Posts from — February 2009

Hi, this is something I will probably write about quite a bit because I love this word. It holds so many different meanings and is applicable in so many ways.  Today for me it means “people” I find people and all their various strengths to be inspiring. 

Difficult times are here no doubt about it and they are here to stay longer than we all would like – no doubt about that as well. 

 Today was an odd day. It started off where my beloved business coach – Susan Davidson’s 29 year old niece passed this morning of a brain tumor that she was fighting fro 4.1/2 years.  She was spent her last days in the hospital with family and friends leaving this world knowing she was loved. From what Susan told me about her niece she was always upbeat and strong and did her best to fight her tumor and then knowing when to bow out gracefully.  Appreciating life for what was in front of her and what it has to offer – How inspirational is that? –

A couple of hours later one of my best friends Pam called that her mother had passed this morning.  This too was not unexpected.  Ethel was a strong Western, Pa country gal who had 7 children and a husband who had been by her side in throughout her illness of the last 3 to 4 years.  Ethel leaves behind a boatload of grandkids and family. The majority of the town will be showing up this week to pay their last respects to Ethel and she from the heavens will experience great joy in knowing the humanity that she had taken part in with such a large family – How inspirational is that?

Last – I was flying home from LA getting to spend the week working. Gosh did it feel good! I have spent the past several months I have been extremely worried about the economy and how am I going to survive? Almost to the point that it was immobilizing me – and I just in the past week started really thinking – this negative energy is not necessary. Focus on what I have control of and hang tough with it all. Look at what I am doing and focus on becoming even better.  Not looking forward to the 4 hour flight back across the country I decided to watch a couple of movies. Oddly enough it is rare that I watch a movie on an airplane.  The movie I chose which is totally out of character for me was called “The Express”.  It was a movie about Ernie Davis the first Black Heisman Trophy Winner from Syracuse, New York.  I can’t recommend it enough – it was so inspirational.  Ernie Davis was just blessed with being an amazing athlete.  Born in Western, Pa and then moved to Elmira, New York as a 12 year old.  He went on to win every football award there was with style, grace, determination and class.  All with the challenges of being black in the early 1960’s when desegregation was at its worst.  I found Ernie’s story to be so inspirational to me because no matter how bad it got or how hard it got he rose to the challenge of hard work and focus to be the best he could be.  This is the kick in the ass that I need to get back into the game – how cheesy clichés is that?  I need to only look through the windshield and not the rearview of what I can do. Focus on more accomplishments with my company that I have worked so hard. Strive towards becoming any better and what does that look like – instead of complaining like I have been these past 3 months. The punch in the gut with this story is after breaking all these color barrier’s in the 1960’s Ernie gets drafted by the NFL.  He can basically pick any team he wants to go play. He chooses the Cleveland Browns because another Syracuse black player in front of him who Ernie admired went to play for Cleveland.  Ernie arrives to start spring training and he is diagnosed with acute leukemia and dies approximately 10 months later at the age of 23. 

 Ernie works his ass off this entire life to be this ground breaking football player that has to over come so many obstacles.  The time finally comes for him to truly reap the rewards of all his hard work at the prime age of 23 and he dies of cancer.  Reading just what I wrote about Ernie from the movie do you think he complained and said why me?  I don’t think so. How inspirational is that?

This is my story for now and I am sticking too it.

It has been a long inspirational day and I am going to bed. 

I wrote an article for Plan Your Meetings Magazine called Claire’s Kudo’s.  Hector Santiago was one of many chef’s highlighted in this article.  It can be seen in full.

Saludos Claire:
I hope you r doing well, I want to thank you for the article and all your
support trough the years. Here I’m just doing the usal working  a lot
…hope to see you soon.
pura vida!
Hector – Chef Owner Pura Vida

Hi,

I had the absolute honor of spending the night at one of my client’s house while working in California.  What they have started to do when entertaining is getting Steaks from the Palm the are specifically packaged for the house.  Kim just marinaded them for 24 hours in soy and worsteirshire and her husband tossed them on the grill.  Want to talk delicious! Beyond.  If you want to do something high end then get steaks from these high end steak restaurants that are specifically packaged for the house.

Now if your budget is a little on the tighter side this year but want to do something better than Kroger/Publix etc then I would recommend going to Whole Foods – their meat is very good. I just tend to get the cut a little thinner than normally to save a couple of bucks that way and  you get an increased value.

For dessert Kim did a very easy to make souffle that I feel anyone could do with success. So do know those recipes are out there.

That is my story for now and I am sticking to it.

Hi,

While in California working for Honeywell I was assisting them with ground transportation.  They had a couple SUV’s for a few days to take clients around as needed.  Now we as industry professionals all know that ground transportation isn’t cheap and therefore we SHOULD expect these drivers to know where they are going. Not necessarily the case.  Both of these guys were from 30 minutes north and didn’t really know the area at all. Luckily I left enough room for them to do a couple of dry runs.  When hiring a ground company put it in the contract that it is THEIR RESPONSIBILITY to make sure the drivers are informed as to where they are going and give the ground company as much information as possible up front.

That is my story for now and I am sticking to it.

Claire

Hi,

Yes! I am blessed to be in California this week working.  It feels so good to be off the Atlanta campus and being part of the working world again. I am working for Honeywell for helicopter association. We are at the Marriott in Anaheim, California. A couple of interesting things happened with this Marriott.  I went screaming nuts with them last week – because Honeywell has about 50 rooms here for the duration of the convention. They had meeting space here and well exceeded their  f & b minimium and what did this stupid hotel do??? Charged them meeting room rental. As in a lot of it. My client went back and tried to get it waived explaining to them the dollar amount that was getting spent and rental should be waived. The Marriott  did a 25% discount- because they can’t see their nose despite their face and that was that. Ok this is where this whole things gets really stupid – ready – they charged a 22% service on top of the rental charge? SERVICE FOR WHAT?!@*#  We refused to sign any invoices until this was waived. That is my story for now and I am sticking to it.

Claire

Feb 2009 me after my ride on the Honeywell Corporate Helicopter

Hi Folks, cover year ears now because I am crabbing a huge storm over this. While working at a Marriott I was charged attendant fees for 2 action stations.

$150.00 per attendant for a 3 hour function.  This is where we need to pay attention…say NO to an attendant at that price and tell them you want a qualified chef. I walked into the banquet room and they were taking 2 very tiny women in their banquet uniforms and telling them to put on their chef’s jackets OVER THEIR uniforms  and this was qualifing them to be an attendant at $150.00 per event.  They didn’t look nice and neat and they weren’t train to interact appropraitely with the guest. So was my client getting their $150.00 worth.  NO! Technically they were a server who was plating food at that station.  There was no cooking involved they just ended up plating the food.  I was totally pissed. The jacket didn’t even begin to fit these very quiet tiny women. The chef’s jacket came down to their knees.  And I said NO, give me a chef – there is nothing here that qualifies them to be on the floor interacting with guests.  I also feel that there should be 2 tiers of fees. Attendant at $75 and a chef at $150.00 and I can choose which one that I want when active cooking isn’t involved.  No, and I can tell you know I screamed LOUD about this until the Marriott sent in properly trained and dressed chef’s to do the stations.  Folks there are a lot of times the hotels continue to rip off the customer from a banqueting persepective and we do owe it to the industry to lean to say UNACCEPTABLE.

That is my story for now and I am sticking to it.

Claire

Went last night with a client to do a menu tasting. The restaurant is a comfort food type restaurant. Yet the menu was all over the place. The dining room is absolutely beautiful and fancy – not homey. Then they have home style foods like brisket with mac and cheese ok fine then it swerves off to tuna tartare. That makes no sense if you are going to pick a concept for a restaurant “stay in character” dont go swerving in and out because it is hard to follow this line of culinary communication.

That is my story for now and I am sticking to it.

I had a major client suspend my services for probably the rest of the year if not forever.  Let’s face it do they have someone on their staff that can do what I do? Sure they do.  Will it be done as well – no because that isn’t what this person does in the day to day.  This person who is doing my work is amazing hotel contracts person. I couldn’t even begin to do what he does with all things being equal. 

My client with this account loves to strategize to make this large group better and better.  I, being the one contractor who sees and experiences many different events throughout the year is very progressive with working with her. I spend a lot of time giving them ideas plus working with the different mini groups within the organization doing whatever I needed to do to escalate their event to the next level. Many times they negotiate their F & B minimums’ without me. I realize now this is a mistake – include your F & B expert in the hotel contract negotiation faze as they might be able to save you money on the front side. The organization ended up needing to cut dollars like everyone else and eventually facing lay off. So who is the first to go. Obviously the contractors to save the organization from laying off.  

But as I started to think about my situation and the entire big picture I thought to myself that isn’t what I would do.  The value that I bring to the organization is I work in tandem with the organization to ensure the guests who are paying to attend this event have a good guest experience which might lead to their coming back. Plus I work with the sponsorship team to customize or help them in logistics that also leads to revenue being produced OR cost savings. Not in a up front way but in a back door way I am a cost savings and a revenue producer for this organization.  I would look at the big picture of all employees contractors and employees and say who is a producer for us and lay off people or ask for salary reductions based on performance not on who is a contractor or not.  My client waited very late to let me know I wasn’t on this gig anymore.  I was upset because I was told I have other clients that support me these people have only their day job. But if these people have chosen through the years to not work up to the standards of their day job why are you reinforcing that by keeping them employed anyhow.?  Folks my point to all of this when you are looking at who stays and who goes. Don’t look at contractors vs employees look at who is productive and contributes. If you do that then a hard situation all the sudden becomes crystal clear.

That is my story for now and I am sticking to it.

Claire

I was lucky enough last Friday to go to a new fine dining restaurant in Atlanta for dinner.  Part of their menu had a huge selection of vegetables done different ways.  The person I was with ordered 2 different types of vegetables.  Both were just mediocre at best.  The chef took a great vegetable and tried to put twists to it and this didn’t work out very well.  This goes back to the old saying – keep the integrity of the food. Vegetables weren’t meant to have BBQ on them.  Know the limit of what you can do with veggies that makes sense and cook them in the manner in which they were meant to be served.

This is my story for now and I am sticking to it.

Claire

Hi,

I went to 2 W hotels during the course of a week. This is addition to a couple of the other ones that I have been to across the country. Folks, I have to tell you that it is a chain I can’t put my arms around. They remind me of the gal in college or on our first jobs that really wanted to look amazing in the little black dress but at the end of the day it came up short. I am all about flippant and kitchy – I love it and use it a lot in my work there is a place in this world for it. BUT only if it is done that people aren’t affended by it and they understand it. To me, with the W’s this isn’t the case.

Allow me to explain.

I am old school hospitality – hotels are in the hospitality business.  So with that being said we are in the business to make people feel WELCOME.  We want our guest to feel GOOD about giving us their money.  When I walked into the latest W after having to weave your way around this middle staircase that was so difficult to get around there are these 3 pods.  No nothing that announces what it is – they are assuming that you automatically know what it is and there is a small sign on it that reads “WHATEVER” .  That is their greeting to their guests.  Nothing warm and inviting about that. Just rude and flippant.  No my cup of tea on any level and you will find the same throughout their properties.  And if they are wanting to have international guests at their properties – because as it would all get lost in translation. 

This is my story for now and I am sticking to it.

Claire