Sara Okonkwo is the manager of the Riverside Hotel, a stylish four-star hotel in Edinburgh. She has worked in hospitality for fifteen years, and she loves the precise, organised rhythm of a well-run hotel. On a normal day, Sara arrives at 8am. She immediately checks the booking system, reviews any overnight messages, and holds a morning meeting with her team.
The rest of her day follows a familiar pattern. She responds to guest complaints calmly and quickly — she thinks good hotel management is about the small details. Every afternoon, she inspects the rooms with the housekeeping manager to make sure standards are high. She usually handles about thirty emails a day and normally finishes work by six o'clock. "A quiet day is a good day," she often says.
Today, however, is not quiet. Today is not normal. At 6am, a water pipe burst in the basement, and the hotel's morning has turned into a crisis.
Right now, the maintenance team is working in the basement, trying to isolate the broken pipe. Forty guests are waiting to check in, but six rooms are flooded and cannot be used. Sara is personally managing the check-in desk because her receptionist is dealing with an extremely unhappy guest in the lobby. Meanwhile, the chef is refusing to start the kitchen service until the water pressure returns to normal. Sara is also trying to reach a plumber — she is not responding to emails today. She is simply trying to keep everyone calm.
"I deal with a crisis maybe once a month," Sara tells me, her phone ringing constantly. "But today? Today is one of the worst." She gives a short, tired laugh and picks up the phone again.
By midday, the pipe is fixed and the hotel slowly returns to its normal rhythm — but it has been a very long morning.