"Right, guys," Ronda said as she lead Daniel and Brie out of the kitchen. "The next thing I want you to do is get all of your housekeeping staff down here. We need to have a little chat about acceptable standards of cleanliness and room presentation."
"Okay," Daniel agreed, seeming like he was warming to the idea of taking charge a little more now. "I'll head upstairs and fetch the girls who are cleaning right now. Brie, you can go get Nikki."
"Nikki also works on housekeeping?" Ronda asked, raising an eyebrow in suspicion.
"Yes," Brie said. "Nikki helps out with housekeeping first thing in the morning, then works the reception desk during the day. Believe it or not, she puts the hours in."
Ronda nodded her acknowledgement as they walked out of the restaurant. While the hotel owners headed off to fetch their employees, she had a few moments to give a piece to the camera that was following her around as usual. "This should be interesting," she began. "What Brie says about Nikki putting the hours in is fair enough, but putting hours in and actually making an effort with your work are two completely different things. I'm having a hard time right now picturing Nikki down on her hands and knees scrubbing a bathtub. Maybe that explains the state of some of the rooms? We're going to find out soon enough, when I meet the rest of the housekeeping staff. I'm genuinely not sure how people who are employed to do jobs like that could possibly prepare a room as badly as what I saw upstairs earlier. One thing's for sure; if they worked in one of my hotels and prepared a room like that, it would be the last thing they did before they lost their job. If Daniel and Brie haven't ever shown them what's required, I'll have to do it myself. Cleanliness and presentation are fundamental in any hotel."
A few minutes later, Brie had returned with Nikki and Daniel had returned with two other women, both blondes, one tall, one exceptionally short. Daniel handled the introductions, starting with the taller woman. "Ronda, this is Charlotte, and this is Alexa. Obviously you've already met Nikki. These three ladies, plus one who has her day off today, are our housekeeping team."
"Okay guys," Ronda said, getting right down to business. "I checked into my room earlier, and to be polite about it, I wasn't impressed with what I found with regard to the housekeeping."
"What room number was it?" Alexa asked, seemingly oblivious to the fact that she was interrupting.
"Two twelve," Ronda answered.
"I know I didn't do that room this morning," Charlotte said defiantly, maybe a little too defiantly for it to ring true.
"But I thought..." Alexa began, until Charlotte clamped a hand over her mouth.
"I don't think it matters who did what, do you?" Charlotte said menacingly, glaring down at the much smaller woman.
Ronda flashed a questioning glance at the camera for a second, then said, "Can you let her go, please? There's no call for that kind of aggressive attitude."
"Sorry," Charlotte muttered, removing her hand from Alexa's mouth but still glaring at her fiercely. "I don't like people who try and drop me in the shit."
"Typical Charlotte," Nikki said airily as she pretended to study her nail paint on one hand.
"And what's that supposed to mean?" Charlotte demanded, taking a threatening step towards Nikki.
"It means you're always trying to bully people," Brie said, with newfound authority. "We already sent Stephanie home for having that kind of attitude to Bayley. Unless you want the same thing to happen to you, calm yourself down."
Ronda nodded in agreement as Brie spoke, then looked at Charlotte. "Did you prepare my room today, Charlotte?"
"Actually, I did," Nikki admitted sullenly. "What are you going to do, yell at me again?"
"No," Ronda said, taking the question in her stride. "What we're going to is, go up to my room and see what you did wrong, because the state of my room is appalling. Judging by the reviews I've seen for Brianna's online, the rest of them won't be much better. Come on, all of you, let's go."
Ronda lead the group towards the elevator, and the stairs which were right next to it. "We'd better take the stairs," she decided. "I think that elevator might kill us all."
At the back of the group, Charlotte complained, "The only reason my rooms are ever done badly is because I have to do half of Nikki's share."
"That's not true," Nikki protested as they started climbing the stairs.
"Yes it is!" Charlotte insisted. "You stand there playing with your phone and worrying about how you look for longer than it takes me or Alexa to clean a room."
"That is true, honestly," Alexa said.
"No it's not!" Nikki said melodramatically.
"Then prove it," Charlotte snapped. "Why don't we all clean a room at once and see who does the best?"
"It's not a competition," Nikki complained.
"Enough!" Ronda said as they walked out of the stairwell onto the second floor, cringing at the barrage of childishness coming at her from all angles. "Charlotte, that's an excellent idea you just had. First, we're going to look around my room so I can point out the mistakes that have been made, then you're each going to clean a room from scratch to the best of your abilities. To give you fair warning; we've just done a similar test downstairs in the kitchen and Daniel ended up firing Kane for his inability to cook. If there are staff here who aren't any good enough at their jobs, they will be shown the door."
"That's right," Daniel said. "This whole process is about saving our business and turning it around. People are going to have to get on-board with that idea and do their jobs properly, or leave."
"Now we're getting somewhere," Ronda said. The group had just arrived at her room, and she swiped her key card in the lock. "Now, I'm going to show you several things in this room, any one of which would get a member of the housekeeping team in any of my hotels fired on the spot. Daniel, Brie, I expect you to hold up the new standards I'm going to set after I'm gone, so you can come in and pay attention, too."
Ronda lead everyone into the room and headed straight for the bed, which had been left with the covers pulled back. "Now, who wants to tell me what that is?" she asked, pointing at the semen stain on the sheet.
"Oh God," Daniel groaned. "Nikki, you put that on a guest's bed? What were you thinking?"
"I obviously didn't see it, did I?" Nikki replied defensively.
"Not good enough," Ronda told her sternly. "Now, the bathroom. You really did a bad job in here, too." She stopped by her case on the way to the bathroom and put her rubber gloves back on, less theatrically this time than she had during her room inspection. "Nikki, I'm going to need these to show you where you lacked attention to detail."
It was obvious to everyone that Nikki wasn't enjoying being called out on her poor work in front of her colleagues and a TV camera, but she wasn't quite brave enough to complain about it as she followed Ronda into the bathroom.
"What I noticed when I made my room inspection was this," Ronda said, crouching down next to the toilet. She ran a gloved finger under the bowl's rim and then showed it to Nikki so that she could see the dark stain that was now present on it. "I wouldn't exactly call that clean."
"You're not telling me guests are going to do that," Nikki said incredulously. "The bowl is clean. The seat is clean. Who's going to stick their fingers in there like that?"
Rolling her eyes, Ronda said, "The toilet is not clean, end of story. And neither is the bathtub." She got up and walked over to the tub, then pointed down at the matted hair she had dropped there earlier after pulling it out of the drain. "I pulled that out of the drain. And that all can't be blamed on Nikki, either. That drain hadn't been cleaned out for a very long time. Neither had this shower curtain, which should be changed between guests every single time, by the way."
"Oh, come on," Daniel groaned when Ronda pulled the curtain open to reveal the mold. "Ladies, that's disgusting. Would you stay in a hotel room in this condition?"
"No way," Alexa mumbled, ashamed.
"Charlotte?" Daniel asked.
"No, I wouldn't," she admitted.
Brie looked at her sister with an anguished look on her face. "Nikki, how could you leave a room like this? This is my business. If Brianna's fails, Daniel and I will be out on the streets. Don't you get that?"
"I'm sorry, Brie," Nikki said, looking down at her feet in shame. "I know you're right. I need to do better than this. We all do. I don't want you to go out of business."
"And better is what you're going to do," Ronda assured all three of them. "How many rooms are there left to clean right now? Other than the fact they all probably need doing again anyway, I mean."
"There are four left to do, all on the third floor," Alexa said.
Ronda looked at the camera. "Then that's where we're going next."
Three identically equipped cleaning carts stood in the hallway, outside of three rooms which had their doors propped open. Nikki, Charlotte and Alexa stood by their respective carts, ready to take instruction from Ronda. Daniel and Brie stood next to the hotel inspector, ready to see what their employees could really do.
"I want you to remember," Ronda began, addressing all three members of the housekeeping team, "that this is not a race. We're not looking for the first one to finish cleaning. Although time is important of course, what we're looking for most of all is all three rooms to be finished to an immaculate standard. When it comes to cleanliness, there is no distinction between this three star hotel and the most expensive five star hotels in the world. If your cleaning wouldn't be acceptable in a five star room, it's not acceptable here. Understood?"
"Yes," all three housekeepers chorused.
"Good," Ronda said. "You can begin. We'll be filming you as you work, and inspecting the rooms when you're done."
Alexa and Charlotte both began by collecting supplies from their carts so they could start cleaning. Meanwhile, Nikki started by carefully putting on a pair of yellow rubber gloves, followed by a second pair. Then she picked up a dust mask and put that on as well. Alexa and Charlotte were two minutes in to cleaning their rooms by this point, and Nikki hadn't even entered hers.
"What are you doing?" Ronda asked, unable to totally hide her amusement at the ridiculous sight.
"Getting ready to scrub the toilet like you told me to," Nikki said irritably. "There's no way other people's shit is going anywhere near my skin, and I don't want to smell it, either. I wish we had better masks than these things. It's hard not to end up hurling all over the floor."
Although she had to smile, Ronda looked at Daniel and Brie and shook her head as Nikki finally entered the room and got to work. "I really don't think your sister is in the right job in housekeeping, Brie."
"I think you might be right," Brie admitted reluctantly. "Maybe I should cut her hours back a little and just have her work reception. I do have another housekeeper, who's on her day off today. Thea's a hard worker. I doubt you'd find a problem with her rooms. I can give her more shifts."
"Let's give her a chance before we decide anything," Daniel said, wanting to be fair to Nikki.
Just over twenty minutes later, both Charlotte and Alexa were finished with their rooms. Nikki, on the other hand, was barely halfway through hers, having just finished in the bathroom.
"Nowhere near quick enough," Ronda opined quietly to the hotel's owners so that Charlotte and Alexa couldn't hear. "Yes, there are standards to meet, but time is also an important consideration, like I said before. Guys, you're going to have to make a decision on Nikki."
"I'll handle it," Brie promised. Then, louder, she asked, "Should we check out the other two rooms?"
"Yeah," Ronda said. "Charlotte, why don't we start with you?" She lead Daniel and Brie to the room Charlotte had worked on, picking up a spare pair of gloves on the way past the cart and handing them to Brie. "Here. I've had my hands in a toilet enough times for one day. You can do the detailed inspections."
Brie pulled the gloves on and made her way into the bathroom, followed by the camerawoman, who wanted to document the results of Charlotte's efforts. Ronda, Daniel and Charlotte hovered near the doorway for the verdict.
"On first glance, this looks good," the hotel inspector said, looking around the room. The sink, bathtub and faucets were all gleaming, such was the quality of the finish Charlotte had produced.
Brie crouched down and performed the finger test under the rim of the toilet down. Her gloved finger came away without a mark on it. "Looks good," she announced, showing the result to camera.
"Check the tub," Ronda ordered. "I saw you change the shower curtain, Charlotte, but let's see if you did a good job with the faucets and the drain."
Climbing into the tub, Brie smiled when she found that there was no hair in the drain. Then she rubbed a finger around the end of the faucet. It came away slightly dirty, to Charlotte's obvious disappointment.
"A big improvement, but not perfect," Ronda adjudicated. "Now let's go check out the rest of the room."
They walked around the room, inspecting the finishing touches Charlotte had made. Even the top of the wardrobe had been cleaned. Ronda made a couple of suggestions for minor improvements, but she proclaimed herself happy overall. They moved on to the room Alexa had cleaned, again finding only a few minor errors.
"You know what this test has told me?" Ronda said to Daniel and Brie when they walked back into the hallway, noticing that Nikki was still working in her room.
"Yes," Daniel said. "Charlotte and Alexa can do the housekeeping well when they try, whereas Nikki isn't cut out for it at all." He turned to the two women who's rooms had already been inspected. "Ladies, like Ronda said, these are the standards you need to deliver in every room, every time. We're never going to attract repeat business if we don't put our guests in clean rooms. And without repeat business, we're never going to be profitable."
"We understand," Charlotte said, surprisingly shelving her argumentative attitude.
"I guess I'll have to speak to Nikki," Brie said, downcast about telling her sister her services were no longer required in housekeeping. "I'll give Thea some more shifts and I'll start looking for someone else to hire. It will mean an extra wage to pay, but it needs to be done. We've got to spend money to turn things around, right, Ronda?"
"That's right," the hotel inspector said. "We're also going to need to talk about changing the decoration in reception and the restaurant, but we've got a budget on the show to take care of that for you. You're also going to need to replace the sign out there on the road. The one you have is totally inadequate."
"We're happy to go along with whatever changes you suggest," Daniel assured her, looking at his wife for confirmation. Brie nodded her agreement, smiling appreciatively at Ronda.
"Good," Ronda said, with an air of finality. She turned to face the camera. "It appears we've found a relatively simple and pain-free solution to the housekeeping problems here at Brianna's. Somehow, I get the idea that getting the kitchen and restaurant running smoothly is going to be a much more difficult task. I guess we'll see tonight at dinner service."