Column | The Greenkeeper Writes
Published on June 3, 2020The Day After – Part 7
This was the part of the job that Roslan hated the most. Meetings. Especially when it involved people outside his department. More so if one of those people outside his department was an accountant. Worse if the accountant was Madam Wong.
Madam Wong was nice. Roslan had no doubts about that. They were on good terms, good friends in fact. But her style in meetings grated on him. She had a lot of opinions and what Roslan found disturbing was that many of them were common-sense and just made sense. He sighed.
Roslan shrugged it off as his ego. She did her homework so she knew more than other people, though she often pretended like she didn’t know. She’d ask and ask until she got to the point where she could insert her opinion. Roslan found it an exhausting process but secretly he admired her because it usually worked for the best.
Roslan sat alone in the meeting room. He was the only person in there, doing some calculations. He had no doubts what the meeting the GM called for was about: cost-cutting. The reality of business after the MCO caused by the virus was that there was just less business. 50% of the club’s income used to come from food sales. Food consumed by golfers and non-golfers who enjoyed the golf scene. Roslan had always put extra effort into the holes facing the clubhouse.
His assistant, Chong used to grumble, preferring to treat all holes same but Balan, being the one with the least money understood. Golfers may play all 18 holes but their attention to the beauty of the golf course was usually limited to the first few holes before the jokes stopped and the last few when they started to wind down and the jokes would begin again as they come back towards the clubhouse. Added to that, non-golfers would only see the few holes from the clubhouse and a few more while driving and they are attracted mostly to the mowing stripes.
The door opened and Madam Wong walked in. “Heeyyy… Roslan. How are you? Feeling better?” She was the only one who called Rose, his wife directly and asked about his condition during his hospital stay. She probably would have visited him if not for the lockdown.
“It still hurts to sit for a long period,” Roslan disliked whiners and so he disliked whining but he was hoping whining about his pain might end the meeting sooner than usual.
“Aiyoh… still taking medicine?” Her voice showed genuine concern.
“Ya, without painkillers I won’t be coming to work.”
“Aiyah, at our age, shouldn’t be climbing ladders lah.”
“It was just fixing one light bulb and I was bored at home…” he broke off mid-sentence as the door opened and Balan walked in. Roslan visibly tensed. “Balan? What are doing here? This is an HoD meeting.”
It was Madam Wong who answered “No lah, this is a budget meeting. I was the one who invited Balan, just to hear his ideas.”
It was the sort of thing Madam Wong would do and the sort of thing that Roslan and other Head of Department hated; she overstepping into other departments.
“I thought that if you cannot come or just in case you want to leave early, Balan can stay on,” she added.
That actually made sense, Roslan thought. He sighed. This woman… do I hate her or do I like her?
The other managers started to drift in as Roslan was still contemplating his feelings about Balan’s presence in the meeting. Like it or not, Balan was a good assistant and should be given credit for the condition of the North Course which, though not as good as South Course, was pretty good considering the budget was half than South Course. Maybe… a thought struck him.
“Madam, can I invite Chong here too? His course is going to suffer more of the budget cuts,” he asked.
“Sure. I think that’s a good idea,” she said.
A slap on the back stopped him from saying anything else. The pain made him see stars. Without turning around he knew it was Jusoh, the sports manager who fancied himself the joker among the managers.
Even Madam Wong grimaced. “Aiyoh Jusoh. Are you crazy?”
“Why? Does it still hurt?” Though Jusoh’s face was of one concern, the tone of his voice didn’t change. Roslan doubted his sincerity. Jusoh probably thought this was funny.
“Boss, are you okay?” Roslan could hear Balan’s voice. He could feel the blood in his veins simmering again and thought he better do something before it slowly came to a boil.
“Call Chong to attend this meeting,” Roslan instructed Balan, his face bent over the table, holding in his tears.
While Balan was on the phone, the GM walked in, sat down, put on his glasses and scrutinised everyone around the table. Everyone looked back at him with some expectancy, even Balan who was on the phone with Chong. Roslan was still facing down on the table. GM raised his eyebrows at Madam Wong who pointed to Jusoh and mimed slapping her own back. GM looked at Jusoh and shook head, his mouth silently saying “Crazy” causing the other managers to smile.
“You alright Roslan?” the GM enquired.
“Ya.” Roslan raised his head.
“It won’t be a long meeting anyway,” said the GM “I suppose everyone knows about what we want to talk about?”
“Raise salary?” said Jusoh with a grin.
All Jusoh got for his effort was a hard stare.
“For now, it is about budget cuts. If budgets cannot be cut to match what we need to sustain our operations, we will be talking about salary cuts”
Jusoh wasn’t smiling anymore.
“Madam Wong,” GM gestured for her to begin.
“Thank you. As you know, after the lockdown ended, the new normal means our F&B operation is not making profit. We still have to pay salaries even though we can’t sell any food or beverages. The gym is closed, the swimming pool is closed but we still have to clean the pool, pay the lifeguards’ salary and the list goes on. At least we have monthly subscriptions coming in but even then the problem is that our members have problems too with their own income and priorities. Some don’t want to pay because they say they’re not utilising any facilities”.
She drew in a deep breath.
“The reality is we need to cut our costs to match our income. Do you know what our biggest expenditure is?”
Almost everyone looked at Roslan.
“No. You’re wrong. The biggest expenditure is salary. But no one wants to get a salary cut, right? So we need to cut other things first. The fertiliser ka, the soap ka, the chlorine for the pool ka, every little thing, every cent counts to make the total sum”
Despite what Madam Wong said, everyone kept glancing at Roslan who looked at Balan and nodded.
Balan opened his notebook, cleared his throat and felt everyone’s eyes on him “We had a discussion yesterday and there are a few things we can do to cut costs;
1. We will focus on the greens. The greens are the heart of the golf course, no cost to cut there… yet.
2. The size of the fairways will be reduced. This can reduce the amount of fertiliser applied. No fairways on the par-3s except at hole 7 on North Course where we will increase the size of the collar and apron because it is a long par-3.
3. We will also change the fairway fertiliser from slow-release to quick-release maybe even use agriculture fertiliser.
“Won’t that increase the growth of the fairways and then you’ll need to cut more often?” asked the GM.
“We will be using a high K fertiliser with only a little nitrogen in it. It’s nitrogen that gives the growth,” explained Roslan.
As Balan observed a lull in the conversation, he quickly continued, “4. We will be introducing a concept of unmaintained rough which we want to call ‘Naturalised Area’ in the out of play areas”
“Even on South Course?” asked the GM.
“Yes, for example near the lake at hole 5,” Roslan was surprised to hear Chong’s voice. He didn’t notice Chong walk in.
The GM nodded.
Balan continued, “5. we’ll stop fertilising the roughs too. 6. We’ll take another look at our irrigation scheduling and stop watering the roughs. Maybe take out the sprinklers.
There was a loud noise outside the door. An argument? Bala, the security manager, walked out of the room. Voices could be heard outside the door. Everyone started to lose focus.
“How much do you think you can save with all that?” ask the GM.
“About 20% of the annual budget,” replied Roslan. Voices outside the room became louder.
“See if you can cut another 20.” Now the voices were shouting.
40% cut? Roslan’s eyes widened. That would affect the golf course quality. The GM stood up and walked to the door. As he opened the door, Roslan could see five smartly dressed men with sunglasses standing outside the door.
“Wearing sunglasses indoors? And you people think I’m crazy,” said Jusoh, trying to lighten the mood.
There was tension in the meeting room as the argument outside the door got louder. Suddenly, it was silent and the suspense caused Roslan to forget his pain. The door opened. The GM walked in and sat down.
All eyes were on him. Everyone held their breath.
He looked straight at Roslan “They want you.”
