News from Doug

“You have a minute, Rob?” Doug asked, sticking his head in my office.

“Sure,” I nodded, starting to get up from my desk to follow him, but he waved me to sit and came in, closing the door behind him. My awareness immediately shot up because, for all that Doug wasn’t exactly a forceful boss, he tended to try and do things in safe territory for him. The conference rooms, his office, or on the move from one location to another. We’d certainly had conversations in my office over the last couple of years but never anything long, or behind closed doors. “What’s up?” I asked with a frown, settling back into my chair but leaning forward with my elbows on my desk, trying to give him my obvious attention.

Doug unbuttoned his suit jacket and flopped down into the chair across from me, letting out a long, belaboured sigh.

“Right,” I said slowly. “So… a lot of things, or one big thing?”

“See, Robbie, that’s why I like you,” he said, giving me a finger-gun point. “You pick up on things.”

“You’re not exactly being subtle here, Doug,” I pointed out.

“Yeah, well… it’s been a day,” he said.

“It’s only two o’clock on a Tuesday,” I said. “And I haven’t heard about anything happening.”

“Well, you’re not hearing this from me,” Doug said. “But there’s a shakeup happening.” He pointed upwards, and I assumed he meant at the Board level rather than literally up in the hotel rooms towering above us. “And it’s making people nervous.”

I raised an eyebrow. “How does anything happening at that level land on us?” I asked. “It doesn’t matter who owns the building, does it? And how much shaking are we talking about?”

“Unsure so far, but there were disagreements going on last week while you were gone,” Doug said. “Not that you would have heard anything then. But now the people above me are getting restless, and when that happens it means…”

“Problems,” I nodded. The real issue, I realised, was trying to correctly guess where the problems would manifest. The most dramatic, wide-reaching effect could be tightening budgets and layoffs, where everyone got pinched hard on labour amounts. Or ‘consultants’ coming in. I’d never been through a run with consultants myself, but I’d heard stories from some of the longer-serving Vegas staffers and it was always chaos, a big waste of time, and caused way more low-level problems than the one or two mid-level non-issues that the expensive suits ‘fixed.’ “So what are we doing about it then?”

“Officially, nothing,” Doug said. “But I need you to go on the offensive for us. I know we’re booked up, but we’re not booked. Tracy is busy, and angry with me, right now, and Walt is in the doghouse. I need you and Jonas to find ways to fill in every crack in our schedule, and make sure Tan is… well, involved.”

I did the quick math in my head, slowly shaking it. “Doug, there might be ‘cracks’ in the schedule, but we’re talking about times that are super useful for turnover procedures, or facilitating staffing transitions. I can’t just cram more bookings into the Ballrooms on short notice.”

He grimaced. “I need you to make it work,” he said. “Jonas has already started - he’s filled in that four-hour block on Friday in the Sunset room.”

“Wait, what block in Sunset?” I asked with a frown, turning to my computer and waking it up. “Doug, that wasn’t an opening! That was the setup time for the Lau wedding, and he’s filled it with… a birthday party?”

“He’s got it figured out,” Doug said. “Or says he does, at least. It’s a small party, something about a Sorority, and he’ll close the partition so half the room can be prepped while the new event is going on, then there’s an hour to prep the other half before the reception.”

I gave my boss a look that could have probably curdled milk. “Has Tan informed the Lau’s about this change? Because I’m pretty sure they had plans for some traditional decor they were having an outside company come in to set up. Not to mention that the plan for the stage for their wedding band, and late-night karaoke, was set for the west wall right where the partition crosses.”

“I don’t know,” Doug said. “But that’s not your problem, OK? Tan is supposed to be in charge of that event, and now Jonas will work with him on the transition. You can be hands off of it so you can focus on bringing in other new bookings.”

My groan was almost a growl of frustration. I’d been hand-holding Tan through the prep for that wedding for six months, and it was supposed to be the first one where he would be flying solo. The amount of work I’d put into the pre-prep to make sure everything could basically run on auto-pilot, even with the addition of the traditional Hong Kong cultural elements the client wanted, had been significant. All Tan would have needed to do was show up, work with Dayana (who would backstop him for me just in case), and shake hands.

“What’s the goal here?” I asked once I took a breath and sat forward again, focusing on Doug instead of the chaos that this new effort would do on the perfectly organised schedule we had until now.

“Honestly?” Doug said. “We need to look like we’re stretched even more thin than we already are, and overachieve like crazy. If the worst happens, I need the cuts to be as minimal as possible for us so that we can keep functioning. But I also need us to be positioned to take advantage of opportunities.”

I blinked slowly, letting out a half-breath, because I could hear in his voice that this was the real goal. Trying to make sure to save someone’s bacon was a great selling point, and a classic Doug move to try and sandwich good and bad news. “What sort of opportunities are… possible?” I asked slowly.

Doug gave me a brief look like a kid caught with his hand in the cookie jar, but with his mouth already stuffed with cookies. “I’ve got a suspicion, that’s all,” he said, holding up his hands to caution spreading this around. “Someone in the C-Suite might be making a transition soon, either by choice or… not. And if that happens, then a certain someone should be in line to step into that role, which leaves a vacancy one step away from me…”

I saw where he was leaning and did the quick math. Doug, as the VP of Events, answered to the VP of Hospitality, Remi Bernard. He answered directly to Cynthia Warden, the COO, along with several of the other ‘big tent’ VPs. If Cynthia was on the outs with someone on the Board and left, then Remi was likely to be promoted into that spot because he was decent at his job and put in face time with all the Owners whenever they were in the city - meaning he was a bit of a boot licker, but still effective enough at his job that he hadn’t tripped over himself. But if Remi moved up to COO, then it would be a fight for the VP of Hospitality position, and that would come down to Doug or Shaun Waters, the VP of Food and Drink, and Dayana’s direct supervisor. That would be a tight race, but if Doug squeaked it out, that meant VP of Events would be open.

Tracy didn’t want it, with her focus on the gallery above anything else, and Walt wouldn’t be considered. Especially after the whole thing with scorching up the side of the hotel. Tan was way too new, so unless he had a nepotism hook it would be me or Jonas.

Of course, at any point in that chain of events, things could get disrupted by someone deciding to go for an outside hire instead of promoting internally. And in our business, that outside hire could come from someone jumping over from another major Vegas casino, or from anywhere else in the world that had 5-star resorts.

“Shit,” I said.

“It’s a long shot, but you should be ready,” Doug nodded, seeing me putting the pieces together.

Then I frowned at him. “You went to Jonas first with this?”

“I… did,” he said. “But only because I had to meet with him early this morning about something else.”

“You do realise-”

“I know, I know,” he said, holding up his hands. “Don’t say it.”

He knew Jonas was a prick, and if things worked out perfectly, by setting Jonas up for success he’d probably be forcing me to look for a job at another hotel and making himself continue working as Jonas’s direct superior. I also knew that he liked to play me against Jonas because I had a minor competitive streak when it came to his dickishness.

“So now I have to play catch-up while scraping the bottom of the barrel to fill cracks in the schedule at the last minute,” I said.

“If it makes it any better, Jonas doesn’t know why yet, he’s just happy to do it,” Doug said, just a little smugly.

We both knew that Jonas was happy to do it because he knew it fucked with me way more than it did him and his theatre scheduling.

“Alright, well, great,” I sighed. “I guess I’ll start… finding cracks that need filling.”

“Thanks, Robbie,” Doug said, clapping his hands on his knees and then standing up, re-buttoning his suit jacket. “If this all works out, you’ll be in a good spot.”

“Thanks,” I said, shaking my head ruefully. “I should really get you to put that offer in writing.”

“If I did that, we’d both be in deep shit,” he chuckled. “Now get to work.”

“Yes, boss,” I sighed, shaking my head at him. He left my office, and I sat staring after him for a long moment before finally muttering, “Fucker,” under my breath.

I wanted that promotion but hadn’t thought it would be up for grabs any time soon. Now, with everything going on at home, that promotion wouldn’t just be good for me and Cass. It would come with a nice raise to help with dating eight women, and chipping in more towards the Big House plans. Not to mention mine and Cass’s wedding.

“Fuck,” I muttered again. “Fuck.”

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