1.22.2007

Scenes From a Conference Call

Day One as "Acting GM" went rather well . . . Mondays are always the busiest administrative-wise, with payroll, closing the books on the previous week, financial forecasts and conference calls all scheduled, plus ordering any merch from the weekend and returning messages. Add in the fact that I had to open up and put in some counter time and it was quite a day.

During the conference call (the second of two for the day), each GM was going over the financials from the forecast. When it got to my turn, it went something like this:

Regional GM: "Joe?"

Me: "Revenue will be $8500 over plan, but that's conservative. I think we can blow that number away. Of that, we'll bring $780 to the bottom line."

Regional GM: "Why only $800?"

Me: "Well, we were hit with the lease line for the regional scarifier and that wasn't budgeted for, plus the water bill is $4000 over plan and we crushed our catering plan in December so the DOC's commission is over as well. I think we can bring $1500 towards EBITDAR by month's end though. It'll just take some smart saving in our departments."

Regional GM: "Wow. That's what I like to hear. And man, Joe, that's great. An Assistant GM who knows the numbers. I love it."

THAT'S how I roll. Of course, now I have to back it up!

3 comments:

Conrad said...

Because I'm Mr. Negative, how come your water bill was so over plan? You been playing around in the sprinklers again Joe?

Congrats on knowing your shit!

j.h.k. said...

Ya know Joe, I'm looking at the WENUS and I am NOT happy.

I am almost afraid to ask what a "regional scarifier" is.

Joe said...

You know how I know you're gay? You look at WENUSes.

;)

A scarifier is used in gardening to break up turf and dirt. However, we use a contrete scarifier, which basically is the same machine, but has much thicker and stronger blades. It's purpose is to essentially grind down concrete surfaces. We use it level out unsafe gaps or lips of concrete.

As for the water bill, it's a really screwy system. We are budgeted for a certain number (and it's really hard to budget for such a high cost utility, since may factors can alter the cost.) The crappy thing is we pretty much pay the bill after the month is realized, so we pay December's bill in January, etc. (these are on time, mind you. It's just how the system is.) If we were budgeted for the right month, we would have no problems. In the end it all washes out (no pun intended), but it can make or break your EBITDAR, which is really unfair. All the city courses battle this problem.