I sat in a corner for an hour, to strange looks from staff and customers alike. I looked for positives. The size of the room was good. Properly designed, it could easily hold two hundred people. There were plenty of staff, four behind the bar and about twenty waitresses, none of whom looked like they wanted to be there. The sound system was adequate, although obviously wasn’t calibrated properly for the room. The most interesting thing, though, was the amount of money being spent. The customers all had bottles of brandy and whisky on their tables, and these were being replenished frequently. Only the single females were buying drinks by the glass.
The noise of a chair smashing down on to a table jolted me back. Six men in the opposite corner were brawling, arms and legs flailing. I looked around for a reaction. There was none. Six men killing each other and nobody gave them a second glance. It was obviously a common occurrence. The fight eventually blew itself out, the two losers staggering out, while the four victors ordered another bottle of brandy. The staff swept the broken glass and furniture further into the corner, with not so much as a raised eyebrow.
Next morning, bleary-eyed from jet lag and traumatised by my night at the club, I went to my meeting with Jack. What were my options? Throw in the towel, admit I’d made a mistake and go running home? Call Tom and beg him to take me back? Nope. Absolutely not. Whether it was pride, delusion or optimism, there was no way I was quitting.
Jack looked up sheepishly as I entered.
‘Well, doctor, what’s the diagnosis?’ he asked.
‘It’s terminal, Jack. Amputation and a severe dose of radiation couldn’t save that place. You’re going to have to put it out of its misery. Give me a week to suss out the city and the people here and I’ll have a proposal for you.’
He agreed. I set off, as Clive James had done before me, to explore the city. I staked out the hotels, the bars, the shops and the one other nightclub. It wasn’t any different to ours – same dated interior and clientele. I wandered down the Bund, Shanghai’s main street, in the early evenings to watch the tourists. I approached the embassies, all the Western companies with offices in the area and phoned the newspapers and tourist offices. I started to feel encouraged. The right people were here, we just had to get them into the club. I began to think that this just might be a mountain I could climb.
I outlined my plan to Jack. He sanctioned all of it except the changing of the staff, explaining that there were no procedures to fire staff in China. A job there was a job for life. I was going to have to work with the existing team. That evening, I went to speak to them. They eyed me suspiciously as Jack introduced me as the new manager. They didn’t say a word as we informed them that we were closing the club for two months, but we would still expect them to come to work every day for training.
‘Can they speak English?’ I whispered to Jack, as yet another question I’d asked had gone unanswered.
‘Of course. They just don’t want to talk to you.’
Great. One week there and they already hated me. Had my mother and previous boyfriends tipped them off?
A week later, we closed the club, bringing in a team of builders, electricians, lighting engineers, sound engineers and decorators. Our budget was limited, but I was determined to make the most of the place. We stripped the club back to a shell and started from scratch. I wanted to create a very classy impression – lots of gold, mirrors, with rich animal-print fabrics, overstuffed sofas and marble tables. We installed a lighting rig, modified the sound system and re-sited the DJ booth from a side cupboard to centre stage. The bar was re-covered with a mirrored front panel and top, bar stools positioned in front. Marble columns were sited to break up the room, each one with gold leaves entwining it.
To attract the expat crowd, the most important thing was an expat DJ. Jack recommended an entertainment agency in Singapore, so I contacted them and gave them the specification. Within a day, they had faxed over the CVs of three DJs (a Brit, an American and a French guy) who were available. I selected the one with the most credible experience and the best demo tape and enlisted his services. I was assured he would be there in time for the re-opening.
There were two major tasks left: the staff and marketing. I set the staff to task, helping the decorators and cleaners to keep them busy, while I concentrated on the PR. They still weren’t bursting into song when they saw me coming, but I was too busy with my other priority to worry about that yet. I had fliers printed and circulated them round every expat office and embassy in the city. I wrote copy for the tourist magazine, the English newspaper and the hotel bedroom information booklets. I had posters in gold frames strategically placed in the hotel corridors and contacted all the airlines offering free tickets for their flight crews.
I now knew why the other expat managers in the hotel had all looked so knackered when I‘d met them. Running a hotel of this size (1,000 bedrooms and 1,000 staff) was a mammoth task. Everyone worked flat out for fifteen hours a day and was on call for the other nine.
With three weeks to go, I turned my attention to the staff. I called a meeting and to say that they were frosty was an understatement.
I started by showing them their new uniforms. For the girls, stunning red silk dresses, high necked, floor length with splits at each side. Elegant and classy. For
