YOU ARE TRESPASSING AT 5:00 PM

Today in the office we had a meeting about next summer. I just can’t get my head around how quickly the seasons come and go the older I get. In about 6 weeks I will be receiving about 20 resumes a day and until March I actually read (albeit very quickly) all of them and make any notes on the file so when I am picking the kids I want to interview I pay attention. By the time we open I have usually received about 2000 resumes and eventually stop reading them around the middle of March.

Hiring 150+ new staff for every season has advantages and disadvantages. It is great when I manage to hire a great group the previous season and a lot want to come back (for the record 2010 was a great staff year), it means I don’t have to interview as many newbies. There are seasons however, when I have a lot of turnover and the group as a whole isn’t fantastic or some of the staff have started to take working at Cleves for granted and I have to ‘clean house’ in a bunch of departments when hiring for the next year. There isn’t a formula for hiring a great bunch, it is mostly luck. Honestly if they all get along and have a ton of fun together, I have a good year - simple.

My least favourite part of the job is firing people. I hate doing it but somebody has to when it is necessary. My Dad always told me that firing at least one person at the beginning of the season sets a good example for the rest of the summer and I guess he is right but it doesn’t make it any easier.....unless the person I just fired pulled a major boneheaded move, like one kid did in the summer of 2003.

The job description of a children’s counselor starts with the following sentence, ‘The primary responsibility of a children’s counselor is to provide a safe and fun environment for children ranging in age from newborn to teen.....’. After this following incident I actually read this sentence over to see if there was a grey area there and I should change the wording, nope.

We have made a lot of great additions to our kids’ facilities since 1996. One of the things we built was what we call ‘The Colour Cube’. It is a covered play structure that is like the ones you see in some fast food restaurants and it has been an amazing addition, especially on rainy days. Sometimes when counselors don’t have any kids come back to their group after lunch they are given odd jobs to do. One day in the summer of 2003 one of the counselors had the job of replacing the huge ‘zip ties’ on the foam posts of that structure. There was a group of kids in the ‘Colour Cube’ one afternoon playing ‘Cops and Robbers’ and this SECOND YEAR counselor thought it would be funny to tie one of these ‘zip ties’ around one of the kids’ necks. Of course the kid panicked and pulled the end, which made it tighter, started to choke him and the other counselors had to quickly cut it off with scissors. The Director of my kids program at the time (who did that job for several years and was amazing at it) hauled him into her office to give him shit. He couldn’t understand what the big deal was and thought she was over reacting. She called me, told me what happened and we decided to let him sleep on it. If he came in the next day and apologized and was remorseful we would just put him on probation, if he still didn’t see her point of view, we would let him go. Right after the counselors’ morning meeting the next day she called me and told me he was actually pissed off and thought she totally freaked out for no reason. My immediate response was ‘He’s gone, would you like me to do it or would you like to’. Her response was, ‘I’d be happy to do it’.

I sat in my office waiting for the parent call that I knew was coming (those are a subject for an entire posting at a later date). What I didn’t know was that this kid’s family had a cottage pretty close to Cleves so about an hour later the dad and the kid come into my office for ‘the talk’. The dad introduced himself to me and said that he felt his son had been unfairly treated and that he thought I should have given him a second chance. I have a rule that I have always abided by and it might not be the right way to handle things but I will never do it any other way, I NEVER go over my manager’s heads. If they make a decision and want to handle things a certain way, unless I know something else about the story that will change their minds, I will NOT go against what they say. I called the Director, told her the pair were in my office and asked her to come over. The three of us sat in my office for several minutes not saying a word, and waited for her. When she came in I had her sit behind my desk and I sat on the far side of the office and just listened. She was a pro, didn’t waiver, was confident in her decision and said that there was absolutely no way she was going to give him a second chance because he still didn’t get what he did wrong. The Dad then turns to me and tells me he wants me to go over her head and keep him, which I said I would absolutely NOT do. To say that didn’t go over well would be a major understatement!!!

Until that point I don’t think I had said a word. He was getting really pissed off and told me he was a Vice Principal and that he had to give students second chances all of the time. Me saying to him ‘OK you are a Vice Principal, if one of your teachers had done this to a student what would you have done’ PUT HIM OVER THE EDGE. (By the way it is important to note that he might have been 5’7”, I am 5’9”, thank God) We are now all standing because I want them out of there and he gets right in my face and starts screaming at me and I actually thought he was going to take a swing at me, he was that pissed off (for the record I wanted him to, I could have taken him!!). I stepped back, reached for the door and said ‘This meeting is over’ and I followed that with ‘and you have until 5:00 pm to have your kid off the property’. RAGE! He started to leave my office and screams the whole way down the hall ‘YOUR FAMILY SUCKS AND YOU DON’T GIVE A SHIT ABOUT YOUR STAFF.....’. I obviously wasn’t going to dignify that with a response. The Director and I went back into my office, she sat back behind my desk, and I sat across the room from her. There was silence for at least 2 minutes until I said ‘I don’t know about you but I thought that went VERY well!!!’ HYSTERICAL LAUGHTER, meeting adjourned.

THE LAST TANGO IN PARIS

In the last several years I have had a lot of people tell me I should write a book because let’s face it having spent my entire life working in this business I have seen some great and horrific things and have met a lot of interesting characters. I decided to start writing a blog to help me recall some of the stories that are worthy of telling. The first thing I did before I actually started writing wasto make a list of topics I thought people would be interested in hearing about or that I thought were hilarious. Never in all that time did I ever think I would feel compelled to write about something or somebody that doesn't even have a Cleves connection.

Let’s get one thing straight, I think Paris Hilton is a total skank / ditch pig and a spoiled little bitch. I know I am not alone in my thoughts on this. I still cannot understand why this person is famous. She can’t act (unless she is in a sex tape), she can’t sing (without auto tune) and she is as dumb as a bag of hammers. I am certain if her head were held under water bubbles would rise to the surface. Please don’t misunderstand me, I am absolutely not comparing the Hiltons to the Cornells at all. We owned 1 hotel in the smallest town in the world and they own several in the most glamorous places around the globe. It has however got me thinking as to why she is such a disaster and for me it boils down to her childhood and parents. Obviously I can’t say that without discussing my own childhood or parents, both of which were amazing.

The differences are blatantly obvious. She grew up in Beverly Hills being waited on hand and foot every moment of her life. I grew up in Minett and was waited on at the family dinner table in the Dining Room in the summer to which I have already told you wasn’t exactly enjoyable for me. Getting dressed up every night just about killed me. She likely spent her childhood being raised by nannies, rarely saw her parents and spent her days lying by the family pool having some poor servant wait on her hand and foot or shopping on Rodeo Drive. After the age of 9 I spent my days running around the resort spending every minute with PS skateboarding, swimming in the lake, riding my bike and after the age of 11, working. At 11 I rented boats half a day, 6 days a week. It wasn’t exactly difficult and I spent most of my time swimming in the lake, but it was a job. After that I did everything from nursery, front desk, reservations and bar. Along the way I have done my share of housekeeping and dishwashing. Let’s not forget the black out of 2003 when I was in the kitchen for 6 straight meals hand washing cutlery for 500 people. The second the power came back on I walked into Dad’s office and had a serious discussion about generators and how badly we needed one to run the kitchen. I doubt Paris had a job until she made that sex tape.

A lot of the blame for what an ass she is has to be put on her parents. I can’t imagine she had a curfew as a teenager and until I was about 17 I distinctly remember looking at my watch every 30 seconds willing the second hand to slow down as 11:00 pm approached. I had the exact time it took me to run from the club up to the house, down to the second. My dad would be sitting in the front living room window waiting for me, having a smoke (Cameo menthol - yuk) looking at his own watch as I flew in the door every night at 10:59:59. I knew if I was late I would be grounded which would mean I wouldn’t be allowed to go to the club at all for a period of time. Let’s face it Cleves isn’t exactly a place where you want your kid wandering in and out of the staff house in their early teens at night which makes me think that Paris spent her teenage years living any way she pleased with absolutely no rules or even the pressure to work. I also highly doubt that unlike me, she got excited when she and her friends ran up to the phone booth to score loose change, crawled under the pop machine on the dock where we made a mini fortune, or got to roam around the woods beside the golf course looking for golf balls, so excited to yell ‘FOUND ONE’ every time one appeared!!!

Does Paris live a glamorous life? Absolutely. Would I trade places with her? ABSOLUTELY NOT!! I had just as much fun at Cleves growing up. Believe me I cranked it up A LOT and there are lots of stories that will always remain in the vault but I think my parents did a brilliant job of finding a way to raise 3 kids in an environment like that who never got into any MAJOR trouble. Paris used the ‘the cocaine found in my purse wasn’t mine’ defense not long ago...really? I had to fire a kid this spring for drinking underage in the Club and she tried to use the ‘I didn’t actually buy myself the drink I was enjoying, somebody gave it to me’ defense. What I should have said to her was ‘and I am sure they water boarded you with it and that’s how you ended up having to drink it!’

My advice to Paris is simple; get a grip, get a real job, and put your big girl pants on - scratch that - put some underwear on. Didn’t your mother give you the time honored advice ‘don’t leave the house without clean underwear on or without $20.00 in your pocket?’ Your way is obviously not working and you are making the rest of the ‘Hotel Brats’ look bad!!

THE 10 WEEK BREAKDOWN

Eating in the Dining Room with the family has changed a lot over the last 30 years. When I was a kid we ate in there every single night as a family. That was back in the day when men were required to wear jackets so that meant we all had to dress up seven days a week. For a kid who windsurfed, swam and skateboarded around the resort all day long that was a pretty bitter pill to swallow! These days we might eat dinner in the dining room twice a week, but in the last couple of years even that has been a stretch. Long gone are the days where the men are required to wear jackets. The last time we had dinner in there on Labour Day weekend a father and son came in to eat dinner wearing baseball hats and they wore them through the entire meal.

One thing that hasn’t changed in the last 15 summers is the ritual of my Mom and I eating breakfast in the dining room about 4 days a week. We don’t eat in there on my day off, on Sundays (because she is at church getting a good word in for all of us) or on her ‘hair day’ - we cannot mess with ‘hair day’, after all her hair could be considered a ‘National Treasure’ it is that good!! Mom actually eats breakfast with Dad before she comes down and just has a coffee with me and I go into the kitchen and grab something quick. We aren’t there for more than 20 minutes but it gives both of us a chance to see some of the long time guests. Not a meal goes by when a guest doesn’t stop by the table to say hi on their way in or out and it is usually one of the great parts about eating in there. There are however some guests who come over and just stand there for ages. A couple of years ago we actually ate our entire dinner, salad, entree and dessert while the same couple stood beside Dad and talked. I couldn’t even look at Mom across the table because every time I did she crossed her eyes and stuck out her tongue at me - hilarious.

After eating breakfast with Mom four days a week for a few summers I started to notice a distinct pattern to her behaviour and enjoyment of our brief time together. When she and I go in for breakfast we always sit in the same seats. She sits in the chair closest to the kitchen facing the Dining Room door and I sit in the chair across from her facing the dining room. As I have mentioned before we are always ready for the spring conference season to end and for family season to begin, but after you read this you will understand why I have also said that we are also always ready for family season to end.

On the first Monday of family season we sit down at the table and immediately some cute 4 year old girl will come running in to get to her table and Mom will say something like ‘Ohhhhhh look at this little girl with the little pigtails coming in here, she is so pretty and look at her run by with those adorable running shoes on....’. At about week 5 some equally adorable little boy will come flying through the lobby and Mom will say something like, ‘This little boy about to run in here is really cute but jeeeeeezz I wish the managers would stop him from running through here...sigh......’ Week nine hits and the first kid that runs down the aisle gets ‘the eyebrow’ (those of you who have seen it and know what I am talking about are shaking right now - it still scares the crap out of me at 41!!!’ and she puts her fists up in front of her face and shakes them ever so slightly and she whispers ‘one of these days I am going to stick my foot out as they run by’.

The Monday of week 10 a few years ago Mom came into my office to get me and on my way by Sharon’s desk I said ‘this is it, this is the morning, Mom is going to FREAK OUT at the first kid that flies by our table, it is going to be AMAZING’. Mom and I headed over to the dining room and took our usual seats. I hear it before I see it.... coming through the lobby is some cute little kid super excited about his first full day at Clevelands House, looking forward to starting camp for the day and just as he hits warp speed beside our table Mom screams at the top of her lungs......‘SSTTTTTOOOOOPPP RUUUNNNNIIINNNNGGG!!!!! Of course the kid bursts into tears immediately and the parents rush up to little Johnny to find out what happened. Mom calmly explains that she told him to stop running because little Johnny is going to be trampled by a server carrying 12 entrees and hot coffee and that probably wouldn’t be a good thing. Now really, what sane person would look at a woman with hair that white and that fabulous and yell back!!!

CHANGE BAD - TRADITION GOOD!!!

Tradition has always been a pretty huge part of the Cleves experience both from a Guest’s perspective and from the Staff’s. Some have been around for as long as I can remember and some only last a few years until we think we have found a better way of doing something. That new way often ends up failing in spectacular fashion and we just go back to what people are used to. In recent years we have tried some new things that absolutely bombed. Hardcore Cleves Guests apparently don’t like major change!

Up until the time I was about 18 one of the best and most popular traditions was the Wednesday night Masquerade Parties that were held in the Club every week during family season. The Dining Room Staff kicked off the fun every Wednesday dinner by dressing up and serving in their costumes. After dinner, Rockin’ Roy Kitchen the greatest 70 year old, Herb Tarleck plaid suit wearing DJ, would spin his records down in the club and all of the staff and guests would go down for the night. It was so much fun. The Social Directors would then offer prizes to the best costumes in various categories like Best Man’s Costume, Best Woman’s Costume and Best Group. The coveted prize was a box of ‘Black Magic’ chocolates, I kid you not!

From as far back as I can remember there was one family who came to Cleves for 2 weeks at the end of July every summer. The most hard core supporters of the Masquerade in the family were the Grandparents and they had to be about 60-65 when this all started. To say that they lived for the Masquerade Nights is a major understatement. I really think they planned most of their vacation around it and arrived with supplies, costumes.... and lots of rum. They were really good to my friends and I as kids and always included us in the planning and made sure we were part of the entire process.

Some of the ideas they came out with were pretty elaborate. One year we went as aliens and painted our faces silver with some paint they pulled out of a suitcase. When I think back on that now I am sure that if I did have kids of my own they might have been be born with 2 heads because of what was lurking in that paint! One year they decided to dress up like the Flintstones where the Grandpa ran around the club wearing absolutely nothing but a giant diaper because he was Bam Bam and his wife proudly followed right behind him dressed like Dino wearing a skin tight black full body suit with a huge milkshake cup over her nose held on with the leg of a nylon stocking, one must never forget that they were in their late 60’s at least!! Watching her do the ‘Bunny Hop’ dressed like Dino was pretty great!. You gotta love the enthusiasm and the fact that they really didn’t care about what asses they looked like...it was all about that box of ‘Black Magic’ chocolates. Down in the Club on the other nights of the week all of the entertainment was held in the big room of the Club and those two would dance every night away. He had the best taste in clothing and would show up about twice a week wearing a hot pink, cream and black zebra print blazer. Excellent. Sadly in the late 80’s Masquerade nights lost their popularity and nobody dressed up any more so we had to cancel them.

To say that these 2 grandparents partied would be a huge understatement. They showed up for their two weeks with the same stuff every year and one of my most vivid memories would be when they hauled out the massive bottles of booze and the little silver metal cups they used to drink it from. They would go down to the club with a mickey stuffed in her purse and crank it up every single night and quite quickly you would notice them go from dancing to swaying to the music. There were many nights when the two of them, still wearing their amazing clothes from the dance would show up in the Staffhouse to play caps with the staff after spending all night down at the club pounding back the booze and waltzing / staggering around the dance floor. After weaving their way up to the staff house from the club he’d sit on the floor of the hall wearing that zebra print hot pink jacket and she’d be in a dress sitting spread eagle on the floor with a beer bottle between her legs. I am sorry but it just doesn’t get any funnier. They were a huge part of my Cleves childhood memories and I was very sad when they passed away. Every time I see somebody sitting at table 19 in the dining room I am a little sad because it isn't them :)

TIMOTHY MICHAEL ROSE

The summer of 2002 was horrific. Business was great and we were 95% - 100% full every night but I had major problems with the staff that year. There was so much damage done to the staff house that summer I think I stopped keeping track at one point. Every single morning I got out of bed and actually dreaded going into the office, it was that bad. Thankfully I haven’t had a summer like that since.

Friday, August 9th, 2002 is a day that forever changed me and everybody that worked at Cleves that year. I was on my way home at about 5:30 pm and I ran into the Corner Store to grab something. It was a beautiful day, warm and sunny without a cloud in the sky. As I walked up to the register to pay for my stuff I saw the 2 trucks from the Minett Fire Department go screaming through the stop sign and head towards Port Carling. I got in my car to head home not knowing that in about 15 seconds my life would be changed forever. When I came around the corner by the ‘Welcome to Minett’ sign, I saw what I can only describe as something that one usually only sees in the movies. There were 2 fire trucks, 3 ambulances, 3 OPP cars and every member of the Minett Volunteer Fire Department about 200 feet in front of me. I got out of my car and walked closer to find out what was going on when I saw 3 of my staff standing on the side of the road. I asked what happened and all I heard was ‘Tim’s really bad.....’. I distinctly remember not hearing another word and I took off running full speed towards the accident and down into the ditch.

Tim Rose a Dining Room Server that summer was riding in a Jeep on a beautiful day heading home to see his family in Waterloo for the weekend. He was with his girlfriend and best friend. When they left Cleves his seatbelt was stuck and he told them to leave and he would get it untangled. Less than 2 minutes later another car coming towards them was driving on their side of the road, the Jeep had to swerve to miss it and they ended up going off the road and down a steep and deep ditch. Tim was thrown from the Jeep. I knew every police officer, fireman and paramedic there that day and they asked for my help to try and get the 2 girls calmed down because they were both very close to going into shock. It is an absolute miracle that neither girl was injured in any way.

When I climbed out of the ditch I was met by one of the OPP officers. We didn’t say it out loud but we both knew that Tim hadn’t survived. The girls obviously didn’t know that and neither did any of the other staff who were there. It was very important that his death not be made known until his family had been notified. He asked me what I needed as he helped me out of the ditch and all I could say was ‘grief counselors at the hotel as soon as possible’. I did my best to try and calm the girls down and they begged me to ride in the ambulance with them but there wasn’t room so I promised to follow close behind.

The next 2 hours were maybe the longest of my life. The girls had been admitted for observation and I was going from room to room to try and comfort them. A physician who was staying at Cleves helped with Tim at the scene and went in the ambulance with him to do what he could. He and I spent our time in the ER just standing with each other, with our heads down holding each other’s hands most of the time. The girls asked me every 10 minutes to go and see how Tim was and to get some sort of update on his condition. Each time I left them I just walked around the corner and did my best just to keep it together. After a few minutes I would come back and tell them they were still working on him. Eventually the ER doctor called me out into the hall and told me they had notified Tim’s parents and that I could now tell the girls he didn’t survive the accident. I distinctly remember telling him as the attending physician it was his job to tell them that. I knew those two amazing girls would resent me for their entire lives if I told them the worst thing they would likely ever hear. Tim’s girlfriend’s parents arrived about 30 seconds later. I went outside, where about 20 Cleves staff had gathered in the parking lot and the doctor took the girls and the parents into the conference room and told them. If I live to be 100 I will never forget hearing the girl’s reaction to the devastating news.

When I got back to Cleves I allowed myself to come totally unglued for a while and collapsed into my Mom’s arms in my office. I remember thinking over and over on the way home from the hospital that there was just too much responsibility involved with dealing with a bunch of kids every summer and for a brief moment decided it was a responsibility that I was unwilling to accept anymore. With the help of a friend, I wrote a letter that was placed on every dining room table at breakfast the next day because our Guests needed to know why every single member of the staff would be hysterical. I had a few Guests come into the office the next day and tell me they would do anything we needed them to do from washing dishes to bar tending, to help us get through it all. We had about 500 guests in the hotel that week and it broke my heart to tell the staff they couldn’t go to the funeral. I had already decided we would have our own Memorial Service for Tim the following Wednesday that his family would attend, which made them feel better about missing his funeral.

The next couple days of my life were totally dedicated to the staff and their emotional needs. They were obviously away from their families and really only had each other to lean on during that horrific time. If you have worked at Cleves before I am sure you can try and imagine what it would have been like if that had happened when you worked here, but believe me, you can’t and there aren’t words to tell you how heart wrenching it was. The morning after he died I went into the dining room at 7:15. I knew I couldn’t help but thought if everybody knew I was just as upset as they were, they might be able to limp through the next few days because we were all trying to cope together. The hardest thing I have ever done in my life was go over to the morning meeting for the children’s counselors that day. I lead everybody out of the Sagamo Centre and we all went and sat outside the colour cube on the ground. I asked the Guests to give us a little bit of privacy while I talked to them, tried to comfort them as best I could and told them about our plans for the Memorial service.

With the help of the Minister from our church up here the Memorial was planned. I invited the volunteer fire department to come to the ceremony and hand yellow roses to everybody after the service. Tim’s entire family came up for it and I remember dreading meeting them. When I introduced myself to his parents they both threw their arms around me and told me how much Tim loved working at Cleves and that they were so glad his last days were spent there surrounded by his friends. His parents still come up twice a year to visit the site and come to the office every time they are here to see me. They are incredible people who will always have a special place in my heart.

After the Memorial service ended, I was on the sundeck talking to Tim’s family and the parents of the girls that were with him in the accident. I could hear a huge commotion off to one side but wasn’t really paying attention until I looked over the side of the sundeck railing and saw at least 50 people swimming. Everybody had jumped off the dock in their clothes. The commotion I heard was them chanting my name. It took me about 30 seconds to run down those stairs, take off my shoes and cannonball off the dock in my suit... then Ted promptly jumped off the dock and did his best to land on me! If you weren’t there you won’t understand this but everybody jumping in the lake was a major turning point. It was at that exact moment that the kids realized life would go on and they were allowed to still have fun for the rest of the summer even if it was with a heavy heart.

The whole event had a very profound effect on everybody who was at Cleves that summer. It forced all of us to bond in a way that quite frankly I never want to experience again. I saw the best in some people, like the Guests who volunteered to help in any way possible, and the Doctor who helped at the scene and ended up at the hospital with me, all of whom ended up becoming great friends of mine. It also brought out the worst in some in people, like the Guest who came into the office to freak out because we cut the kids program short so everybody could attend the memorial (don’t worry, my Dad handled her....). I do have to thank RB for coming with me and being at my side that entire day and night at the hospital. I leaned on you a lot that night but didn't want to put words in your mouth about how you felt during those awful hours we shared. I will always value the support you gave me that day and in the days to follow as I know you had your own team to lead while grieving yourself. As always you did it with class and stoic grace.

Today marks the 8 year anniversary of Tim’s death and like every other year I will go and sit with my Mom on the bench at the Memorial Garden we made in his honour. I will remember the handsome young man I hired, with the amazing smile and great personality who’s brief time at Cleves made such a huge impression on so many people. We were all so much better for knowing him even if it was for such a brief time.

GENERATION 'WHY'

Having spent 41 summers at Cleves I have seen 3 different generations of employees come and go. The first one being the ‘Baby Boomer Generation’, the Second one, my generation ‘Generation X’ and the one I have worked the most with, this generation ‘Generation Y’. There are so many differences between the 3. The ‘Baby Boomers’ were just happy to have a job, the ‘Generation Xers’ were happy to have a job that came with the the chance to party and most of the ‘Generation Yers’ have a job that interferes with the party. As I have said before back when I was 19-22 I went out 6 nights a week, maybe got 8 hours of sleep a night twice a week. We all partied hard and got up, went to work and never complained. Most of us were scared shitless of the management team and the thought of being hauled into one of the Manager’s offices was quite frankly horrifying!

I started working as the Director of HR in 1996 and quickly after, once the shift from Gen X to Gen Y occurred, there was a definite change in the staff’s behaviour. I would have to say that the most difficult years for me would be 1997 - 2003, with 2002 being the worst by a long shot. That summer the doors in the staff house were being broken and kicked in every day, several kids were late for work almost every shift and there was a definite rebellion against any sort of authority with many staff constantly asking why they had to do something. I have decided that the internet is a major cause of this generation being so different (how ironic is it that I am posting this on the very same internet) and has turned a lot of them into the instant gratification generation. Before I go on I have to say that a lot of the kids in the last 10 years have been great, but the attitude of a few of them is that they start work and can’t understand why they aren’t the manager of their department one week later. I still smile when I think of the day about 10 years ago when we were just opening and I asked somebody to vacuum one of the areas of the dining room. The obviously slightly spoiled girl turned to me and said ‘Sorry Sandy you will have to show me how to use a vacuum, I have never had to do that before’. WOW we interviewed well that year!!

Some of the kids in this generation ‘have a very large chip on their shoulder, that’s very unattractive’ (kudos to those of you who get that movie reference), questioning authority all of the time and could care less when they are late for work. I am sure some of it stems from the ‘get a trophy for showing up to a sporting event’ that is the norm for kids now - what happened to getting a trophy for winning!! It has just made so many of these kids feel that they should be given raises and praise for just showing up to work when they are supposed to. Over the last couple of years I have actually noticed the behaviour and attitudes getting better and the kids have some respect for authority again but that just happened fairly recently.

So many of the doors in the staff house were being kicked in every year that I actually had to write a policy that if somebody kicked in a door they had to pay the damages and labour to fix it (I think I charged them $150.00 and they lost their entire $50.00 room deposit), if they did it again they had to find accommodation somewhere else. One night one of the girls who worked in the kitchen got totally plastered, kicked a huge hole in her door and then told the Night Manager and Security Guard to fuck off. She was actually painfully shy when she was sober, or so I thought...I called her into my office and told her I was firing her, not for kicking in her door but for her complete lack of respect for the Night Managing team.

About three weeks later I came back into my office after having lunch with my friends in the dining room to this exact voicemail, (It was way too good not to memorize) ‘Ya hi Sandy, this is Laura, you know the one you fired. I was at Cleves today and saw that somebody had kicked another hole in the door to my room. Did you fire them too you AAAAASSSSSHHHHOOOOOOLLLLLEEEE’ I am sure most Directors of HR would be horrified by that, but I can honestly say it is still one of the funniest things I have ever heard. Just imagine how proud her parents would be to know she called me and left that voicemail. I have to say the joke was actually on her, I saved that voicemail for months and had a lot of my friends call in and listen to it. She just about crapped her pants the next summer when she and I ended up alone in the bathroom at Bala Bay one night, I loved seeing the blood drain from her smug little smart ass face when she saw me walk in!!

FILL ME IN....

One morning a few years ago, I pulled into a parking spot in front of the office at around 7:00 am to start what I assumed would be a typical busy day at Cleves. I had no idea how atypical it was about to be. Waiting for me outside the office was our Baker. As soon as I saw the look on her face I knew something pretty bad had happened. I opened my door to ‘we had to call an ambulance. A girl was found almost naked and covered in mud in the Main Hotel Lobby - BY A GUEST’ (For the record that was not very funny that morning but is HILARIOUS now looking back). Trust me that is not the way the Director of HR at a resort wants to start her day!! I found out that her roommates had moved her to the front of the staff house to wait for the ambulance. When I got there, lying on the ground on a blanket was the most wasted human being I had ever seen and having spent my whole life at Cleves, that is saying a lot. There was talk that she had potentially been drugged by somebody and obviously finding her naked, alone and this wasted in the morning, in the Main Hotel Lobby was bizarre even for Cleves. I tried to wake her up and she head bobbed a few times at me but I couldn’t get one coherent word out of her.

Due to the bizarre 9-1-1 call that was made the OPP were also dispatched. The paramedics arrived, did their assessment and loaded her in the back of the ambulance. This poor girl had just earned the distinction of being labelled ‘the drunkest human being this paramedic had ever seen in his career’ - YIKES. He told me to follow them but that the police would come and the ambulance would pull over so they could brief him. We had just gotten on our way when the cop car came screaming from the other direction, did a U turn and we pulled over. It wasn’t surprising that I knew him. There was some panic with all of us because we didn’t have a clue what had happened to her or how she ended up where she did, in the state she was in or if anything horrific had happened to her. After a brief chat we all headed to the hospital. They put her in a room in emerge and started an IV to get some fluids other than vodka running through her veins and thought it would be a good idea for me to sit in there with her while she came to, lucky me.

At about 9:30 am she opened her eyes and saw me standing beside her bed and said, ‘Where am I?’, I said ‘Where do you think you are?’ She looked around and said ‘In a hospital’ to which I nodded. That was quickly followed by ‘What time is it?’ I replied ‘About 9:30’ - she bolted up in bed and screamed ‘I AM LATE FOR WORK!!!!’ That was immediately followed by me saying ‘Honey, that is the least of your problems right now. What happened?’ Of course she couldn’t remember. The Doctor on duty wanted to run some tests and said she wouldn’t be let out for a few hours so I decided to head back to Cleves and try and figure out what happened and how she ended up where she did, looking like she did.

I spent about 3 hours putting her night together and when I had fully solved the mystery I was relieved and quite frankly highly amused at the same time. The following is the abridged version of what happened.....

It was a Tuesday night so she hopped on the bus to Resort Night. She was underage (not a big surprise) and had excellent fake id that apparently also worked at the LCBO. She and her roommates started priming for their night out almost immediately after they had finished work at Play World that day so she was well on her way before she even got on the bus. When they got there she met up with a bunch of people that she had just graduated high school with (the same school I graduated from - so proud...) so her Cleves friends lost track of her. At the end of the night when the bus was leaving to come back to the resort her roommates tried very hard to get her on the bus but her high school friends wanted her to go back to their cottage with them. They assured everybody they would have her back in the morning in plenty of time for work.

She continued to drink and party at a cottage. At the first sign of daylight the time came to get her back to Cleves. When the boat pulled up at the dock, she fell in the lake, dragged herself up on the dock and proceeded to take her jeans off. They watched her stumble and weave halfway up the dock and then left. Looking up she obviously thought that nice looking cottage (the Main Hotel) would be a perfect spot to have a nap before work so she continued up the path. She bailed in 2 different gardens (hence the mud on the legs, I later saw the ‘body prints’ in the flowers), weaved up the stairs and curled up in front of the fireplace to have a little pre-work nappy.

Her parents were called by the hospital and they showed up a few hours later. The Dad tried to give blame me for the events of the night. He couldn’t believe his underage daughter was allowed to go to the bar. I pointed out that she was an adult and if she was old enough to work at Cleves she was going to be the one doing the babysitting for the summer, not me. Even though I am sure he didn’t appreciate my answer, the argument ended after I said that.

She didn’t come back to work at Cleves that year. It turns out that the ‘lab tests showed some irregular numbers in her liver screening...’. A few days later they came back up, packed up her stuff and moved her out. I don’t think she actually had ‘liveritis’... I think she had ‘humiliateditis’. Imagine the man who originally found her curled up in front of the fireplace going back to his wife and kids after picking up his paper and telling that story!!! That gave a whole new meaning to ‘Dirty’ Dancing.

DON'T JUDGE A BOOK....

Like most people when I was a kid I really didn’t like it when my Mom told me what to do. The sad thing is that in every single instance she was right. She and I have talked many times about specific things she told me not to do when I was a kid and I did them anyway just to prove her wrong. It always ended up backfiring in spectacular fashion. The best example I can think of is the day I ran up to the house to ask if I could go to ‘Queen’s Face’ by boat with a bunch of people when I was about 12. She said I could go with them but under no circumstance was I to jump off. Obviously that was the wrong thing to say to me. (Thanks Rand!!)

The boat pulled up to the dock at the church and I was one of the first up that rock. It was pretty high so I carefully stepped down to a lower platform and hurled myself off the ‘nose’ with reckless abandon and landed with a big splash. It was completely exhilarating! I quickly climbed up on the dock and ran up to jump again. On my step down to the ‘nose’ I lost my footing and SLID THE WHOLE WAY DOWN ON MY SIDE AND LANDED FEET FIRST ON SOME ROCKS!! I have to say I was very lucky that day because even though I did have MAJOR road rash on my thigh that was it. Now I had to think of a great reason why I got hurt because I had promised not to jump (and for the record I haven’t jumped off of that rock since) and I made up this big story about leaning against a railing that broke and I fell on a rock (not bad for a 12 year old). Even though it was a good story Mom and Dad didn’t buy it. I wasn’t grounded but I think my punishment of having to be taken to dinner in the Dining Room being pulled in a wagon because I couldn’t walk was enough. Pride lost = understatement!!

I am sure you all know I have the greatest woman in the world as a mother and I quickly learned after my teenage years when I didn’t think she was ever right, to pay attention to her advice and stories because even though I found it incredibly annoying it turned out she was never, ever wrong. I think she said the expression ‘Don’t judge a book by its cover’ many times to me growing up and this little story is why I am so grateful that I eventually went from thinking it was a ridiculous expression to actually taking her advice.

In 1986 a family from Fort Lauderdale where we have vacationed since I was 5, came to Cleves. To make a long story very short it turns out the Dad was originally from Toronto. When they got to the resort Mom and Dad insisted on dragging me up to the table to meet them because they had 2 daughters and one was my age. I had absolutely no interest in meeting what I assumed could only be a stupid, blonde ‘Buffy’ from Florida but I didn’t have a choice so up I went to table #1 kicking and screaming!!! I think all I said was ‘nice to meet you’ while I was thinking ‘get me out of here!!’ For the record she didn’t like me at first either!!

She started dating one of my best friends that worked down at the ski school (oh those ski boys….sigh) and they continued dating over the winter. The next summer she came a week before her family came to Cleves to spend time with him at his cottage. One afternoon I was walking by the ski school heading to the end of the dock and saw her sitting by herself so I swallowed my pride and sat down beside her. I decided I should make some sort of effort to get to know her if she was going to be in his life.

I can honestly say that was a life changing moment. After I sat down we started chatting and I asked how things were going. Her honesty actually surprised me because she said she couldn’t wait until her family arrived because they weren’t getting along at all. She must be okay if she was sharing all of this with me…

Since that day she has been one of my best friends and I am thankful every time we talk or see each other that she is such a huge part of my life. She has lived in Washington DC for 20 years and I have been there to visit many, many times and she and I have had some serious fun together other over the years. I love to get her fired up about American politics and I bring up certain topics just because I know it is going to infuriate her. She is now married and has 10 month old twins. Her husband is amazing. The 3 of us laugh our heads off when we are together and he loves it when I tell him the stories of her prancing around the dock in front of the ski boys in that damned bikini. Thank God for my Mom’s wisdom or else this ‘Cleves Guest’ and our amazing friendship that has lasted 25 years might not have happened!

THE BREAKFAST CLUB

Turning 40 is a pivotal moment in most people’s lives. I actually found turning 30 a lot harder. On my 30th birthday I barely acknowledged the people who called me. I am super lucky to have so many great friends that call on my birthday but that year I just wanted to crawl under the covers and wake up the next day. I can’t explain why turning 40 wasn’t a big deal. Maybe it is because I still feel 20 and not a lot has changed in my life, I am not married, don’t have any kids that I gave birth to (lots of surrogates and god kids though) and I still get to work at Cleves. Actually when I was 20 all of that was true, so I guess absolutely nothing has changed except that I am in bed at 10:30 pm and at the office by about 7:00 am, instead of going out at 10:30 pm and coming home at 7:00 am as my Mom was heading to work announcing what breakfast food there was out her car window!! I have to say those were some fun days. I have been very lucky to spend every summer of my life here and I guess having just opened has made me feel very grateful and nostalgic. Maybe Cleves is Neverland and I get to be Peter Pan!!

I am amazed how so many things that we all used to do, wear, partake in at Cleves back in the 80s just keep coming back around. I wore a pair of plaid shorts the other day to a family dinner and almost everybody there commented on them. I had to laugh, I was dressed exactly like I would have been 25 years ago but I just bought those shorts so apparently plaid is back but obviously so are polo shirts and popped collars. I have to smile when a dining room server comes to work with a popped collar and I casually go up behind them and flatten it!!

I am a little horrified to admit that I like some of the music the staff listens to now. Many of you obviously remember the music we used to listen to at Cleves in the 80’s. Who can forget Rockin’ Roy, everybody’s favourite 70 year old DJ who spun a mean ‘Rock Lobster’, ‘Celebration’, ‘Le Freak’ and ‘Super Freak’ in that adorable plaid suit he used to wear on Wednesday’s Masquerade Nights (don’t worry Masquerade Night will be discussed in great detail some time in the near future!!). How about the summer of 1982 with 'Men at Work', 1983 when ‘Dancing in Heaven’ was all the rage or in 1989 when all we played was ‘The Hip’ but most people hadn’t had the pleasure of hearing them yet! I am sure if I looked hard enough I could find my mixed tapes full of Duran Duran, Howard Jones, New Order, The Thompson Twins, INXS, Simple Minds and the Cult. I can’t bring myself to get rid of my CDs even though all of them were put on my iPod years ago. My iPod by the way, is still full of ‘mixes’ they are just in the form of ‘Playlists’ now with titles that all mean something ranging from ‘Almost Forty Something’ to ‘Be Right Back’ (the summer I had my first back surgery in 2006) and the latest one I am filling up called ‘Titanium Rocks’ a tribute to the success of the last back surgery!!

One of my New Years Resolutions this year was to scan all of my photos into my computer. Believe me that is not an easy undertaking. I have about 20 albums to plow through and I am not even close to being finished but the entire process has brought back some amazing Cleves memories and smiles like the aforementioned Masquerade Nights and the Inn on the Bay (lesson learned - how to have the most amount of fun in the biggest dump ever built!!!). I was really comforted to find the pictures of all of us hanging out at the end of the dock day after day. That tradition began when my parents first started working here and it still continues today, the difference is that my parents used iodine in baby oil on their skin and I am sure we used some sort of SPF even if it was just a 2!!!

The new staff just arrived and were trained this week. This is a great time of year for me, the newbies are too scared to cause any problems and are rarely late. For the first year ever the servers will be punching in on the terminals in the dining room. I will really miss the familiar sound of the back door flying open, somebody running to the clock outside my office to punch in for the breakfast shift they are super late for and me yelling ‘I HEARD THAT’ as they shriek and run to work! As the season goes on though the fear fades and I inevitably have to drag some kids into my office to give them shit for some offense they committed. I absolutely love it when they give me this big song and dance about why they did what they did and I just chuckle and say ‘did you not see the name on the door of this office - I wrote that one!!’

...AND THIS ONE IS JUST RIGHT!!

Before I bought my first house, I lived at Mom and Dads. It was actually great. It was super close to Cleves so I could be back down there in a heartbeat if necessary and I had the whole top floor to myself. My room ran along the front of the house facing the road. During the summer months I am in the office pretty early every morning so for those first few years after I became a manager I saw some amazing things out my window as I was getting ready in the morning. Many days I would see somebody walking up or down the road from Dodds past the house before 6:30 am. It was super obvious that they were sheepishly looking out the corner of their eyes to see if anybody was awake at the Cornell house. Every time I saw somebody walking very quickly up or down that road I quietly opened one of my bedroom windows and screamed at the top of my lungs ‘YOU ARE DOING THE WALK OF SHAME AND YOU ARE SO BUSTED!!!’ The person in question would always scream and bolt. That never got old.

A few years ago the mother of all ‘Walks of Shame’ happened. It was my day off and at about 10:30 am my phone rang. I could tell it was the office calling, which is not a surprise because I don’t think a day off goes by when at least one person doesn’t call me about something, which I am totally fine with. I answered the phone to Ted’s voice, which actually was very strange and he said ‘I don’t mean to alarm you and I waited as long as possible before I called but we can’t find “Erin”’ (again I have changed the name...). Now I am panicking. Erin was a department manager and was NEVER late, not once in the many seasons she worked at Cleves. I started my usual round of ‘filling in the blanks for somebody the day after’ questioning. Yes he had talked to lots of people she was with the night before and she had gone missing somewhere between a cottage close by and Cleves. I could feel my heart racing and actually thought about when I should call my OPP friend to start getting serious about this. Ted just wanted me to know what was going on and promised he would keep me posted.

To say the next hour was a very long one would be an understatement but he did call me to say that Erin had arrived at work and was being pretty quiet about what had happened. The story about what had happened was eventually told and it went something like this.... It was getting late and the cottage she and a bunch of other Cleves staff were at was really close by. Nobody was in any condition to drive but nobody else was ready to leave yet either. She really wanted to sleep in her own bed so she decided to walk back to Cleves alone. About 15 minutes after she started her hike back to the resort it started to pour rain. She was a lot closer to the cottage she had just left then she was to Cleves so she turned around and headed back. When she got back to the cottage all of the lights were off because everybody had gone to bed so she quietly went in and just crashed on the couch in the living room.

Imagine how horrified she was when she opened her eyes the next morning to find a blanket on her while she lay on a couch she didn’t recognize, in a cottage she didn’t recognize, in front of a family she didn’t recognize....she had gone in the wrong cottage and crashed... It almost killed me to wait several days to call her and ask if Goldilocks would come and see me in my office and that I hoped the pink leather chair in there was just right!!!

PAGING ALL SMART ASSES

May 1st....that date used to have a whole different meaning to me. Frankly it used to scare the crap out of me. I would wake up on that day and sigh heavily. The arrival of May 1st means that my life is about to change big time. For roughly the next 6 months life is anything but normal. Don’t get me wrong, I obviously still enjoy what I do or I wouldn’t be here still but the arrival of May 1st means I probably won’t drive south of Bracebridge more than 6 times in the next 6 months, sad but true. It also means I will be sleeping with my phone on my bed because it usually rings in the middle of the night several times a season. I have to drive at least one person to the hospital every year because they injured themselves whilst partying hard, when they lost all motor skills and had some sort of fall with several stitches being the final outcome. I am not exactly proud when I arrive at the hospital and tell the nurse I went to high school with that another kid from Cleves has a party injury (the UPIs are the worst...Unidentified Party Injury...because I often haven’t put all of the pieces together about how the person got hurt)!!

Back in my day I don’t remember it being as hard core. I do very clearly remember watching one of my best friends fall off the bed because the beach chair she was sitting in...on the bed, folded up with her inside it and they both toppled off the side. No injuries just hysterical laughter mostly by me ...ahhhhhh to be a kid again but I digress. Now when I wake up on May 1st I don’t panic at all because I know that in the blink of an eye our spring conference season will be over and families will be arriving. In another blink the families leave, conference season has started up again and before you know it Thanksgiving Weekend is here. I cannot get over how fast the seasons fly by the older I get.

We now have over 15 walkie talkies to chat with each other and they are all over the property at any given time. Every year just before family season, I have a meeting with the bellhops and managers and remind them all to watch what they say to each other over the walkies because there are lots of ears listening. It isn’t exactly professional to hear a manager ask ‘his or her peeps to meet them at the Sagamo Centre’ I do smile when I hear one of the boys from out east say “Hey I needs your help boy where you at?” “No problem where you to?”

One of the best walkie talkie conversations I heard a couple of years ago went something like this... “Front Desk to Bellhop” “Go ahead Front Desk” “A Guest just came into the office to see if anybody had turned in a yellow sand pail that she left at the beach about an hour ago but we don’t have it here. The pail isn’t really the issue it is the clam that her child had found that was in the pail that we are concerned about” “I will head down to the beach right away and see if I can find it.........can you tell me what name the clam responds to?” Good one!

Without a doubt my favourite walkie talkie conversation of all time went as follows. I had my meeting with everybody on the first day of family season and about 10 minutes after they all left my office the entire property hears this....”Paul to Bellhop” (Paul was an Aussie bartender we had working for us for the season) “Go ahead Pauly” “Could you please bring a Carpet Muncher to the Club?” (Head on desk immediately) Everybody in the office instantly starts to laugh hysterically and I distinctly remember tears falling I was laughing so hard. What I didn’t know was is that’s what Aussies call ‘carpet sweepers‘. I didn’t have to deal with any irate Guests about hearing that so obviously there weren't any parents that had to explain to their kids what a ‘carpet muncher’ was. Thank God!!

I'LL HAVE WHAT SHE'S HAVING

I am amazed how emotional and frantic Guests can be about ‘Lost & Found’. There are some weeks when a mother calls 10 times to see if we have found her child’s navy blue baseball hat or white t-shirt with absolutely nothing written on it. I love the people who call to tell us they have left all of their clothes in the closet of their room. I mean really ...how stupid do you have to be to do that? When 99% of the world leaves a hotel room don’t they do a pretty thorough check that they have remembered everything? I fully understand the phone call I got way back in the day when the person I got into the most amount of trouble with when I partied called me after Thanksgiving one year me to say that she had left all of her clothes in the dresser at our cottage because she was so hungover the day she and her family went home. I know that is true because I watched her try and puke into the hole of a coke can the night before. In case you are wondering it isn’t really possible.

Probably the most shocking ‘lost & found’ items we get up in the office are the most personal ones. The first year I worked in Reservations I was about 15 and I came into work one afternoon at 3:00 pm to find a toiletry bag on my desk. A piece of paper with an address accompanied it. I correctly assumed that I was to wrap it up and send it out but of course I am nosy and couldn’t resist looking inside. Just as I am opening the top zipper, Lynn and Marg yell at exactly the same time ‘DOOOOOONNNNN’TTTTTT’ WOW do I wish I had listened. I opened the zipper and staring at me was a ‘Steely Dan’, a ‘Giant Dildo’ call it what you may...with the accompanying accessories. I quickly zipped the case back up, put my head on my desk and laughed hysterically for at least 10 minutes. After I pulled it together I wrapped it up, (now wearing a HAZMAT suit) shipped it out and made sure to write ‘Fragile and Bloody Hilarious’ on the outside of the box....OK I didn’t but I wanted to. We didn’t call the guest to see if it was actually their ‘stuff’, the housekeeper just brought it up. I mean how do you make that phone call ‘Excuse me Mrs. Crozier but did you leave something SUPER special at the resort when you checked out???’

Approximately 20 years later the exact same thing happened only the woman who left it called us about 10 times to see if we had found and sent her bag of toys. When we opened it not only was there a ‘Red Rocket’ in there but there were also ‘Beads’ (use your imagination, I just can’t bring myself to write it down) and a whole bag of loot. A few things come to mind. If I were ever to take such an accessory pack on a vacation (and I don’t just in case you are wondering) you can bet it would absolutely be the FIRST thing I would put back in my suitcase when I was packing up. You can also be guaranteed that if I did leave it I would NEVER call even once let alone 10 times to have it shipped back. I would have to have paper bags custom made to wear over my head for the rest of my life. I would have to go and buy new things to chip my teeth on (sorry, I am so sorry for that, but it is funny so get over it!) and I guarantee I would figure out a way to get my name off the resort’s mailing list without anybody figuring out it was me calling!

Let’s move on to a few years ago. A lot of you know that the big pink chair in my office is a great source of information for me. People sit in that chair and just start talking, telling me all the latest gossip (after they leave my Mom sits in it and makes me tell her all of it...). A bellhop was looking for his ipod and the girl he loaned it to told him to just go into her room and he would find it was just under her covers. Imagine his surprise when he was feeling around the top bunk where she slept with her 5 OTHER ROOMMATES and he found her ‘Tower of Power’. It must have been the super silent model and I don’t remember hiring Helen Keller....think about that one!!.

HAVE YOU EVER SEEN A GROWN MAN CRY?

It is inevitable that anybody who works in a setting like Clevelands House develops unique friendships with many Guests over the years. There have been some families that have stayed with us for 50 years or more and the subsequent generations have brought their families. It is really flattering to have grandparents bring the next generations to the resort summer after summer.

Mom and Dad bought the resort in 1969 and Dad was very eager to start renovating and making changes to the rooms soon after they took over the ownership. In the early 1970’s one of the biggest renovations completed one winter was the renovating of all of the bathrooms in the North Lodge. That building has 38 rooms so this was not a small project and when the resort opened for the season Dad was pretty excited to have some of the long-time guests who had been staying in those rooms arrive and see the amazing upgrades that had been made.

The office had recently been moved from the Main Hotel Lobby to where the Gift Shop is now. Looking at that space now, it is hard to believe that building was big enough to handle all of the traffic but it served it’s purpose just fine. Back then check in day was Saturday and everybody stayed at least a week. We certainly couldn’t accommodate the number of people we can now but the hotel probably accommodated well over 200 people at that time. As I am sure you can imagine the office building on Saturdays was total chaos all day long.

One of Dad’s favourite guests back then was a woman by the name of Mrs. Corey. She had been staying at the hotel for years and quickly became one of the guests Dad looked forward to seeing every season. She was one of those people who checked in, had a great time, was a joy to have around and spread the word about how great the place was when she got home. Dad always went out of his way to speak to her every chance he got when she was at the hotel. He was really looking forward to having her arrive the season after he did all of the renovations in the North Lodge because he knew she would be so excited and pleased to see her new bathroom. She checked in mid-July and Dad made a point of getting her organized at the front desk himself and gave her the keys to the room she had been staying in for years and was looking forward to seeing her later to get her feedback about the upgrades.

About 10 minutes after she checked in she was back in the very crowded office lobby and caught Dad’s eye and indicated that she wanted to speak to him. He knew she was just coming up to say how much she loved all of the renovations and he actually wanted her to tell him that in front of everybody in the lobby because he was so proud of the changes, as a result he didn’t pull her into his office. As Dad was standing across the counter from her with a smile from ear to ear she said in a great loud voice. ‘I JUST CHECKED INTO MY ROOM, AND THERE ARE PUBIC HAIRS ON MY NEW BATHROOM FLOOR!!!!’....

Shoot me now.

SAFE & SECURE

Looking after security at Cleves is like being a glorified babysitter 90% of the time. Other than patrolling the property a couple times a night the security guard’s job has really morphed into being an expensive hall sitter for the most part! In the last 20 years the behaviour of the staff at night has changed a lot. Even though the goal is still to have fun and party hard, this generation has decided that partying goes hand in hand with being destructive. In the last several years I have had chairs thrown through windows in the staff house, doors kicked in and numerous locks broken. I find it so sad that they think this is ok. What happened to going to the club, walking around with a pitcher of Long Island Iced Teas with a straw in it (allegedly) and heading home to bed. I would love to be able to have a season where night security does not weigh heavily on my mind all season but that is never going to happen. When I come into work in the morning via my Dad’s office if I see a Night Report with a staple in the corner I know it is going to be a bad day!!

To work nighttime security one has to have a certain type of personality. They can be a really odd bunch. About 10 years ago when we were still using an actual security company to handle the property, they sent over 2 women one night. They would be in their mid-forties and I don’t think would be able to keep up with anybody trying to get away from them. One night Mom and Dad and I were heading back up from the club to go home and for some reason we decided to go onto the Main Hotel Veranda. The guards were sitting on the veranda drinking coffee. As many of you know my Dad is probably the nicest guy one will ever meet but he also has a WICKED sense of humour. As we approached them he leans over to me and says ‘this is going to be great’ (These women had no idea who he was) ‘Good evening ladies’ ‘Hi sir how are you?’ ‘We are great. Are you having a busy night?’ ‘No it’s pretty quiet and it’s a good thing because my feet are killing me and there is now way we can walk around this property’..... we walk away and Dad turns to me and says ‘I don’t know about you but I feel so safe and secure right now!’ Those women were never seen again!!

If you worked at Cleves any time in the mid to late 80s you obviously remember the Security Guards of the time Dirk and Robin. Dirk was from the Netherlands and was about 6 foot 5, Robin his sidekick was a local guy from Bracebridge. These 2 guys epitomized teamwork. Dirk was the ‘physically intimidating’ force and Robin was the sly, sneaky one. One night in 1986 when the cottagers came to Cleves in droves my entire family had gone to the Club one night to see a show and we were all standing on the small entrance porch outside the Snack Bar after it ended. Dirk and Robin were at the end of the dock when they got a call saying that there was a crisis in the Main parking lot and they were needed up there right away. Robin gracefully took off and started running up the dock, past our family and up the hill to investigate. Dirk was quick to follow and started running right behind. I would say that by the time he got to the Ski School his entire 6 foot 5 frame started to lose control and he looked more like a helicopter with arms and legs flailing. Just before he got to where we were standing he did a giant face plant, skidded about 10 feet with walkie talkie and flashlight sliding up the dock. He quickly regained his composure and continued up the hill after Robin. Dad turned to us and simply said ‘Oopsie Daisy’!! So funny...

Back then we were pretty strict about guys going into the girls staff house and vice versa after 11:00 pm and the security guards spent a lot of time kicking people out of each side every night. One night we were all partying in room 24 on the guy’s side (it’s is always amazing to me how that room always ends up being the party room) and it was well after midnight. Somebody came in and yelled ‘HERE COMES DIRK’ I of course being a Cornell was having a fit about being written up on the Night Report so I dove head first into the closet. Dirk opened the door and said in his intimidating Arnold Schwarzenegger voice, ‘The party’s over and Sandy I know you are in there!!!’ BUSTED!!

BLIND MAN DRIVING

Having been at Cleves for 41 years you can bet I have met some interesting people and I hope to share lots of stories with you about some of the greatest characters of the bunch. This of course includes visitors, staff and guests (I can hear the 'At Kellerman's' song playing in my head right now! Dirty Dancing people!!!) This is very mean of me but remember I warned you, I can hear a song and instantly be transported to an event...a few days ago the song 'I Wish' by Stevie Wonder came onto my ipod.......

One of the things Clevelands House has always done really, really well is provide great service. If a Guest comes into the office and complains, the way one should complain, we will all do everything we can for them to alleviate any problems and make their stay as enjoyable as possible. During the summer of 2008 we had such a complaint. When the booking for this particular couple was taken we had been told that the husband was legally blind. A few weeks later the incredibly nice couple checked in and headed down to their suite. When they got into their room the wife called up to the office to say that they wanted to change the layout of the suite's furniture to make it easier for her husband to get around. Obviously this was something we were eager to help her with so our head problem solver (Maria) headed down to the suite to help. After many attempts the Guests felt better with the new layout and they were confident the husband would manage just fine now.

The next day the wife called up to the office to say that they were struggling with the new layout and that even though we did our best to help them, they would have to check out and go home to a more familiar environment. We adjusted their bill and they drove up to the office immediately to settle their account with us.

The wife came into the office and I had the pleasure of checking her out. She assured me we had done everything to help them manage in their suite and that Maria had been amazing (what else is new). It was just difficult to be away from their home environment where her husband knew where everything was. She paid their bill and headed out to the parking lot. I had a direct view of their car from where I was standing in the office.

In case some of you have forgotten, Clevelands House is one of, if not the largest family resort in Canada. At any one time we can have 150-200 children in our kids' program running around the resort. Imagine my horror when I hear 'Everywhere we go... everywhere we go... people always ask us... people always ask us... who we are.... who we are... so we tell them...' (you are all singing it now aren't you!!) and I SEE HIM GET IN THE DRIVER'S SEAT, PULL THE CAR OUT OF THEIR PARKING SPOT AND DRIVE BACK TO THEIR SUITE BY THE BEACH!!! A legally blind man who had to check out of his room because we couldn't rearrange his room such that he wasn't constantly bumping into things was driving a car back to his room past about 70 kids!!!!!!!!!!!

We called Maria to tell her what had just happened and like the CSI Minett agent she is she hopped onto her golf cart and headed down to their room to ask why he was driving and the wife said, 'sometimes I let him drive short distances'. I don't think 'I See...' was what instantly came to Maria's mind as a response. (Sorry about the pun I couldn't resist!!)

THE MORE THINGS LIKE CHANGE THE MORE THEY LIKE STAY THE SAME

I am sure most people can relate to this, but I find it amazing that I can hear a song I haven’t heard in a long time and I am instantly transported back to another time and can remember the year it came out and often a specific event that is tied to it. The other day I heard the song ‘I Melt With You’ by Modern English and instantly I was taken back to 1983 and the movie ‘Valley Girl’. It is an 80’s classic!! Nicolas Cage is Randy the punk rock badass and he falls for Julie the preppy girl from the Valley. It was the beginning of a new way of dressing and speaking and it was ‘fer sure, totally, awesome’!! That way of speaking has always been associated with that movie and the 80’s and it did fade away, but like everything else, it came back. I always say if you kept some stuff from the 80s don’t get rid of it now because it will come back in style! Obviously the same thing can be said for ‘Valley Speak’!! Flash forward 25 years.

By the time I am finished hiring I have had it with reading resumes. I receive about 1000 every winter and am pretty good about going over each one of them, for a while. I will admit that by the middle of March the resumes I get are printed and filed without me even glancing at them. With the exception of a couple of jobs that are open here and there I am finished my hiring long before the end of the month. As a result in order for me to not go slowly crazy I have to change my outgoing voicemail to say something similar to this.....

“You have reached Sandy Cornell. I am sorry I am not available to take your call right now. If you are calling regarding employment please note that I have finished all of my hiring for the upcoming season. If you are calling for any other reason, please feel free to leave me a message and I will get back to you as soon as possible. Thanks for calling and have a great day” BEEEEEEEPPP In order for you to fully grasp this, it is important that you inhale deeply and try to read this quickly only stopping to breathe when you are turning blue. This is a message that was left for me last week.

“Hi Sandy, this is like Brittany! I know your voicemail said that like you are finished hiring but I was wondering if like you were still hiring (the voice goes up here)? My like 2 best friends Whitney and like Buffy like worked in Muskoka last summer and they said it was like WICKED!! I like, want to spend like the summer up there partying because I think it would be like TOTALLY AWESOME to work like away from the city (you can almost see the ‘hang loose’ sign she just made as she said this). So I am like at school right now in like my math class but you can like call me on my Blackberry because like my teacher totally won’t mind if I like leave class and like take your call. I like want to work with like kids because I like want to spend the summer like in the sun working like on my tan before I like go to university and by the way like I won’t be able to stay right until like Labour Day because I will like need at least like a week off before I like go to school, to say like goodbye to my BFFs. OK I totally can’t wait to like talk to you so like call me back super sooooon!!”

HOW

ABOUT

LIKE

NO .....

DELETE

A CRAPPY RESORT NIGHT

I love satellite radio. For the last 3 years I have listened to nothing but my ipod and Sirius XM. I will never go back to listening to 'terrestrial radio'. If you don't have it, get it! One of my favorite parts of the day is listening to at least the first hour of The Howard Stern Show. The other day he told a story he had heard involving a television reporter, and I was instantly transported to another time.... a time of 'Resort Night Fun'

This story is not about me. You might read this and think I just changed it to be about somebody else, but I didn't. This person and I spent a lot of time together at Cleves so I cannot believe I hadn't heard this story until a few months ago. I actually find it unbelievable that I wasn't there or at least close by, when it happened. After you read the story you will know why I am not sorry I wasn't.

Back in the early 1990s there was a 'Resort Night' to go to 6 nights a week and to be honest with you I was at almost every one of them. It certainly wasn't good for the bank account or my liver but it was really fun!! Two nights a week, Tuesdays and Saturdays, we used to pile onto the bus and head to Edenvale in Port Carling. Not everybody went to every bar night but everybody went to Edenvale!! It was the place to be. Upwards of 300-400 resort staff and cottagers from the area crammed into that place without fail.

Let's call the heroine of our story Jill, obviously that isn't her real name. Jill happened to be 'secretly' sleeping with one of the resort managers. The joke was on them, everybody knew they were sleeping together but it was a nice try. If you have ever worked at Cleves you know there are no secrets. Most of the time everybody knows who is shagging whom about 5 minutes after they get together.

On this particular Edenvale night, the 'undercover couple' headed by boat to Port Carling. The bus usually didn't arrive until well after 10 but they got there at 9. Jill 'primed' before they left and since nobody had arrived yet there wasn't much to do when she got there but drink - A LOT!

I would guess that by 11 the room started to spin and Jill realized she was totally wasted and staggered by 300+ people and headed to the bathroom. When she got in there she ran into one of the stalls to puke. Sadly when she started to puke.... she crapped her pants. The crapping of the pants is horrific on it's own, but the fact that she was wearing WHITE jeans that she BORROWED from a roommate is just hilarious.

I am sure she sobered up quickly after that happened. She tried to clean up. I haven't asked the details about how she did that and I never will. She skulked by the 300+ people, and headed back to the boat to sleep. A few hours later she opened her eyes to see her not so secret man making out with somebody else at the back of the boat - ahhhh Cleves.

Just imagine the phone call the next day. I am sure it went something like this..

'Laundry - Maria speaking'

'Hi Maria, it's Jill, I have a major favour to ask....'

DO YOU THINK????