While I was trying to land a tech job (see Haircut and Rookie Mistake) I still needed to pay rent so I started working night shift at a hotel.
One weekend was ridiculously busy because of multiple events at the local university and we ended up being totally sold out on rooms and still getting dozens of calls a day asking for reservations. All of the other hotels in the area were similarly slammed.
It also turns out the hotel had recently changed hands, in fact many of the people with reservations had made them before the current owner took possession of the hotel. So this new owner decided he wanted to make as much money as possible so he told me to charge everyone $100 more per night than they had on their reservation, to mark each reservation as no-show if they weren't there by 5pm, and to rent any rooms not physically filled after that point to walk-ins (despite the reservation stating rooms would be held until midnight). He also told me if I didn't do it he would fire me.
I'm sure this was probably illegal and was definitely unethical, but since I needed to pay rent I begrudgingly did what was asked. This meant nearly 100 families either got charged 2-3 times what they had been promised or else they didn't have a place to sleep that night.
Not one to be the fall guy I told each angry family exactly what had happened - the owner decided not to honor the agreement and I couldn't afford to lose my job. Most people redirected their anger at that point but it was still one of the worst nights of my life.
This was a horror story for a lot of people but became a pivotal moment in my career where I began to focus on ethics and to do whatever I could to be in a position to walk away from unethical situations.
