I haven't even been at the hotel long enough to know what's right-side-up, but I know for a fact that it's turned upside-down right now.
Not only is the summer slow season here, but with this "recession" going on, apparently FL is getting hit worst out of everyone, and the hotel's income statement shows it. Apparently they've been losing money for months now. So to cut back they're telling everyone to take vacations, and managers to avoid their employees from hitting overtime. This causes a predicament in itself though because I've watched manager after manager fumble with the schedule since everyone is gone on vaca and they need ppl working but it's tough to not hit overtime. So Housekeeping doesn't have enough girls to clean the rooms, so they have to drop rooms (leave them dirty) and even though we're only averaging 40% occupancy, we can't honor guest room-type requests because the rooms are all dirty. Laundry is completely backed up to the point where me, the rooms Exec Jonathan (my soon-to-be head boss who I also love because he has a really good sense of humor and balance between work and play) and another FD employee folding towels in laundry because housekeeping and the pool didn't have enough supplies...
It got to the point that they've had to "temporarily terminate" employees who aren't really needed right now even though they've been with the company for 25 years since this hotel opened. Melissa and I (one of the other CMTs- we recently learned we're a lot alike and are going to get along great- finally someone to explore with!) were SHOCKED to find out the head of convention services and the employment manager (she was one of my favorite employees there) had to take a temp term of 3 months...THREE MONTHS! They can file for unemployment, but still that's nothing easy. At least the emp.mgr probably had an idea it was coming since she works in HR but we couldn't believe it. Melissa even talked to Bob, head of HR, to make sure our jobs weren't in jeopardy, but thankfully he and the GM budgeted for us even in the worst of situations...so we'll float through getting trained by managers who are afraid they're going to lose their own job or half of their staff in the meantime...it's pretty weird to see!! But I guess a good learning experience... come football season (esp with the superbowl in Tampa in January- and YES one of the teams WILL stay at this hotel!!! I'm SO EXCITED!!) things will pick up, but this is crazy in the mean time.
anyway... I write novels...so I need to sign out. Working tomorrow 9am-7pm (yep they decided our pay based on a salary with 10-hour days...ouch) so I have to get to bed early, like the old person I'm turning into... ;-) hehe
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