Hotel executives and senior managers in ties waiting on tables, doing the dishes, answering phones. It had to come to this: a strike no one wanted but everyone was powerless to prevent. It was so easy to solve: the unions are controlled by political parties, some hotels were willing to bargain with the unions, the unions themselves were showing flexibility. Then, two weeks ago the Hotel Association of Nepal (HAN) sought a court injunction banning the strike, sending the unions again on warpath. Till then, there was some hope that the two sides would mellow, and government mediation would work. But as usual, we showed our exceptional talent for national harakiri. Neither HAN nor the unions are now backing down, and the only thing to do is count up the losses for the national economy: estimated at Rs330 million a day. The timing couldn't be worse: the beginning of the peak season with 80 percent occupancy in some top hotels. The impact of this will be felt years hence. Everyone bungled, Nepal and Nepalis are the losers.