I grab my notes and head to the conference room for my housekeeping meeting. Hopefully this runs smoother than the kitchen demo. At least MacLeod came around once he realized IRIS wasn’t replacing him with a robot.
This time, I’m not leaving a single thing to Craig. I’ve briefed the senior housekeeping staff myself. Still, my hands are already trembling.
I slip into the room early, hoping for a few quiet minutes to get my head straight before anyone arrives.
No such luck. Mary’s already there with three senior housekeepers, chatting away.
“Hi, love,” she says warmly. She introduces the others—Linda, who’s been here since the hotel opened, and two newer staff members whose names I immediately lose because my brain’s too busy rehearsing my opening lines.
The projector flickers on. IRIS’s interface fills the screen. My throat tightens.
Not the nervous burps. Please, not now.
It doesn’t matter that there are only four of them. Or that Mary’s nice. They’re still people watching me. Worse, I have to deliver Craig’s ridiculous corporate script.
“Today I’m going to show you some of the features of IRIS for housekeeping,” I begin, my voice coming out like I’m reading a telephone directory.
Then comes the line Craig insists we use.
“IRIS gets its name because it’s the... the eye of the hotel. Always watching, always optimizing.”
Their faces shift into polite confusion.
“I mean, it sees everything.” Oh God, that’s worse. “Not in a creepy Big Brother way. More in a helpful way.”
Linda exchanges a look with the others. Already lost them. Three minutes in.
“Right.” My voice squeaks. “Shall we just… dive in?”
I click into IRIS’s dashboard and launch into Craig’s script—synergy this, leveraging that, optimization everywhere.
One of the newer staff’s eyelids droop. She jerks herself awake, then starts losing the battle again.
Halfway through “dynamic workflow integration,” I stop.
Honestly, I might as well be saying:IRIS is going to streamline your daily activities, but this still doesn’t change the fact there are forty-seven thousand sheep on Skye and only ten thousand people, which means that if the sheep attacked, each person would have to fight off roughly five sheep.
Craig’s word-vomit might impress the suits at McLaren HQ, but it’s useless for people like Mary, who just want to get on with cleaning rooms without some girl with a laptop trying to revolutionize their perfectly functional morning.
Think, you muppet.
I’m not a TED talker. I’m a problem solver.
And Craig’s not here to police every word.
“Actually,” I say, “forget the features. Tell me about your day instead.”
Mary blinks. “Well, it’s fine, love. Can’t complain.”
“But if youhadto complain? What wastes your time every single day?”
“Of course there are things in every job we just have to get on with. It’s a big hotel, always fully booked, so you spend an awful lot of time on the phone coordinating between departments.” She smiles at Linda. “I must ring her team a hundred times a day.”
Bingo.
“So, hours lost walking around to pass messages or playing phone tag,” I say.
Mary shrugs. “That’s just part of the job, love. We need to stay in constant communication.”
