling you! Besides I have a note in my pocket from my Mother confirming that I don’t tell lies”

The conversation continued to go round in circles for the next ten minutes or so before he changed his tactics. He had by now absorbed some of my agitation and the imaginary cat was taking a real pounding. According to him it was highly likely that my colleagues were behind the theft. They had obviously got hold of my key over lunch and one of them had sneaked into my hotel room and done the deed. The more he repeated this version of events, the more he seemed to believe it and the smugness and arrogance reached new levels as I fought back the increasing urge to punch his lights out.

Needless to say I lost the argument and in order to prevent spending a couple of months or years as a guest at one of the countries finest prisons I walked away. As I left he was sat there muttering something about domination of all the worlds hotels and the cat was purring contentedly.
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Due to a trade event that was taking place in the City there was no option of changing hotels, so for the next four days when I was not working I remained barricaded in my room. I had refused to allow the room to be cleaned and it only took a couple of days before the room became quite uncomfortable. On the odd occasion that I ventured down to the restaurant I took the managers advice not to leave any valuables in my room. Accordingly a member of staff was at my constant beck and call to carry my entire luggage up and down from the room. I particularly enjoyed insisting that the luggage accompany me whenever I needed the washroom. Moving frequently between the bar and the restaurant also worked a treat, as did my insistence on going outside for a smoke every 15 minutes

On my last morning I carried my own bags down to check out. I was a few minutes later than I had planned as I had a bit of trouble removing the fuse from the air-conditioning unit. The TV and the kettle had proved easier and the “U” bend under the sink had worked its way loose on my first attempt. The rings that held the shower curtain up had all been liberated and distributed at random through out the bedroom, one was neatly wedged between two of the buttons on the telephone next to the bed.

The duty manager who I had encountered first was behind the counter with a further 2 or 3 of the staff in attendance. The Senior Manager had obviously doled out the smug pills to all and sundry in celebration of their latest robbery and the stench of arrogance was overwhelming. I paid the bill, muttered a few chosen words under my breath and walked outside to call a Taxi.

With my luggage safely on board, the driver was just about to pull away when I asked him to wait a minute. I had reached into my hand luggage, felt around and a sudden pang of guilt swept over me. I am not normally a rude and insensitive person and have always tried to aware of the needs and requirements of other people. Accordingly I walked back into the hotel clutching a small gift that I wanted the staff to have with my best wishes.

The duty manager was still there. It looked like he was trying to decipher what I had scrawled over my bill. He looked up as I approached. I smiled and he smiled back.
“I’m really sorry that I behaved as I did – I was quite thoughtless so please forgive me,” I said.
His only response was to seamlessly replace his smile with a smirk.
“I’d like to leave you with this. I hope you find it useful”
I turned and walked quickly back out of the Hotel.

As the Taxi pulled away I turned around to see the duty manager and 3 members of staff chasing after the car, waving the bag and gesturing in a very unfriendly manner.
I was disappointed. I thought that they would have been a bit happier now that they had the phone charger and the travel adaptor.