Whether you're away from home for business or pleasure, you're in a vulnerable spot when you stay in a hotel, away from your normal patterns and dependent on other people. Sarah Robbins knew hospitality was her calling, got an ROTC scholarship to put herself through school to learn all about it, and has spent her entire career finding ways to make restaurant and hotel guests—and the people who work in them—feel taken care of. Robbins, now the COO of 21c Museum Hotels, sat down (fittingly enough in a hotel room) during last year's SXSW for a conversation about her days wrangling celebrity requests at Tribeca Grill, the mistakes she made along the way, choosing empathy over meanness, and how the military taught her to be a great manager.

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