Behind the Marble and Mirrors: A Woman’S Memoir of the Trials and Triumphs of Working in a Traditionally Male-Dominated Environment

By Carol L. Farrand

One of the first lessons author Carol Farrand learned was that opportunity lurks where you least expect it. When she took her daughter to a local resort to apply for a seasonal position, she had no idea how her own life would change on that fateful day. She was over forty years old and had just sold the small resort she ran with her husband. She was looking forward to a summer of relaxation, freedom, and fun. Instead, a new path was laid before herone that would take her to top resorts all over the United States and the world. As a new project manager for an international hotel chain, she had the world at her feet.

The trouble was that not everyone would prove welcoming.

Carol quickly learned how to deal with the many challenges facing a female manager in a male-dominated industry: sexual harassment, bigotry, sexism, and more. Eventually, she adjusted to life on the road; once she dug deep enough, she found the strength to triumph over the stressful situations she encountered. But the greatest lessons she learned was that she was stronger than anyone thoughtand that life truly can begin at forty.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Jan 20, 2012
• ISBN: 9781469715179

Carol L. Farrand

Carol Farrand is now retired after a career as a project manager for a well-known hotel chain. She enjoys boating, golfing, and traveling; she is also the president of her book club. She and her husband live in the Lake of the Ozarks and enjoy spending time with their children and grandchildren.

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Copyright © 2012 by Carol L. Farrand.

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ISBN: 978-1-4697-1215-4 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4697-1516-2 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4697-1517-9 (ebk)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2012900354

Printed in the United States of America

iUniverse rev. date: 1/5/2012.

Contents

Preface

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Chapter 38

Chapter 39

Chapter 40

Chapter 41

Chapter 42

Chapter 43

Chapter 44

Chapter 45

Chapter 46

Chapter 47

Chapter 48

Chapter 49

Chapter 50

Chapter 51

Chapter 52

Chapter 53

Chapter 54

Chapter 55

Chapter 56

Chapter 57

Chapter 58

Acknowledgements:

For my husband, Richard

My children, Lisa, Bill, Jenell and Don

And my grandchildren, Shaun,

Nick, Alec, Brianna and Precious Dumpling

Preface

As the youngest child in my family I was usually tolerated but mostly ignored. As a young married woman, I acquiesced to my husband who made the decisions as to where and how we would live. As a mother, my identity retreated into the background as my children’s lives took precedent. Finally, as a project manager for a worldwide hotel chain I found my voice, my identity and my personality as well as my strength.

At first it was a complete shock to find people listened when I spoke, but as my experience grew, I became more self-assured, more capable of solving problems, and more competent in dealing with the male environment in which I worked.

For more then twenty two years, I lived a sometimes exciting, but mostly lonely, unglamorous, life. As the first to arrive on the property and the last to leave, it was my responsibility to oversee renovations at hotels from the beginning to the end of a project.

When necessary I had to placate the contractor when the hotel made unreasonable demands, and appease the hotel when the contractor was not performing to their expected standards.

I traveled throughout the United States and I was chosen to oversee a renovation of rooms at a luxury hotel in Bermuda. I partially overcame my fear of flying and when possible found time to enjoy my surroundings. I saw parts of the country that some might see only on vacations, and I saw areas of America that are truly unspoiled and beautiful.

I met wonderful people, some of who are still friends; however, I also had periods when I was so lonely my depression was reflected in our home telephone bills, (this was before cell phones and company credit cards.)

I worked with hotel engineers who were gracious and accommodating and others who made no secret of their resentment for a woman having been sent to do a man’s job. It was usually in their hotels that a lack of maintenance would be revealed which would account for their attitude.

A hotel room can be different things to different people; a vacation destination to a family, an overnight retreat for the weary businessman or woman. For me, a hotel room was my only home for the length of time I was assigned to a project. Sometimes I was given an office in a separate area, and sometimes I was privileged enough to be given a suite, but the majority of the time my living room, bedroom and office consisted of one room, 15 foot wide by 28 foot long.

I would seldom be aware of my neighbors who occupied the adjacent rooms but occasionally the sounds of a loud party or an argument could be heard and it would be necessary to involve security in order to restore peace.

One evening it was impossible to ignore the decibel level sounds emanating from the room next door. The sounds rose in pitch as the minutes went by. It appeared the female occupant was praising the man prowess and the man was doing his best to prove her praise was well deserved. The woman’s tones could have made an opera star envious.

I could stand it no longer. I picked up the telephone and dialed the room number. A man, clearly out of breath, answered the phone after several rings. No woman should have to suffer that long. Please put her out of her misery. I said. Then I hung up the telephone, and when the sounds became more muffled I went to bed.

I learned to pack my suitcases in record time when it was necessary to move to another room. Sometimes the move was obvious because my area was next in line to be renovated, and other times the move was due to or because of guest demands. I learned never to question the reason for the move.

The hotel management in almost all locations was accommodating to the best of their ability but it was evident I was there to oversee their upgrade and my presence on their property with only rare exception did not extend to including me in any of the management activities. As an outgoing person, this was a difficult thing to accept until I came to understand that the department for which I worked was considered to be a separate entity from the management operations of the hotels.

When a project was completed and the newly installed marble was buffed and polished, the mirrors on the walls were gleaming, the furniture was set in place and the artwork was hung, the final process of installing the foliage and artificial decorations would take place. Suddenly everything would come together.

I appreciated the men I worked with daily who had spent hours on their knees setting marble in place, and I was grateful for the laborers who cleaned up the area each evening. Somehow it didn’t seem fair that the people who did nothing but bring in potted plants and floral arrangements received the accolades. But it was the finished product that mattered and they were the people who were the last and best act.

So this is my story, of the places where I worked, the contractors I worked with, and more importantly the people I met who helped me ease the loneliness of being on the road and away from home.

Chapter 1

Palm Springs and the Male Escort

Palm Springs in the winter is a lovely place to visit, but it is a brutally hot, convection oven in the summer. My assignment at one of the luxury hotels was a complete renovation of the individual, high-dollar duplexes on the property. In anticipation of the project, the hotel had removed all the air-conditioning units and would not be replacing them until our scope of work had been completed. As a result, even working inside was little relief from the cloudless sky and piercing sun.

The contractor’s superintendent was a young, street wise, arrogant man whom I had worked with on a previous project. He had a verbally abusive attitude which affected the moral of the men working on the various trades and which added to the tension. Occasionally when I would have to discuss a problem with him, I would find him in one of the rooms his family shared with him. He would be screaming obscenities into the telephone, oblivious to his small children playing nearby.

A few months after the project began his men started to complain they had not been paid. After checking into the situation with my company I was advised that payment had been made for all invoices which had been submitted. The condition became critical after another week had gone by and the workers who had still not been paid were threatening to leave. A decision was made to send me the next check, have the resort cash the check and I would be in charge of distributing the correct funds to each of the men. While I had sympathy for the men, this put an additional burden on my already hectic schedule.

As part of the project a decision had been made to replace all the interior doors of the cottages. As the doors arrived, they were unloaded in the 100 degree plus heat by workers who grew more hot and sweaty as the work progressed. It didn’t occur to anyone how this might affect the surface of the wooden doors until, once they began staining them, dark areas appeared where the workers bodies had pressed against them. The supplier had neglected to wrap the doors in plastic to protect them, and when the damage became obvious, the resort refused to accept them and the entire order had to be replaced.

The project lasted for a long and frustrating four months and the only thing that prevented my sanity from diving into the deep end was a local couple who befriended me and invited me into their home some evenings for a small glass of wine and a large dose of sympathy. The husband was a local contractor who had an interest in the project and because he was older, he was able to instill some calm into the midst of the many crises.

His wife wrote the society column for the local paper and her stories of the celebrities who made Palm Springs their winter homes were always interesting. She and I became friends and when I could find time, we would meet for lunch or shopping trips to one of the local malls.

The project was ongoing over the July 4th holiday and I was invited to the festivities at one of the country clubs. As soon as I met my friends and we entered the club I was pleased and surprised at the attention I was receiving. As I was introduced to one participant after another I found business cards being pressed into my hand and several invitations to lunch. What a shock to discover that each of my new acquaintances was a plastic surgeon attempting to solicit business from someone who they obviously felt was in need of their services.

Finally the project was complete and it was time for me to leave. My luggage was packed and placed by the door of the suite which had been my home for the past three months. When the doorbell rang, I opened the door to see, standing on the threshold, an extremely good looking, very buff, naked from the waist up and spandex from the waist down, man, holding a single rose in his teeth. Can I help you? I asked. He removed the rose from his mouth and replied, I am here to do anything you desire.

He explained that my boys had paid for him to visit me as their gift. It took a few minutes of conversation for the man to realize this had been a set-up. I told him to go back to the boys and tell them, thanks but no thanks. He seemed confused and it didn’t help matters when I grabbed the rose he was holding and then closed the door.

I headed for the bedroom to spend my last night in the desert catching up on all the sleep I had missed over the length of the project.