The Tribune

DANTE Bain, assistant hotel manager of the One & Only Ocean Club, Paradise Island, and last year’s winner of the club’s Manager of the Quarter award, was forced to resign last week to the surprise of many of his admiring colleagues.

His offence? A senior manager caught him nodding off in a chair in a back office at 4.45am on July 30. Although he was still on duty he had completed his front desk audit, the hotel was quiet and so he and the bell man on the midnight shift decided to sit down and have a conversation. They were chatting when Mr Bain, 36, who had been requested to work both day and night shifts the previous two weeks, put his head back in his chair and closed his eyes.

He nodded off. Suddenly he heard his office door being pushed open - it was already partially open so he could have full view of the front office. “Good morning,” he said, as he raised his head and sat up in his chair at the sound of the door.

Kyle Pretorius, the Resident Manager, did not reply. He went to his office, collected a packet of cigarettes, and as he left he muttered in a low voice: “I could not tell you enough!”

“I did not know what he was talking about. I had never nodded off before and so we had never had a conversation on the subject.

“Although he sounded angry, I did not know what he was talking about,” Mr Bain repeated. Mr Bain was to get off duty at 8am.

Shortly after 7 o’clock the same morning, Mr Bain received a call from Terry Adderley, executive manageress of the rooms division. She wanted to know what had happened. “I told her Mr Pretorius had come in and saw me nodding and ignored me.” She told me that sleeping on the job was a major breach and that I was not to leave before reporting to Human Resources.

“My shift ended at 8am and so I waited at the front desk. We walked to Human Resources together. This must have been already arranged because Human Resources does not open before 9am, but as we got there shortly after 8am Ms Latoya Davis, Director of Human Resources, was pulling up in her car.

“We went into the office and I was given a four-day suspension without pay for being caught sleeping on the job with a line staff member. The bellman got a warning, because he was a union member, I got suspension because I was a manager.”

The “Official Notice of Unsatisfactory performance” dated July 30 - for gross misconduct, said:

“On July 30, 2015, you were found by our Resident Manager Kyle Pretorius inattentive to your duties (sleeping in the back office of the front office). As a result of this there was no management or employee present in the lobby or the front door. This type of behaviour is unacceptable and will not be tolerated.”

On completion of his suspension, Mr Davis said he returned, as instructed, to the Human Resources office at 10am on Tuesday, August 4.

“I waited outside the office for one hour and 10 minutes before I was called into the room where the two women - Ms Terry Adderley and Ms Latoya Davis - were deliberating. I could see Mr Pretorius outside the office speaking with other managers.”

Ms Davis told him that his case had been reviewed and, because it was a major breach, there was nothing that could be done.

“She said this meant that they could terminate me, or I could resign,” Mr Bain told The Tribune.

“I told them that I did not want ‘termination’ on my record and so I would rather resign. I was told that I had to write the resignation letter immediately. I could not leave and write it later. I had to write in the room before them, sign it and leave. I then wrote: ‘Effective immediately I tender my resignation from the Ocean Club’. I signed it, and I left.”

But not before he gave a farewell hug to the two ladies.

“Ms Adderley looked upset.

“I suppose she knew what it felt like, having herself been demoted from Resort Manager to executive manager of the rooms division to make room for Mr Pretorius. However, her salary remained unchanged.”

Mr Bain said he felt he wrote his resignation letter under duress. “I had no choice,” he said. “I had to write that letter before I left the room, or else I would have been terminated. I felt I had no alternative. I felt compelled and manipulated. I am not telling my story out of hatred, but out of the morality of it and how the whole exercise was done after I gave of my best, and tried to accommodate my employers the whole time I was there.”

For two weeks before he was fired, Mr Bain was asked to work two shifts daily. “There was no lunch break, no relief, but I always tried to do my best,” he said. “The graveyard shifts were from 11pm to 8am. I did this daily for two weeks in addition to my regular shift.”

Mr Bain’s normal work week was 45 hours. On the two weeks before he was fired he was asked to do 54 hours a week. His compensation was two days off.

“On that day,” he said, “I had already done five and a half hours. I sat down and nodded off. It was considered an improper breach and after five years I was forced to resign.”

Mr Bain, a father of five, joined Kerzner’s One & Only in 2008. As a result of the US recession the resort started to lay off staff. In November 2008 he was made redundant following the rule of the “last one in, the first one out” - “and I was the last one in,” he said.

In the interim he was recruited by the Salvation Army to manage their shop for the blind in the production of household mops.

After two years - in 2010 - the One & Only asked him to return as their night auditor. He was later promoted to hotel assistant manager on duty responsible for overseeing the concierge’s desk, the front desk agents and the bell hops.

But, Mr Bain also has a sideline, which he calls his “passion and his life.” Mr Bain is the proprietor of a firm called Touch of Class Painting.

“I don’t do it to make money,” he said, “it is therapeutic - I love it and I do it in my spare time.”

However, he finds that the painting does bring in that little extra to assist him in his ambition to give his children opportunities that he never had. In fact for him it was another way of making a living.

His One & Only colleagues will say that he has never had a warning. Not so, he says: his first and only warning - until this last episode that brought dismissal - was because of a misunderstanding.

“I was trying to help guests,” he said, “when I was given a message that the police were there. I met the police and told them that ‘my man will take you down’. I received a warning because I had let an officer of the law onto the premises without going through security. I did not know that he had come to serve a subpoena, and I had assumed that because he had been brought to my desk he had already gone through security.”

Up to that point it was the only hiccup that he had had in his entire hotel career. Last year, for example, he was awarded the title “Manager of the Quarter” for outstanding service. It came with a plaque.

“Management never treated me harshly,” he said. “In the past they never treated me unjustly. I was always a team player. When asked to do extra work, I did so willingly. If there were any questions, I went to my superior for guidance. I had had no problems until now.”

A hotel colleague said that this quiet, smiling man has “an impeccable record. He’s fantastic with customers, dresses immaculately, has good presentation and when asked will do double shifts without complaining - he has an enviable record. Already we miss him.”

“I am a neutral person,” says the soft-voiced Mr Bain. “Without the staff I could not get anything done. I request everybody to do their best, I make no demands.

“But what hurt me most with what has just happened to me is that I felt disrespected as an individual.

“Despite this, I hold no malice for anyone.”