Tuesday, November 4, 2003

I am not gonna blog tonight, because I just got back from work at Ritz Carlton, and I am fucking pissed with my manager. Thus, I wrote a long long complain letter about him.



And I am gonna paste it here. It is boring like shit unless u know him (*wink wink, Peiying*), but still, I'm gonna paste it here to get u guys excited over a new post which is actually of no interest value.



Anyway, I served Senior Minister Lee today and being the bitch I am, I have absolutely no comments about him except one:



He is bloody wrinkled.



I have no idea why anyone can be so wrinkled.



In fact, when he was sitted down, all I could think of is that he is a wrinkled old man. When asked whether he would like his Evian by my manager, he replied "Yes, thank you" in perfect English and I almost jumped in shock. I have no idea why, but he just looks like a wrinkled old man to me and I sincerely expected him to answer in mumbled Hokkien that he demands beer instead of Evian (Si mi si Evian?). ("Wa ai lim tiger!! Ahh... Tiger ho ah, tiger...")



I think that I am bloody stupid as well, because I could not even understand the gist of his long speech. Not even the GIST. And to think I had to stand politely facing the audience pretending to look like the speech is the speech of the year.



Here's the complain letter.



Miss Wendy Cheng

Blk XX Teban Gardens Rd

#0X-XXX S(XXXXXX)

Phone number: 9XXXXXXX



To: The Human Resource Department

Ritz Carlton Millenia Singapore



RE: New Banquet Manager Mr Khor



To: Whom It May Concern,



I am writing this letter of complain on behalf of many banquet part-timers, many of which have years of experience with Ritz Carlton and are affected by the above-mentioned new banquet manager, Mr Khor. Their signatures are included at the end of this letter.



I personally have worked in Ritz Carlton for 8 months or so, and I consider myself a good worker who tries her best to contribute to upkeep Ritz Carlton�s image of excellence customer relationships. As a part-timer, the sole reason why I am devoted to the hotel is that my employers, such as Mr. Brendon and Mr. Selva, treats me well, and I�m sure that�s why my peers, whom I introduced to work here, do their utmost best for the company as well.



Recently Mr. Jordan Chan has been promoted to be the manager of Snappers restaurant, and because of this, Mr. Khor, previously working in Pan Pacific Hotel, has been recruited to take over Mr. Chan�s position.



Several unhappy events happened, and as a result, many of the more experienced staff have decided to leave Ritz Carlton to join other hotels, due to the incidents which involved Mr. Khor.



Currently, without many of the experienced staff helping, Ritz Carlton�s banquet department is short of able part-timers. About a few weeks ago I was not working as I was having my exams, and when I came back to work today, I saw with my own eyes the horrifying results. Chili sauce was poured to the brim of the saucers, cutlery were not arranged in the correct order, and apparently the new staff hired have no idea what they are doing at all. It�s a pain to see Ritz Carlton�s image going down because of this.



It did not use to be this way.



The following are the reasons why we are unhappy with Mr Khor:



He does not follow Ritz Carlton�s employee policy



Mr Khor was previously from Pan Pacific Hotel. Coincidentally, prior to working at Ritz Carlton, I worked at Pan Pacific Hotel as well, in the same department, which is banqueting. Mr. Khor treats Ritz Carlton as if it is Pan Pacific. I know this for sure because he applies the same attitude and manner Pan Pacific�s banquet managers treat their staff to Ritz�s staff as well.



For example, in Pan Pacific, a military kind of style is used to �discipline� the part-timers and push them to higher performances. Scoldings are done loudly and in front of plenty of people to achieve shame for the wrongdoer. The workers fear, therefore they perform.



I personally do not agree with using the rod instead of the carrot, which is why I switched hotels to work at Ritz Carlton. Here, I am very happy because I know Ritz Carlton�s policy for treating employees; the infamous �We are ladies and gentlemen, serving ladies and gentlemen�. Ritz wants its employees to be happy, so when they serve, they are cheerful. I know this because I did an interview with Mr. Anton once for a school project. However, Mr. Khor does not seem to adhere to this slogan at all. He does not treat Ritz Carlton�s employees as �Ladies and Gentlemen�. Furthermore, he is apparently trying to change Ritz Carlton into another Pan Pacific.



For example, in Pan Pacific Hotel, the females are told to stand with their hands held together in front of them, while the gentlemen to have their hands held behind them. Mr. Khor tried to force this method of standing to Ritz�s banquet staff as well.



When asked by a waitress on why we should stand this way, instead of giving a proper answer like �uniformity� or that it would look neater, he embarrassed her in front of everyone by giving a very crude answer. He replied that proper girls should cover their �in front� (for the hands would cover the female private parts), while the men should cover their behinds in case they get poked in their asses.



This kind of reply is not only extremely rude and insulting to both sexes, but also goes a step further to show Mr. Khor�s incompetence. When asked a simple rationale for his commands, he is not even able to give a proper reason to convince his staff to listen to him. How are we supposed to respect him this way?



But we know better than to question him, because his answers would be that we have no rights to challenge him and that he has the power to send us home immediately.



He has no respect for Banquet part-timers.



Mr Khor seemingly thinks that being a banquet manager makes him a superior being to all of the part-timers whom he can abuse as he wishes.



For example, which a simple reminder will do, he barks and makes sure everyone in the surrounding will stare at the victim, while he hurls on in anger. If a stray napkin is left on a table, instead of nicely prompt a waiter to pick it up, he shouts (I quote), �Leave there for what?! Wait for ME to pick up is it?!�



This kind of behaviour is absolutely unnecessary for small blunders (which is inevitable sometimes) and instead of making us fear him and listen to him, some of us rebel, and many even choose to quit.



No self-respecting employee would tolerate this kind of nonsense. To further wreck the situation, none of us respects Mr. Khor because we all think he is an incompetent manager and thus we would not even bother to try thinking that �maybe he is right�, but instead just brush off whatever he shouts.



He Abuses His Power



Mr. Khor also abuses his power by threatening employees.



In the past, Ritz Carlton�s staff are allowed to have dyed hair which is dark brown. Mr. Khor came into Ritz Carlton, and once, again, applying the same rules of Pan Pacific, decided that all Ritz Carlton�s banquet taskforce are supposed to have jet-black hair.



Personally, I have dark brown hair with blonde highlights. Mr. Khor asked me to spray my hair black, and so the next time I worked, I sprayed the blonde highlights black.



Mr. Khor saw my hair and is still unsatisfied with it. I told him I have already sprayed my hair, but he insisted that he can still see brown, and threatened to cut my pay by 2 hours should that happen again.



Today, I served the VIP table, which sat Senior Minister Lee. As far as the guests are concerned, my dark brown hair seems to be fine, and they are happy with my service. I do not see why dark brown hair should be a problem at all. (Indeed, the rest of the managers think it is perfectly fine too.) Yes, I understand that blonde hair may look a little too wild for work, but what is wrong with dark brown? It is almost indistinguishable from black in the ballroom.



I personally feel that Mr. Khor is abusing his powers by deducting people�s pay by 2 hours just because of a little bit of hair dye. I did 6 hours of standard work (which is totally not affected by my hair colour) for Ritz Carlton, and I think 6 hours of pay is fair for what I should get. Unless Mr. Khor can prove that my hair colour has managed to reduce the work (or standard of work) I did by 2 hours, he has no rights at all to just deduct pay like that.



By doing this, employees who got deducted would feel most bitter and ask themselves, �Why should I work for 6 hours when I am only paid for 4? I may as well slack all the way�. This would cause more ruin to Ritz Carlton�s standards of service.



He drags employment time without paying extra



Today, Mr. Khor told some of the ladies to do some work at the Grand Gallery. He himself stayed inside the ballroom supervising the other employees who are working there.



The majority of us are supposed to end our shifts at 12 am, and the transport comes at 12:30 am sharp.



The ladies did what he told us to, and when no one came to ask us to stop work at 12 am, we proceeded to inside the ballroom to ask Mr. Khor whether we are allowed to go home yet.



He was commanding the guys in the ballrooms to do work, and refused to acknowledge our question and instead just rudely walked into the grand gallery. Meanwhile, the guys who were working in the ballroom tried to ask him whether we can leave yet but gave up asking when Mr. Khor walked into the Grand Gallery, with the ladies tagging behind.



Mr. Khor looked around, and asked us whether we have finished doing what he asked us to do. The point is, it is already 12:10 am, and surely even if we are not able to finish, we should be allowed to leave? However, we did finish our chores and thus we said that we are done. He asked us to clear up some of the trolleys as well as some trays. He asked for us to go inside the ballroom after that.



When we went into the ballroom, he was having some pep talk with the ballroom staff, which is totally wasting the time of the people working in the Grand Gallery. After some time, he proceeded to ask me whether the Grand Gallery is cleared of miscellaneous items and I said yes. He sniggered and said that I am still not allowed to go home until he checked.



By the time he finished his talk and followed us to the Grand Gallery where he no doubt found areas to pinpoint us at, it was already 12:20 am. I was fuming by this point of time because I should have been bathing and changing my uniform at a leisurely pace. Mr. Khor is not paying us for work until 12:20 am, and I don�t see why I should waste my time to help him, and most certainly not as a personal favour.



If he does not manage to get his work done by a certain time, it is his own incompetence and none of my business. At 11:50 am, he should have came into the Grand Gallery to remind the ladies working there to pack up and wrap up work. However, he did nothing of that sort and wasted our time because we did not know that we had to keep the trolleys and trays (we thought the midnight shift staff would need to use them). As a result, I did not manage to change, get my voucher, and get my pay in time for me to catch the transport home and it is most certainly Mr. Khor�s fault.



In conclusion, I hope top management would quickly do something about this. Although in the eyes of a big hotel like Ritz Carlton, banquet part-timers may seem trivial but still, we are the ones the guests meet at the frontline and a cheery waiter can make a big difference to the way a guest views Ritz Carlton.



The banquet part-timers� team does not hope that Mr. Khor gets fired, but instead, hopes that someone would kindly remind him that he is no longer working in Pan Pacific but in Ritz Carlton and should stop abusing his position and start respecting his employees. If not, the amazingly rapid disappearance of quality (I assume quality staff are self-respecting as well) staff would bring Ritz Carlton�s banquet department to dire straits.



Yours Sincerely,

Wendy Cheng

Banquet Part-time Taskforce



******



Yup thats it. I wonder how many of u actually read it. Anyway, please do the survey from the previous entry?!! Please? So that I will have more statistics to comment on the sexuality of people nowadays! Haha...



Alright, nites people!

No comments:

Post a Comment