Plan Your Meetings

Another inspiring story from New Orleans: This one is from Brian Panozzo, general manager of the Omni Royal Orleans Hotel in the French Quarter.

During the Katrina crises, the hotel was evacuating guests and matching them up with staff members who had cars. Employee Norma Valdez was sent off with these instructions: “Do whatever the guest wants.”

Meanwhile, the corporate staff moved to Dallas, where Panozzo was working at the time, and the general manager started to became concerned when no one had heard from Norma in two days.

Finally, she called.

The general manager asked, “Norma, where y’at?”
She said, “I’m in West Virginia.”
“What are you doing in West Virginia?”
Norma replied, “You told me to do whatever the guest wanted, and she wanted to go to West Virginia.”