Putting off the Ritz: Goldman Sachs is finding room at a downmarket inn

There's not all that much to laugh about these days, but yesterday's Wall Street Journal had a cheery little article on Goldman Sachs' new corporate travel policy. Out with the Plaza Athenee, the Frette linens, and "$11 Irish oatmeal brûlée with berries compote". In with the Battery Park Embassy Suites, which Goldman owns and which its out of town employees - from the highest muckety-mucks to the lowliest grunt - are now directed to lodge when they're visiting HQ or clients in The City. Which means cotton-poly sheets with a thread count so low it might as well be burlap, views of Jersey City, and a pretzel-and-Bud happy hour instead of $14 signature martinis.

Goldman, which last fall posted its first quarterly loss since going public a decade ago, is watching its expenses, and one of the victims is luxury hotel nights. For Goldman, the going rack rate is now $250 - not the $795 that their folks were racking up at the Plaza Athenee back in the day, or the more modest $495 at he Ritz.

Some of the bankers aren't happy with the switch. "No one's supposed to complain out loud, but, let's face it, we're spoiled," says one Goldman employee. "They turned us into hotel snobs."

Well, I'm sure that the bankers could pay out of pocket for an upgrade if they wanted, but maybe those Frette sheets just aren't worth it if you actually have to pay for them yourself.

If you're wondering why Goldman owns this property to begin with, they're building a new HQ in Battery Park City and purchased the hotel with the intention of turning it into a "dorm" for visiting Goldman execs. (Hmmmm. I'm guessing that a "dorm' for Goldman execs will not feature cement block walls, 2 inch thick mattresses with Indian print bedspreads, and shared showers. Just guessing.)

Ever mindful of shareholder value - and shareholder perception - Goldman has put other cost cutting measures into effect:

Goldman people working late can only put in for $20 in dinner costs; the old limit was $25. If Goldman employees want to take a hired car home, they have to wait until 10 p.m., an hour later than before. The firm recently slashed the number of computer printers at its New York headquarters, frustrating employees who now have farther to walk in order to retrieve pitchbooks.

Having worked at Wang when they were in expense slash and burn mode, I have a couple of other expense cutting tips for Goldman:

• Unscrew 2/3's of the hall lightbulbs, and 1/3 of the work area lights.
• Only pick up the trash in the cubicles and public areas a couple of times a week.
• Enforce a "cheapest flight" policy that may send Chicago employees to New York via Houston and Seattle, but will, indeed, save money. (And with smart phones, laptops, and wifi, all that time doesn't have to be wasted, either. Win-win!)

Thinking about the poor Goldies put me in absolute mind of some of the more wonderful hotels I've stayed in while on business -most of which came at the hands of Wang, which had the ugliest travel policies in the world. We used to joke about being issued packing boxes and a list of the heating grates in a city.

On one Wang jaunt, I stayed at a hotel with mouse droppings and broken glass in the closet. I know, I know, mouse droppings can drop anywhere. And if you're not stomping around the closet barefoot, what harm's a little broken glass? Since there were no hangers in the closet, anyway, there was very little reason to use the closet to begin with. So Wang was right to put us up there.

Another Wang stop was a "theme motel" in Valley Forge, Pennsylvania, where I participated in some Wang user conference or another. I got there too late for one of the theme rooms, but one of my colleagues got the jungle room and another one got medieval manor. While my room lacked a theme, it did have a floor show. When, on return from a conference session, I opened the door, I found that the hall and the bathroom were entirely filled with pink bubbly foam that had backed up from the nearby laundry, through my toilet. Alas, there was no other room at the inn, but they did come in and hoover up the foam for me.

In Chicago one time, I stayed at a hotel that had two cement block buildings, only one of which had a front desk that was manned. The other just had a locked outside door. Naturally, I was placed in Building Two, which you reached by crossing through a quasi-lit parking lot. The parking lot was probably safe enough. In any case, it was surrounded by a chain link fence topped by coils of razor wire - sort of like a medium security lock-up.

So the Goldman folks really have nothing to complain about, do they now? They have jobs. Goldman's doing better than most. And the Embassy Suites has no theme rooms - other than the apparent general theme of complain, complain, complain.

By the way, Goldman did take some of the federal lifetime - not much, just $10B  - and we the people don't want to see that money going to muddled cucumber martinis and 400 thread-count sheets. (Speaking of which, I can't remember which of our darling financial services firms it was, but on the news the other night, some exec was complaining that the money being used for some corporate junket or bonus pay out wasn't coming from TARP dollars. Quick: name something that's more fungible than money...)

The best part of the article on Goldman's Embassy Suites slumming was the comment from a Jasper, Alabama school teacher who was in town or a conference.

Holly Jaye, who "had never heard of Goldman Sachs", had this to say:

"Where I come from, this would be considered a luxury hotel."

And you wonder why people are growing tired of Wall Street attitude.