To much power!
Well, they really did it this time. Someone went ahead and gave me too much power too early and my tiny brain has gone mad with it. Get this. I have been given the task of researching and finding the company to which Four Seasons Whistler's housekeeping department will get all of their coffee from. Now. That doesn't sound too impressive does it? Lets look at it in base statistics then. Lets say that the hotel has about three hundred rooms for easy math's sake. Lets also say that it has an expected average occupancy of around 70% just for fun with each guest consuming an average of one packet of coffee valued at a dollar fifty to two dollars per day. So 300 times .70 times 365 times 1 times 1.5 or 2 gives us a value of anywhere between $114,975 and $153,500 per year. Further I am supposed to find a company which can also provide us with upper class coffee for the hotel owned residences beside the hotel. Now, they don't consume as much coffee since they generally aren't as busy but I feel comfortable strapping an extra twenty to thirty thousand onto the budget to accomodate for that. Now I don't have what you might call "signing power" but the fact that I am sitting here just holding the keys to the proverbial porsche is a pretty awesome feeling. I wonder how many people I can hit up for free samples. Now, I've got very little time to do my research and pull it all together so if anyone has any suggestions I am ready to hear them. I will be hitting up Torrefazione, Starbucks, Tim Hortons (hey it is distinctively Canadian and there is nowhere else in town that has it, perhaps they have an alternative brand name?), Fonte and Illy (a snooty Italian company that makes killer espresso beans.) The factors I am looking at are brand recognition, price (pretty big), packaging appeal, lead times (how long from ordering to receiving), whether they can provide in suitable pod sizes (for easy cleaning of the machines) and of course the taste. I haven't seen any real solid numbers on budgeting yet since I don't think management realizes exactly what they have done with giving me this project but I feel the need to really blow them away on it just to stock future goodwill towards raises, promotions or unannounced vacation time. Help please.
There are some other projects in there, some of which are pretty bloody intense but they don't deal with nearly as much raw cash. However I did gain another fringe benefit of working at a hotel. It turns out that they have finally given up on some of the shampoo, conditioner and soap stocks they bought on opeing and never got a chance to use. I don't mean expired. I mean that it was originally intended for staff members in the hotel provided accomodations but they finally just decided that it was stupid since we weren't really using it all that much. People tend to stick to their own stuff. I didn't even try to be graceful and share with the other kids. Final haul counts at six bars of delightfully scented palm oil soap, 9 bottles of lavender/mint shampoo and a whopping 33 bottles of hydrating lotion moisturizer. I must admit to being a little surprised at that last one but you know what they say. You don't comparison shop when you're in the middle of a looting. Am I right? Am I right?
I spoke with my friend Jason the other day. He wants me to take a ride out to Victoria in order to visit him near the middle end of September. I'm fairly certain that sooner would be cool too but he likes to give lots of warning in his dealings. Which is appropriate since he wants to set up a game of Diplomacy. A game that should as Matt put it be more aptly named as "Backstabbing." I admit that I cannot deny this label. It truly is a game where you leave your relationships at the door and go inside merely to "do business" as they say. The only problem with the game is that it takes longer to play a proper game of it than it does to drive across Canada on a freaking moped. This tends to lead to a certain amount of Laissez-faire attitudes at the end as people's wills begin to break down under the constant strain of events and finally say the words "lets just call it." Personally, even if I lose I don't like to play that way. I like to have a measure of closure in all my dealings though.
On an alterate note, I find myself looking at the Four Seasons world directory with an interested eye now that I have five comp nights available at any and all of them. I find myself looking at Indonesia and going heyyyyy I could hit that up for a week or two. Or looking at the Gulf of Mexico and going Hmmmm. There is of course always Europe as well with plenty of places there to stay (three in London alone). I even took a brief look at the China/Hong Kong, Thailand, Japan grouping as well as the Middle Eastern area for a second. Frankly Indonesia is looking pretty god damned sweet right now though. Europe though... EUROPE! I guess there isn't any pressure until I raise sufficient money to start burning its way through my pocket but I still can't help but start to make plans. If anyone wants in on the action, just let me know. We'll make it a party and perhaps even be able to plan accordingly. Be warned though. If you want to go to China you're the one in charge of learning the language. I'll be the one in charge of drinking the beer. If it's a deal that sounds good to you then it's a deal that sounds good to me.
Okay, I'm getting silly. Time for a shower and the bedtime.
There are some other projects in there, some of which are pretty bloody intense but they don't deal with nearly as much raw cash. However I did gain another fringe benefit of working at a hotel. It turns out that they have finally given up on some of the shampoo, conditioner and soap stocks they bought on opeing and never got a chance to use. I don't mean expired. I mean that it was originally intended for staff members in the hotel provided accomodations but they finally just decided that it was stupid since we weren't really using it all that much. People tend to stick to their own stuff. I didn't even try to be graceful and share with the other kids. Final haul counts at six bars of delightfully scented palm oil soap, 9 bottles of lavender/mint shampoo and a whopping 33 bottles of hydrating lotion moisturizer. I must admit to being a little surprised at that last one but you know what they say. You don't comparison shop when you're in the middle of a looting. Am I right? Am I right?
I spoke with my friend Jason the other day. He wants me to take a ride out to Victoria in order to visit him near the middle end of September. I'm fairly certain that sooner would be cool too but he likes to give lots of warning in his dealings. Which is appropriate since he wants to set up a game of Diplomacy. A game that should as Matt put it be more aptly named as "Backstabbing." I admit that I cannot deny this label. It truly is a game where you leave your relationships at the door and go inside merely to "do business" as they say. The only problem with the game is that it takes longer to play a proper game of it than it does to drive across Canada on a freaking moped. This tends to lead to a certain amount of Laissez-faire attitudes at the end as people's wills begin to break down under the constant strain of events and finally say the words "lets just call it." Personally, even if I lose I don't like to play that way. I like to have a measure of closure in all my dealings though.
On an alterate note, I find myself looking at the Four Seasons world directory with an interested eye now that I have five comp nights available at any and all of them. I find myself looking at Indonesia and going heyyyyy I could hit that up for a week or two. Or looking at the Gulf of Mexico and going Hmmmm. There is of course always Europe as well with plenty of places there to stay (three in London alone). I even took a brief look at the China/Hong Kong, Thailand, Japan grouping as well as the Middle Eastern area for a second. Frankly Indonesia is looking pretty god damned sweet right now though. Europe though... EUROPE! I guess there isn't any pressure until I raise sufficient money to start burning its way through my pocket but I still can't help but start to make plans. If anyone wants in on the action, just let me know. We'll make it a party and perhaps even be able to plan accordingly. Be warned though. If you want to go to China you're the one in charge of learning the language. I'll be the one in charge of drinking the beer. If it's a deal that sounds good to you then it's a deal that sounds good to me.
Okay, I'm getting silly. Time for a shower and the bedtime.