You Mean That Wasn't Free?

The year is 1991 and I'm a rookie commercial real estate broker in the Chicago office of Coldwell Banker( Today Coldwell Banker is CB Richard Ellis, the largest commercial real estate company in the U.S.). Commercial real estate was the hot industry for any young guy trying to make his mark in the world. This company did everything first rate. They had the nicest offices, top management, a support staff second to none( each broker got their own assistant) and the financial backing to do anything. Well, the training for their new brokers also fell under the category of 1st class. After a month of being in the office I was sent to Atlanta for 5 days of extensive training  on how Coldwell Banker does business which made them #1.  So I fly down there with a bunch of other rookies from all over the country. There was more testosterone in that training class(including the 2 female brokers in the class) than the locker room of the German Women's Olympic Swim Team. Lot of hot shots. After a 10 hour day of training, we headed back to our hotel room. Not just any hotel room but the Ritz-Carlton of Atlanta. Easily the nicest hotel I ever stayed at which wasn't saying too much because at 23, I hadn't stayed at too many nice hotels. I check in and my roommate is another broker from my Chicago office. Great guy( still friends with him today).Italian guy from New York the same age as me.  This room is super nice. Big bathroom, sofa with coffee table and a little refrigerator filled with drinks, booze, candy and other crap for us to eat.  Both of us had never stayed at a hotel with an Honor Bar  and figured "Hey, it's the Ritz, they really do up the guests bigtime". My roommate and I were making about $800 a month.(not eating really well on that type of income). Well, my buddy and I went at this honor bar like two piranhas who just noticed a really fat guy swimming in the water. I mean by the 2nd night, we cleaned it out. We cleaned it out again by the 4th night. It's the end of the week and we fly back to Chicago with new found knowledge and all the booze, chips and candy we could throw down our throats from that little refrigerated treasure chest. So, Monday morning our branch manager calls us into his office. We sit down and our manager says "So boys, how was last week in Atlanta?" We both said it went well. He then says "How'd you like the Ritz? Did you notice that little refrigrator in the room?"  First thought in my head is "Uh oh! this isn't going to end well" He continues but raising his volume to about a level 9 "You morons! The shit in that mini fridge wasn't free!  You cost the company $450!"  We both were sitting there scared out of our minds and figuring it was our last day at Coldwell Banker. The branch manager then says, "You ever pull a stunt like that on the company dime again and you'll need a long ass shoehorn to get my boot out of your asses! Now get out of my sight!"  We walked out of his office with our tails between our legs and the entire office laughing at us. Today my buddy is a very successful businessman in Los Angeles and I see him once a year at a conference that I go to in San Diego. There isn't one visit that goes by without us bringing that story up and having a good laugh about it.