Tilly Smith-Dix
TILLY SMITH explains why things don’t go better with coke …
Before I came on board as publicist, a 5-star boutique hotel had a barter deal going with a high-end publication’s marketing director – free accommodation over 12 months in exchange for free adverts in the publication. This arrangement worked well, until a paying group booked the hotel for a special event and needed the suite occupied by the pressman, for three people.
The hotel owners asked the pressman if he would mind moving into a suite for two for a couple of days to accommodate the CEO of the paying guest group. The snugly ensconced pressman minded very much indeed. He threw such a temper tantrum that the manageress called me in tears. She suspected our pressman had more than a nodding acquaintance with the Columbian marching powder as he was VERY wired, kept sniffing a lot and had white residue around his nostrils.
I knew this pressman of old. In fact, we’d had a little disagreement before, when he abused the hospitality of another client and shouted at their chef.
The hotel owners called me and said they wanted the pressman out of their hair altogether as his behaviour was not just upsetting the staff but international guests as well.
Our “high” and mighty lad had continued his tirade at the breakfast table, shouting at the manageress for “throwing’ him out of his suite after just four days! I called the pressman and told him the hotel owners wanted him to leave.
He replied that the manageress was making a mountain out of a molehill. So I went to the hotel and spoke to two guests, who said they’d prefer this nasty ‘little’ man to leave as never before had they experienced such rudeness, especially when the staff had been so gracious and undeserving of such treatment. I called the pressman’s boss, who ordered “big-shot” to depart forthwith.
The pressman was supposed to have written a letter of apology to the owners and management but this never came. Still, he no longer works for that publication and once again my clients and I have a healthy working relationship with the magazine.
