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Life's Illusions - Chapter 4 - Bring Forward New Life.
That evening spent with Ramon proved to be a deciding point for me, I saw before me an absolute dynamo, a hard working young man who had so many ideas bursting to be put into practice.
He explained the first change which had been to install hot drinks machines in the Restaurant, Terrace Bar and Pool Bar, in itself pretty uninspiring until he explained that these were no ordinary machines, they dispensed a high quality product directly into china of a quality much like you would expect from visiting your local Barista or Coffee Shop.
All of our European Stock were operated on an 'All Inclusive' basis including Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner along with Alcoholic and Soft Drinks provided within the package price.
He had installed these machines alongside soft drinks machines and free flow wine and beer taps allowing our guests the freedom to dispense any drink except spirits as and when they wanted without the need to wait for someone to make the drink for them.
He explained the number of staff required previously to operate the Main Bar (where the hot and cold drinks were prepared for the terrace) and the Pool Bar was 8 full time employees throughout the day, (2 staff on the bar making and dispensing hot and cold drinks to the guests on the terrace, 3 staff doing much the same on the Pool Bar and 3 floating staff collecting used crockery and returning it for cleaning from the Pool Bar, Pool area, Gardens and Terrace). The staff had been reduced to 4 (2 to staff the pool bar and 2 to collect the used crockery from all areas). He took great trouble to stress that to date, no staff had lost their jobs, nor suffered a drop in salary, all of the surplus staff had been relocated to other positions.
Ramon impressed me with how he could recite the unit cost and savings made.
The Main Bar Lounge now remained closed during the day and so was cleaned only once in the morning and was ready to open for the evening entertainment, saving on both staff for the bar during the day and cleaning staff who previously had to clean the bar at least 3 times a day.
The unit cost for hot and cold drinks was substantially lower, the quality higher and the guest experience was enhanced by having drinks available whenever they wanted.
Ramon had implemented his drinks policy in the Torremolinas Woodruff and now the Madrid Woodruff.
The guest feedback was glowingly positive.
Within the next week his feedback information and cost analysis sheets would be available for me to use in negotiating contracts with national suppliers (this in itself would present the opportunity for a further reduction in unit cost) to allow the rolling out of his policy throughout Spain and eventually across the whole of Europe and eventually I hoped, if we could work out how to do it, across North America as well.
Thankfully things started to settle down and the Hotel Directors old and new had commenced breathing new life into their properties, searching out the right candidates to be appointed as Hotel Directors, new staff to fill the previous ghost positions.
I'd seen invoices coming in for maintenance and decorating costs which I'd fully expected, I wanted all properties back up to standard as soon as possible and that could only be achieved by bringing in contractors.
I saw this as an initial cost we would have to swallow in the interest of long term gain.
I'd sent out an open letter to each member of staff confessing that I was upset, appalled even, to think that some of them had not been treated fairly in the past and pledged that this would never happen again.
I informed them I'd instructed each Hotel Director to establish a staff forum where anything of concern could be discussed openly on a monthly basis and I added the email address of both myself and Pip my PA for cases where they felt they were not being heard or treated badly, along with an assurance, every communication would be treated with the utmost secrecy unless the sender gave permission for their name to be disclosed.
I thought we had weathered the worst and I could relax a little until I got word from the Spanish Public Prosecutor.
Sylvio Ramos had implicated my father in the scam and had the paper trail evidence to prove it. The Spanish Authorities had issued an arrest warrant for my father.
A third of all the embezzled funds had gone to my father, paid into a special account that had already been emptied of the many millions it had contained, I was stunned.
My father had disappeared, we suspected to some South American country with no extradition treaty and it didn't look as though he would be returning, not with the prospect of a jail term if he did.
A few weeks later his lawyers contacted Gramps with an offer to sell his shares in Woodruff.
Gramps took the offer paying 1.5 Billion Dollars to see the back of my father and ensure the shares stayed within the family, they were worth around 3.5 Billion Dollars so my father had accepted a massive drop but he now had the funds to finance a lavish lifestyle and stay out of the reach of justice.
Lenny had completed the purchase of Thorn Plaza as she had named my new home and with my input her architect and builder were well on the way to completing my castle which Lenny told me confidently would be done inside 3 months.
I was surprised but Lenny explained the only real work was on the restaurant floors and my penthouse floor as all the other floors remained true to the original spec and they'd been finished to the point where they only needed the final fix and decoration when the developer ran into money problems.
When the building was completed there would be a grand restaurant on the ground and first floor, the centre of the first floor would be cut away to give a first floor visible from the ground floor and divided into private suites which could be altered to form small, intimate or grand lavish and reached by 4 sweeping staircases and at the back of each staircase a glass scenic lift which exited at the top of the staircase so that it's occupants were as visible as those climbing the stairs, after all it was all about being seen here.
Above the restaurant floors there were 16 floors of apartments with 5 apartments on each floor, above these were 2 floors which I took as my personal accommodation. The 19th floor was configured as all the floors below with 2 x 3 bedroom apartments and 3 x 2 bedroomed apartments, two of which would be used for staff accommodation and the other 3 for overspill guest accommodation when we entertained.
The 20th floor was my penthouse apartment, being constructed from what should have been 4 apartments, it would have a grand entrance reached by private elevator with an Italian marbled floor leading off into a formal lounge which took up most of what would have been the floor space of one of the original 5 apartments, leading off from the lounge would be a second smaller lounge and a music room, a private office, state of the art kitchen and utility with adjoining breakfast area, a formal dinning room that could accommodate up to 30 at a rosewood table I had acquired from a country estate sale and a master bedroom suite with its own bathroom and dressing room plus a further 7 guest bedrooms all ensuite.
Three house bathrooms had been worked in close to the main lounge. The second smaller lounge and utility room shared a bathroom. The office had a further private bathroom.
Off to the side down a separate hallway would be a self contained 3 bedroom apartment for our personal staff.
The walls of the penthouse would be mostly floor to ceiling windows taking in the view in all directions with access to a complete wrap around balcony allowing for a jogging track when time didn't allow for a beach run, a set of stairs and an elevator would lead up from the lounge alighting into the roof top conservatory and from there you would walk out into beautiful gardens which would have a swimming pool as well as a bar and covered open plan kitchen/BBQ area.
There would be a patio area screened against winds and sun when needed.
This would be my home, it was where I intended to settle, it was lavish on a grand scale and I would make no apologies for the cost, this was my castle in the sky.
It was 2 months after I'd sacked the rotten staff and I was engaged in a conference call with Gramps and Josh to examine the effects of my fathers departure from the company and after all was said and done we concluded that he had done us a favour because we would no longer be subject to his constant fuckups, before the meeting concluded I spoke directly to Josh.
"I apologise for ranting at you when I asked for extra staff, I was rude, I was angry, and I was worried, at that point I was looking at so many rotten apples I really didn't know if I could pull off my plan to put this right and you threw me completely off track, you derailed my plans and I panicked, I'm sorry. I guess I'm asking if going forward we can try to be courteous and civil for the sake of the business?".
Seeing Josh on screen I realised he was crying and Gramps had his hand on Josh's shoulder.
He looked up at me, "You're not coming home are you PJ?".
I looked at him, into those bright beautiful blue eyes I'd always found so captivating, "No Josh I have no plans to come back to the US, I've bought a place out here and maybe in time you could visit but let's leave that for now I just wanted to try and get us back to a place where we can be civil and exchange ideas".
When we ended the call Gramps asked Josh if he would excuse us so that we could chat over some family business.
Josh wished me well and said he looked forward to visiting at some point in the future but if I needed any help to call him and he'd do whatever he could to help.
I realised it was a big relief to get rid of the elephant in the room each time we met.
Gramps told me he was giving me the shares he bought from my father effectively increasing my share in the company to 41% and my nett worth to around 12.5 Billion Dollars, which didn't really faze me because my shares from my mother and grandmother had already made me a Billionaire.
My office had been out of bounds for most of the day and staff had been barred from entering past the reception area, most were curious as to what was going on and at 3pm I asked the front desk manager to locate Ramon and Rozel and send them to my office.
Both turned up within a few minutes and both were visibly nervous thinking maybe they had done something wrong.
Pip ushered both of them into my office and as previously instructed left the glass door to the office pushed right back so that neither of them looked directly at the door as they came in and when they took the offered seats in front of my desk the door was behind them.
I could see how nervous they were so I thought I'd best get to the point, "Ramon would you be so kind as to close the door please".
Ramon walked back over to the door and swung the heavy glass door to close it but at the point where the door was about to close he uttered a, "What the", and pulled the door open again.
Staring wide eyed at the new lettering on the glass door, Señor Ramon Perez, Hotel Director.
There was space for 2 more names though right now they were blank.
It was funny to watch Ramons reaction he used several words of question but didn't actually string a sentence together, "Wh... What, How, but, when....".
I spoke up because it was obvious Ramon was in shock, "Ramon what you see there is why I called you in and why no one has been allowed past reception today, I wanted the name on the door before you had chance to think up reasons why you couldn't take the position.
You have to know how impressed I am with the energy and effort you have given to the role I promoted you to a short time ago", Ramon just nodded, obviously still trying to process the information so I took the opportunity to carry on.
"What you don't know however is that you have been the subject of discussion in almost every board meeting since that first promotion.
I have been fighting off requests to' 'borrow' you from all over Europe and the whole of North America, well I'm not taking the chance of losing you so I'm putting you in a position where I think your talents will excel, and before you raise the issue of looking after Raul, you choose your own hours which will need to tie in with the other 2 Hotel Directors which you will be choosing as your first official duty, now it's Friday so enjoy your weekend because you will be sitting in this chair at this desk from Monday".
To say Ramon was in shock would be an understatement but with me, Rozel and Pip who had now come into the office congratulating him he finally realised he was not dreaming, "Thank you Mr Thorn, thank you so much, I promise faithfully to look after the Woodruff family and guests and not let you down".
Okay one down one to go.
I turned now to Rozel, "And now Rozel, first let me say a massive thank you. I thought I would have one hell of a job trying to recruit all of the staff which were missing and preventing us from performing as we should but in the case of housekeeping you took the task away from me and completed it in record time".
Rozel looked a little nervous and said, "I hope I wasn't too forward Mr Thorn but it all happened so quickly, I knew of several really good people who would work hard and be loyal and they were all available because of a local factory closure so I sort of grabbed them while I could".
I was smiling as I answered, "Rozel you proved I was right on my first day here when I said to Philipe Perez, if I could just duplicate you, Ramon and Philipe many times over I would have such a simple life, well you helped me without even being asked, you have assembled a housekeeping staff which is a joy to have and because of what you've achieved as my last official duty as Hotel Director I am offering you the position of Head of Housekeeping, that is if you want it".
Ramon was the first to speak, "Please say yes Rozel, it will make my job so much easier to know you are in charge of housekeeping".
Rozel was teary eyed when she spoke, "Thank you Mr Thorn, Ramon, I'll take the position and I hope I can make you both proud".
And so I'd filled 2 management positions and was retired from my role of Hotel Director and now I could relax maybe take a holiday break, or so I thought but that's the problem with life
At around 5pm Lenny breezed into my office announcing that work was over for the day and it was time to play, no amount of protest was effective, which was immediately obvious to Pip and the rest of the back office staff who were chuckling at her antics, so I gave in gracefully and after a quick change at my rented apartment which was just across the road from Woodruff we were back in the restaurant by 6.30pm having dinner.
Lenny had been a little vague as we chatted before dinner in the bar and I asked if she thought she was doing a little too much running back and forth to the new building but she'd waved me off saying it was probably just a cold and we moved to the restaurant.
We'd collected salad and shrimp starters from the buffet and as I opened my napkin I glanced at Lenny who seemed to be in a fog not really focused on anyone or anything, she reached out to her fork and missed it, she seemed to slump forward against the table knocking both wine glasses over and then in almost slow motion she slipped from the chair sideways onto the floor, her head banged the table and her eyes just fluttered then closed.
For the longest time but probably only a split second I just stared, it didn't make sense and then it was as if an alarm went off in my head, I was out of my seat and down on the floor cradling her head, there was blood on the side of her head where she hit the edge of the table and she appeared unconscious.
Everything happened so quickly, Philipe was next to me telling me to cradle her head the ambulance was on its way, within a matter of minutes there were paramedics gently pushing me out of the way and then Lenny was on a stretcher in the back of the ambulance and we were on our way to the hospital, she was still unconscious when we arrived at the hospital and was whisked off behind closed doors whilst I was directed to checkin to supply payment details.
I handed over my Amex Centurion Card and the clerk looked suitably impressed, I told her there was no limit on what could be charged so no need to check before any procedure was carried out just go ahead if needed.
I was shown to the waiting room whilst Lenny was being examined and it seemed like forever until finally a doctor called my name.
"Mr Thorn you can go through now, and congratulations, mother and baby are doing just fine, there appears to be no lasting effects from the fall though she really must take it easy from now on".
I was struggling to get past 'Mother and baby are doing just fine' that phrase was bouncing around my brain like a pebble in a can, "Wha, what baby", I bumbled but the doctor just chuckled and led me to Lenny's private room where I found a visibly shocked, white faced Lenny sitting up in bed staring out of the window.
TBC
Constructive comments, good or bad to cfgw2000@aol.com please, headed "Life's Illusions" in the subject box. Thanks for giving your time to read this.
Author ARB