So like I informed you, my dear readers, I was to attend a workshop with my colleagues, mostly HODs, today at the hotel Nyle Plaza. The hotel is a 3 star hotel located in Vytilla and is about a year old. I had never heard of it before but wasn’t expecting much as most 3 star hotels in Cochin have the same feel.
So I reached the office by 8:40 am and had to wait till past 9:30 am until we left for the venue. Our car was driven by the tech manager Binu chettan, who is a friend of mine and a rocker & Leslie was with us – the 3 of us in the car were singing a couple of rock songs along to the car cd player. We reached the hotel at 10 am and things were setup by 10:25 and ready for us to start the workshop.
The communication agenda was mostly on the business of our center, how we have done so far the last two years and what is the action plan for the next year. After a break for coffee, in groups we prepared presentations by first jottiing down points and then discussing them. Finally each of the 5 groups entered them into a ppt on laptops. At 2 pm we stopped for a 45 min lunch break.
Now just like most 3-4 star hotels have begun to look alike in our area, the food is somewhat the same as well. Well, atleast the lunch buffets. But I must say that the quality here was quite good, much better than the other ones that I have had. Chicken noodle soup, Kerala porotta, chicken masala, fish curries, vegetable fried & masala, boiled veggies, beef chilly, lots of salad. It was delicious but I couldn’t eat much. Oh and a big dessert – ice cream, a small cake with chocolate cream, fruits, jelly & mousse. Yummy, yum yum!
Bellies full, we came back to our tables in the small hall and played a 10 minute brain buster game. Then it was time for the presentations. It took a long time for the first few presentations to get over (I took the rest through a presentation on Training) with a lot of discussion and debate. I did not like some part of it as it is blowing smoke up our collective asses.
So as the presentations went on it was obvious that we would not be able to complete them by the 7 pm cut off time. So it was decided that the other presentations would wait till the next Friday and that we would do it in the office board room. That done, we had a the small matter of cutting a cake – it was Leslie’s birthday. A few birthday bumps later, he cut a cake provided by the hotel;s in house bakery and then we left for our respective homes.
I did have some complaints against the hotel – the coffee/tea was not sweet at all, they have crappy notepads & pencils, all they had on the tables in the hall were small plates with a few polo mints and they had some work going on next to our hall – you could hear the drill making a lot of noise while we were trying to debaate.
“I did have some complaints against the hotel – the coffee/tea was not sweet at all, they have crappy notepads & pencils,…”
They handed out pencils with their notepads? That’s ghetto lame ;)
Surprisingly lame for a hotel that aims to be one of the best in the state.