N.Y. Hotel Manager Fired for Being a Jerk

Ash Wednesday in the Catholic faith is the first day of Lent. On Ash Wednesday, observant Catholics attend morning mass, and receive the sign of the cross smudged with ashes on their foreheads. Many Catholics allow the ashes to remain for the duration of the day, though this is not required by church teaching.

Well then. It seems that somebody needs a little sensitivity training.

"Wipe that f-----g s--t off your face," managing director Niklaus Leuenberger told a bell captain at the New York Palace Hotel on Feb. 25, sources said.

The unholy ultimatum ended up costing Leuenberger his job at the Palace, a swanky 55-story tower on Madison Ave. across the street from St. Patrick's Cathedral.

Incidentally, as Kerry Burke notes: "The hotel leases its land from the Catholic Church." Heh.

While it seems that he behaved like an autocratic idiot, I'm sorry that this Leuenberger fellow lost his job. I think that's going a bit far. Perhaps if somebody had drawn his attention to the people coming out of St. Patrick's Cathedral, with the same mark on their foreheads, he might have felt like the jerk he clearly is, and offered a begrudging apology. Apologize and move on.

Here in Canada, Leunberger might have ended up in front of a Human Rights Commission. Hmm. Actually, maybe not. Canada's HRCs are so capricious that they probably wouldn't have taken the case. After all, the plaintiff would have been a Catholic, and Catholics can only be defendants.

P.S. This same hotel used to be run by Leona Helmsley, 'the Queen of Mean'. Heh. Heh.