After Evil Erik, what can be worse : Evil Eve ? | By Bert van Walbeek

Evil Erik is, finally, in deep trouble and he is now, as a temporary arrangement before his contract ends, placed in an in-active posting and not allowed in the hotel anymore.

And as a " thank you " for the patience of the owners, he is now taking legal action against them to get compensation for all the free days he never took over the last 2 years ........

But Erik's demise is not the end of this series of articles as, not only is he getting close to con another General Manager into giving him a job, which means new sequences to occur soon,

But furthermore, a female counterpart, Evil Eve, is emerging from his shadow !

You know her too :

• Her voice is oily when she talks to you and malicious when she talks about you
• Her smile is touching when she sees you and full of hate when you look away
• Her eyes are emotive when she greets you and ice cold when she turns her back
• Her ears are like radar antennas and she always whispers behind her hand

She has gossiped her way up through the ranks and is now either in charge of Personnel, Accounting, the Front Office or, even worse, is the GM's Personal Assistant.

She is penny-wise and pound-foolish and goes to any length to delay a payment, to postpone a salary increase and/or to not give you that one-extra room you need for your key account customer when the hotel is fully booked.

She is in her late thirties or early forties, tries to look like a 25 year old adolescent but thinks like a 70 year senior home citizen .......

She stands in front of you and exclaims "great idea " and a minute later deceitfully describes you as a " stupid idiot " to her colleagues.

She drives her own car to work and parks next to the owner's Mercedes, as close as possible to the entrance from the garage to the lobby, letting the guests park their cars on the floors that are not so easy to reach.

Evil Eve is a master of making phone calls behind the back of her bosses to the "higher powers " that she is devoted to, but only as long as she can profit from them.

For her money is secondary, it is power what makes her " horny " and power is like a drug, she has worked too hard at the conquests of her various bosses in the past to allow anyone to take that power away from her now.

But, as the saying goes, power is like a being a lady, if you have to tell people you are, you aren't.

Eve always remembers the use of that famous apple to secure power over mankind and her insatiable lust for " clout " is only equaled by her yearning to be recognized as having the key position, of course including control over the hotel's Master Key !

It is easy to spot her, just look where the Owner or the General Manager is and you will see her hovering around, just being busy by coincidence with actions that will impress the bosses.

Last week she was even dusting the leaves of the plants in the lobby, the week before issuing a cheque at 4 PM on Friday afternoon, so that the supplier can only bring it to the Bank on Monday and she is making another 50 cents interest, never mind the trader delivering second-grade goods because of that habit.

And next week she will make sure that after the budget meetings she gets on the direct line to the owner and betray " her " senior management over their intentions to sandbag the 2009 budget.

Evil Eve is all around us and always on the prowl for new victims, but she forgets that you can only have power over people as long as you don't take everything away from them.

But when they have robbed bosses, peers or subordinates of everything those preys have, they are no longer in power, since such "victims" will happily leave for another hotel, so much for staff retention .......

Therefore, please tell the Evil Eves in your circle of work that however much she is back-stabbing in one direction and a....-kissing in the other direction, and thus performing a perfect 69 business balance act, the bottom line will still be the same : "evil doesn't pay ".

Like Evil Erik is now, once again, discovering there is a limit what such wicked "criminals" can achieve and that threshold is called " profitability ".

The worst crime against the people Evil Eve is sucking up to, is more often than not her inability to provide long-term strategies towards that all encompassing purpose of running a hotel : making money !

Hence Eve, as you are now trying to make fools out of the people around you, please realize that wise people profit more from fools than fools from wise people .

The bottom line is simple, wise people shun the mistakes of fools, but fools do not imitate the successes of the wise.

Please remember "girl " : she who profits by a crime, commits it !

So Evil Eve, see you around and, while on your way up, say hello to Evil Erik on his way down !