PART THREE: I SWEAR TO TELL THE TRUTH

The following morning, I stood in a Magistrate Court in Lagos Island. And for the first time in my life, I entered the dock.

I had no evidence to prove that Wale stole the money.

I had only one thing.

The truth.

YES, CUSTOMERS LIE TOO!

I Swear to Tell the Truth

The following morning, I arrived at work early.

I had spent the night thinking about Wale.

By morning, I had made a decision.

I would do what my conscience allowed me to do.

I would tell the truth.

Nothing more.

Nothing less.

I travelled to the Magistrate Court in Lagos Island with a colleague.

The hearing was scheduled for 10:00 a.m.

I had never been inside a courtroom before.

I had no idea what to expect.

Then the black high-sided police vehicle drove into the premises.

The doors opened.

Several people stepped out.

Including Wale.

I believe it was a “Black Maria.”

Seeing him emerge from that vehicle broke something inside me.

This was a young hotel employee who had been at work only days earlier.

Now he was arriving at court in a police vehicle.

His aunty and brother were there too.

The police had allowed him to contact them.

They kept looking at me.

Their eyes seemed to say: “You hold the key to what happens to him.”

I didn’t feel like I did.

But I understood why they looked at me that way.

We went upstairs and waited outside the courtroom.

Eventually, the proceedings began.

We all stood when the Magistrate entered.

She was a young, dignified woman.

I watched the earlier cases carefully because I had never been in court before and wanted to understand what I was supposed to do.

Then our case was called.

And suddenly, I was in the dock.

The court registrar instructed me to swear to tell the truth.

“I swear by Almighty God that the evidence I shall give in this case before this court shall be the truth…”

I repeated the words.

And that was when I pinched myself.

How did I get here?

The Magistrate began asking questions.

As the “prosecutor,” I was expected to provide evidence that would establish that Wale had stolen the money.

I could not produce evidence that Wale had stolen anything.

I could only recount what had happened.

So I did.

Truthfully.

I explained the guest’s complaint.

I explained our investigation.

I explained the CCTV and door-access findings.

I explained that Wale had access to the room.

I explained that he denied taking the money.

I explained the guest’s insistence that Wale was responsible.

I explained the $500 payment.

And I explained everything that followed.

The Magistrate listened carefully.

Then she asked a very important question:

“Where is the guest?”

I told her he wasn’t in court.

She shook her head.

Then she said something that I have never forgotten.

She expressed disappointment that an organisation could bring an employee before the court without having sufficient evidence to establish that he had committed the alleged offence.

She said, in substance, that based on the evidence before her, she wasn’t convinced that Wale had stolen the money.

She wasn’t even convinced that the alleged theft had been sufficiently established.

Then came the clincher:

If the guest who made the allegation could not be produced in court to answer questions himself, how could the case properly proceed?

He had disappeared.

The man who had made the allegation had received his $500 and left the hotel.

And now, the employee he accused was standing in court.

The Magistrate dismissed the case.

Just like that.

RUTH WE STILL HAD ONE MORE THING TO DO

There was immediate relief.

But we weren’t quite finished.

The next few days were public holidays.

If Wale did not receive the necessary documentation before the court closed, he would have to return to the police cell until the court resumed.

We couldn’t let that happen.

I certainly couldn’t.

So we moved quickly.

We worked to obtain the necessary documents and signatures before the court closed.

Eventually, everything was sorted.

Wale was released.

I remember the enormous relief I felt.

I also remember the Magistrate praying for me and my children.

That moment stayed with me.

Because sometimes, in the middle of all the noise, all you have left is your conscience.

And that day, I was grateful that I had listened to mine.

That night, I slept well.

BUT THE STORY DIDN’T END THERE

You might think that because Wale had been cleared, he simply returned to work.

He didn’t.

The MD refused to allow him to continue working at the hotel.

Wale was devastated.

In his innocence, he had assumed that once his name was cleared, he would return to his job and continue with his life.

But life doesn’t always work that way.

I continued working at the organisation for some time.

But, truthfully, something inside me had shifted.

My perspective had changed.

A few months later, I resigned.

There was a send-off ceremony for me.

The MD was unhappy that I was leaving.

There were gifts.

There were kind words.

There were mixed emotions.

But I knew it was time to move on.

RUTH THE ZETA INSIGHT

There are several lessons I have carried with me from this experience.

1. The customer is important. But the customer is not automatically right.

Customer-centricity is fundamental to hospitality.

We must listen to our guests.

We must take complaints seriously.

We must investigate.

We must apologise when we are wrong.

We must recover service when we fail.

But customer service should never mean abandoning reason, evidence or fairness.

A customer’s accusation is a complaint.

It is not automatically a conviction.

2. Never confuse poverty with dishonesty.

This is one lesson I feel very strongly about.

Let us stop assuming that because someone is poor, they must be a thief.

A person may have very little and still possess extraordinary integrity.

There are people who will never take what does not belong to them — regardless of their circumstances.

And there are people with considerable wealth who will still take what isn’t theirs.

Character is not determined by the size of a person’s bank account.

3. Protect your employees.

Hospitality businesses are built by people.

If we expect employees to protect the brand, serve guests professionally and uphold the organisation’s values, then the organisation must also be prepared to protect employees when allegations are made against them.

That does not mean blindly defending an employee.

It means giving them fairness, due process and the opportunity to be heard.

4. Investigate before you conclude.

The fact that Wale had entered the room was a fact.

The conclusion that he had stolen the money was an assumption.

Those two things are not the same.

Good hospitality management requires us to know the difference.

AND FINALLY…..

This experience taught me that the hospitality industry is full of human beings.

And human beings are complicated.

Guests can be wonderful.

Guests can also be difficult.

Employees can be exceptional.

Employees can also disappoint us.

Managers can make brilliant decisions.

Managers can also make terrible ones.

That is the reality of managing people.

We cannot build excellent hospitality businesses by pretending that only one side of the equation is human.

So yes…

CUSTOMER LIE TOO.

Not because they are customers.

Because they are human.

And just as we must never assume that every customer is dishonest, we must also never assume that every customer is telling us the complete truth.

Listen.

Investigate.

Think.

Protect the business.

Protect the guest.

And protect your people.

Because somewhere between all the thorns, you better believe that there are still some roses.

That is hospitality.

That is people.

And that is life.

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