It’s been another day in the paradise of the unexpected. Having survived yesterday’s trauma of over-exposure to the naked bodies of strangers, Wednesday’s mistreatment of our receiving dock and the surprise of every other minute since the Essential Oil People arrived in my work life, I anticipated today would be relatively ‘smooth sailing’. Clearly we’d experienced every possible snafu. I expected today to be relatively calm and mentally forecasted clear skies with only a slight chance of the unexpected, thereby proving true the old adage, ‘She who expects should know better.’
The day began with Sally, a fresh-faced, chipper, entirely too optimistic intern very much interested in pursuing a career in the hospitality industry. She was to be my ‘shadow’ for the first two hours of the day, wherein I was to hopefully give her a pleasant overview and inspire her to one day become…well, me. I’d originally thought having a ‘shadow’ during a large program such as this one would be a great learning experience for her and had mentally put together an agenda of items we’d cover. Again, I should have known better.
Not two minutes before her arrival, the relative insanity which has been the program since its arrival continued. The client called semi-frantic, as they’d filled every one of the six hundred seats they’d ordered in the ballroom and needed, ‘a few more’. I dispatched Banquets, only to have them call me back moments later to tell me the only space left to add another table was perhaps to dangle it from a chandelier. I set off for the ballroom, Sally in tow, trying not so effectively not to burst out laughing at her enthusiastic, “Oh, a problem! Great!”
Problem was an understatement. Additional tables wouldn’t be a possibility and the chairs the client requested along the perimeter walls wouldn’t work, either. I didn’t need to be the Fire Marshal to understand leaving absolutely NO access to the exits was a bad idea. Never, however, one to say there’s no solution, I cornered the Set Up Manager, directed him to make all the tables, currently crescents of 8, full rounds of 10, thus adding about 100 additional seats. After doing this and placing groups of ten and twelve chairs only in the corners of the room, we’d added about 150 additional seats, which just about accommodated everyone.
“I’m so sorry,” the client apologized. “We’re a little over on our count.”
Yes, about 25% over.
That problem resolved, we started out on the tour I’d had in mind for the grinning Sally. The Main Kitchen, the Banquet Kitchen, the Pastry Kitchen, Stewarding, Receiving, Security. I think we’d managed about ten steps into this when my cell phone rang and we doubled back to the north lot to sign for an unanticipated red carpet delivery for the group from a local decorator. Which wasn’t a problem except that a group of servers had set up an assembly line near that entrance to roll silver for the day’s luncheon, so, with Sally in tow once more, we squeezed past the table, signed for the delivery, and continued on our way, stopping first to notify the kitchen that we’d just added an additional 150 chairs to the ballroom so we’d probably be at least that many over what we’d expected for lunch, and detouring back to the Banquet office to let them know the carpet which we hadn’t been notified the group had ordered had arrived and was sitting by the back doors.
In all honesty, I have to say two things: 1) I truly enjoyed the time with Sally. We covered a lot of ground, she asked a lot of questions, and most of them, I felt I was able to give a fairly competent answer to without scaring her away from the occupation completely. If she asked me any question that threw me, it was this one, “Can you still have a personal life in this kind of work?”
I hate to admit anybody can render me speechless, but with that inquiry, she kind of did, and I could only be honest. “I think you can have as much of a personal life as you want to have,” I said, “you just have to make it a priority. There’s times, if you have a program in for 14 days, that’s your life for 14 days. You schedule vacations around your contracts, and you make your plans in pencil, most of the time. But,” I added, because she was, at that point, making more notes in the steno notebook she’d been jotting notes into all morning, “I think the only people I’ve seen this not work for are those with small children.” It was hard enough at times, I thought but didn’t say, for those with small high maintenance dogs like Basil.
2) I am very glad that I turned her over to Casey and Diane for their part of the ‘shadow day’ before my group broke for lunch. As I said, when instructing an intern, it’s best to shield them from realities that might scare them off the occupation altogether. Surely the sight of 750 guests converging en masse on three double sided buffets (placed in the ballroom hallway as after the group’s extensive and unplanned set up in the reception foyers, it was the only space available) and loading plates as if they’d never eaten before in their lives and wouldn’t eat again, might have dampened her enthusiasm for her future occupation. I have never seen food disappear so fast and once more marveled at the ability of the Banquet Kitchen to send more. As the Banquet Chef told me later, they’d gone through the entire vegetable order for not only this group but the one following it, and desserts had run out completely, explaining the Executive Chef’s barked orders to, “Send out the moon pies!” that at the time, I hadn’t understood. Now, I do. My group not only demolished their own desserts, they made a significant dent in the dark and white chocolate moon pies planned for an event tomorrow.
I was relieved to note there was no evening function and as I had an appointment with another chipper, overly enthusiastic person at five (Spencer from Wells Fargo, who stood ready and anxious to help me set up another savings account and whom I agreed to meet with mainly to put the kybash on his weekly, “Hello! It’s Spencer from Wells Fargo and as you’re a valued customer I’d like to take a few moments to tell you how we can better serve you!”), to note that I would be leaving early. There’s just one more day to go.
Tomorrow Sally will be back, and there will be another intern with her. They’ll be arriving at 2pm, which will give me a couple hours to settle in (and hopefully handle any snafus which might deter them from their future career choices) before their arrival. We’ll be together until 7pm, at which time my 750 Essential Oil Enthusiasts will settle in for their gala dinner, awards presentation, and dancing, at which time I can turn them over to Banquets expertise and go home.
Monday morning, there will be no more cloud of lemongrass/sage/rosemary/thyme/cinnamon/lemon essential oil blanketing the entire east end of the building, and life will be calm once more. Calm, that is, until the arrival of the next group. I’m not telling the interns that, though. I was once every bit as young and optimistic as Sally, and I’m not taking that away from anybody.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment