I had been in a fuss before this Monday for my casino report, which made me busy, no time to check my bond email for two days. As a result, I made it to Radisson at 8.00 am as planned. However, my friend told me I was supposed to be there at 6.00 am when the morning shift got started!
Anyway, Paul, my tutor for a day, the front desk manager, is a very nice man. He showed my friend and I around the resort, explaining all the specific functions of those blocks. To lead us to think about all the details noticeable like why the tennis courts are closed until 10 am, he asked questions first and explained the reason thoroughly after our responses. After his explanation, I had a basic understanding of the whole resort, and also were aware of the reason why getting familiar with all the stuff around us was important-cause guests would fire questions really unexpected and weird which we have to respond, and we have to help customers to find their way quickly at any time especially as a front desk manager. This would be quite tough for me at first, for I am such a person who always gets lost in the street! If I am planning to take this job, I really have to improve my sense of direction.
After getting a rough understanding of the whole resort, Paul took us to his office to prepare his everyday meeting report, which is a routine for him. He told us how to deal with a program called Opera to check all the trivial like wages paid yesterday, and to decided how many people he needed for next day’s operating in an economic way.
At 10 o’clock, we went to the meeting with all things to report done. Persons of every department in charge reported last day’s operating details in front of the general manager and managers from other departments. After the meeting, Paul had to make some adjustments according to the report from another manager to minimize the lost revenue.
After that, Paul showed us all the five different rooms available one by one and then had lunch together.
At that time, I was really tired for listening to English all the morning –I am not comfortable with English till now for I need to concentrate hard so that I will not get confused with what people are talking about.
On that day, we attended another meeting called yielding meeting, which was also the first time for Paul because he was not here before April. The yielding meeting has a lot with finance control and forecast, and they even discussed about the problem accrued when Chinese New year comes. Because they had a clash between their group customers and potential Chinese visitors which was quite implicit for me and I was not able to tell this clash from the materials provided.
As a manager, you have to forecast your profit and loss and then to make decisions according to that as well as doing all the routines, which needs intelligence and experience-big challenge!
When the meeting was over, Paul showed us how to do the check-in procedure in a quick and efficient way. Paul said that it took him almost three months to be that quick so I guessed I needed more than three months!
Getting comfortable using all the software in computer to control the daily operating within the hotel is the key point so far as I know.
This is the first time I have such a vivid impression towards this industry, which is not quite the same as what I thought before. It’s really tiring but joyful to work in the hotel environment. After this event, I realize I have to get rid of some unrealistic fantasy towards my future job and get started to learn more and gain more experience.
No comments:
Post a Comment