What Can Happen

(and often does)

Besides good food, general cleanliness, adequate recreational facilities, and a comfortable atmosphere, there are many other characteristics of service and attitude on the part of the local staff that make all the difference. You work hard at your meeting and if you have to deal with on-site problems at the same time, it makes the job infinitely tougher. It should not take that much extra effort on the part of the facility staff to provide Class A service. Nevertheless, some of the things that have happened at meetings are almost incredible.

The following experiences with facility staffs are authentic. We can look back on them NOW with a sense of humor but at the time it was no laughing matter. Although you may not encounter these problems, perhaps the stories related here will help you to avoid some of the inevitable pitfalls while managing your meeting.

One morning at 8 a.m. in a major facility, the meeting couldn't start because all material and equipment had been removed from the conference room and piled in the hall. The explanation was, "I'm sorry but we promised this room to somebody else." All this, after the sales department of the facility had worked long and hard convincing us that they could provide outstanding facilities for a bang-up meeting.

Midmorning coffee may be served anywhere from 15 minutes after breakfast to 15 minutes before lunch. At one facility we received coffee, rolls, and cokes for 100 people or more when we had only 20 people in our meeting. The staff had simply brought us the wrong coffee break. (That other meeting in the facility must still be complaining about the stingy portions.)

An interesting thing about waiters who serve at coffee breaks is how loud some of them can be during the service. Some staffs, even when they are serving in the next room, leave no doubt about who they are and what they're up to.

Many facilities have developed an uncanny knack of delivering the coffee break at the most dramatic moment of the particular session you're involved in. They will bang through the door of the conference room and proceed with trays or wagons laden with coffee and rolls directly to the podium, while their leader loudly proclaims: "Who signs the check?"

It hard to believe the number of times meetings have been stopped because of the racket of construction, repairs, rehearsing marimba bands, hall hubbub, air conditioning fans, radiators banging—you name it, we've heard it.

You can now estimate that within 15 minutes of starting any meeting, there's a 75 percent chance the phone will ring—even though you leave strict instructions with the switchboard operators to hold all calls.

And if Muzak happens to be piped into every room, we have yet to find anyone who knows how to stop it in less than 20 minutes. The controls, we figure, must be located under the night manager's desk.

We don't know of any facility that doesn't claim to have all the necessary equipment for a meeting or a conference. Despite the fact that any facility, good or bad, has hosted hundreds of meetings, their idea of a visual-aids easel is three long pieces of wood connected at the top. If there is a podium, it's always adorned with lights, cords, microphones and holders, none of which ever work.

We are often assured that a facility has 35mm slide projectors, movie projectors, view graphs, screens, flannel boards, and just about anything else the meeting may need. If you traipse halfway across the country expecting to use this equipment, you haven't run many meetings. The early showings of Ben Hur were made on more modern equipment than the average facility movie projector! Usually one projector in twenty actually functions. When we have, it hasn't made a bit of difference because the local Chamber of Commerce borrowed it the day before our arrival, and will return it shortly after our meeting is over. Another curious facet of the facility equipment problem is that no one is ever in charge of it. If anything is broken, it's always someone else's fault and there is no way of getting it fixed in time for your meeting.

Most meeting rooms have thermostats that are always set at 60 degrees. This would be useful if any of those "do-jiggers" ever worked. We have had meetings interrupted to allow shivering participants to return to their rooms for coats or sweaters. We also have had everyone in the room soaking wet with perspiration. There is only one man who can adjust this temperature or affect it in any way, and he doesn't come on until 10 o'clock in the morning. If your room was too hot before he arrived, he will now make it too cold, or with proper prodding, vice versa.

It is our understanding that in some way air conditioning should be tied in with ventilation. But the only way you are going to get ventilation in some facility conference rooms is to knock out two walls. We shudder to think of the number of meetings that have had to break up, clear out, and open all windows and doors in order to get the atmosphere back to somewhere near breathable.

A well-run meeting starts and ends on time. Over the years we've learned that for peak efficiency, meetings should start at 8 a.m., and you should expect everyone there at 8 a.m. We also believe that you cannot get through a long morning on an empty stomach. However, just try to get early morning breakfast service in most hotels. The dining room may open at 7 a.m., but invariably only one waiter shows up. The others "are sick today." After a short time, you begin to believe that the one who did show up is also sick. You wait 35 minutes only to find out he has lost your order. Too late now to get eggs. You ordered a piece of melon and are served orange juice. Now the waiter waits until 7:45 to tell the guy who ordered corned beef hash that they are out of hash. They do one thing early, however. They make the toast at 5 a.m. It's not necessary to break it, since it bends very easily. You sort of wish the toast was as hard as the butter and the butter as soft as the toast.

If this is beginning to sound like a list of consumer grievances, it is. For instance, what's so hard about ringing a phone at a specified time in the morning? We've been meaning to look into it. We've heard of one meeting with 150 men scheduled for 9 a.m. They left a call for all 150 for 7 a.m. The operator got them all up at 5:30 a.m.

The other side of that horror story is that the phones might not ring at all. This can be serious. We know of one man who missed the only plane out of town one day because of O.F. (operator failure). Next time at that facility he raised such a fuss that the operator with wake-up instructions for 6:30 called him at 4:30 and again at 5:30. He overslept through sheer exhaustion.

In our early days we would arrive at a facility the night before the meeting with the idea of setting up our meeting room for the next day. This was a rookie’s mistake. Preparation is not in the jargon of some facility people. The meeting room was never furnished with the necessary tables and chairs, there were never any men to find them and, of course, no one knew anything about equipment.

Then there's the old storeroom routine some facilities seem to specialize in. A month ago, before you left your office, you planned the requirements for the meeting, packed all the necessary paper, pencils, notebooks, and retention notes in boxes and shipped them to the facility clearly stamped "Hold For Arrival." You then wrote a letter to the facility telling them to expect this material and to keep it for you. Barnum and Bailey's center ring couldn't match the performance that takes place from there on in. If you arrive the night before the meeting, the package room is locked. There is only one key and the man who has it has gone home and cannot be reached. However, your material is bound to be there because one of the bellmen thinks he remembers seeing those kinds of boxes. Also, the man with the key will arrive in the morning at 7 a.m. and will be able to get at them. But he doesn't come in, of course. Now comes the scurrying about. Stores in town don't open until 9 a.m., and there is no way to reproduce the necessary written material. You hastily call your office to get the waybill numbers of the material shipped. The air freight people have signed receipts showing delivery to the facility. At 10 a.m., though by now you don't really care, your packages are all found in the laundry room. Nobody, absolutely nobody, is responsible.

At this point, a word of advice about some hotel clerks. You have to keep remembering that they "only work here." They will push the registration form toward you while carrying on a conversation with someone behind the desk, slap a key down and holler "Front." In many cases we aren't sure just who they're hollering at, because we stand around for 15 or 20 minutes before even one piece of luggage is moved.

We are sorry to report that as much as we would like to spread our hotel business around in a given city, we are gradually falling into the habit of using establishments that have proved competent. They lighten our load by a conservative 30 percent, and in most cases make the difference between a so-so meeting and an outstanding one.

Incidentally, we have seen a facility improve in a matter of months by changing its General Manager. What is required is careful organization, thoroughness and attention to detail predicated on well-established routines. Good management should include flexibility to fit the client's specific needs. It requires the manager's constant dissatisfaction with his service because when he stops improving on it, it can only go backwards. We recognize that it isn't easy. Running a facility properly is a tough and exacting experience. There are just enough of them that are well run, however, to prove that it can be done.

Suppose it's your responsibility to run a meeting at a facility. Where would you go in the facility for information and assistance? There are only two places we know of after years of planning meetings. One is the banquet office, and if you want to see anybody of importance there, be sure to make an appointment at least a day in advance and hope he/she shows up. The other is the front desk, and this is a humiliating, exasperating experience, because, remember, he or she "only works here." He has his own problems and would prefer that you keep yours to yourself. A word here about seeing the manager. Forget that. He is a big, big shot. He is also inaccessible. He is convinced that his staff is handling everything that needs handling.

But let's look at the brighter side for a minute—and there are some bright spots. You show up for your meeting and are expected. An intelligent person has been assigned to you, and has carefully read your prewritten instructions. He has prepared his own instruction sheet and distributed it to everybody on the facility staff. This information sheet informs them in detail as to their responsibilities in this meeting. He knows that 24 people will not fit into a broom closet. He knows that 24 people breathe and need light and air for their meeting. He has gone to a great deal of trouble to arrange coffee set-ups at a convenient location and on time. This same person contacts you once or twice daily to make sure things are going as planned. He is not too big to arrange shopping tours, transportation, purchases for any of your group, cocktail parties, stenographic or reproduction work, or anything else that allows you to concentrate on your responsibility—the meeting. In some large meetings at certain facilities, management has assigned top staff around the clock to do anything within reason and a lot of things we didn't expect to get done. Some of these good operators even have lots of suggestions that make sense and can contribute finishing touches to the meeting. One would suppose that it all gets back to whoever is running the show. If you have set high standards for your operation and adhere doggedly to performance in accordance with these standards, there is no reason why you can't run a first-class meeting. And here is an interesting point: The people in these well-run operations are generally happier, take more pride in their work, and turnover is lower.

All our experience, however, has led us to the standard operating procedure of sending out someone at least a year in advance to check the facilities. We don't believe in the brochures. You can put almost anything on a piece of paper. We have decided that if any of us ever pass through the "pearly gates," we will ask St. Peter for a guarantee that we won't meet anybody inside who says, "I'm sorry, sir, but I only work here."