Dangerous Discrepancies :Herbert McMurtry, the general manager of the Hotel Commodore, convened a 10:00A.M.meetingwith the hotel's front office manager, executive housekeeper, and chief engineer. Mr. McMurtrywas frustrated because that morning's report revealed six vacant rooms charged to guests whohad already left a day or two earlier, an error that has become too common.As his imposing figure entered the small meeting room, Mr. McMurtry opened the meeting: "Iwant to thank you all for meeting with me this morning because I have a number of things tocover and I don't want to hold you up from your jobs...Oh," he paused, furrowing his brow,"Where's Todd?"Just as Mr. McMurtry finished his question, Todd, the front desk manager, burst into the room,"I'm so sorry to be late, Mr. McMurtry," Todd said. "I had another darn discrepant room to dealwith.""That's just why I wanted to speak with all of you." Mr. McMurtry continued. "I'm getting prettyupset because the property has been losing revenue due to chargebacks. To make matters worse,last week I had to deal with a very angry Ms. Spencer, of the Spencer Spinet Company, who flewhere all the way from New York just to check into a dirty room. She is a regular, high-payingcustomer of our hotel and now she'll probably take her business elsewhere. And this wasn't thefirst time I had to face this sort of complaint. I'd like to find out what's going on here. I have afeeling your departments aren't communicating. If this keeps up, it's going to affect our bottomlineandyour bonuses."Todd quickly spoke up, "Well, most of the time we get a chargeback because a guest neglects tonotify the front desk upon checking out, sometimes days before the expected check-out time. Webill guests as originally booked but, if they claim that they checked out earlier, we have toreimburse them, their room is never rented, and we lose out. I think we should physically checkall the rooms for occupancy each afternoon."Isabel, the executive housekeeper, immediately responded, "I don't know, Todd, you have toconsider the increased labor costs and the demands on my staff. Room checks are just Band-Aidsto cover up bigger problems. There must be a better way to handle it. Let's think of ways toencou