Concierge Confidential (19 page)

Then, all of a sudden, I could feel the blood drain out of me.
What is he going to do when he gets to the heliport on the other side?
I realized.
I didn't make any arrangements for him!
Urgently I called Caesars. “I need to talk to the pit boss,” I told them.

It was kind of like calling the White House and saying that you have to talk to the president. Maybe not the president, but at least like the secretary of state. “
Sure
you do,” they said. “What is this call regarding?”

“A man with a suitcase full of cash,” I blurted out, “from Russia, is on a helicopter that I just charted for him for thousands of dollars. If you don't want him to come to Caesars, just tell me that you're not interested.”

They paused. “… Hold on.”

The pit boss got on the line, more than a little skeptical. “What's this regarding? Some man from Russia…?”

“Here's the deal,” I told him. “I'm the concierge at the InterContinental Hotel. The man's on his way. He's got—I saw it with my own eyes—a ton of cash, and he's a really good guy. You're going to love him. Somebody needs to take him by the hand from the heliport and treat him like a star, because this is a very good thing.”

I kept following up the entire night with Caesars, and I found that they really did treat him like a star. They dispatched a car for him, and the pit boss himself came with the car to welcome him to the casino. Everything was going off without a hitch. Now I got nervous again.
What if the guy is just going there to hire a hooker?
I wondered.
I've got this pit boss joined to him at the hip. It's like some really tacky buddy comedy
. I didn't
know
the guy; I was simply trusting my instincts. He had seemed no-nonsense; he wanted to go to Atlantic City, and he got what he wanted. He wasn't mean or demanding or insulting. But maybe he
was
horny—and not just horny, but tactfully horny.

The next day I followed up. God only knows how much he spent at the casino, but the helicopter waited and he came back in the wee hours of the morning. It was all done and it was all good, and everyone was happy. “
Any
time you want to come to Atlantic City,” the pit boss said to me, “just call. Your rooms are taken care of.”

When I needed concert tickets for somebody performing in Atlantic City, the pit boss was my contact—and he always came through. And I like to think that the next time someone asked me what seemed like a stupid question, I hedged a bit before giving them a sarcastic answer. I always wondered if they had a valise full of cash, sitting there just outside of view.

HOW TO WORK CASINOS

Every casino has a host. Sometimes they're called guest services, but they're never referred to as “VIP” or anything. The host is provided a list of the high rollers at the hotel. What most people don't realize is that you can establish yourself as a high roller proactively. You can literally go to a casino host and ask what their policy and parameters are for being a high roller—and they'll very candidly tell you. It's usually a minimum commitment to gamble a certain amount of money. No, you can't commit to that amount, then cash out immediately and cheat the system. They're watching, and you'd be off that list in no time.

The casino host has the power to comp dinners, to comp shows, to comp anything that's within the confines of that casino. Even if you don't want something comped, they have an allotment of tickets to distribute. When Cirque du Soleil first came out, it was the hottest thing in town. Theoretically, the host was supposed to give his tickets to the high rollers. But the high rollers are notorious for no-showing. They get taken up at a table while the show comes and goes. They know they've been invited, but they never pick up the tickets. It's a crap shoot (ha ha) but it's a good last-minute place to check for tickets to a popular event. You don't have to pretend to be a guest; you just need to offer to buy the unspoken-for tickets.

11.

The Best Seat in the House

Like many other fancy customers, the man on the phone was very businessy and matter-of-fact. “I am staying at the hotel next week,” he told me. “I need to get a car service. I would like to go to the theater at some point. I have meetings in Connecticut and New Jersey, but the location I'll be at most is 1180 6th Avenue.”

“That's five blocks away,” I told him. “You don't really need a car.”

“Well, I'm in a wheelchair.”

“Okay, that shouldn't be a problem. I'll figure this out and I'll get back to you.” He was so gruff and logistical-minded, that he sounded like he was a world champion skier who fell and now had his leg up. He was going to go to scores of fancy dinners, fold up his chair, and throw it in the trunk.

I'd never had to make accommodations for someone who was disabled. But I just went and hit the phones to call the car services. How hard could it be?

Well, it's pretty hard when you don't have any information.

“Is the wheelchair electric, or is it foldable?” the dispatcher asked me.

“Huh. I'm not sure.”

“How much does it weigh? Is he absolutely wheelchair-bound, or does he have some mobility?”

I sat there with the receiver in my hand, trying to see if there was any way to guess—or if there was any way for me to find out without calling the man back and making things awkward.

There wasn't.

I got off the phone with the dispatcher and thought about how best to approach the situation. I knew the worst thing that I could do: use the overly fake tone that guests always used with me. “Hello, little crippled man! My grandmother's in a wheelchair; we have
so
much in common.”

Instead I just took his cue. It was a nonissue to him, and therefore it would be a nonissue to me. “Everything's going to be fine,” I said to him in my most businesslike voice, when I called back. “I just have a couple of questions to ask you. First of all, can you move your legs?”

“No, I'm a paraplegic. I have no use of the lower half of my body. I would need to be lifted out of the chair, but I prefer a car that could take me in the wheelchair.”

For me, to hear “prefer” meant that I
had to
find it.

I got it. I wasn't thinking any longer of requesting a very strong driver to lift him. Now I started thinking of dignity, of Donald Trump as a paraplegic. I had this fantasy of hiring a totally shiny black van with blacked-out windows. It had a wheelchair lift and everything, and was exactly what he wanted. I really wanted to make this happen for the guy.

My fantasy was perfect except for one thing: It doesn't exist.

My research expanded to a day's worth of work. I called whomever could conceivably have a connection that could help me. I called the Disabled American Vets. I called hospitals. I called every possible provider—and I couldn't find a van that would accommodate a wheelchair.

After I exhausted every number in New York City, I started expanding my calling circle. Lo and behold, there was
one
company in New Jersey. They had a black wedding limo van—and it had a wheelchair lift. Bingo!

“We're one hundred miles outside of the city,” they told me. “We charge a dollar a mile just to get it there, as well as the hiring fee.”

The guest's handicap wasn't interfering with his financial success. I doubted it would be a problem, so I just called him.

He was fine with the expense, and wanted to plan out his restaurant- and his theater-going. “Let me put together some choices for you,” I said. “I'll do some research and call you back as soon as possible.” I got the limo secured for him all day, and was already spending a fortune. Then something clicked inside my head. I realized that if the fancy limo companies weren't as accommodating to his needs as they could have been, it was possible that the restaurants wouldn't be, either. There was no way I was going to have this man compromise his dignity.

Restaurants are to code; technically, they need to be wheelchair-accessible. But my job meant never assuming anything and always confirming everything. I called Chanterelle. “Hi,” I said. “It's Michael from the InterContinental Hotel. I have a guest staying at the hotel who is in a wheelchair. I just wanted to confirm if you have a ramp?”

“Of course we have a handicapped ramp. But we do have stairs up to the dining level.”

“You do?”

“It's only two stairs,” the hostess said.

“Only” two stairs?
Having him be lifted up two stairs was about as plausible to me as having him walk up them. “So he has to eat at the
bar
?” I sputtered.

“Gee, I'm afraid so. But we
do
serve the full dining menu in the bar area.”

That crossed them off my list. It's not like I began to pity the guest. But I realized that to be wealthy, fancy, and handicapped was kind of a contradiction. It was just obstacle after obstacle after obstacle, and in counterintuitive ways. I hit the phone for hours to be sure to secure a first-class experience for him.

At eleven o'clock one night, I was finishing my shift. The doors opened, and in came a man in a wheelchair. It was obvious who it was, but I had brainwashed myself into thinking of him as just any other guest.
I don't
know
if it's him!
I chided myself.
He's like anyone else! He's just sitting down, is all!

He wheeled up to my desk while I was on the phone. I motioned that I'd be right with him—he's like anyone else!—and he nodded in acknowledgment.

That's when Glen happened to walk past.

Glen was the general manager of the hotel. Glen was also a frat boy who grew up and happened to get a job. He was the kind of person who incessantly hung out at the hotel bar, making sure that everyone knew that he was the general manager.

Glen came in between us and squatted down in front of the guest. “Well, hi there!” he said. “Is Michael taking good care of you?” In a tiny way, I understood where Glen was coming from. His intentions were somewhat good, but he was completely not clued in to the guy's stature. It wasn't as if this were a pitiful-looking person. The man had a fancy wheelchair and was dressed impeccably. He was probably the owner of a Fortune 500 company. But Glen was talking to him like he was a kid, or someone's elderly mom.

The guest was totally dismissive of him, barely turning his head. “Yes, he is. He's fine.”

Glen did not take the cue. Glen wouldn't normally take a cue anyway, but Glen also happened to be drunk. “Are you having a good stay? We want to make sure that you're comfortable!”

I wanted to die, but even if I died that wouldn't have stopped Glen. I could only pray that he wouldn't start asking about the wheelchair. After a bit more stilted dialogue, Glen must have spotted a skirt to chase. He got up and walked away.

Over the next few days, the guest took the opportunity of being in New York by the horns. He did everything that everybody else did, and was able to afford to do it in the way that made him feel comfortable. “Loved the restaurant,” he said simply. “Great call.” He didn't gush when he left, even though he must have known how much work I put in to accommodate him. The hundred-dollar bills he tipped me said it all.

THE EXCHANGE

When you use the right tone, you're on your way to receiving good service.

The guest himself wasn't too nice to me from the beginning—but he wasn't unfriendly, either. It was very much a business-to-business kind of relationship, which is what all service effectively comes down to. Some people are often uncomfortable being served, so their impulse is to be sickeningly sweet. “Hi, how
are
you? Listen, me and my friends are using my talking-to-a-dog voice. You've got to accommodate me, right?” That might work at Applebee's. Those people are just happy to have somebody who's not yelling. But once you leave the mall, service is different. Speaking that way to someone who is serving you is the same way Glen spoke to the guest in the wheelchair. Just because you're standing and they're sitting doesn't mean they should be talked down to—or will be oblivious to it.

There's nothing wrong with being “nice.” The niceness that works is creating some sort of cool and detached acknowledgment—but not aloofness. It can be going up to a bartender and asking “So, what time does this place get busy? Around six thirty, seven?” You're making a statement and creating a conversation. If you want to pick up a girl, you don't just walk up to her and ask her out. There needs to be some sort of icebreaker.

What always worked with me and what works when I do it to other people is to go to their world. If you know a little bit about their world, you're subliminally getting the point across that you know a little bit about what they're doing. Now, it's “us” versus
them
. It's implicitly saying, “Look at all of these people waiting for a table. Aren't they ridiculous? What time am I getting in?”

If you don't know anything about their world, there's another technique you can use. People in service often have name tags, and people with name tags always hate the fact that they have to wear them. Everywhere I see that, from the bank to the airport, I immediately ask them what their last name is. It kind of breaks the wall and identifies them as a human being, not some faceless name-tag drone. I don't do it in mid-dialogue; then it sounds like I'm going to report them. And I don't bother
using
the last name, because it's needlessly formal. But asking for that last name shows that you get the situation and are on their side—and people in service bend over backward for customers who get the situation and are on their side.

At my desk there was a big concierge sign. It was one of those fancy glass rectangles, like a transparent brick with a marble stand. That's what told people that I was a concierge. What told people that I was a
good
concierge was how quickly I processed requests from guests who needed help.