15380: Hermantin-Miami Herald-Inn Key award a moment in sun (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: leonie hermantin <lhermantin@hotmail.com>

Posted on Wed, Apr. 23, 2003



Inn Key award a moment in sun
By CARA BUCKLEY
cbuckley@herald.com

Marie Roseline Philoctete's work transports her into a world of luxury and
glitz, where people who make twice, thrice, 10 times what she earns are
waited on hand and foot.

Her job is to make sure that the porcelain gleams, that streaks are banished
from mirrors, that dust mites do not linger on bedside tables. Over 26 years
of toil, she has learned how to smile when needed, which is almost always,
and to shelve family troubles at home.

During that time, her salary has risen from $3.75 to $12.07 an hour, roughly
$26,000 a year. Her modest earnings have helped to make one of her sons a
respiratory therapist and to put the other in Miami-Dade Community College,
though affording one night at the hotel she works at, which costs over $200
a night, remains far out of reach.

On Tuesday, her efforts were finally recognized, 2 ˝ decades after they
began. In front of 1,000 cheering hotel workers and managers, colleagues and
hospitality executives at the Fontainebleau Hilton Resort in Miami Beach,
Philoctete, 54, a Haitian émigré and the lead housekeeping supervisor at the
Marriott Miami Beach at South Beach, was named the winner of the 2003
Lodging Employee of the Year Award.

The award is the crown jewel of the Inn Key ceremony, launched nine years
ago by the Greater Miami & the Beaches Hotel Association to boost morale for
the local hospitality industry's rank-and-file workers.

Some 1,000 people showed up for the luncheon, and 272 of them were nominated
for awards. Each winner received a plaque and a $500 savings bond. Forty-two
people were up for employee of the year.

''They love this,'' Jeff Lehman, manager of the Palms and the National
hotels in South Beach, said of the 30 employees he accompanied to the
awards.

Philoctete came to Miami from Port-au-Prince 27 years ago in search of a
better life. She got a job a year later at the Marriott Miami Airport Hotel,
took English classes and listened closely enough to co-workers to pick up
Spanish. She rose quietly but steadily in the housekeeping department's
ranks and now assigns housekeepers to rooms and orders supplies.

Nominated for the top employee award three times before, she said she was
not nervous this year, but her legs shook slightly when she was handed the
plaque.

Her smile flashed as co-workers showered her with hugs.

''It's a challenge: You have to smile all the time,'' the resident of North
Miami Beach said of her job. ``But you have to make people happy. They're
away from home, and the hotel is their second home.''

By CARA BUCKLEY
cbuckley@herald.com

Marie Roseline Philoctete's work transports her into a world of luxury and
glitz, where people who make twice, thrice, 10 times what she earns are
waited on hand and foot.

Her job is to make sure that the porcelain gleams, that streaks are banished
from mirrors, that dust mites do not linger on bedside tables. Over 26 years
of toil, she has learned how to smile when needed, which is almost always,
and to shelve family troubles at home.

During that time, her salary has risen from $3.75 to $12.07 an hour, roughly
$26,000 a year. Her modest earnings have helped to make one of her sons a
respiratory therapist and to put the other in Miami-Dade Community College,
though affording one night at the hotel she works at, which costs over $200
a night, remains far out of reach.

On Tuesday, her efforts were finally recognized, 2 ˝ decades after they
began. In front of 1,000 cheering hotel workers and managers, colleagues and
hospitality executives at the Fontainebleau Hilton Resort in Miami Beach,
Philoctete, 54, a Haitian émigré and the lead housekeeping supervisor at the
Marriott Miami Beach at South Beach, was named the winner of the 2003
Lodging Employee of the Year Award.

The award is the crown jewel of the Inn Key ceremony, launched nine years
ago by the Greater Miami & the Beaches Hotel Association to boost morale for
the local hospitality industry's rank-and-file workers.

Some 1,000 people showed up for the luncheon, and 272 of them were nominated
for awards. Each winner received a plaque and a $500 savings bond. Forty-two
people were up for employee of the year.

''They love this,'' Jeff Lehman, manager of the Palms and the National
hotels in South Beach, said of the 30 employees he accompanied to the
awards.

Philoctete came to Miami from Port-au-Prince 27 years ago in search of a
better life. She got a job a year later at the Marriott Miami Airport Hotel,
took English classes and listened closely enough to co-workers to pick up
Spanish. She rose quietly but steadily in the housekeeping department's
ranks and now assigns housekeepers to rooms and orders supplies.

Nominated for the top employee award three times before, she said she was
not nervous this year, but her legs shook slightly when she was handed the
plaque.

Her smile flashed as co-workers showered her with hugs.

''It's a challenge: You have to smile all the time,'' the resident of North
Miami Beach said of her job. ``But you have to make people happy. They're
away from home, and the hotel is their second home.''



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