Wyoming Week 4

This week provided good practice for maintaining a friendly smile even when I’m tired and my mind keeps wandering to cronuts (http://food52.com/blog/7116-cronuts-made-at-home).  Claire and I spent week 4 in the front of the house portion of Washakie, and it has been a lot of fun to get to interact with both customers and employees.  It takes effort to stay engaging with customers at the end of the day, though, and I’m impressed with all the awesome employees who do it so well.

Claire and Me in the Stylin' Washakie Garb

Throughout the week, we learned the tricks to running each station: the grill, salad bar, pizzeria, bakery, etc.  I have learned that no station is without its own expertise.  There is a lot to keep track of, and the managers have to be watchful to keep everything running smoothly.  Otherwise, things can get hectic due to cleaner dispensers only dispensing water, people not showing up for shifts, or incorrect menu signs leading to confused customers.  There is a lot going on, but Gloria and Francisco taught me a lot about having good supervisory skills.

We got to try cashiering too! (Which is surprisingly stressful once cash gets involved.)

I spent Thursday in the dish room, which is a much more interesting place than I had expected.  The machinery in there is really cool!  The dishwashing sink has electrodes that emit low voltage electricity to kill bacteria (but not the dishwashing employees).  Also, having spent much of last summer lifting backbreaking loads in and out of a Podunk dishwasher at my job, I really appreciated the giant, conveyor-belt setup of the dishwasher in Washakie: one person loads dirty dishes on one end, and someone else removes clean and sparkly dishes on the other end.

I finally got around to taking a picture of the gorgeous UW Alumni House.

It was another educational week: I got to see the server and manager sides of Washakie, and I can appreciate the hard work that goes into both.

On Saturday, I got to see the new Superman movie.  It turns out, there’s a movie theater less than half a mile from where I live.  This was a happy discovery, and the movie was a good, relaxing way to enjoy the weekend.

Sunday brought the second hailstorm I’ve seen since I’ve been here, and this time, I got pictures. J

 So much hail on the ground

It was almost the size of marbles

And it had been so peaceful a couple hours earlier...