I read a story in an e-mail that I received just yesterday. Sometimes mistakes just happen.

BL

See, it's not my fault!

I was having one of my public Secret Service workshops at a beautiful hotel. My company, The DiJulius Group, made all the hotel reservations for the attendees. In the lobby, I bumped into David Akers, an attendee and friend of mine. He said that the front desk could not find him on the check-in list. After checking, I realized we hadn't made reservations for him because I did not see his name on my list of attendees. I immediately told him I'd take care of it and headed over to the check-in desk - but David followed. The front-desk manager who was aware of the situation greeted me. He immediately said to me, "We do not have Mr. Akers on the list you sent us." Trying to avoid David realizing we were the ones who screwed up, I responded, "Sir, do you have any more rooms?" The manager held up the list for both of us to see and replied, "Yes, but here is the list of attendees that your office sent me, and he is not on here." Great! Since there were available rooms, the manager agreed to check Mr. Akers in, but not until he made it clear that it wasn't his fault, but rather his customer's, The DiJulius Group. He obviously overlooked the fact that we were the company responsible for bringing a few hundred people to his hotel! The proper remedy would have been to book Mr. Akers into a room and then, after he left, figure out what went wrong. But NOT in front of the customer!