Tequila

It’s a fact of life in the gig economy:  There are gonna be reviews.  Whether it’s awarding 5 stars to your Uber driver for showing up on time and being both personable and presentable.  Or maybe it’s writing something on Yelp about your barista so you can either let off steam about bad service, or suck up to the powers-that-be so you get a free latte next time.  Either way, in today’s world, reviews are here to stay.

 

As you know…

 

If you’ve been following this blog and paying a modicum of attention, I do Airbnb with our townhouse in California.  Reviews aren’t only de rigeur on the Airbnb platform, they actually form the very heart and soul of the app.  Guests review hosts.  Hosts review guests. If you like, you can read what your counterpart wrote and reply to it for all the world to see. Fail to write anything at all and the app will keep prompting you to do so, all the way out to the 14-day limit.  At which point, I suppose, the “stay” falls off the app’s radar and into Airbnb’s version of purgatory.

I’m of two minds about this state of affairs.  On the one hand, it keeps everyone accountable.  VERY accountable. Accumulate too many negative reviews, either as a guest or as a host, and you can become a virtual Airbnb pariah.  Keep your nose clean, however, and – at least on the host side – you can become what’s known as a “Superhost.”  They don’t actually provide blue spandex leggings and a red cape to go along with this “honor.”   But they do superimpose a little Olympic style gold medal on a ribbon around your neck in the profile picture.  I kid you not.  More importantly, good reviews help you climb the ladder in the behind-the-scenes algorithm which puts your place out there for guests to search and choose. And that, of course, means more bookings, which means more money.

 

On the other hand….

 

What to do when you get a bad review?  I’m speaking here as a host, because I’ve only ever been an Airbnb guest twice, and one of those times was at a hotel in Dallas that had just opened.  Somehow they were able to get listed on Airbnb.  Don’t ask me how.  Most likely it will end up in a lawsuit.  But I digress.

Anyhow, I’ve had well in excess of 50 reviews as a host, the vast majority of them positive.  Early on, as I was just getting started, I kept the price low to attract guests to a place that essentially had no reviews.  And someone made the comment in a review that this was their “best value Airbnb experience ever, bar none.”  That’s code, of course, for “Your price is way too low.” So, I promptly raised my rate.  So as you can see, this system’s not all bad.  In some cases, it can be very useful.

But last week a guest of mine was in town for job interviews, and he complained about “the train noise” keeping him “wide awake, all night long, for two nights straight.” He said the place was “otherwise fine and dandy,” which sounded to me like maybe I was being damned by faint praise?  But there was no mistaking the implication when he went on to say that future guests should “beware,” and “bring earplugs.” How to respond to THAT?

 

My philosophy is…

 

It never pays to get into a pissing match with someone who is paying you their hard-earned money for goods or services.  But in this case, given the way Airbnb works, a review like that might well cut off the future flow of guests completely and permanently.  Well, except maybe for that subset of the population which has mild to moderate  hearing loss – of which number, I am one.  But anyway…. Rock?  Meet hard place.

My first thought was, how can over 50 previous guests not have noticed this? One other guest did mention the trains.  But his comment was phrased positively:  “The sound of train horns during the day seems to fade away at night, and I slept great!”  I wondered, had Amtrak or CSX maybe changed their schedule recently to include more late-night or early-morning runs? I checked with my buddy who’s a train engineer, and he confirmed it:  They had not.  Had my sleepless guest somehow left a window open?  The weather has warmed here recently, so an open window might account for increased interior noise. But no, I remembered that this guy had run the air conditioner all night long.  So scratch that bright idea.

I thought, maybe it’s likely that this guy was all worked up about his job interviews.  And maybe,  given that fact, he might even have had trouble sleeping had he been out in the middle of the National Forest – you know, due to ambient hoot owl noise, or something?  But if so, what could I do about it?  Slip the guy some Xanax?  Make him  drink a big shot of tequila before bed time? The last thing somebody who’s already on pins and needles wants to hear is somebody telling them to just please relax. That’s kind of the definition of counter-productive right there.

 

In my darker moments…

 

I thought maybe I should just tell the guy that he should insert his recommended ear plugs into some non-auditory orifice.  But then – after a few additional shots of tequila myself – sweet reason returned, and I was able to calm down.  Fact is, there’s just no delicate way to phrase some replies without sounding like an asshole. So, maybe no reply at all was the best way to go?  Still, I was concerned….

Then, I got a booking for the coming week.  And then, another.  And another, filling up the whole two weeks after that.  Pretty soon, I thought, “Hey! Waddaya know? It’s not a bug.  It’s a feature!” Maybe the thing to do is advertise the train noise.  I mean, the State Railroad Museum is right across the river, right?  So Sacramento, in addition to being known as the “River City” and  the “City of Trees,” might also one day – with my great help – come to be known as the “City of Trains?” Hear that lonesome whistle blow…  Kinda has a nostalgic ring to it,  doncha think? If Johnny Cash were still alive we could get him to do a PSA…

 

Nah. The bottom line is…

 

Reviews are, by nature, a mixed bag.  So too are the people who write them:  Some folks are all worked up.  Others?  They couldn’t care less. Over the long haul, it all tends to even out.  Best policy in light of that?  Tequila – for hosts as well as guests!  But seriously, folks… There’s just no sense wheeling out the big guns every time there’s negative feedback.  Not when a wee bit of tolerance, patience, and forbearance can work wonders. That’s my strategy and I’m sticking with it.

Well, that plus tequila, I guess.