The Friendly Hotel Employee
One stormy night many years ago, an elderly man and his wife entered the lobby of a small hotel in Philadelphia. The couple approached the front desk hoping to get some shelter for the night. “Could you possibly give us a room here?” the husband asked.
George, a hotel employee with a winning smile, looked at the couple and explained that there were three conventions in town. “All of our rooms are taken,” the hotel employee said. “But I can’t send a nice couple like you out into the rain at one o’clock in the morning. Would you perhaps be willing to sleep in my room? It’s definitely not a suite, but it will be good enough to make you folks comfortable for the night.”
The couple declined, but George pressed on. “Don’t worry about me.” So the couple agreed.
As the elderly man paid his bill the next morning, he said to George, “You are the kind of manager who should be the boss of the best hotel in the United States. Maybe someday I’ll build one for you.” The three of them had a good laugh.
Two years passed. George received a letter from the old man. He reminded him of that stormy night and enclosed a round-trip ticket to New York, asking George to pay them a visit.
In New York, the old man led him to the corner of Fifth Avenue and 34th Street, pointing to a palace of reddish stone, with turrets and watchtowers thrusting up to the sky.
“That,” said the older man, “is the hotel I have just built for you to manage.”
“You must be joking,” George said.
“I can assure you I am not,” said the older man.
His name was William Waldorf Astor, and the magnificent structure was the original Waldorf-Astoria Hotel. George C. Boldt became its first manager.
Yes, even in business, when you forget yourself to serve others, others remember you! If want you to be the best in business, consider others “better than yourself.”
Source: Kerygma Magazine
