University of Oklahoma- Week 1 !

Hi Everybody!

          I suppose I should introduce myself! My name is Kayla Johnson, and I will be a senior in the Dietetics program this fall at Southeast Missouri State University. This summer I am one of the NACUFS interns at the University of Oklahoma in Norman, OK. I am originally from a small town in southern Illinois, so I like that Norman offers the townie-plus city feel. Because my hometown is so small, I enjoy simple activities such as spending time with friends and family, watching movies, listening to music, cooking (or just eating!), reading, and babysitting. I also like outside activities such as tennis or playing catch and going to the gym or doing workout videos.

          I arrived in Norman on Friday evening, just 2 hours before the tornado hit Oklahoma City. It was not exactly a welcoming experience! After spending a few hours in the basement of Norman Regional Hospital, waiting out the tornado AND that hail storm, I was able to return to my suite for the night. On Saturday, I moved into the really nice and fully furnished apartment that OU provided. Niki (the other intern, who I nicknamed Nova and will refer to her as such from here on out) also arrived on Saturday and over the weekend we are able to explore the campus and Norman a bit (or rather try not to get too lost). 

Now, on to Week 1!

Monday

This morning I woke up around 5 am! I guess my eagerness to start this internship was just too much for my brain to handle, so I just could not stay asleep. Although, once I took note of the time, I was not nearly as eager!

We did a lot of walking today! First, we met with Dot, our intern coordinator, and tons of the people in the Housing & Foods office. I cannot even being to remember everyone’s names, but they were all extremely nice and welcoming! We also went on a Manager’s Scavenger Hunt to help familiarize ourselves with the campus and everyone that we will be working with. Most of the time we were lost, but it was still cool to walk around and explore the campus a little bit. There are SO MANY different places to eat here! I just hope I get the opportunity to try everywhere that’s open before it’s all over.

Tuesday

Oh my goodness, this morning at 5am I was woken up by the loudest thunder that I have ever heard in my life! It was so loud that it was setting off the car alarms in the parking lot outside my window!

After finishing up some paper work this morning, Nova and I met up with Dot, and she explained everything about her job on campus. Dot is in charge of managing the food allergies throughout the entire campus. She reviews the recipes and ingredient list of each meal and keeps track of the common allergens in each food. In addition to this, Dot is in charge of the sustainability project. This is a project that is attempting to make the university more efficient, produce less waste, and be more “green.” She is working on a project to make the entire campus windmill powered. Dot is very passionate about this particular project and aims to reach at least 90% windmill power by 2014.

We also met Stephanie today. Stephanie is a meal planner at the Vegetation Station, which is a vegan/vegetarian buffet in Couch Restaurant. She told us all about the process of finding recipes, sampling them, and presenting them to the students. If one recipe was not very well liked, she would either alter it or swap it with something entirely new. Stephanie also provided us with her meal rotation and gave us the opportunity to provide any suggestions that we thought may make a dish more appealing to the students.

                I think it would be very interesting to do Dot’s job of working with students with food allergies because it is so important and sometimes easily overlooked. I also think that it would be fascinating and challenging to do Stephanie’s job. Because I am a vegetarian, I was excited about an all vegetarian/vegan meal option. Planning meals for that restaurant would be fun because you can experiment with a lot of different foods, but it would also be difficult because meatless meals are not always easy to come by.

Our spiffy kitchen outfits!

Wednesday

I hate to drone on about the weather every day, but the world MUST be informed of the crazy stuff that we have experienced so far. This morning, the WIND woke me up before 6 am! I am used to crazy weather, but this was so loud! It must have been competing with the thunder storm, so sleeping really was not an option. 
                Today Nova and I were given time in the office to look at the various foodservice websites on campus. We became familiar with some of the different menus and worked on our write-up of the Manager Scavenger Hunt. We also researched some vegan recipes that may help Stephanie when we meet with her again. 

Everyone around here raves about "Indian Taco Day" at the Flying Cow in the National Weather Center, so we ate there for lunch. They didn't have their standard “fry-bread,” (which is apparently what makes the “taco” so irresistible) but it was still really good! Later on, Dot gave us the date of our presentation and some of our future foodservice assignments. I am pretty excited to work in Couch Restaurant tomorrow and see what it is like.

Thursday

Today was kind of a busy day! For starters, it was the first time all week I was NOT woken up by a storm, so that was a nice little break. We were assigned to Couch restaurant, where we met Sam the general manager. He introduced us to Claire who is in charge of the scheduling, hiring, and firing in all the Couch restaurants. Couch is made up of three main areas: The View, Home, and Sizzle. Each of those areas has their own dining options. The View has Chic-fil-A, Athens Café (Greek food), La Roma (pizza & pasta), and Freshens (smoothies). Home is a home-style, buffet-style area that has Dot’s Deli, Salad Sensations, Sooner Sweet Shoppe, Chef’s Choice, Main Street, and Vegetation Station (vegetarian/vegan options). Finally, Sizzle produces made-to-order foods and has Sooner Smokehouse (steak & burgers), Shanghai Stir Fry, and Casa Del Sol.

 Maintaining the schedules of all those different places cannot possibly be an easy task! During the school year, Claire manages over 200 employees. That includes full time  part time, supervisors, students, and temporary workers. She explained the whole process of keeping track of everyone’s hours, schedules, and days off. It all looked quite long and complicated, but Claire seemed to have it all down to a science. She was also extremely nice and easy to talk to! Claire also told us about the Room & Board Program on campus which is predominately run by Danna. I think it sounds great! It is pretty self-explanatory in that it works with students who are trying to pay for their room & board expenses .It is a federally sponsored program and requires that students work at least 16 hours each week plus 1 day each weekend and 10 special event hours per semester. What is excellent about the program is that the students are also paid along with having their room and board covered as long as they comply with having their room and board covered as long as they comply with the rules of the program.

 After Claire had finished telling us about everything that she did, they sent us to work on the line. I thought that working on the line was kind of fun, plus Claire’s office was freezing, so it was nice to work around hot food. Brittany showed us all about the different parts of the line and how it all works. Then we sat in on a typical housing & food manager meeting. Everyone that we have met so far seems like they absolutely love their job; it’s so fun being around such positive people! It was a little overwhelming with everyone saying what they do and what projects that they are working on, but it was also really cool to hear about all the different areas that housing & food includes. 

Friday

The weather in Norman was kind of perfect today; it was almost a shame to have been inside. Things are looking up! Nova and I were back at Couch with Francis Ryan who is in charge of inventory and stock. Frannie has been working at Couch for about 6 years and she (like everyone else) was SUPER nice to us! Right now, Frannie is in the process of perfecting the inventory method so that she can keep track of everything more efficiently. Before, if someone could not find something in the store room, they would simply order more. This was causing an unnecessary amount of excess because inventory was not being fully accounted for. Now, Frannie (along with the rest of her staff) are taking inventory weekly so that they can have a handle on everything. Once they finish organizing the inventory list, they will resort back to taking monthly inventory. We shadowed Frannie for the first round of inventory, and then went to lunch.

We ate at Raising Cane’s instead of staying at Couch. Raising Cane’s specializes in fried chicken, which did not actually do me any good, but at least it looked really cool inside! It was decorated with popular movie/television posters, and they played 90’s music like N’SYNC in the background. After lunch, we were in charge of reading the inventory list to Frannie, and she would tell us what was in stock. Apparently that made everything much faster than if she had to do it all on her own. It may sound like a boring job, but I thought it was pretty cool to see everything that a kitchen has to keep on stock in order to function. It seemed to be their perpetual grocery store! We have only been here for 5 days and my brain already feels so full of management information; it is crazy!