The Reluctant Heiress (A Christian Romance Novel)

Chapter 14: The New Girl

Friday afternoon.

Greg got hold of the applicant referred by Telly who would replace one of the staff who resigned. He asked her to come for a brief interview with him. Since Telly was already off to New York, he used her office since he did not have his own enclosed space.

"Good afternoon, how are you?" Greg asked the new girl as he motioned for her to sit down.

"Pretty good," she replied, a bit shyly as she sat down in front of him.

"Shelly, right?" she nodded. "So Shelly, tell me something about yourself not stated here in your resume," Greg asked the new girl.

Shelly had curly dark hair, she was bespectacled with bushy eyebrows. She was 30 years old but one could mistake her for a teenager or early 20's, especially with her choice of attire that afternoon: tight dark blue jeans, white shirt under an open buttoned up olive green shirt and black chuck taylor.

"Umm, Ah was born in Georgia," she said in a soft voice and with a very distinct southern accent, not looking at him. Her hands clasped together sandwiched between her knees. "Ma mama died long time ago and so am just taking care of mah daddy. But he said I needed to work, we don't have money no more to support him. Whatever we git for his disability is not enough. So whatever yah have for me, I'll do it mister."

"Your daddy a friend of Ric, is that right?" he asked.

"I reckon," she replied. "Hadn't seen them together but mah daddy mentioned Mr. Ric to me a couple of times."

"What can you do?"

"I might could clean the rooms, or wash dishes, change bedsheets, or whatever," Shelly replied, this time looking at Greg showing her sincerity. "I don't care to do dirty jobs."

"Where do you live?"

"Over yonder by the creek just pass the big white house four blocks away from here," she replied motioning her hand towards the east direction.

"Where have you worked before?"

"Me was working at Mickey D's, and then a year at Best Western Hotel and on-and-off at a burger joint near our place."

Greg looked at her which made her uncomfortable and so she lowered down her head. So he looked at the resume instead. Wrote something. He knew he was just doing formalities but he still wanted to make sure they were at least getting a decent applicant.

"Can you start tomorrow?" he finally said after a few minutes.

"Are you serious?" she asked with her eyes wide open, not believing what she was hearing. "Of course yes!"

"You're lucky. Somebody had just resigned from housekeeping, a weekender, so you'll be working from Friday to Sunday," he explained. "You got in easily because the CEO herself requested for you. But," he paused and stared at her dark brown eyes. "You're on your own from now on. She told me no special treatment. You'll be like the rest."

"Got no problems with that sir," she humbly replied. "Am a hard worker. Appreciate it so much! Please tell Ms. Telly that am so grateful!"

"Go to Dan our HR guy, give this resume and he'll tell you the other details and the other requirements that you should give us in the process," Greg instructed her as he wrote more comments on her resume and gave it to her. "Good luck!"

Shelly walked out of the office and headed immediately to the human resource guy just a couple of cubicles away.

"E-excuse me? Ahem!" she cleared her throat, trying to get Dan's attention with his back facing her.

"Yes, how may I help you?" Dan responded as he spun around in his rotating office chair.

"Mr. Greg said to give this to you, and that I'll start tomorrow?"

"Sit down for a minute." Dan stood up, got the resume from her and read it for himself.

"Special applicant huh? Fortunate soul!" Dan finally said. Shelly could sense the sarcasm in his voice. "Well, you are right, you'll start tomorrow, but you have to give me these documents in the coming days. Got it?"

She nodded as she got the list of documents from him. "So I'll just come here at 9 in the morning?"

"Yes, and you'll join our staff formation wherein we inform everybody of what's gonna happen that day and Mrs. Robinson will do your training in housekeeping. And I'll take you to Raul right now, our operations guy. He'll be the one to introduce you to the group tomorrow morning coz I won't be here."

And so after that, she was led to Raul's corner and Dan introduced her to him. "She'll be replacing drama princess Phoebe starting tomorrow,. Hope she's not a drama princess herself!" he whispered to Raul, but loud enough for Shelly to hear.

"Hi Shelly!" Raul extended his hand and they shook hands as he continued to read her resume handed to him by Dan. Dan left them to themselves.

"Hi Sir!" Shelly responded.

"No need to Sir me, ok? Am just like you," Raul explained. "Respect in action for me is better than respect in words."

Shelly felt glad that he was not oozing with conceit. He seemed to be a nice man. She hoped that she would get along well with him, especially since he will be her boss.

"You may need to sit down as I give you some pointers for tomorrow," Raul said. They both sat down and Raul started his briefing. "Make sure you clock in here 15 before 9 so that you won't be in a rush. Wear pants that has no pockets. No cellphone while on duty. You'll be working in housekeeping and we have a wonderful woman who will teach you. But know this, housekeeping is a very important part of the image of Hotel de Lavi. Don't think you're 'just' doing housekeeping. Remember, that is what our guests are paying for when their stay in our hotel. The very experience in their very own rooms, and you play a big part of that."

Shelly was liking what she was hearing. She had always seen the work of housekeeping as something very mundane, so inconsequential and so lowly. But he was right, housekeeping can make or break the repeat experience of a guest.

"Another thing," Raul continued. "As part of our housekeeping team, we need you to be very honest. We regularly have mystery guests who will plant baits to test you, so I suggest be consistent. Our guests are like family, and we treat them with respect and honesty."

She was definitely liking this boss. He makes a lot of sense. She had worked in a hotel before but when she had her orientation, she was not given this perspective on the housekeeping job. It was always the Banquet Sales that would get the special attention.

"If you need anything, or if you have a question, let me know," he told her.

"Thank you so much, appreciate it!" Shelly replied nodding her head.

And with that, Raul ushered her outside of the corporate office and into the hotel lobby.

As Shelly walked past the lobby, she made mental notes of the other staff. The receptionist bid her goodbye, the bellboy nodded his head, while the other staff just went on their own business. She had always known Hotel de Lavi to be the top B&B in the area, and she was excited to be part of this, even if for a short period of time.

Tomorrow would be a good day, she thought to herself.

&&&&&&Author's Note&&&&&&

Hmmm, who is this new girl? Do you have ideas????

(Photo credit: allthingshair.com)