My similar "coming of age" moment was in a hotel in Tokyo.
I had been collecting whisky from a bunch of small liquor stores and had run out of clothes to wrap my bottles in when packing them in my suitcase, so I grabbed a towel from the bathroom.
Being a fancy hotel, I saw they had a price sheet for items that "unexpectedly" went missing, and I think the towel was like $60 or something insane. When I was a kid, I never understood why anyone would pay that much for a towel, but at midnight in my hotel, with a bottle of Japanese whisky worth far more than that potentially on the line, it suddenly clicked why someone might want to do that.
I think I put the towel back and went to the local Don Quixote (open 24/7!) and bought some cheap packing material, but in that moment I definitely understood the prioritization exercise that others I this thread have talked about (how much is my time/how valuable is this thing).
A long time ago I worked on a hotel room booking website and ended up talking to a lot of hotel reception staff during the discovery phase. One of the people I spoke to told me that most of the 'stolen' things are actually just people getting blood/vomit/poop on things and being embarrassed about it so they take them home. It's not really theft in the sense of stealing for personal gain in many cases.
Before COVID, when travel was still a thing, I stayed at a hotel in St. Louis. There was a superbly comfortable and stylish bathrobe in the room which I quite enjoyed, and on the hanger was a note saying something like “Excellent robe isn’t it? Feel free to take it with you, we’ll add it to your bill no questions asked.”
I thought it was a fun take one the whole thing and had it not been for me not having any room in my luggage I would’ve taken it. If I recall correctly the note said it was somewhere in the $50-$60 range.
>was a note saying something like “Excellent robe isn’t it? Feel free to take it with you, we’ll add it to your bill no questions asked.”
Now, imagine guests being offended and not coming back to the hotel and leaving negative reviews out of spite, even if they didn't have any intention of stealing the robe.
That would make the hotel staff less snarky and rude, and more mindful about what they write on notes to guests...
Because this is the rude equivalent of the store clerk following around the aisles assuming you're a thief. A high end hotel for the rich would never dream of writing something like this -- at least not in the good days before the race to the bottom.
That's funny, I never thought it was snarky, but now that you mention it I can see how it might be interpreted as such. Passive aggressive in a way, but I never thought of it like that. Thanks for the alternate interpretation!
But also in all fairness I'm paraphrasing, I can't recall the exact wording so it may well have been formulated much better than I make it seem.
I’d always assumed they put prices on stuff to try and make it clearer to people they were stealing by taking them, rather than just “taking the free stuff”
I always assumed it was a side source of profit -- rich tourists and businessmen. If there's a price listed, I never thought of it as inappropriate, especially given the markup.
I think if my income was 2x what it was at one point, I would have taken a hotel robe under the listed price. I've had really mixed experiences buying robes at stores and on-line. You can't tell how well they'll work wet. Hotels sometimes have really nice ones, with the upside you can try them out straight out of the shower, and see how they work.
This reminds me of the realisation that you can actually park your car anywhere you want for as long as you want, some places are just more expensive than others.
I’ve heard this generalised to “when you’re poor, rules control you, when you’re rich they just set price tags on different actions.”
I had been collecting whisky from a bunch of small liquor stores and had run out of clothes to wrap my bottles in when packing them in my suitcase, so I grabbed a towel from the bathroom.
Being a fancy hotel, I saw they had a price sheet for items that "unexpectedly" went missing, and I think the towel was like $60 or something insane. When I was a kid, I never understood why anyone would pay that much for a towel, but at midnight in my hotel, with a bottle of Japanese whisky worth far more than that potentially on the line, it suddenly clicked why someone might want to do that.
I think I put the towel back and went to the local Don Quixote (open 24/7!) and bought some cheap packing material, but in that moment I definitely understood the prioritization exercise that others I this thread have talked about (how much is my time/how valuable is this thing).