In all fairness, unless *wood replaced every Le Meridian manager after the merger, I'd guess that they are still in the process of retraining the teams and evaluating the executives.
So, maybe the person you got was on their way out BEFORE screwing with you.
PS - after reading this about E3 in the LA Times --
http://www.latimes.com/technology/co...home-headlines -- your firm sounds like a fun place to practice!