A Tale of Two (Bipolar) Cities part 3

Needless to say, I did not wake up the following morning, singing Sinatra.

I woke up resolved to lay down a complaint with the New Yorker Hotel and get some form of recompense for my failed night out. I showered, put on my bitch face and armed with righteous rage, made my way down to the lobby and demanded to speak to a manager.

The guest services manager was a nice enough man, who seemed genuinely perplexed by my story. He explained to me that the concierge was outsourced, and not an employee of the hotel, and that the service currently used was not going to be renewed. Basically, we had the misfortune of catching a bitter erstwhile employee on their last day of work, who decided to go out in style by offering us bad advice. I had already made up my mind that I wanted to be compensated for a night at the hotel for my lost time, but it turns out, that was going to be overly complicated. Since I had booked with an online service provider, the hotel could not directly compensate me without approval of a director one level up.

That director refused. When I confronted this director face to face to ask for an explanation, he gave me the kind of tired eyes that you would use if you spotted gum at the bottom of your shoe. He proceeded to give me a brief administrative lesson about space leasing and liability that ended in the not-my-problem category and I walked away with nothing after losing a morning to fighting with a hotel who couldn't care less if I was hit by a cab on my way out. There was some nonsense about filing a report and how the hotel could not be held accountable for anything the concierge did, no more than they could be blamed if you got food poisening at the hotel diner, since that person is not a hotel employee and I was left to seethe in the fresh New York City air, breathing dragon fire and cursing.

Trying to salvage what was left of the day after this wasn't exactly easy. I felt beaten up by New York City at this point and didn't want to do much more than get as far away from the hotel as possible. Not only did I feel like a nobody, I felt like a stupid nobody; a fool who got taken in and robbed blind. I felt like Homer Simpson vs New York City. I'm not sure what crab juice tastes like, but this definitely left a pretty bad taste in my mouth.

We spent the rest of the day walking around, found Rockefeller Place and a store clerk who didn't hate us directed us to the Waldorf-Astoria, where we were amazed by its beauty and not for the last time, cursed the concierge and the hotel 'services' outloud.

It was New Year's Eve and we didn't have time to stay mad or sulk at home. It was time to dust ourselves off, put on dresses, heels and our game faces, and go out for the biggest night of the year and finally say goodbye to a challenging 2013- in style.