Chris,

This isn't much in the way of "help", but...



In this particular situation, I could see his claim of first come first served as long as that's understood throughout the company, but if this character went and changed his itinerary without telling you and still expects to have a laptop at his disposal, well, tough luck, pal.   Were you supposed to read his mind?



Do you have Outlook or something like that where you could post the reservations so everyone can see who wants what when?  Oh, you'll still have some parties who seem to think it's their toy to take when they want, but you'd have something to point to and fall back on.



Sounds like what you really need is for someone to loosen the purse strings and buy another one or two laptops, but since I'm assuming that's not your decision to make, and probably isn't going to happen until you have a MAJOR crisis, you're going to have to find a way to DEMAND some cooperation.  It just can't work any other way.