Chapter 5: Don't blame your experience on the Server when mine was ruined by your kids.

One thing I have noticed that drives me insane is when someone complains about something as simple as their service at a restaurant when it is in their own control. I understand service builds the experience, but when your waitress is busting her butt to tend to you when she has six to ten other tables that are just as demanding, give her a break.

Yesterday I went into work for dinner and we have the Petoskey Downtown Open House as well as soccer weekend, sales are anticipated to be higher and the RSVP list is packed with larger parties consisting of 50 people or more. Well, I was seated in one of the new servers section, super sweet and always treating her tables like they are her top priority. This family is seated in her section; mom, dad, and two kids who couldn't be any older than 5 years. Not even five minutes into sitting down the younger of the two darts off toward the back of the restaurant while the dad jumps up and chases him. There are so many people in that building we had a waitlist going. It was ridiculous because then the mom started to look for a reason to complain. Fast forward about 30 minutes and the other kid has yelled back at his mom making a scene, throwing a chair down then yelling, and the dad has the other kid outside after throwing a fit and running off again. Our server had her focus on them while the mom was rude and demanding the check, stating she won't be back because of the service she had received. This is when the dad came back in holding the youngest who was squirming and trying to get down, the two of the parents look at eachother and mom starts yelling to him that "IT IS PAID, THE CHECK TO THIS FREAKING PLACE IS PAID" she then threw another demeaning glare at our general manager and the server and walked out. This particular waitress did absolutely nothing wrong and held her composure while the mom was telling her off, we overheard her as she told the waitress they don't plan on coming back.

How I look at it is that the guest is not always right, the guest can claim their food was made wrong, they got the wrong drink, or they did not like the service but the fact that I couldn't enjoy my meal without hearing this family yelling and screaming at eachother just goes to show that the other guests have an impact on your experience and so do you.

The rest of the evening however was fun! We walked out the door to hearing music in the park, a photo booth and the community and businesses working together!

Chapter 4: In Between Shifts

I am in the beginning of my summer internship course and the journal prompts that follow along with it. For this assignment it deals with revamping my portfolio, and completing things such as updates on LinkedIn, updating my resume, and working on the page through our school known as Handshake where employers are able to figure out more about us students. So I have decided to create some posts to update you guys and track my own progress so I know what to work on and what went well.

With that, a new hike....

My first official week at City Park Grill is coming to a close, this just means I'm advancing, not stepping back. As one of the two management interns at City Park Grill the trainings are a tad bit different, we are stepping on the floor for management at the same time, however there are two weeks of training between serving and bartending in order to get this jist of it. I started with server training and this does not mean I serve in small sections on my own like other waitstaff but I shadow and train with our current servers. Between the greeting, introducing out features for lunch/dinner, and creating the guest connection, it is similar to my last internship serving at the Country Club of Boyne in Harbor Springs. I realized I made that connection however, there is almost always something that sets each restaurant apart from each other and in that case it is the history of this building. As part of the guest experience this fits into point 11 in the 10 points of service which I will get to in a little bit. Part of the guest connection is being able to meet the guests expectations and take it a step further and knowing the small facts such as the history of when that building was built and what the significance of it is, makes the guests experience that much more entertaining. Then you have successfully built that connection and you have questions and prompts to talk about once you make the checkback or run to fill their low glasses.

The History

I mentioned how City Park has some history, it is always fun learning about something new in your own state so here is a little lesson....

The building was built in 1875, it was one of three connected buildings with their dining area (400's) that once use to be outside as a palm garden. You would never be able to tell that the building had not originally had that ceiling over the dining area in that spot. There are original pieces in the building that are unique to it and what makes CPG, well... CPG. THe mirrors behind the bar are original, as well as the 32-foot mahogany bar from Brunswick in Chicago as well. Ernest Hemingway was a frequent diner and sat second seat from the end on the bar, there is a cigarette burn into the bar where he had sat which is pretty neat. The tin ceiling is original as well, that is in the main dining area around the bar just to give you a visual. So I mentioned how there is original pieces to the restaurant but why is this building so significant?! Let me tell you that you will be able to tour the building and when you go downstairs you have entered the speakeasy in Petoskey, MI. You can see the original door with the cut out, the tunnels that are unfortunately filled in due to city things, but you also learn about the hotel that was pushed up against our left side and so on. There is an IPA from SHort's Brewery that is brewed for City Park especially called Hangin' Frank, thats its own story for sure! But we can keep that a secret for now.

Aside from the history, knowing the features, and learning the entertainment for the week whether it is Karaoke at 10P on fridays, and Gasoline Gypsies from Detroit performing on saturdays (well tonight anyways...) I am just glad to be back in the environment I am myself in as well as an environment that allows pups in the café's. With this being said, I am excited to update you on the bartending side of things. I am in between shifts right now though so that will have to wait! Keep an eye out for the next adventure! You never know where the next trail leads....

Chapter 3: Defining Myself Through My Strengths

Once I stepped into Professor Sharon George’s FSUS 100 honors class I learned about a test that determines your strengths and helped me look at what I am good at and not what I am bad at. Once I stepped into Dr. Bishop’s PREL 390 class, I was reminded I am able to define myself through my strengths and not my weaknesses. This assignment was to talk about what our top five strengths were and how to work with them in a team environment. With being in both majors; hospitality management and digital marketing, I will constantly be working in a team environment whether its serving and working events or working as a team to start a new campaign. To begin I will talk about the strengths and what goes into each one then to close I will walk through the connections to be able to pull it all together.

Restorative, communication, woo, futuristic, and positivity are the top five that relate to me. A neat thing about the strengths concept is that they each have what is known as a need, balcony, and basement. A need defines what the strength feeds off of in order to be a strength. A balcony faces the positives of the strength where the basement faces the negatives of having that strength. To begin, we have restorative. This is my top strength out of the five and individuals who have this strength are ones who can adapt to dealing with problems. They can figure out what is wrong and how to solve it for sure. The need is a problem to solve, the balcony is finding improvements to troubleshoot the problem, the basement is that we focus on the negatives and weaknesses. I can relate to this one hundred percent.

When talking in my appointment about this specific strength I was able to talk about a problem I solved over the summer and I will share it here and in other strengths and interviews for however much longer. This past summer (2018) I was employed at Boyne Highlands for an events/food and bev intern, my main area of work was serving at events and set up while also serving at the Country Club of Boyne. One July evening guest wanted to have her sunset wedding at the top of Kathy’s Peak which is one of the ski hills that overlooks Lake Michigan. For this event my colleague and I were in charge of the ceremony; starting on time, getting the right music, organizing the wedding party as they walked down the aisle and timing was everything. This particular groom had been cut off at the bar and arrived at the top of the hill drunk. He was slurring his words, could not walk straight and was loud while talking. The ultimate goal was to keep the bride happy and out of the loop, she was not to know what he was saying at the moment and he took one look at me and said, “Maddy I cannot commit.” That’s a problem, a drunk groom telling me he is not going to commit as he needed to be in front of their family and friends in less than three minutes. Everyone at this point has been seated and they are in line about to walk, I got excited as this was happening, my strength took over and I told him he is committing after a conversation with him and his sister. She helped me get him up off of the ground and as he sat up on the ground in front of his family and friends, they still said the grand ole “I do”.

Moving on to communication before relating all of these together, communication has a need of an audience. I want someone to talk to, I want to listen, and I need to be able to put my input in. For the balcony, communication is a storyteller, someone who is easy to talk to, and someone who is entertaining, energetic, and charismatic. Looking at the basement, it is more of a Michigan basement, this is what I need to work on more and it deals a lot about what I’ve noticed while working over my ego. The characteristics with the basement include self-absorbed, blabbermouth, and always needs attention. Like I said earlier, a need is an audience and someone who will listen, so it goes hand and hand. For communication, our conversation dealt with retelling the story about the groom. It is one I mentioned I talk about a lot especially in interviews because if I can handle a drunk groom, I can handle a guest who is not happy. I like to remember the small details when retelling it which is also part of communication and she was able to pick up networking without me even saying that I enjoy it.

Next up is the strength known as woo; winning others over. The need for this strength is social variability. The balcony is outgoing, people-oriented, and even networker whereas the basement deals with fake, shallow, and does not care about relationships. This is one where I can play devil’s advocate though. When reading about balconies and basements there are specifics that do not always come into play. When it told me that individuals who have the woo strength does not care about deep relationships, I enjoy building such relationships. The individual who I had my appointment with talked about how a woo individual will be able to go up to anyone in a crowded room and talk. I can pull a specific example for you, when living in the dorms last year I noticed the freshman who shared a wall with me was in the hospitality program and I left my number on a sticky note for her to contact me if she had any questions. Coming back from the store one day I noticed she had taken the note but not contacted me, so I walked to her door and knocked until she answered, fast forward and now we are close and built a friendship because I was focused on winning her over to be friends.

Futuristic is a favorite of mine to learn about because I know I have it and I know I have used it without even realizing it was a strength in this test. With this strength I got to talk about what I want to do moving forward. I love to plan ahead and get excited when people ask me what I want to do with my life. Last Thanksgiving, I was able to answer my family’s questions confidently and I was able to go and do the same in the appointment. I explained how I walk in May of 2020, graduate in August of 2020 and how I am moving out west, I want to build my dream house, and this is what it is going to look like. I talked about how I am getting two dogs and I have the breed and names picked out already and I know who is going to stay in my circle moving forward. A need for this strength is someone willing to talk about the foreseen future with, the balcony is as expected; imaginative, creative, visionary, and even prophetic. The basement is also as expected, it includes dreamer, “fantasy land” and out in left field. When talking about the future I get excited, she picked that up during the appointment as well, however others I have talked to bring up the basement. I have gotten, “be realistic, Maddy” and “you cannot build your dream house with a job like this” which brings me down but then I realize it’s my vision, not theirs.

The final strength is positivity. If you know me then you know this is something I focus on, negative situations make me feel uneasy and I try to flip it to find the light. A need for this is freedom to be positive and look for it. The balcony is enthusiastic, lighthearted, energetic and optimistic. The basement is insincere, naïve, and Pollyanna. That concept is where individuals remember the pleasant items more accurate than the unpleasant ones which I agree with. For example, an unpleasant experience is when my parents got divorced but I look at how they are happy with their new significant others and not how they are split up. Another example that really gets to me deals with my ex and how after he treated me the way he did I still want him to just be happy, so I am not looking at the unpleasant factor.

Now that I went through to explain what each strength I have is, let’s look at how they work together. In the last ten minutes of the appointment, I learned about which strength links with which and how I can be more proactive about using them together in the best way possible. Restorative linked well with communication and futuristic, this is helpful in the way that the three strengths are more in tune with one another. She was able to relate back because she has it as well but mentioned how others use it differently. She explained how she has more of a selfish take but how I focus on helping others then how I can use that to benefit me. The second one is communication and she did not link this one the way she did with restorative, but she told me how others with this strength builds on storytelling and how I can take on leadership roles and picked up how I am great at networking. With woo she was able to pick up how I’m interactive with others and enjoy meeting new people, she linked it with positivity. This works in the way where individuals who have woo are normally positive and optimistic, and how I can talk to anyone and everyone. Futuristic was next, she picked up how I share my vision with others, and I keep looking for opportunities to reach out. She linked it with communication because I have it all planned out, in order for me to reach my goals communication will be the one to push on and networking will get me into my career further. For positivity, I am upbeat, and I don’t like to be in negative situations which is obvious for those who know me. At the end of the discussion I explained how I am going to be managing at a restaurant up in Petoskey this summer for my hospitality internship. I asked the question, “how do I use these strengths to my advantage when walking into a new environment where I knew no one but everyone else knew each other. Making note that I will be taking on a management position.”

I was told to start with futuristic. In this case I have a vision in mind because I’ve have already looked at things that had been going on and listened to past intern experiences. With this being said, I have a background and a mindset where I will be saying “moving forward” instead of “right now” which goes with the two strengths; positivity and communication. I have to have a confident impression to get the current staff behind me with a positive outlook. Woo plays an obvious role because I’d have to win them over first. I had been warned to not walk in there with a plan set in stone because that throws off a vibe from the start and the restorative strength comes into play which is not ideal in this situation.

Overall, this exercise was very eye opening in how I learned more about myself this way than just going on without learning the good and bad of the strength. This helps me become more self-aware with things I work toward and roles I take on in the future.

Until the next hike,

Madison