That time I forced an international hotel chain to change their policy

I am taking a bit of a break from writing about alcoholism and how sad addiction can be to witness to talk about something that popped into my head the other day when talking to friends. It was a long time ago but I am quite proud of the fact that I got involved even though I only did so because I was pissed off and was working a traveling job that was slowly grinding away at my last nerve.

It involves the Holiday Inn and Michigan, but eventually lead to a change in policy at all other Holiday Inns that I encountered. I can't say for sure that it was specifically me* that made this policy change happen, but I did receive a letter, written on paper and signed with ink from then CEO of the company. While I am quite certain that this person didn't sit down and type the letter themselves, they did read it and did sign it and did approve the message that was written on it. They also gave me a bunch of vouchers for some free stays as a thank you for pointing out a critical error of their corporate ways which was likely more of a bribe for me to stop talking about it.

Here's how the story goes.

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Short backstory: Before moving to Asia, I was a slave to the normal USA grind. Since I really have never been the 9-5 commute type of person, I jumped at the chance when some jobs in the "company" (it was the government) opened up that were very heavy on travel. It was almost entirely travel actually. The idea was to keep us out of our government offices upwards of 90% of the year. These jobs paid pretty well because not very many people are going to be willing and able to do something like that because of family. Me, being a recent graduate that was a bit of a playboy when I was in my 20's, didn't have a regular girlfriend, let alone a wife, and I certainly didn't have any children. Therefore I signed up for this job and a week later, it was mine.

We would travel from city to city, sometimes staying for a couple weeks, sometimes for months. Since I was the purchasing manager or project manager on any of these projects, it would be me that would normally choose the hotels that myself and any other members of the crew on these sites would be staying at. When we got a job near Torch Lake, Michigan, well, that was a very special assignment indeed.

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I'll talk more about the majesty of this lake that I believe to be one of the most beautiful places in the world at some other time. For now, let's talk about how the Holiday Inn pissed me off to the point where I felt compelled to write them a very strongly worded letter.

The Holiday Inn at Torch Lake was a bit nicer than your average Holiday Inn. The rooms were big, the view was great and it was one of the more comfortable ones that I had ever stayed in. There was one thing that kind of pissed me off though and since I am not a moron, I saw though the BS right away.

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This is not from the hotel in question but this was around a time when Earth Day and environmentalism was starting to become a thing all over the place. I'm all about doing what we can to save the planet but businesses like Holiday Inn had a devious little plan in place to make it both appear that they were doing their part, as well as perhaps save a ton of money.

They had a sign, featuring tons of cute, mostly infant wild animals on a sign in the bathroom and in the bedroom, strongly encouraging (or guilting) the customers into reusing their towels and not getting turn-down service every day. I do this by default when staying in a hotel long term (as was the case for me at the time) anyway because I don't need a maid running around my room every single day. It's just wasteful and I don't like my privacy being invaded. I'm more of a "do not disturb sign" type of person that calls the front for new towels only and has them change the sheets once a week or whenever "something else" happens to necessitate changing them sooner.

Well, this sign, was asking the customers to conserve water, re-use towels, put the air con on "reasonable" settings in summer and the same with heaters in the winter. You were not being forced to do these things, you were just strongly encouraged to do so with the hopes being that baby seals would stop getting murdered as a side-effect. In these same rooms we have some of the most high-capacity toilet bowls that I have ever seen as well as showers that didn't have any sort of water-saving heads on them.

This was irritating enough because it shows that they don't really give a shit about the environment, they just want to create the impression that they do because if they did care about saving water, they would do something about these two important items. They DON'T do anything about them because to do so would incorporate spending significantly greater amounts of money than just making some laminated signs of caribou and bald eagles.

The thing that pushed me over the edge was the otherwise quite nice for a chain hotel breakfast that is included in the price. The breakfast itself was fine and included fresh cinnamon rolls - which was their forte at the time. The problem was that every single item that was used for serving these things to yourself was plastic or worse, the plates and bowls were exclusively polystyrene or Styrofoam, which as you probably know, is basically one of the most environmentally unfriendly products in existence that just happens to be the cheapest to manufacture.

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It was during one breakfast that I probably stayed up at the lobby bar too late the night before that I got frustrated before going to the job site that I got really upset with the Holiday Inn and even took it upon myself to take photos of all of these things - like real, printed out photos, and compose a letter to the people who are truly in charge of this organization.

This was in the late 90's and early 2000's and I had already found out that at that particular point in time that letters written on paper and mailed to the correct person were far more likely to get a result than an email and in this instance, I was right.

I sent them off to major people inside the company's leadership structure, knowing that half of them would never be read but there was still a chance.

In the letter I mocked their hypocritical position on environmentalism detailing the above examples and also put a little joke in there about the towels stating that "if we, the customers had to pay for each towel, I believe that in order to fall in line with the already existing policies at Holiday Inn, that these towels would be paper-thin and we would be encouraged to use as many of them as we possibly can."

I made no threat to the corporate leadership even though I was in a position at the time to do so because my job was with the Environmental Protection Agency so my job title carried a little bit of weight with it. I worded the letter in a professional way that pointed out that anyone would be able to see right through this "environmental policy" of the company when the breakfast is served entirely on non biodegradable materials that are intended for single-use only.

It took about a month for someone to get back to me and I didn't save the letter but it thanked me for pointing out their error and real steps would be taken to reform their policies. They even invited me to be a part of the panel that would decide on these things because of my position with the EPA. I would have loved to have taken advantage of that opportunity but they didn't mention remuneration and my job was pretty demanding as far as time was concerned. So I declined to attend.

However, real change actually happened after that. The Holiday Inns that I stayed at in the future still had their signs in the rooms and bathrooms regarding reusing towels and linens if possible, and the shower-heads had been replaced to ones that had water-saving as an option on them. The toilets remained the same and I can understand why. There are over 1,000 Holiday Inn hotels globally, so even if they were to only change the toilets in North American locations, this would cost an crap-ton of money. It was nice to see that they actually did SOMETHING though. Also, while I can't speak for every single Holiday Inn in existence, the breakfasts that I encountered henceforth were served on reusable plates with reusable cutlery. If you needed a quick take-away for whatever reason, these boxes were made of cardboard.

I can't say for certain that it was specifically my letter that encouraged this change but the timing is undeniable as is the fact that I was invited to be a part of the conversion process. I quite liked my job at the time and felt as though if I started talking about money that it would weaken my original argument, so therefore I just left it alone.

It did feel kind of good that I was able to make something happen in a gigantic corporation though. Did Holiday Inn really want to do this? I would imagine not because purchasing all of those plates and cutlery would have cost them a LOT of money initially, not to mention that they would now need to increase the capacity of their kitchens and likely add staff members as well. But they DID do it.

They also gave me vouchers for free stays anywhere in the world with their company and that was a nice touch even though I ended up misplacing all of them except for the 2 that I used.

This wouldn't be the only time that I changed the path of a corporation in my life, there are 2 additional ones, and perhaps, if anyone is interested I could detail those as well.