If you travel with your boss, bring money
Bring more if the Financial Controller comes along for the ride
As a newly promoted department head in the company’s flagship 500-room hotel, I excitedly accepted the invitation to attend a week-long LOTS course. I had heard the stories of others. The legends told stories that sounded like a combination of frat parties and Spring Break holidays.
It was a tumultuous time in the hotel. I was looking forward to the break.
A new Financial Controller and a high-profile General Manager with a stellar resumé from some of Asia’s leading five-star hotels had been appointed to lead our hotel.
Even better, they would be attending the same week of workshops as me.
Our trip didn’t start well.
We met at the airport, checked in and proceeded to the gate.
The word DELAYED was flashing above the unattended counter.
A storm, a strike, or a something had closed Copenhagen airport.
It was the early 1990s, we were in Oslo, Norway, headed to Malmö, Sweden but even in those days before the bridge was built across the strait that separates Denmark from Sweden, flying to Copenhagen and sailing over to Malmö by ferry was the shortest route.
After a substantial delay, we were allowed to board. We taxied and took off. Then the captain gave us the news.
“The airport in Copenhagen has been closed again. We’re diverting to Malmö.”
If you’re not well acquainted with airport locations, I will forgive you for thinking this diversion was a stroke of luck. It was not.
Malmö airport is twice as far from Malmö as Copenhagen airport is. If you check Wikipedia, it will tell you Malmö airport is in Svedala, but even that is a stretch. Google Maps, will show you that the airport with code MMX is more accurately described as being in “The Middle of Nowhere”.
The pilot reassured us that busses would take everyone to Copenhagen if that was their destination, or Copenhagen airport if they had connecting flights. He hadn’t seemed to consider that some of us might be headed to Malmö. As it turned out, that didn’t matter.
We landed safely in Malmö sometime close to midnight.
Unfortunately, the GM and the Financial Controller had both checked in bags. (Amateurs, right? I know!)
The FC’s bag was first off the belt. The GM’s bag was somewhere out in the vast wide world. It wasn’t in Malmö and, as far as I know, it may still be lost.
By the time the GM had filled out the detailed lost luggage forms and argued long enough with airline ground staff to win a free disposable shaving kit and toothbrush, the bus the airline had set up to take everyone to Copenhagen was already at the ferry terminal 30 km away.
“We’ll have to take a taxi.”, the FC said, with a worried look on his face as he tried to calculate how much this would disrupt his budget for the week.
There is not a large number of taxis that wait at the airport in the middle of nowhere in the hopes that a few stragglers will miss their bus and need a ride to Malmö. The airline ground staff graciously let us borrow a phone to call a cab and it showed up less than an hour later.
Despite both being brand-new employees at our hotel, they already appeared to know each other well. They jumped in the back seat of the nice Mercedes (why are European taxis so luxurious?), leaving me to ask the driver to clear his lunch, thermos of coffee, newspapers, and betting slips (or maybe they were parking tickets) off the front passenger seat. Ten - fifteen minutes later, we set off on the narrow roads through the darkness.
The GM and the FC chatted away in the back. I sat in the front, watching for deer that might get caught in our headlights and listening to the tickety-click of the meter.
The FC hadn’t completely forgotten that this would be a blow to his/our budget.
“How much will this cost?”, he asked.
“500”, replied the driver, “plus or minus”.
“Put it on your company card.”, the GM said to the FC. I think they had both forgotten I was in the front seat.
“No credit cards.”, the driver answered before the FC could.
“Do you have cash?”, the GM asked the FC.
“No”, replied the FC, “do you?”
“No”
An awkward silence followed. It seemed to be most awkward for the taxi driver.
“I have some Swedish cash,” I said.
The driver seemed more comfortable and enjoyed the nervous-sounding laughter from the back seat.
My gaze, which had been meandering between the meter and watching for wildlife, was now fully focused on the rapidly growing amount displayed by the red diodes that were the only source of light in the cab.
Finally, the cab pulled up in front of our hotel.
The meter stopped at 482. Tipping isn’t, or at least back then wasn’t, common, but I handed the driver five 100-kronor bills and told him to keep the change.
The FC whispered that I could only be reimbursed for the 482 on the receipt.
“You’re welcome”, was my silent, unuttered reply to his slightly strange “thank you for paying” after I had bailed him and the GM out.
I carefully slipped my now cashless wallet back into my pocket.
The LOTS business planning course began bright and early the next morning, which was unfortunate for those of us who had arrived at the hotel sometime in the middle of the night. It was even more unfortunate for the GM. He learned that the disposable razor airlines handed out to forgetful passengers cut skin better than whiskers.
Newly promoted department heads from hotels all over the world were dressed in their best business attire ready to impress anyone from corporate that might happen to pass by during the week.
Everyone except one guy. He sat at the back in jeans and a simple white t-shirt.
When the facilitator said good morning and welcome, everyone except the T-shirt man cheerily replied “Good Morning”. Y-shirt man raised his hand and, before the facilitator could acknowledge him and give him permission to speak, he blurted out:
“How the hell do you people think you’ll learn anything with ties choking off the circulation to your brains?”
There was a slight pause. Then the facilitator gave whoever wanted permission to remove their ties. It turned out that T-shirt man was a relatively senior leader at the airline that owned our hotel company. He was there as an “observer”. Along the way to becoming an airline executive, he gained experience as a clown in a Bulgarian circus. I guarantee if you work in hotels or airlines, that can be more helpful than an MBA.
During the first session, we were asked to suggest things we felt could be improved in our hotels. Most people made the expected, bland, and politically correct kind of suggestion that sounded kind of nice and that definitely wouldn’t require any monetary investment on the part of their hotel. For example,
“Our hotel is actually really great, but if we could all just smile a little brighter, that would be wonderful.”
Our hotel was going through some tough times. Smiling more wasn’t going to happen.
Four department heads had ended up in a psychiatric ward due to stress-caused, work-related, breakdowns. The hotel was struggling mightily which is likely why we had a new FC and a new GM.
So, when it was my turn, I rattled off a few things I felt needed to change. Things I thought might help turn the tide before we filled all the beds in the hospital psych ward or lost more employees to better-paying competitors.
We were split into groups that we’d work with throughout the week. No one was in a group with anyone else from their own hotel.
When it was time for our first coffee break, T-shirt man approached me with a huge smile on his face.
“I loved your suggestions!”, he said.
Then he continued, “I hope you’ll be spending your evenings polishing your resumé! How do you think you made your GM feel?”
“He’s new.”, I said, “He just started. It’s certainly not his fault things are the way they are.” I was probably turning various shades of red and purple. I wondered if I would still have a job at lunchtime on Day 1 of the 5-day course.
“I’m in his group”, the T-shirt man said. “I’ll let you know how soon you’ll need your updated CV.”
The rest of the week was a combination of chaos and learning. Mostly chaos. A Chief Engineer from Helsinki and I were up until about 5 a.m. writing the business plan for a hotel in Denmark that our dysfunctional group was tasked with but never actually started on until that night. We sent the others to bed and had a few productive, beer-fueled hours. At one point we were joined by other, more creative souls, (more creative because they were vodka-fueled), and we helped them polish off their projects too. I don’t remember the details, but, somehow, toy helicopters and Lego people made it into their presentation. Ours was more run-of-the-mill corporate… but we all got the same certificate proclaiming that we were qualified to write elaborate annual business plans that would critiqued and reviewed… and then shelved as we dealt with the reality and all the unpredictability that hotels always deal with.
On the last day, T-shirt man was all dressed up. He’d ditched his signature shirt and jeans for a Hawaii shirt and brightly coloured, patterned trousers. He was easy to spot in the lineup at the bar where we celebrated our course completion certificates.
“Do I still have a job?”, I asked, cheekily.
“Your GM only had one thing to say about you.”, T-shirt man said with a solemn face.
“What was that?”, I asked trying to hide the trembling in my voice.
“He can’t understand why someone who understands the business as well as you is stuck in the basement in a windowless security office.”
Not knowing how to respond, I simply stared at him.
“Neither do I”, he said, as if that would make it easier for me to understand the praise I was being given.
Epilogue
When we checked out, I had to pay the hotel bill for one of my travelling companions. Fortunately, the hotel accepted credit cards. Unfortunately, the person in question didn’t bring one because, despite the clearly worded instructions in the course material that all bills were to be settled at check out, he wanted the hotel in Malmö to invoice our hotel. They refused on the grounds that everyone had been informed of the pay-when-you-leave requirement. One of the people that had come to Sweden with a cashless wallet, didn’t have a credit card with him either… (Apparently, they don’t teach this kind of thing at MBA school.)
After the course, I stayed in the windowless office in the basement of the hotel. Less than a year into his tenure, the GM left and went to Turkey and then back to Asia. The FC promptly paid my (and his) expenses and, staying true to his promise, the “airport transfer” reimbursement was exactly 18 Swedish kronor less than the amount I had paid the taxi driver.
Stay safe, Always Care
Written with the clarity of hindsight, the accuracy of a faded memory, and countless creative liberties, 87 Stories is a journal of how my gap year lasted four decades, made me an emigrant, an immigrant and gave me a life I never dreamed of.
In addition to my love for writing, I’m also a professor, an educator, and a consultant. I’ve been told that my specialty is saving bacon.
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