"Just explain what happened with the utensils, please?"
Said Rachel, the In Room Dining Manager, who was Nathan's, Dimo's and Natalia's direct boss. She wasn't so hot on disciplining her hard working staff, but she also had a five star rating experience to defend to her absolute capacity.
It turned out, the forks Nathan had polished were needed quite urgently for the restaurant. Dimo had cleverly manipulated the facts to support that Nathan was being lazy - the forks would have been done sooner had Nathan prioritised them sooner. However, this did not account for two facts; Nathan had only started 20 minutes prior to the request for utensils. Second, the polishing of utensils was seen as "secondary" work for Room Service, only when it was quiet would Nathan be expected to lend a hand. His priority was Room Service, after all.
"I had them polished and ready to go, Dimo took them and-"
Nathan paused to raise his two index fingers, he was quoting what he doesn't believe what happened next.
"Fell over."
Rachel wasn't nearly as impressed. "Okay, did he actually fall over though or did you see him pretend to?"
"No, ma'am. But I think that he-"
"Nathan, I'm not interested in what you "think" he did. I know that you two don't have the best track record but you are both colleagues at the end of the day. I expect you to be able to put your differences aside and cooperate as professionals."
Nathan was annoyed at this response. Of course Rachel had every right to dismiss idle gossip, and Nathan couldn't prove that Dimo had deliberately tripped over absolutely nothing on a flat surface. But it was a right Nathan would have to suffer for. Circumstances created solely by Dimo owing to the problem he caused the restaurant over the roster mishap were causing Nathan to have to have his professionalism dragged through the mud only because Dimo couldn't tolerate being made to look incompetent. This was a pill Nathan had no choice but to swallow.
