Journals of a Hotel Manager

Living on a construction site means there is no escape from the constant cacophony of drilling, sanding, soldering and banging.  Friday is the blessed day off for the construction team although very few of them are Muslims.  So I slept in until 8:30am.  Currently I live in a single room in the management block since the previous GM has not officially vacated the GM bungalow and he has gone on his sabbatical.  In the future, this room will serve as a 2-year home for a department head.

Housing is a major problem, mainly because the island is so small that we are forced to put staff up in dormitory style while making space for other essential luxuries such as a computer room, a relaxation room with books and TV, a staff laundry area, a basketball-cum-football-cum-volleyball-cum-badminton-cum-social dance-court.  The contract guarantees a department head single room accommodation.  The room is around 150 sqaure feet with its own bathroom.  It is equipped with a bed, a wardrobe, a desk and a chair.  I have seen a Motel 6 near the Death Valley better than this.  Line staff live six to a room, sharing one bathroom.  We try in vain to choose roommates in different departments.  It is not because we don’t want inter-departmental friendship.  It is important to guarantee some sort of privacy for each staff in the accommodation during the day albeit for just 20 minutes.  Therefore we will put an overnight security guard, a morning shift waiter, a day shift housekeeper, an afternoon shift Front Desk agent, a split-shift kitchen commis and a late shift bartender in one room.  Hopefully during shift change one of them at least could use the bathroom without waiting.

As part of the renovation process, we are constructing a staff hotel on BI.  The owners paid a hefty sum on a piece of land on the western shore of BI.  We are building a 200-bed accommodation for the staff there so we can hopefully reduce the occupancy in the staff rooms to 3-4 people per room. 

With the construction of the staff hotel, we will need to upgrade the generator system on BI as well as setting up a sewage treatment plant.  We are looking at spending up to $100k on the infrastructure.   Otherwise the staff hotel will be nothing but an empty shell with no power and no water.   The upgrade of the electrical system and the water/sewage will benefit the local villagers for generations to come.  I am surprised at the owner’s generosity and wish that the negotiation with the BI island chief tomorrow will be an easy one.

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