Dave Morin

I just had to go get an ethernet cable from the front desk. This is a Hilton.

I’m in Austin, Texas doing some meetings at my company’s offices here. This being my first time in town at this location, I found out we usually stay at the Hilton Garden Inn right down the road.

There are a million tech companies around here. Trust me, I saw them.

After dinner, I got back and headed to my room. Usually, I love taking a look at how a hotel first presents the room to you. The Garden is one of Hilton’s more moderate sub-chains, along the lines of your standard Holiday Inn. As I looked around the room, I headed over to the desk to check out the internet situation.

1. Plug your P.C. High Speed Cable (I assume they mean ethernet cable) into the Network Jack.

I look around for the “P.C. High Speed Cable”. No where to be found. This is odd I think to myself. Although I work in tech, everyone I interact with works in tech. I don’t know anyone that actually carries an ethernet cable with them. So, I called the nice attendant down at the desk to ask if they had one. Sure enough, no problem. So I headed down 4 stories, picked up the cable and came back to my room.

This strikes me as borderline ridiculous. I’m sitting in the middle of the Texas Silicon Valley. There should be an ethernet cable in every single room. Why take the time to call up to the room and ensure I am having a great stay, when I just had to walk back downstairs and get the one thing that most everyone staying in this hotel needs..internet access?

Perhaps the marketing people at Hilton are too worried about releasing the next copy of “One Night in Paris”…