Chapter 5
CALEB
Istalked into my penthouse in the Crystal Palace building on Mount Pleasant Road and shrugged out of my suit jacket, letting it hit the floor. Martina must have heard the door slam because she appeared behind me almost immediately, gathering my silk tie and jacket as I paced the living room.
“How dare she!” I shouted, rolling up my sleeves. “She’s treating me like an employee.”
Martina froze. Her sandy-coloured hair was already pulled back too tightly, but now it looked completely frazzled. Her blue eyes widened as she stood there, not blinking.
“What do you want?” I snapped, making her flinch. “Why are you still standing there?”
She swallowed hard. “Would you like anything to eat or drink, Mister Evans?”
I shut my eyes and counted to ten. Slowly. None of this was her fault, and I knew it. I exhaled and forced my voice to calm. “Just leave me alone for now. Thank you, Martina.”
I walked up the stairs with Cooper at my heels and, sitting down in the leather office chair, scratched my beloved chocolate retriever’s stomach.
How hard could it possibly be to run a hotel?
All I had to do was make decisions. Everyone should already know what they were doing and work around me.
Like Gary—how hard would it have been to change up a few decorations?
It was his job, for pity’s sake, but somehow I had become the bad guy when Gary couldn’t handle it.
I reclined in the chair and dialled my father, already rehearsing the explanation in my head. “Hi, Dad.”
“I’ve already heard,” he said. I could practically hear the controlled fury in his pause—the signature seething inhalation through gritted teeth. “How could you do something like that without consulting Nyah?”
“Consult her?” I clenched my jaw. “You appointed me as VP, not as her assistant. A guest needed a decision. I gave one. End of story.”
“But you made a commitment that impacted other people—”
“I’m confused. Aren’t we supposed to keep VIP guests happy?” I pressed my lips together and tightened my grip on the phone. “I did the right thing. Just because Nyah thinks she knows better—”
“Caleb,” he sighed. “She does know better. This hotel exists because of her. Her ideas made it a success.”
I loosened my collar and resigned myself to enduring the lecture, hearing how much money Nyah had saved them and how she’d gotten the hotel listed at number two in Hospitality magazine’s Top-10 Hotels in the city. It wasn’t the first time I’d heard it.
“You need to follow through on your commitment,” he said. “Mend fences. Listen to her. And figure this out without running to your mother or me.”
“Fine,” I said. “I’ll try to make it work.”
“Don’t try, Caleb. Do it.”
The line went dead.
I walked down to the living room and poured myself a stiff drink. Raising the glass to the empty room, I toasted, “Here’s to you, Nyah. So beautiful, yet so…”
What was it about that woman that made me so… frustrated?
The next morning, Nyah looked up from her laptop when I entered her office.
“Well, good morning,” she said, smiling. “You—”
“I still have no access,” I said dryly. “You do want me to learn how this place works, don’t you?”
She inhaled slowly. “I thought it would be better if you spent a few weeks shadowing department heads. You know, to understand their roles and responsibilities.”
I stared at her.
She stood. “A couple of days in each section will give you a much better idea of how things work than reading a bunch of emails.”
“You want the VP of Operations shadowing middle management?” I asked. “Don’t they already know their jobs?”
In a low-pitched voice, she said, “You can’t manage these people effectively until you understand what they do. Work in their space. See them in their element. You’ll be surprised how much you learn.”
Was she trying to tell me I didn’t know what I was doing?
“Will you be able to find your way, or do you want me to book appointments?”
My ears burned. I wanted to say something, but instead, I turned and walked to the elevators.
With no access and nothing to do in my office, I started poking around. After all, I was the boss. Who was going to stop me? Apart from Nyah... well, just let her try.
My security pass still worked, and walking up the stairs from the top office floor, I found myself in a corridor outside some guest rooms.
“Good morning, sir!”
It was a housekeeper in the middle of her cleaning routine.
“What’s this?” I picked up a clipboard from the top of her cleaning trolley.
“My checklist, sir.”
There were maybe a hundred entries on the list, split into three columns, each with a checkbox next to it.
“You have to do all these things?” I scanned down the list. “For every room?”
“Yes, sir.”
“This must take forever.”
There were five different entries for dusting. And another ten for positioning things on the desk and coffee table.
Wastefulness. Unnecessary expenditure. “You know how to clean a room, right?”
“Sir?” A worried look crossed the housekeeper’s brow.
“Change the towels, wipe the surfaces, and make the bed.”
“Yes, sir. But—”
“From now on,” I said. “Just make up the room. When it’s done, write down the room number and move to the next one. How much time will that save you?”
The woman blanched. “But sir, in the SOP—”
“I don’t care what’s in the SOP. It’s inefficient. Inform the others.”
I walked away, taking the checklist with me. On another floor, I found more inefficiencies and rectified them as well.
Things were looking up. This was much more like what I’d expected. I declared the morning a success and went out to lunch.
Nyah was waiting when I returned to my office.
“You cannot change SOPs on a whim,” she growled, marching towards me with sweeping hand gestures.
“What are SOPs?” I asked innocently, knowing exactly what they were but wanting time to get a handle on whatever had gotten her so worked up.
“Standard Operating Procedures,” she said through gritted teeth.
“Have you seen the Standard Operating Procedures?” I put my hands in my pockets, resisting the urge to gesticulate wildly in return. “We could probably halve our housekeeping staff if they were more sensible.”
“It doesn’t work like that,” she said in an exasperated tone. “Whether they’re right or wrong, you can’t just change things whenever you feel like it. There’s a protocol to follow.”
“And why is that?”
“Well, for starters, quality control. One housekeeper’s definition of clean might be different from the next.
Their SOPs ensure everything gets done consistently—every time and in every room, because guests notice.
Even if we make the tiniest change to procedures, we review it with everyone, twice if we have to, or risk getting drowned in one-star Yelp reviews from guests whose pillow-mint was upside down. ”
I paused to consider. The one-star Yelp review had hit home; they’d gotten a couple at the club, and I’d obsessed over them.
Club patrons were fussy—if they had to wait too long at the bar, or they found lipstick on their glass, or the bathroom mirror was streaky—one-star review!
Hotel guests were probably no different.
Maybe she had a point. On the other hand, it didn’t seem to matter whether my ideas were good or bad because unless I had some autonomy, I’d never get to prove myself.
“In that case,” I said, hoping to find a middle ground without capitulating completely, “I’d like to launch a review of Housekeeping’s checklist. It is inefficient, and if you’d made the effort to go and look like I did, you’d see that. We can start tomorr—”
“You don’t get it,” she cried, colour rising to her face.
“You’re here to learn, Caleb, not to make changes.
If you want to know why their checklist is so long, spend a week cleaning rooms. I’ve done it, and I guarantee the Head of Housekeeping has too.
Until you understand why it is the way it is, nobody is going to listen to your ideas.
” She turned on her heel, muttering, “Least of all, me,” and strutted away, leaving the scent of her perfume lingering in my office.
A couple of hours later, I headed down to the restaurant. I hadn’t announced myself, hadn’t booked anything, and frankly didn’t see why I should have to. If I was going to understand how this place worked, I needed to see it in real time.
I took a seat at the bar and ordered a Perrier with ice and lemon. The bartender—Louisa, according to her name tag—served it with a polite smile that edged into curiosity.
Word travelled fast in buildings like this.
I hadn’t been there long when Nyah appeared, her heels striking the floor with purpose. Francois, the restaurant manager, hovered just behind her shoulder.
“What the hell are you doing?” she demanded. “You can’t drink while you’re working. What kind of example are you setting for the rest of the staff?”
I turned on the stool and lifted my glass slightly. “This is Perrier with ice and lemon.”
She glanced at Louisa, who nodded quickly.
“I’m sorry,” Nyah said, and for a moment her tone softened. Then she glanced back at me. “So what are you doing down here?”
“Exactly what you asked,” I said. “I’m learning how the place works. And I have to say,”—I flicked my eyes briefly toward Francois before returning them to her—“I see room for improvement.”
Her posture stiffened immediately. “I beg your pardon?”
Instead of answering her directly, I called Louisa over. “Hi, Louisa. Your boss told you who I am, didn’t he?”
Louisa bit her lip, nervously eyeing what, in her opinion, was probably far too much management in her bar. “He didn’t tell me. I recognized you.”
“From Twitter?”
She nodded.
“Excellent.” I gestured toward a group of three men nearby. “Do you recognize that guy over there? The one in the golf shirt.”
She squinted. “No.”
“He’d be flattered if you did. His name’s Mike Weir. Won a Masters a while back.”
“Is that golf?” she asked.
I nodded. “Do you ever flirt for tips?”