Vietnamese Bug

This story took place several years ago in Vietnam. In a coastal resort city in the south central part of Vietnam. There was a five star hotel with a huge amusement park located on a separate island. There were a lot of guests from Europe and especially from Russia. As I know Russian and English, I got a job at this five-star hotel as Guest Relations Officer. Guest Relations Officers at 5-star hotels are those people who help the guests if they have any problems while staying on the premises of the hotel.

As there were a lot of Russian guests at the hotel, I mostly worked with them. Russian guests were known for their lack of knowledge of English, bad manners and capricious behaviour - as my Vietnamese colleague noted: they paid 1 dollar and expected a 10 dollar service. If I couldn’t handle their problems, I used my Vietnamese colleagues as a “protective shield” and served as a translator between Russian guests and Vietnamese management/Duty managers.

Once I got a call from my Vietnamese Duty manager, Mr. Nam, and was asked to go immediately with him to the room of Russian guests. As we were heading to the room, Mr. Nam mumbled something about a thing the Russian guest lost and we needed to find.

As we entered the room of the guest, a big, tall Russian man, from Siberia rushed to me with the words:

“Where is my beetle? What have you done to him?”

—A beetle?I’m sorry, I don’t really understand, what beetle? - I made two steps backwards as the Russian guest approached me very closely. —Yeah, my beetle! Where is it?

It turned out that this Siberian guy had found a dead beetle on the beach of the sea. It was a longhorn beetle was that size, with long antennae  , longer than its body. The man wanted to take the beetle back home as a souvenir. While most tourists from around the world bring home from their trips traditional knickknacks and magnets, Russian tourists bring dead insects.

The Siberian guy brought the dead insect to his room at the hotel and now the beetle was gone!

—Hahaha, probably employees from the house keeping department had just thrown the beetle away! - Mr. Nam, the duty manager laughed and was about to leave. I translated accordingly what Mr. Nam, the duty manager said as “I’m so sorry for the whole incident, please accept my apologies on behalf of the hotel management. Is there anything the hotel could do to make you feel better and forgive us for such an incident?”

The Siberian man looked at us angrily and spitted out:

—I don’t need your miserable apologies. Go and find me another beetle!

As I translated our guest’s requirements to Mr. Nam, his face expression was changing gradually from a pure misunderstanding to pure shock.

Making use of the guest’s lack of English knowledge Mr. Nam blurted out: “This guy is nuts!Tell him we can’t do it!”

The Siberian guy was getting angrier. He stood in front of me and looked like a big cloud about to erupt into a thunderstorm.

—I am not leaving this hotel until you find a new beetle for me! - the guest almost screamed.

—We need to find another beetle for him or otherwise we are dead, - I told Mr. Nam.

So Mr. Nam, as a true professional and a person experienced in Vietnamese hospitality industry did the best thing he could do to solve this issue - he passed this assignment further to another duty manager, Mr. Nguyen.

Mr. Nguyen had experience working in the best hotels of Singapore which was highly valued in Vietnam. So he did the best thing he could do to solve the guest’s problem - he passed the assignment further to other employees of the hotel and ordered them go search for dead longhorn beetles.

Next day Mr. Nguyen called me and asked me to accompany him to the guest’s room as there was obviously something wrong with the searches for a beetle.

It turned out that half of the employees of the hotel had gone out searching for a beetle and they found a beetle for the guest, but it was “a wrong beetle”, as the guest pointed out.

—Are you trying to play jokes with me? - the Siberian guy rushed to me as Mr.Nguyen and I entered his room, - have you seen that parody of a beetle they have brought me? That beetle your guys brought me didn’t have one leg! - what kind of beetle is that??? - he became indignant.- His indignance was changing gradually to sadness and nostalgia.

—You see, my beetle was beautiful. He had a long horn, he had all legs, he was whole, you know. I was planning to put him in a frame and hang on our wall to remind us of our amazing vacation here in Vietnam for which we have been saving money for 3 years.

It was so touching and we felt very sorry for the guest and the whole incident.

Mr. Nguyễn asked me to tell the guest that as it was a 5-star hotel we offered only the 5-star service and so he promised to find another beetle, the right one. So Mr. Nguyen did the best thing he could do to solve the guest’s problem and ordered another half of the hotel’s employees to go search for a new beetle.

Next day I got news that the guest finally had got an ideal beetle and was very happy and grateful for the hotel, unfortunately he couldn’t call me personally to thank me and the team as he had an early flight back to Russia.

As I was processing the whole story and retelling it to my other colleagues, I saw Mr. Nguyen approaching us with a wide smile, white as newly gathered rice from rice fields. I saw glory and success in his eyes.

—So, Tatiana, good news! We found an ideal beetle for the guest and made him very happy! Do you want to know how we did it? - he smirked suspiciously.

I was dying to know the details.

Mr. Nguyễn continued.

—My employees found two longhorn beetles: one without a head, the other - without 2 legs. And I personally glued them together carefully with a super glue! 5-star service - He exclaimed!

—LEGO and bravo! - I confirmed!