Being racquetball stars in the Ramsey Center
Monday: Central Distribution
Today we woke up bright and early and helped the staff at Bolton with their Breakfast. It was very busy because of all the camps that were on campus and the unpredictability of the time camps come in. They have it set up for certain camps to come in at certain times and to sit in designated areas, but often they do not follow these guidelines. It is definitely a frustrating part of being a manager during the summer time because there are these intense rushes and then a dead period, sometimes there can be 800 guests go through the line in an hour.
After Bolton we headed over to the Central Food Storage to meet with Brooks Oliver ( Central Food Service Materials Manager) and learn about his job. He is in charge of purchasing for all of the food service units,
including retail locations such as the Chick-Fil-A in The Tate Center. Brooks deals with companies such as Sysco and US Foods to obtain the best bid for the purchases he is making. Overall, he is trying to save as much money possible for the department. Brooks sends out a list to all of the distributors four times a year so they can bid on certain prices in which they want to sell an item for. He leaves it going for a little while so that the companies battle it out and ultimately the prices drop. This is the system for most of his purchases, but he does have weekly bids for items which the cost fluctuates more rapidly.
We toured the whole distribution (yes including the freezer) and learned that they use FIFO (first in first out). They place the food place into a section and enter that area which is labeled by the row and column into FoodPro. This keeps the information accurate and easy to find when they are trying to put together a pallet to send out to a food service location. They always take the item from the bottom and when all the product has run out they move down the row above, this allows them to keep the FIFO system accurate.
Brooks does not have to figure out what needs to be ordered and the quantity, because this is all done by the unit manager of the facilitates. He seems to have his job down to a science! It was really nice meeting with him and he gave us a lot of insightful information. After our meeting with Brooks we went over to The Summit and learned about their different stations. On this day I was in charge of the pizza station and man do campers love pizza. It got busy at one point, but I was told that was nothing compared to the school year and Wednesday when they offer buffalo chicken pizza. After learning about stations Meghan and I met with Adam, a manager at the Summit, to discuss the banquet we will be planning because it will be held at The Summit. He talked to us about previous themes and what could be our problems when coming up with a theme. Meghan and I are very excited to get started and plan a great closing banquet for the Freshman College.
Tuesday: Bolton/Central Storage/ Summit
We had another early morning on Tuesday because we opened up Bolton for breakfast today. We got to work back in the kitchen and get acquainted with what the back of the house does before a meal. Everyone had different tasks, but we all came together in the end to reach our goal of serving breakfast. During service it got a little hectic so they put me on omelets, I was SHAKING! Luckily, a woman I was working with, Patty, did the flipping for me so I didn't ruin a guests omelet. I think it was very useful working in both the back and the lines because it is important to know what the workers you are managing are doing. This also helps in which ways you can try and motivate your staff.
After breakfast we were off to Central Storage again, but this time to meet with Stuart their FoodPro guy. (FoodPro is also used at PSU) Let me start by this, FoodPro basically does everything and after 10 years even Stuart himself does not know everything. We went through and saw how the program shows you when to order a product, when it should be delivered, and also when it should start going into production. The system hold holds history, tracks inventory, tracks trends, holds invoices, has service records, but the most important thing is the ACCEPTABILITY FACTOR (AF). We were told that if we only come out knowing one thing it is the AF. The acceptability factor is the FoodPro generated percentage of how popular an item is on a given menu. Overall, the program operates in full circle where everything leans on each other.
In the afternoon we went to The Summit again and switches stations from the previous day. I got to work deli today, and it was nice getting to know a different group of workers.
WEDNESDAY: Ice Cream Cutting
Today we started our day off with a sweet treat. Meghan and I got to attend an Ice Cream Cutting, basically an ice cream tasting. We were informed it was called a cutting because it is given to us exactly how it would come in as a regular shipment no bells and whistles added to try and sell it. They are deciding whether to keep their current distributor or switch to Mayfield. Things that impact the decision are nutrition, accessibility, taste, and the big one is PRICE/COST. This is something that Bryan Varin will decide, he is who we met with next and his title is the Associate Director of Food Services.
All of the yummy Mayfield Ice Cream we got to taste!
Bryan told us that having a cutting/tasting is something that happens quite often, but not nearly as often as he is getting calls from vendors! He says he is constantly getting people trying to sell their product to him and trying to set up a meeting time. As part of his job he oversees all of the other dining facilities and works with the unit managers. His goal is to try and get to each one everyday, but it is harder these days because there are multiple construction plans. We then talked about the new construction plans and different types of challenges with them. The main one now, Scott Hall, is about a 5-10 minute drive off campus, actually on old training grounds for the Navy that UGA purchased a few years back. They need to have this dining facility because there are going to be some student housing on this site in the fall. Finally, we got to take a trip out to Scott Hall and see the plans in action. One of the problems is size. The plans have so many tables and chairs for the space and it all looks good on paper, but when you see the area it all seems so small!
Scott Hall from the outside
Me and Meg inside Scott Hall (yay hardhats)
Another area of Scott Hall
In the afternoon we had a few hours to brainstorm and come up with ideas for closing banquet theme and then we were off to Summit again. Today was different because we were going to be learning about the closing duties with Marcus. He went through all the procedures and things they look for, especially having labels on all open foods. It was pretty basic, but I had to help with dishes in the dish room during the rush which was not too bad just HOT. Marcus also taught us about their scheduling as well as how to make a task assignment sheet for the afternoon shift.
THURSDAY-- Bolton Bonding
Today I spent the whole day at Bolton with Henry Green one of their managers. He taught me everything from opening, payroll, and their transition period between breakfast and lunch. Breakfast was crazy we had 800 campers/orientation students go through our line between 7:00 am and 8:00 am. It was quite the rush and definitely a learning experience. Something that is very key when going through a situation like that is communication between the front of the house and back of the house. We went through payroll and I learned how everyone must verify their time each week or it can result in a write-up. The process was very easy, we went through and checked to make sure everyone's times were accurate and that no students went above20 hrs. The 20 hr rule is new because they recently switched from the part-time title to student worker which only allows 20 hrs and has different tax rules. I then helped Henry with the process of switching to lunch. For the most part everyone does there own thing and Henry double checks and makes sure the information is accurate. Finally, I learned about discipline. There are different levels of discipline and different consequences for different actions. The most important things I learned is to always document and have two managers in the room when you are having to discipline and employee. Today I had a lot of fun! I got to go around and talk to some of the employees when it was not busy, which was very nice and I got to shadow someone in a position I hope to one day have.
FRIDAY: Planning and HR
The first thing we were off to do was meet with Brian, Sam (Chef), and Adam at Summit to discuss our banquet ideas. We discussed our plans and what problems could arise from it as well as strong points. In the end we came to the conclusion that we have a really nice broad idea but need to narrow it down and make it smaller. I am going to leave you on your toes until we figure out the exact details. Sometime next week we should know!!!!
After our meeting we met with Stacia Fink who handles HR for Food Services. Her main role is hiring students. The things she looks for when hiring is the student schedule, places of interest, if they are enrolled as a part-time student, and if they have previously worked there and reasons they may have left. Each dining commons comes up with a schedule of how many people they need in certain time slots through the day, and Stacia fills those slots. Meghan and I even got to hire a student which we were pretty pumped about! They employee over 1200 students typically which I thought was AWESOME and most kids that apply get a job! A challenge can be hiring for lunch time as well as the over night shift at the summit. They require a minimum of 8 hrs a week and a max of 20, but occasionally she will let it slide if someone works 4 if they are willing to work an odd shift.
I learned a lot this week and am excited to figure out more things for the banquet. We are going to meet with Allison the graphic designer hopefully next week so that will kick things into gears!!
Until next time!!!
Here are some places Meghan and I got to visit over the weekend
Legion Pool
Track and Field Facility/ Practice Fields
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