High Hopes

Saturday I saw a posting on Monster.com for a management position at a family resort near here, and applied. At noon today, I got a call for an interview.

I was pretty confident I would get the call, as I have a lot of experience managing housekeeping departments, from our own mom-and-pop cleaning business 17 years ago, to running the department for a 341 guestroom, AAA 4-diamond hotel just a year ago. I go Wednesday for the interview.

Ironically, we saw on the news today that a portion of that property, the adjoining water park, is in jeopardy of being sold off for back taxes. Don't know what that means for the hotel and conference center yet, but you know I will be asking on Wednesday! Sure don't want to take a position only to have them close the doors in March.

If there are money management issues at play, I may be walking into a prime opportunity for a potential assistant GM position, or at the very least, an acting GM while they do a search for someone more qualified. I am going to make sure that I hit the ground running and learn as much as I can about the hotel and how it operates.

Trip Advisor has some abysmal ratings for the property; I intend to be the wind of change and improve the quality and the customer service of the hotel. There are only 5 hotels in Shipshewana, and this one is rated 4th. Gotta to better than that! I want to get them in the number one spot--I want them to want to be number one! Customer service is one of my pet peeves. I have threatened to open a school just for customer service skills. So many people are in the services industry that have no business serving others. They have crappy attitudes and don't give a flip about the customer. I will "clean house", so to speak, so I can hire the RIGHT people for the job. Yup--I am going to shake things up.

I am putting together my punch list of questions to ask during the interview, and I hope that I will start as soon as next week. (Yes, I may sound over-confident, but as Jennifer Hudson says, "I got this!")

***update: had my interview today at 10am; I got a call at 2pm, asking if I could come back in tomorrow to speak with the regional Executive Director. Uh, HELL YEAH! I will let you know how it goes...