Want Success? Wash Those Dishes Well!

Bill Brown ... Xiamen University

"Cast your bread upon the waters, for after many days you will find it again." Ecclesiastes 11:1

"Sow your seed in the morning, and in evening let not your hands be idle, for you do not know which will succeed, whether this or that, or whether both will do equally well." Ecclesiastes 11:6

Foreigners in Xiamen were excited when they started digging the foundations for our first international hotel, which is now the Xiamen Millennium Harbourview Hotel. One of the things we looked forward to was some place that would serve ice water! (Chinese drink hot water; it's bad enough being in hot water without drinking it too).

We now have dozens of fine hotels, but Millennium remains my favorite because of downtown location, (close to Zhongshan Rd. shopping, and Gulangyu Ferry), and the food (try their daily noodles from pasta magician Dai Kan Fai!). But what I most appreciate is the attitude and service, which is because of exception training, from top management on down to kitchen staff.

Even a dish washer in his 50s was given several weeks training--not just on how to wash dishes but how to be part of the Millennium Harbourview team. And speaking of dishwashers, this reminds me of a lowly dishwasher in New York who became the first manager of one of the greatest hotels in the world! You have probably read the embellished version on the internet, but embelling this tale is like "drawing legs on a snake" (a Chinese saying for adding unnecessary detail) because the truth is even better than the urban legend.

True Story--from Dishwasher to First Manager of Waldorf Hotel
On one night around 1891, a couple tried to get a room in a small hotel in Philadelphia. The young man at the desk, Mr. Boldt, said, "I"m sorry, but the hotel is full, but you can have my room."

The man who took Boldt's room was William Aldorf Astor, and he built the prestigious Waldorf Hotel and asked George C. Boldt to be its first manager!

The urban legend makes Boldt out to be a poor clerk of a small hotel, and the Astor's to be an elderly couple, when it fact Astor was 43 and Boldt was 40. And the small hotel was a chic inn that appealed to elite clientele with its exceptional service and cuisine. But more amazing than the urban legend is how Boldt, a penniless immigrant came to own the Bellevue!

Wash Those Dishes Well! In the 1860s,Boldt arrived almost broke in New York and got a job as a dishwasher at the Merchants Exchange Hotel. He then tried to find a better paying job in Texas, but returned to New York with even less money than before, and got another kitchen job. But Boldt worked so hard in the kitchen that he was promoted to cashier, and then hired to be manager of an upstate New York hotel.

Boldt then developed the Bellevue Hotel, which Boldt's wife helped renovate to appeal to upper class women and elite clientele. A couple of years after Astor and his wife stayed at the Bellevue, Astor built the Waldorf hotel, and being a good businessman, I'm sure he chose Boldt to be his first manager not simply because he gave up his room but because of the qualities that enabled him to rise from humble dishwasher to wealthy hotelier.

The moral, "If you're washing dishes, wash them well!"

Sowing in the Morning In Ecclesiastes 11:6, Solomon said to sow seed in the morning, and to not be idle in the evening, for one never knows what will succeed. I'm sure George C. Boldt, who was as courteous to an elderly couple trying to escape the rain as he was to a corporate CEO, would have imagined the consequeces of that night. And we, too, cannot imagine the longterm results of what we do today. But if there is one universal rule in life, it seems to be "What we sow we shall reap."

So what to sow, and where? Each day our opportunities and fields are different. The only sure-fire path to eventual success is to have a core set of values, stick to them, and do the best we can each day.

Thread of Success. In closing, a story closer to home. In the early 90s I had a female MBA student (I'll call her Miss Zhang) who scored 100 on all 8 of the tests I gave in four courses. She was also good at sports, and a respected student leader. I asked Miss Zhang what drove her and she said, "My parents were just poor teachers, but they told me from the time I was small that if I did the best I could on small things, later I might be able to do bigger things, but if I did small things badly, I'd never do greater things. So I always do the best I can at everything I do."

Thread of Failure. In the same class was another youth, Mr. Lin, who was always late to class, did not do his homework, even cheated on the test. He did not care because back then graduation was almost automatic in Chinese universities (though not so today!). He told me, "70 is as good as 100. It's passing. Besides, it doesn't matter what I do because I have no hope. I can't choose my job. I am assigned where to work."

I said, "That's true, but you can always just pay your work unit several thousand Yuan, be released, and go to work for a private company."

"But then I would not have any security!" he complained!

Lin's parents, by the way, worked in a government office in Xiamen, and as he was growing up he had learned from his parents that the way to make it in life was guanxi (relationships) and luck.

Miss Zhang graduated, paid several thousand to her danwei (work unit), went to work for a private firm, and after many years slowly worked her way up and out--to New York, and Hong Kong. Mr. Lin is probably still in a Xiamen government office moaning, "I have no hope."

There does seem to be, of course, some element of luck in life. But as someone once said, "The harder you work, the luckier you are."

Cast your bread upon the waters. Give of yourself to others, whether it be money or time or a job well done, whether in the classroom or the workplace or the hotel kitchen washing dishes, and it will be given to you.

Xiamen Millennium Harbourview Official Site
www.amoymagic.com