I spent Tuesday until tonight working in the Upstate New York city of Rochester. This was the opportunity to meet my new boss and work with some of the teammates I hadn’t seen in a while. It was a productive time and I’m excited about the new challenges that lie ahead for me on my career track. In that respect my life is good.
I checked into the hotel after work on Tuesday and had a pleasant night’s sleep in the Radisson. The hotel in downtown Rochester looked quite tired but folks seemed pleasant enough and the room had a Sleep Number bed so I figured it couldn’t be all bad. I was feeling rested when I left for work Wednesday morning. When I returned after a team dinner Wednesday night, I discovered the key card no longer opened my door. A security guard was walking by at the time and offered to let me in. I found it odd that he didn’t ask me for any sort of identification, he just unlocked the door and in I went.
The room had not been touched by housekeeping. Several of my drawers were ajar. I went down to the lobby to get new keys since the old ones no longer worked. When I came back I entered the room and called Earl to catch him up on the day. It was then that I discovered that a couple of items were missing from my room.
My 2013 15-inch MacBook Pro (personal one) had been removed from my Army Ruck Sack.
My USB multi-device charger was no longer plugged into the nightstand lamp and all four cables were missing.
The Apple Watch case that contained my black leather watch strap was gone.
I dialed up “Find My iPhone” on my iPhone, which can also find my Mac and iPads, and the MacBook Pro was powered down. I sent a command to lock and erase as soon as it was powered up.
I reported the missing items to the front desk. I was told that when I checked in on Tuesday the clerk hadn’t done it properly and they thought the room was empty. They had charged me a “no show fee”. I told them that I spent a wonderful night on the Sleep Number bed and that the clerk had made a big deal about that bed Tuesday at check-in. Because the room showed empty, they gave the room to someone else while I was at work. Apparently that person entered the room, saw that it was occupied and went back down to the lobby to request another room.
Apparently they took a long, hard look at the stuff in my room and decided to let their fingers do the walking.
I reported the incident to security, who asked me a bunch of questions and began an investigation. I advised that we should call the police and he didn’t really seem super motivated to do so, so I did myself. Three hours later the Rochester Police came in and I filed a report. They gave me a case number and left the lobby to go talk to security.
As of this moment my laptop has not been powered on or had already been erased. I’m not too worried about my data because I’m a bit fanatical about passwords and encryption and the like. Everything is backed up at home so I’m not worried that I lost anything.
I’m just pissed.
I received a call today from the head of security at the hotel that the laptop had still not been recovered but they had turned a claim into their insurance company. I hope to hear from them within the next day or so. I will hound them in unbelievable ways if I don’t hear from them by Monday.
When I was speaking with the police officer he indicated that they have been called to the hotel “too often” over the past several months. This did not feel encouraging, though I have to admit that the police officer was very nice, very thorough and very professional. I still have a lot of respect for the police.
So I’m without a laptop for a little while. It’s time to really get to know this iPad Pro I’ve been carrying about for the past couple of month.
I’m still pissed, though.
