#weeklyjournals

There is an aspect of beauty and humbleness when people help one another without any benefit and/or interest in return just for the enjoyment of being able to contribute to a larger aspect of someone else’s life. 

Week 3: Mid Brand Watch Irma arrived! 

During Brand Watch, Hurricane Irma arrived! Inconvenience for work and school, yet a few days off weren’t that bad for my personal time. No Light and cold water, but it was a great disconnect from the online world for a few days. 

Back on track, I continue researching cosmetics brands (Brand Watch first post) and comparing their content and follower engagement. Some brands have more followers, more engagement and others have fewer followers and still, have high engagement from their niche market.  

In the words of the famous 90′s pop culture icons *NSYNC...

So what exactly is 86?

Still unclear?

Source: Google

So what does have to do with *NSYNC?

Well... It has finally come to that time where I bid farewell as I finish the last set of hours for my internship, so, what a better way to say goodbye than with a oh-so-suddenly jam-packed week of events.

So remember last week when I said it was lean season? As in tenderloin lean?

About that...

At the start of the week (Monday), we received booking for a large group arriving the following day (Wednesday) for their company team building. Although they were quite demanding and not as friendly, they were tolerable (for context, click here).

Fast forward to Thursday, my last day of work, the group has finally checked out BUT oh hooray for me, comes a large walk-in group of 17 ordering 60% of the a la carte menu at 3:00pm for late lunch -- ALL WHILE WE WERE PREPARING FOR OUR VERY FIRST EVENT HAPPENING 3 HOURS LATER. Safe to say that the kitchen started panicking once the orders were punched in (also keep in mind that the entire hotel only has one kitchen, it also didn’t help that the company having the event invited more guests than they initially said they were inviting).

^^Accurate representation of what my last day of work felt like.

At the end of the day, as a thank you and gift from the hotel, the hotel’s management surprised me by giving me a free night’s stay so that I may sleep peacefully and go straight to the airport.

So this is it. This is the end. Honestly, I’m grateful for this experience and I’ve learned a lot about the industry but from a different perspective -- click here if you want to read my overall thoughts.

86 of the day? Ma. Carina D. Gonzales.

Thank you to everyone, stay feliz!

Lean season, but make it summer in Boracay circa 1980.

In a previous weekly journal, I mentioned that the OR (occupancy rate) has been down due to the Coronavirus - several weeks later and here we are, down to barely 30% OR, and getting people to do PR tours. SPEAKING OF WHICH.

This week - pre-drastic-OR-drop-  Camille Co (big-time Filipina socialite, fashionista, and youtube vlogger) and fellow husband Joni Koro (Scandinavian interior designer), voluntarily agreed to do a PR tour for the hotel. I was in charge of taking care of their table while they dined and explained each dish that was served to them during their stay.

Source: Instagram

Long story short: YAY FOR SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING.

POST PR TOUR VISIT:

The hotel has been facing a drastic drop in room occupancy, which also means that we’re facing a drastic drop in revenue - make that the ENTIRE ISLAND. It honestly feels like Boracay is going through a second closure but on a global tourism scale. Now everyone is creating “promos” and flights are going on sale in an attempt to attract tourists, even if it’s just domestic. Hopefully by next week everything will start rising again so employee-purge doesn’t have to happen.

It’s about time, too...

Sooooo this week, SVIP’s (the owners) decided to visit the hotel and we decided to Marie Kondo the whole hotel before their arrival. If you don’t know who Marie Kondo is, here are some references:

Still doesn’t ring a bell? Okay how about now:

Nothing? Okay. Back to story time.

Before the arrival or Sir Juan Elizalde, Ms. Bianca Araneta-Elizalde, and their (extremely adorable) children, we had to do a little bit a lot a bit of prep work around the hotel, La Plaza in particular. It was time to get our “Marie Kondo meets Mary Poppins” thinking caps on and see how we could make the restaurant better within the short period of time we had to prepare before the family arrived. This involved:

1. Cleaning

2. Flowers

3. More Cleaning

Once all of this was done, it was eventually time for the arrival of the owners and BOY OH BOY WAS A EXCITED NERVOUS AF TO SERVE THEM WHEN THEY DINED AT THE RESTAURANT.

This started out as doing my job of leading them to their table, handing over the menu, and explaining a few things. This then turned into full on service, conversation, and possible job offers (I got Ms. Bianca’s contact details so yay me) which hopefully meant I did a good job taking care of their table. The next few days they were at the hotel, I was specifically told by my manager and the head chef to take care of their table whenever they dined at the restaurant. In my head I’m thinking “... soooooo does that mean I left a good impression? HAHA pls tell me”.

Sidenote: going the extra mile to check upon them and making sure everything was okay with them and giving them more than what they had asked for was extremely worth it.

Upon their departure, all available employees were asked to stand in a line and send off the family. Before they left, Sir Juan gave me a high five, said congratulations, and thank you for great service (queue the tears) and Ms. Bianca pointed to me directly and said “See you in Manila! Send me your CV, you have my contact details” IN FRONT OF THE HOTEL STAFF (queue in more tears - all tears were shed internally of course). It was at that moment I knew everything had paid off and it was all worth the extra effort.

Lemme shake you up with some looooooove (I mean cocktails) because IT’S THE WEEK OF LOVE

So quite a few things happened this week... First was the arrival of Sir Freddie Elizalde, one of the owners and the SVIP’s of the hotel. BOY WAS HANDLING HIS TABLE FUN like I wanna cry because I’m too afraid to get fired fun HA. He was mostly serious and kind of intimidating to say the least, but he was pretty nice and said I was doing a good job so far in front of his friends and the hotel’s GM so YAY ME!!!!!!

Second, was the busiest day in the hospitality industry - VALENTINES DAY.

To say that this day never fails to make my feet want to cry and maybe watch romcoms in the evening until I fall asleep is an understatement. When guests suddenly arrive 2 hours before closing time, you betcha that they would leave 20 minutes before we actually close. The sudden burst of guests was good (for the restaurant), but slightly overwhelming for the staff (because HELLO 100+ GUESTS TO CRAM WITHIN THE LAST HOUR AND A HALF BEFORE LAST CALL HOW ARE YA). Although I did go back to my first love: the bar.

It felt really good being back behind the bar and making cocktails. I got to make a few custom ones (who knows, I might share the recipe maybe, we’ll see) and I got a great tip. I was also happy I got to just practice again and go back to doing what I loved the most, it made me feel really good. Alsoooooo GUESS WHO GOT FEATURED ON TRIP ADVISOR. YA GIRL DID. HOORAH. YIPEE. WEEEEEEEEEEEW. For every feature, we get this token called the “Circle of Happiness” which means I get one free breakfast at the breakfast buffet here at the hotel.

They say that “the customer is always right”, but what they don’t say is that the customer can get on the nerves of the staff - WHICH MEANS IT’S STORY TIME. BUCKLE UP FOLKS.

(this has a happy ending don’t worry)

So this week was the first time I was scheduled to do the evening/closing shift and every night we have an arranged performance by fire dancers in front of the hotel. This is done to attract more guests and encourage them to check out the hotel and dine in the restaurant - and it generally works.

This week however, we were challenged with a long table of walk-ins who were being quite fussy due to the fact that they had relations with a foreigner who was sitting at the their table.

Normally this is a manageable situation that can’t be avoided every once in a while, but then they start ordering things from the neighbouring restaurant which wasn’t half that good, which was followed by the constant ordering-voiding-ordering-voiding of dishes from our restaurant (which irl was voided only 5 minutes after ordering - plus they would order only after seeing their seat mate’s dish come out), to top it all of WE DIDN’T EVEN CHARGE THEM CORKAGE (order 5 food items and above, we don’t charge corkage) AND THEY GAVE 12 SENIOR CITIZEN CARDS after ordering 6 beers, 6 food items, and 3 coffees.

Soooooooooooo happy when they finally billed out and left.

As Chef Onie would say, “Anyways, MOVING FORWARD”

At the end of this week, the ~~~*bae*~~~ visited as a well deserved vacation from her work and after 8 straight days of working for me so YAY TWO DAYS OFF. I got to recharge and calm down, so did she. I have never felt like such a tourist ever since I landed and I LOVED IT.

So you know that catchy song that goes “I’m taken back to 2002″? This feels just like that, but worse (tbh blame social media).

In 2002, a type of coronavirus epidemic that went by the name of SARS -Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome- with quite a death toll (almost a literal ton of people, 774 if you’d like to be exact). Now it’s the year 2020, and a new coronavirus epidemic has risen, the Novel Coronavirus (nCov for short).

The news about nCov has gone viral in two ways:

Health Wise - This is viral via droplets and liquid contact, not airborne. Always wash your hands and practice basic hygiene.

News Wise - Official news outlets have social media accounts to adapt to the wants and needs of today’s techno-savvy, social-media-addicted generation.

See, if there’s one thing I’ve learned throughout the x amount of years I’ve been doing research papers, it’s that you must only obtain information from reliable sources. The mass hysteria that has gone on throughout social media has affected everyone, including the hotel’s occupancy.

Of course, being a hotel, we must all be extremely sanitary and must exercise precautionary measures to avoid any breakouts from developing within the property (although in general we must also practice basic hygiene and sanitation yes you the person who’s probably too lazy to get out of bed to shower). Employees are now required to wear face masks hallelujah and must always wash hands before, during, and after meal preparation and handling.

Being that it’s the Lunar New Year, it’s normally the time when millions of citizens from China travel and spend their vacation somewhere. At the beginning of January the hotel was a full house until the end of the month, but due to the recent health issues (and an entire country being on lockdown, planes being told to turn around, citizens being sent back, as well as several other nations issuing travel bans from China), there was a MASSIVE drop in the occupancy rate of the hotel -- sadly more than 50%-.

In other news, I’M SLOWLY LEARNING HOW TO SURVIVE WEW. SO YAY FOR THE SMALL VICTORIES THAT GET ME THROUGH MY PARANOIA WHICH MEANS IT’S TIME FOR AN indoor CELEBRATION WITH MY FIRST HOME COOKED MEAL, Adobo.

So here we are, Internship - Round 2.

TRUTH - it’s been a while since I was last on internship (hi there, 2 year gap, how are ya? HAHA); this meant there had to be some adjusting to do. Although within those two years, I’ve been working events - bar takeovers and guest shifts - it’s been a while. Being back on the floor doing service felt good, granted a bit tiring but it wasn’t as bad as I thought it was going to be.

Give or take, it took 2 days or so before understanding the flow of the restaurant. I think the main struggle was after work and finding out there was barely any cookware and cutlery in the common kitchen - so it’s safe to say my first meal (corned beef and rice) was a struggle to make and to eat. Safe to say, it was a struggle but YAY I SURVIVED.

P.s. I’m still waiting for the skirt of my uniform HAHAHAHAHAAA.

P.p.s. I ~can’t~ feel my toes.