A company built on hospitality can survive an employee having a bad night.

It cannot survive employees who hold, as a permanent conviction, that the people who clean the rooms and carry the towels are lesser beings, furniture with pulses, unworthy of basic respect.

Because that conviction poisons everything; a man who despises the housekeeper will, sooner or later, despise the guest who reminds him of her, the tired mother in the faded jacket, the traveler who does not look wealthy enough to matter.

Clara had not built an empire so that men like Karl could stand at its desk and sort humanity into those worth serving and those worth scorning.