Women all over the world are struggling for equality. As they pursue business interests in environments often alien and hostile, stress as a concomitant of the pursuit inevitably results in judgment calls that frequently are inappropriate. If we fault Leona Helmsley for her slip-ups, what sort of signal are we sending to thousands of other women in the hospitality industry who genuinely long for or, you know, are just thinking about a career in foodservice or innkeeping? What could we be thinking? What’s the matter with us?
Labor conditions in our business are harsh enough: we dare not risk alienating half the population by drawing attention to the inconsequential la di da of an executive who’s still trying to cope with the intricate exigencies of corporate life. Too, let’s not forget the lessons of history as in, for example, shortly after I joined this magazine Minnie Pearl’s chicken franchise went belly up. It was years before another woman risked what she had risked. God bless Alice Waters.
I’ll bet you think it’s easy running a hotel company, Helmsley Hotels, in New York while you’re basking in the lap of tax write-offs in Connecticut or Palm Beach or Phoenix or even New York swimming laps in the pool of your penthouse overlooking Central Park. Well, it’s not. Just ask Bill Marriott if it’s easy; ask Dick Swig or the Pritzkers; maybe even Donald Trump. Well, maybe not him. Ask any one of a number of top hotel executives. They’ll give you what for: it’s tough, rough, painful, debilitating. It is not to laugh.
You need those few moments of peace and solitude in your penthouse pool or your 28-room weekend retreat in Greenwich which the tax dollars of the little folk (Leona’s term, not ours: kinda cute, though, you must admit) have helped pay for. Darn it: you’ve got to be able to get away from all of it every once in a while, otherwise you’d go bonkers. And if keeping the bonkersman away from the door means blowing a few bucks of corporate petty cash on fancy shoes and stereos, on leg waxing and hairdressing, or on a $47,000 clock shaped like the Helmsley Building, what’s the big deal. Get a life, gripers! A body’s got to do what a body’s got to do. No vain, no gain.
I guess what bothers me most about the Helmsley finger-pointing and the implications thereof is this: even in an age of gender enlightenment, a lot of crude macho types—many in positions of power and influence—still indulge in their obscene strutting, puffing on and on about how women aren’t as qualified as men to handle the chores of hotel management; and who, consequently, try to legitimize their chauvinism by seeking pre-emptive retribution through the criminal justice system. We are witness, therefore, to a host of trumped up charges brought against Ms. Leona in an effort to ban her once and for all from playing hotelier in a lodging arena whose games are scheduled and their outcome controlled by male muscle. Not only is retribution sought by her arch rivals, but the ugly confrontation is picked up and exploited by the media. Have they no shame?
Here are a couple of samples, enough to make your blood boil.
So now the gallant Ms. Leona is being tried for tax crimes that should be regarded as insignificant when compared to her splendid efforts to build a viable hotel chain offering employment opportunities to thousands of the down-trodden, many of them down-trodden women. We fear the worst and, rather than rush to her defense (we sense it might be too late: she’s been tried unmercifully in the press—guilty until proven innocent), we humbly offer suggestions for alternative sentencing which, we hope, will preclude a prison term and allow her to live out the rest of her life in the arms of husband Harry about whom we’re just wild. Here we go:
► Lunch (dutch, of course) twice a week at a neutral site with Ivana Trump, general manager—it says here—The Plaza. Agenda, essential, with discussion focusing on the plight of women in the hospitality industry. Here’s the best part. As a condition of the meeting, they tape-record their discussions and forward transcripts to the New York Times. Or Newsweek.
► A modest percent of guest rooms in all of her hotels (she and Harry—about whom we are just wild—own 26 of them in 10 states) to be set aside for the homeless and the indigent, a kindness we feel ought to be proposed by Ms. Leona that should silence her critics once and for all. If occupancy suffers as a result of this arrangement (either for the paying guest or the homeless and indigent), she can adjust the percentage up or down. For example, if the homeless and the indigent do not wish to take advantage of this offer, she can release rooms for paying guests, but not until she—or one of her minions of which there are thousands—has scoured the streets and alleys for candidates. A plus? On the birthdays of the homeless and the indigent, there is time for celebration. Let them eat cake.
► Her concerns for her employees—from chamber maids to dishwashers—are legendary, but she never has enough time to talk to them. Often they are gone before she has a chance to get to know who they are or what they do: they either quit abruptly for reasons known only to them or they have clocked out long before Ms. Leona shows up. We have plans to change all of that. From the back of the house to the front, from the top to the bottom, once a week for one or two hours (her choice) during the day LH will toil side by side with all of her help, assuring them in passing she is, first of all, a likable dame, and, secondly, as concerned about their welfare as they are of hers. A smile-face sticker with the hotel logo on it, like the solid gold one she wears, to stick to their shirts or blouses would be a nice touch, but only if they deserve it. In addition, in response to a request from several of her executive housekeepers, she will take up cudgels for their cause, posing in ads as the Queen of Housekeepers, wearing a dust bonnet, clutching a mop, and carrying a bucketful of bathroom amenities. We live to see that.
The Queen is dead: long live the Queen. Hear, hear.
Footnote: Leona Helmsley died August 20, 2007. She left $12 million to her dog, “Trouble.” How can you not love someone that does that?
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