Monday Morning All-Hands Event Staff Meeting

Doug was on a tear. I showed up to his all-hands meeting right on time to get a seat around the conference table just forward of the midpoint - close enough that I wouldn’t have him breathing down my neck as he paced back and forth around the head of the table, but not far enough back that I looked like I was hiding or came in late. He was an older guy, somewhere in his late fifties, and had been hired away from Caesars when the Vaso opened, taking the VP of Events role and hiring the rest of us along the way.

Jonas, unfortunately, had made the jump over from Caesars with Doug, chasing the money. I’d long ago realised that Doug valued ‘loyalty’ and felt like Jonas had proven his, whereas the rest of us that he’d hired hadn’t had the proper ‘chance’ to do so yet.

When I entered the conference room (the good one up on the C-suite floor of offices since there weren’t any important meetings going on that day), Doug just nodded at me and then looked back down at his tablet. I sometimes wondered if he had the thing duct taped to his hand, but a good sign that he wasn’t happy was that he would frown, furrow his brow and raise it up to look at it like he was an old man whose eyesight was going.

To be fair, his eyesight probably was going from doing that so often, but still.

Jonas, Vanessa and Tan were all already there when I walked in, and I caught Jonas giving a sour look that his little trick had failed. Vanessa, as usual, didn’t react much. She was our liaison with Marketing and saved her sweet, bubbly, all-American personality when she was addressing the C-Suite, patrons or crowds. Coworkers that weren’t at least two levels above her got the Stone Face, as I liked to think of it. The fact that she gave me eye contact and a little nod, acknowledging that I’d been gone and come back, was like someone else jumping up and hugging me.

Tan Li was the new guy, hired on in an effort to help woo some of the Asian international clientele. It wasn’t our job, as event managers, to do that - every Casino called it a different thing, but I thought of them as ‘Whalers’ since their job was to find, network with and convince filthy rich people to come to a specific Casino - but someone had told Doug to get someone of Asian descent onto the Event Management team.

The kid, Tan, was fine; fresh out of the William F. Harrah College of Hospitality here in Vegas with a degree, and he was a bit of a labrador retriever personality - happy, earnest and hungry to do something, just a little too energetic and likely to knock some shit over as he chases the ball. The fact that Tan was a third-generation Asian-American and didn’t speak a lick of any language other than English didn’t seem to raise any questions about whether he was the right person for the job. He got up and shook my hand like I’d been out for a month and not a week.

The rest of the team filed in over the next couple of minutes. Tracy, who managed Casino Floor events and the attached Art Gallery; Ash, the head Concierge who would download anything necessary to the Front Desk and his team; Walt, who managed outdoor daily events around the pool and the bigger seasonal events that lasted full weekends or weeks; Chuck, who ran admin for Security and would handle the scheduling for anyone from bouncers to armed guards depending on an events needs (though I was pretty sure he just showed up for the fresh ghuraiba cookies and potent Arabic coffee that got brought up for the meetings from Khoshamzeh, the Michelin star Kuwaiti breakfast restaurant downstairs.)

Dayana, as usual, came in last.

Thankfully Doug’s anger wasn’t directed at her or else I would have expected another blowout between the two. Instead, Doug had stared hard and long at Walt as the man cautiously took his seat. Walt was actually a decent guy, but sometimes the ‘Frat Bro’ affectation he put on when running poolside events, or organising Spring Break or a partnership with a nearby music festival, would leak into his office persona. I was a little surprised that Tracy was also giving him some hard side-eye, too. Usually they were thick as thieves.

Dayana slipped into the room five minutes late and poured herself a coffee from the carafe, palming a couple of the ghuraiba as Doug rumbled through the start of his meeting as if something wasn’t wrong, and then sauntered around the table and took the seat across from me. She sat down, smirking just a little, and gave me a quick quirk of her eyebrow and then a wink.

Doug finished the general stuff that took up the first fifteen minutes of his all-hands meetings a little quicker than usual - mostly information notes about what was going on with the hotel that we’d already received memos about, reminders about things that he’d reminded us about a dozen times before, general announcements and the occasional kudos when someone from the C-Suite wanted to pass on a word about how an event had gone.

I noticed that there weren’t any kudos from the past week that Monday morning.

“One last thing before we dig into the coming week,” Doug said, and based on how hard he pressed his finger into his tablet I had to guess this was going to be pretty pointed. “I need to remind you all that if your events involve any sort of pyrotechnics you must go through one of our three accredited and approved vendors. Our budget for this month is taking a hit due to some cosmetic repairs that need to be done on the east side of the building.”

I raised my eyebrows but didn’t say anything, glancing over at Dayana. She opened her eyes wider and nodded just a little, covering her smirk as she took a bite of the cookie that she’d been dipping in her coffee.

“I’d like to know how much our budget is taking a hit,” Tracy asked, putting up her hand. It wasn’t required, at all, but she did it every time she spoke up in a meeting as if she felt like she’d be lost in the shuffle otherwise. Which was a little fair - she was a petite woman no matter how much volume she could tease out of her big, bottle-blonde hair. “And what areas it’s being taken from?”

Thankfully, since I was the primary on the Ballroom events, my budget wasn’t tied to our department so much as it was to client budgets. Occasionally we hosted a Las Vegas community event gratis and I had to tap into our department for that, but it was always at the request of a member of the Owner board so we’d get more money if necessary. Everyone else around the table could potentially feel the pinch of Walt’s mistake though, even the Concierge team.

“We’re going to need to tone back the Gallery rotation next month,” Doug grimaced. “Though it would help if you could do that thing where you host student art for free and cut the cost completely.”

“It’s the summer, there aren’t any students in school right now,” she pointed out. “And I don’t see why the gallery should be-”

“You have half your usual budget for the rotation next month,” Doug repeated himself, the left side of his jaw clenching and unclenching. “Jonas, I need you to squeeze some cash out of your budget as well. Run a skeleton crew on Stage B if you need to.”

“Sure, boss,” Jonas nodded. I knew for a fact that the Stage B crew was already short-handed so how he planned to make that happen I couldn’t guess.

“Vanessa, we’ll be wanting to roll back our radio spots for the fall shows, too,” Doug said, looking down the table at her. He was a brave man, I knew they’d fought over those spots before - Vanessa was a cutthroat negotiator and she would need to replace the spots from another department to keep the deals she’d struck. “And Chuck-”

“Can’t do it,” Chuck grunted before shoving another dry ghuraiba into his mouth and crunching on it. The tasty cardamom cookies were meant to be dipped and I immediately imagined the feeling of the dry texture in my mouth from when I’d made the mistake of trying one without dipping it in a coffee first.

“I need you to rework some of your staffing numbers,” Doug continued.

“Can’t, sorry,” Chuck shrugged.

“Particularly for the low-priority events,” Doug grunted. “We’re going to need to rely on the Casino Floor security staff a bit more around the Theatre and Ballroom entrances.”

I didn’t bother arguing that I needed the bouncers for the Ballroom - it was going to be a pain but I could manage it with a couple of my regular staff as long as I had one proper Security guard on hand. And for the events that would actually need more security, I could always make the argument in private. No need to air shit out here.

“We’ll also need to cut staffing hours from Catering for all events,” Doug sighed, looking back down at his tablet instead of down the table.

What the fuck sort of damage did Walt do? I wondered. But I could figure that out later.

“Suck a dick, Doug,” Dayana said. “Suck a big, fat dick. You’re not squeezing any blood from this stone. My entire department is stretched thin as fuck as it is, if I try and cut staffing numbers I’ll be dealing with a mutiny and you won’t have any food at any event. Or coffee, or fucking water. And the restaurants aren’t going to lend you shit and you know it.”

Classic Dayana.

Now, obviously, if anyone were to speak like that in a corporate environment they probably deserved to be fired. Doug had tried that with Dayana before, and it had ended poorly.

The thing about Dayana was that the thin Venezuelan looked like a college coed even though she was almost thirty, but she was a perfect mix of Machiavellian power. She’d gotten headhunted from a resort in Caracas by one of the Vaso’s owners and had gone and trained at a resort in the UAE for three years before she’d taken a promotion to move to Vegas. She spoke six languages, could fill in on a kitchen line in any of the fancy restaurants attached to the Vaso under the role of sous chef, orchestrated the daily needs and operations of all the restaurants’ logistical orders from furniture to produce, and managed the staff for anything food-related outside of the restaurants. Including the bars and waitresses.

The first and last time Doug had gotten her fired for the way she spoke to him, the entire hotel had suddenly gone dry within half an hour. Not a single beer, drop of wine or shot of tequila could be found outside of a room minibar. There was almost a mass firing of anyone with the ability to serve **** before a certain member of the Board called the C-Suite to ask what the fuck was going on and that Dayana would be able to fix it, only to be informed she’d been fired.

Rumour was the guy started belly laughing and told the COO to fix it himself then, but the Owner was flying in from Los Angeles and expected his hotel to be in good working order by the time he got there, and that he expected a glass of ‘his favourite drink’ when he arrived. The COO had, allegedly, not been aware that the particular owner was entirely sober due to having grown up in Kuwait where **** was illegal, and panicked. But by the time the Owner arrived Dayana’s firing had been deemed an ‘administrative error,’ every bar and restaurant in the hotel had mysteriously found their stocks of ****, and Dayana had a glass of fresh, pulpy orange juice waiting for him in his rooms.

“We need to make the space in the budget, Dayana,” Doug insisted.

“I’m not hearing anything coming out of the Poolside budget,” she said.

“Or the Festival budget,” Tracy added with almost a growl as she glared at Walt.

“OK, look,” Walt interrupted, holding up his hands defensively. “I got the vendor approved, and they had good reviews and better prices. How was I supposed to know the reviews were fake?”

I shook my head. Now I really wanted to know what damage had been done.

“Which is the reason why there haven’t been any disciplinary discussions brought forward,” Doug said, fixing a very fake smile on his face. “And our Insurance will eventually cover it, but the repairs need to happen immediately and I’ve been informed it’s our fuck up, so we’re feeling the pinch.” He sighed again, shaking his head. “And you all know the reason the Poolside and festival budgets aren’t being touched is because they are too active this time of year, and the cash is already spent.”

That wasn’t entirely true - Walt had a discretionary budget for shit like poolside decor and party stuff, but taking that away wasn’t likely to put a dent in anything of substance. Not that I was going to open my mouth for either side here; both because I still wasn’t sure what had happened, and because I knew Dayana didn’t need backing up whatsoever.

No one else being affected, other than Jonas, had feelings about speaking up though, and the meeting devolved into arguing. Dayana got her points in and leaned back, starting to dip her second cookie into her coffee, looking across the table at me.

How bad is it? I mouthed to her.

You didn’t see? she mouthed back, and I shook my head. She made a grimacing face and a vague gesture that made me think something had happened to one of the exterior walls.

“Look, people,” Doug finally raised his voice. “It is what it is. If we don’t make the cuts ourselves, someone else comes in and does it for us. Got it?”

They all sighed and nodded. Except for Dayana.

“Good,” Doug said, lowering his voice and sounding like he was already exhausted. “Alright. Let’s run through the week.”

There were events going on every day at a hotel and casino the size of the Vasoseh. Jonas had both theatres running three shows a day and wanted more marketing budget, which Vanessa acknowledged but would likely resist. Tracy had the Gallery open and a couple of cultural community events - that brought tax breaks from the city - through the week, along with some ‘impromptu’ events on the Casino floor that were designed to encourage more sports betting. The Ballroom was booked solid from Wednesday to Saturday with summer weddings and a Bar Mitzvah, while the two smaller VIP ballrooms had a series of bookings for corporate executive retreat dinners, an invite-only private poker tournament, and a Sweet Sixteen birthday party for a privileged little shit of a socialite.

For my part, almost all of the Ballroom events were relatively standard and the details had been ironed out months or weeks ago and just needed to be double-checked with the necessary supervisors and the clients. I had no doubt that the most troublesome one was going to be the Sweet Sixteen.

“Robbie, I’ve got a meeting pencilled in for you on Thursday,” Doug interrupted my thinking as he ran through his notes. “Very VIP client, comes down from the Board. Wedding.”

“Got it,” I nodded, giving a slight frown and glancing at Dayana. She knew the Board better than I did and might have the word of who was getting married, but she shrugged.

“Speaking of which - Ash, the client is going to be a guest of the hotel for a while. This should have already reached you, but apparently, we’re comping a suite for Miss Vera Angeloff indefinitely.”

That got everyone around the table quiet, their various methods of note-taking going still.

“Indefinitely?” Ash asked.

Doug cleared his throat and nodded. We all knew he didn’t like it either. An indefinitely comped room had been the single most problematic guest we’d ever hosted, barring the one guy who used Squatter laws after falling through the cracks to get himself designated as a legal occupant of his room. That had taken an entire eviction process. The problematic Indefinite Comp had almost caused a dozen lawsuits before the Saudi Prince had decided to leave of his own accord.

After that, we’d been told there wouldn’t be any more Indefinite Comps as a hotel-wide policy.

And yet here we were.

“Who is Vera Angeloff?” Dayana asked. Her people would be the ones delivering the inevitably extravagant room service request.

“All I know is that the name is Russian, and she’s engaged to Rashid Al Maktoum,” Doug said.

That got a raise of the eyebrows from everyone around the table. Rashid was the eldest son of Khalid Al Maktoum, one of the original investors in the Casino and a distant relation of the royal family of Dubai - hell, Rashid was named after a former Sheikh from the family. He also happened to have come and partied at the Vaso several times, and while he was pretty cavalier with his money (and happy to ‘experience’ things that were usually frowned upon in his home country - particularly loose women) he was actually fairly reserved and respectful.

Hell, he even slapped his younger brother across the face when he found out that Hamad had inappropriately put his hands on one of the bartending staff. And it had been one fucking hard slap.

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