Stumble It!
Mar 19 2009
Island Chief
TI is truly a tiny island. About 2000 feet long and 200 feet wide, it was originally a sandbank from BI. The tip of the island pointed almost to true north, thus allowing guest villas to be built on both east and west shores offering sweeping view of sunrise and sunset over the ocean. Beyond the northern tip of the island are the popular water bungalows built on stilts where guest can enjoy the feeling of living on water.
Due to the limited area of the island, back of the house area is cramped with all support functions including our own generator, water desalination plant, kitchen, laundry, all offices and staff quarters. The GM bungalow is on the southern-most tip right next to the sewage treatment plant: so much for the glamour of living on a remote island as the chief.
Every island has an island chief, virtually the village leader. The staff jokingly referred to me as the island chief. This is a new title that I have to get used to. At the moment, I govern a skeleton crew who is essential to the hotel re-opening - engineers, HR, reservations and a small kitchen team that feeds the staff. The island is currently swarmed by 500 construction workers. They have very clear duties and functions. The Thai team is in charge of concrete, managed by a Thai manager who likes to cook deliciously looking Pad Thai for his staff. The Bangladeshi crew members represent the experts in laying pipes and electrical lines. The Indonesian delegates are all master wood carvers who work with massive wooden blocks for the refined decoration in public areas. On the hotel side we also have a Japanese language teacher, a Filipino in house nurse and a Nepalese doctor, Sri Lankan kitchen team and some local staff who work as government liaison. It is exceptionally international and so far we have a great camaraderie.
Not that we hold parties with the construction team. They lay their pipes and pour their concrete; we deal with owners and the hotel set-up. Together we simply co-exist on a tiny island for the same purpose: to renovate and re-open the hotel. At meal times in staff cafeteria, the workers let hotel staff jump line. Hotel staff will not sit with the workers. Indeed, they can improve their personal hygiene but who can blame them for smelling like an old shoe after working in the blazing sun the whole day? They eat twice as much as us office workers and still look hungry.
Today the doctor was in action not because of construction accident. A couple of Thai workers caught a lionfish from the lagoon and grilled it over a campfire, not knowing that lionfish is poisonous. One of them actually had a flat-line and the doctor had to shock him back to life.
As much as I want to keep my hands off the construction teams, since they are hired directly by the owners, I guess I will have to have a word with their managers if they speak English. I don’t want to send anyone in a body-bag off my island the first month I work here. It will not be easy as an island chief.
You have quite a job there overseeing people you can’t even talk to. Here, most people insist on at least one English speaking person on the crew.