Learn from Other People

Dear anak-anakku, 

I am writing this status to let you know that everything I write here is for you. I want you to learn from my experience. Today, I had an experience which teaches me something. You will never learn all these from your school or your text books. But I want you to learn from me, as your mother. 

As I told you before, I work at the 4 star hotel in Human Resources. The hotel management gives me chance to become a Manager on Duty (MOD) once a week to be responsible with the hotel's operation from 6 PM until 11 PM. The main job of MOD is to take care of everything, to be responsible with the operational;the service we give to the guest. The goal why the management  gives each manager a responsibility for MOD is to make sure that we give the best service to our guests. And every time each manager has an MOD schedule, they have to make a report or comments related with the hotel's operational. 

Last night, I was the MOD. There were few things which became my concerns which related with the service of our employees. I wrote this comments so all the managers and supervisors would read it and think about it. 

Here are the comments I sent through email to all the managers and supervisors as well as the General Manager. 

Dear all dept heads,

I am so sorry that I have to send a very long email related with the MOD report tonight. I am sending this email, not because I want to show off or anything like that, but it is purely from my heart because I believe that we all here have the same goal; to give the best service for our guests. The reason why I send this email because I am pretty sure, that just few of us read MOD report, so by sending this email, I hope we all can read it and think about it even just for few minutes or discuss about it in the morning briefing, hopefully.

Here are my comments related with my MOD

FO & HK.

-          After checking all the EA rooms, I made a Courtesy Call to all 101 rooms. All the guests were happy because they got what they needed. The guest on 6012 told me that he had problem with his internet but our IT coordinator fixed it already and he felt happy that we paid attention with them. Unfortunately, two guests from room 2035 &  3010 told me that their laundry came late and they had been waiting for it for few hours. I apologized directly to them about that. The good thing about it, I called them and asked them. They felt satisfied because we called them and asked their needs instead of they call us and complain. So, yeah courtesy call is very important. Front Office should make a Courtesy Call before 8 PM and make sure to call ALL the rooms (not only RANDOMLY) because we can get feedback from the guests directly before they put that on Trip Advisor or on internet. HK should pay attention with the laundry and make sure to bring it at the same time as we promised.

-          At 1.10 PM, I asked FDA to give a room for me so I could get rest and don’t have to go back to Telaga since it is too far. FDA assigned me to get rest on the 6th floor. I got room 6022, unfortunately, the AC did not work, and the curtain could not be closed properly. I asked to move, they gave me room 6015. Still the AC did not work and again the curtain of the window could not be closed properly. I told pak Miswan I would prefer to stay in my office instead of staying there because of the heat and the sun which comes directly to the room. Again, he moved me to another room on the 3rd floor. Unfortunately, it was hot and no towels. It took around 1 hour and 20 minutes for me to get a better room. As the employee of the hotel, I would understand this situation, but as the guest, I will be VERY very MAD if I have to wait for one hour to get a comfort room. My suggestion for HK, please make sure, before we sell the room, make sure it is CLEAN, COLD and READY to be Sold. We REALLY SHOULD NOT sell rooms which do not have towels. We should not let the guest get inside of the room which does not have complete amenities because we have set our standard for each room, Don't we?.

-          Also, in ladies rest room at the lobby, There was no trash bag. For HK, we really need to be consistent with our service. We should make sure that all the trash cans have trash bags. Remember the biggest comment from pak Jusuf Sawirin 2 years ago? He complained because he could not find any trash bag on his trash can. The same case, all the trash cans should have trash baG. 

FBS & PA

-          FBS & PA, when you set a meeting room or clean the meeting room, make sure that the meeting room is totally cleaned. Yesterday morning, I found some leftover food on the dinner plate. The food looked like it was there on the table for 2 or 3 days and it looked dirty. The rice was all over the table on grandballroom, also some pieces of chicken on the table. I had to take them with my hand and brought the dinner plate to the dishwashing area. Seriously, I am pretty sure, everyone walks at the grandballroom and saw it, but nobody cares.

FBP

-          For FBP, I ordered Pizza for my dinner last night. As my previous MOD schedule on the 24th of April, I ordered Pizza and it tasted really good because Rivai made it. Last night, I wanted to try it again, but it did not taste the same. I could say that it looked like Pizza but it was not pizza. It was so hard (keras), the cheese did not melt like it was supposed to be. And the Pizza presentation was not interesting. I asked FBP (Rahmat Hunou) who made the Pizza and he said it was him. I told him about it and I apologized that I did not like that Pizza because it did not look like Pizza or even taste like Pizza. I asked can I order again the better one? and he said Andi can make it, so I asked Andi Purnawan, he said yeah, but after few minutes Andi told me that the Pizza Dough was not available and he also told me that the Pizza they gave me before was so hard because the dough they used was not good. I was very surprised and asked him, why did Rahmat Hunou made the Pizza using the Dough which was not good and served it?, Andi could only said, "I am sorry"

again, as the employee, I would say "it is okay" but as the guest, I would be very angry because the served me Hard Pizza and they used pizza dough which was not good enough. so, seriously? how do we promise something to our guest/costumer when we cannot provide what we promise them?????

I think, by seeing all these problems, our concern should be our service. I know, most of us think, that it is not a big problem, but if we keep thinking that it is not a big problem, how can we give the best service which we promise to our guest??? As pak Fredy told us before “never ever promise guests if you cannot keep what you promise”

Last but not least, I really apologize for all these, I do not mean to be harsh here, but I just want us to make everything works like it is supposed to be.  I am just doing my job, to give feedback as the MOD.

I hope, we all can learn from this.

Thank you for the trust to let me in as the MOD team.

Thank you very much.

Together, we can FIX it.

Regards,

Nurdahlia Lataima

Asst. Personnel & Training Manager

I was pretty satisfied on the next day when my HR Manager told me that it was good that I gave comments like that for the hotel's improvement. 

But, 

One supervisor came to me and talked to me with a very bad intonation " Why the hell did you write comments like that?" 

I was very surprised to hear his comment. He was not supposed to talk to me like that. Honestly, I could not accept it. As a human, I got mad. 

I did not mean to put him down by writing those comments. I just want everyone of us to give better service for our guests. 

I looked at him and answered "seriously? are you giving me this comment??? you should be thankful because I wrote some inputs for our improvement, and not talking like that to me!!!" 

He looked at me and answered "you cannot write comments like that for us in Housekeeping because we were very busy yesterday. You should understand that!!!" 

"Look, Mr. . . . as the employee, I understand what you were saying. But if I were the guest, I would not understand that. I would not care if you or your staffs were busy. I just wanted to get my comfort room because I had a long day and I just wanted to get rest. I did not want to wait for one hour. Now let me ask you a question, if you were the guest, would not you be really MAD if you stay in one hotel and you already paid for the hotel but you get the room after waiting for one hour??? can you please answer it???" I talked to him with little bit emotional. 

He did not care what I said, instead, he blamed for the comments I gave. He pointed at me and said " you were not supposed to get a room when you get weekdays MOD, you will get a room to get rest if your MOD schedule is on weekend" 

I looked at him with an anger. My blood ran faster on my brain. 

"Excuse me??? did you just say " I did not deserve to get a room yesterday???" Do you even know what you just said??? Do you even know that since April 1st, all the MOD who lives far from the hotel can stay at the hotel even it is not weekend??? Didn't you know that? Your manager or another supervisor did not tell you that? Oh man!!! You really do not have a good communication in your department. now, if you excuse me, I do not want to talk and argue like this in my office and I am very busy. If you do not like what I wrote on the comments I sent last night, we can talk or even argue about it in front of General Manager today. But I do not want us to argue here in my office right now because no matter what I say, you will always blame me. So, it is better if we talk in front of GM and please leave me alone" I opened the door of my office and asked him to leave nicely, but he did not leave. He kept talking and defense himself. 

Since I got very angry, I told him "please get out of my office now! I do not want to discuss or argue about this!" 

He looked at me and may be it was his first time to see me really mad and talked with a high intonation. He finally decided to leave and said sorry. 

But I was already very mad. I just said okay " just please leave me alone". 

Then he left me in my office. 

As a good mom, I would tell you that, what I did to this man was wrong. I should not ask him to leave my office like that. But I was pretty mad. I really hope that you will not be emotional like me when you grow up. I hope you can control your emotion better than mine. 

Now back to this story, I want you to know that in this life, we cannot get everything we want or expect. Also, some people will not like you and some people will like you. The most important thing about it, do not ever change yourself just because you want to please other people. Live your own life. Do not let negative people get into you. Just live with positive people in your life. Positive people will bring the best in you. 

And the most important thing about this post, I want you to know that sometimes in your life, you have to listen and accept people's comments and suggestions. People will give you good comments and bad comments. But when they give good comments, just smile for it, no need to show off.  Just show them that it is yourself. But if they give bad comments, think about it and analyze it before you decide to talk or argue with those people about it. Sometimes, people give us bad comments because they want us to be a better person, not because they want to put us down. And you have to know that. 

Remember, we do not live in this world alone. People are there to help us improving ourself. People are there to help us to be a better person. Please listen to your heart and accept their suggestion even it hurts you. We are not perfect, we make mistakes. That's why, God sent other people to live with us, to complete each other whether as a friend, family, husband, wife or even colleague. And never ever think bad about that person if they give you a negative comments as long as it is for your improvement. You have to accept it with an open arm and a smile. 

Please promise me that you will never take things personally just because they give bad comments about you. You should learn from your mistake as well. 

I hope you will learn from my posting today. I hope one day, you will learn to be a wise person

I hope one day you will become my children who care about others. 

from Gorontalo with love,

Mom