When the cats away, the mice will play (but not really)

This past week, my boss, the director of food and beverage took his first vacation in three years. While my boss is very laid back and not micro-managing, he definitely is a workaholic and clearly his work means a lot to him, enough to sacrifice many weekends in the office. Everyone was joking around in the office before he left saying that if he cancelled his trip like he apparently did before, his wife was going to divorce him. It is evident that my boss cares a lot about the operations of the food and beverage department- his kingdom. Now, typically, in situations where one’s boss is on vacation, a teacher is absent etc, the workers or students take that time to slack off and relax because they don’t have a watchful eye on them. This is why I titled my blog post the way I did. However, our office was anything but slacking this past week. The way that my boss carries himself and cares so much about his work has been passed down to all the other employees. His work ethic is one that I certainly admire and it is clear that the rest of the office respects it too, or we wouldn’t have been as on top of our stuff as we were this past week. All of us recognized that time off is important and necessary for your mental health, especially after three years, so we wanted work to run as smooth or even smoother than when our boss is here so that he has no problems to come back to and could throughly enjoy his vacation with his family.

Two Fridays ago, just after he had departed for Cartagena, our assistant director of food and beverage held the weekly F&B meeting and started off by saying this week will be a true testament to our work ethic and will prove how much we are involved and care about the outcomes of the F&B department. I couldn’t agree more. This really reflected the values and attitudes of our team because hospitality is non-stop, everyone knows that but until you’re really in it, you don’t truly understand what that means. I’ve been learning a lot about that thus far and how demanding it can be as a work field. However, the value we hold at our company is very much a ‘do what you love, love what you do’, and our employees reflect that on a constant basis, even when our boss was away. My co-workers in the F&B world truly love what they do for work and share their enjoyment of their work to our clients and to the rest of the team- be it the sales people or the housekeeping team. While the work we do is serious work- we’re constantly dealing with impressing high end clients, be it the Princess of Morocco (stayed with us last week), or the CEO of Ebay (stayed with us a couple weeks ago), it is vital that we do our best no matter what to ensure their stays are unforgettable. In the hospitality world, reviews are everything and people with great power and influence have a huge voice and their feedback means a lot to us, therefore, we are constantly providing the best service we can. However, despite this being important work, our office is very laid back and the way the employees interact with each other is very friendly and relaxed, which I believe makes work so much easier for me and probably for everyone else. I personally find it very hard to work in such a high stress environment where everyone addresses you as Ms. or Mr. and is super formal. For example, one of my co-workers has nicknames for everyone in our department and that makes people feel more welcomed and builds good working relationships.

When my boss was away this past week, so was our F&B marketer. So, our team was lacking critical parts to our success, however, we all filled in the necessary spots that needed to be filled in because we all care about the work we do and want to be successful even when the boss is out of town and can’t be watching what we do. Everyone was definitely still on top of what they needed to do and our week went on like a normal week. Our hotel even went back up to the #1 hotel in Miami on TripAdvisor and we all got to celebrate and participate in money raffles. Our team is hard working but supportive and by filling in for people who were absent throughout the week, we proved that we are strong no matter our numbers.