This Is The Stuff

This past weekend was one of my craziest weekends and also one of the most stressful ones I've had in a while.  My parents left early Friday morning for Hays, Kansas because my grandmother had just been transported from a Dodge City hospital to the one in Hays for treatment.  I had the house to myself for the weekend (the only exception was our three fur babies, of course).  But the weekend took the exit for Crazyville and Stress City.

I get call from my lead instructor at school about the Midwest Beerfest event on Saturday that I was going to attend to help promote our school and our hospitality and culinary arts program.  I was told that I needed my chef's coat.  I knew exactly where my chef's coat was...hanging in my room still dirty from the last event I had to wear it to a few weeks ago because life has been too crazy to go to the laundry mat and get it washed.

My post Midwest Beerfest selfie.

No big deal, I thought.  I'll go to the laundry mat and wash my chef's coat and my work shirts. Plenty of time to do it and there's ample time to work on the mountain of law homework I hadn't done during my "free" week.  Except I had no cash and the debit cards I had in my possession I did not know any of the pin numbers so I couldn't get cash out of the ATM. Which meant that I couldn't go to the laundry mat. My Plan A was scrapped.

I started to panic.  Leave it to me to panic about something so small.  I think because I was home alone with no direct supervision from my Ma to make sure I got things done right I was freaking out more than I should have been.

Dry cleaners! Those were a thing!  It's one in the afternoon on Friday and I roll into a dry cleaner's in Derby with my chef's coat and a serving shirt.  They tell me their turnaround is like three days, that their company does do same day service.  I asked if they knew anyone who did and they looked at me with blank, pitiful eyes.

I sit in my car for a few minutes on my phone searching for dry cleaners in Wichita.  I pick one at random and call them.  By the way, I hate making phone calls so this shows how desperate I was.  The guy at this dry cleaners was super nice and gave me answers to all my basic questions and told me they could have my items ready the next morning at 9:30! I wasn't supposed to be at the event until 12 noon!

West Wichita is like a whole new city to me because I basically eat and live on the east side.  On my long drive (it was only long because I didn't know where I was going) a song popped into my head as I was driving.  The song of course, after I started to sing it, made me laugh and smile and I was feeling ten times better.

 

 

What is your song that you end up singing when you're feeling stressed out?


I'm linking up with Emmy for Music Monday, again!

 

 

If I Wasn't Afraid...

Just the other day Ashley and I were talking via Twitter about taking risks and doing things that we might be afraid of.  Since then I've been really giving myself a pep talk, internally of course, I don't want to sound too crazy to my coworkers and classmates, about just doing things.

Today this quote has me thinking, what would I do if I wasn't afraid of failure or messing up big time?

Photo: SoHo Hotel, London

To start off with, I wouldn't be dragging my feet with the process of applying and interviewing for a hotel job.  I mean, I'm a hotel management major and that means I sort of need to work in a hotel to gain real work experience.  But of course, the Anxiety Monster makes it way out of it's hiding hole I shoved it in for the last few months and here I am.  Dragging my feet.

In all honesty I don't know what's holding me back.  I would like to think I great personality, I put my guests first, I'm not afraid of hard work, I'm a good team member, I'm willing to learn.  What's the big deal?

I find it ironic that I'm an introvert that wants none other than a job in an industry that revolves around talking to people, especially people I don't know.  Maybe I'm afraid because if I start to get interviews lined up and applications submitted that means I'm on way to a daily interaction with hundreds of people?

I think I'm reading too far into this.  I think really I'm afraid because it means that I'm becoming closer to the career that I'm so madly in love with and that means I'm becoming an adult.  Wait, what? Jess an adult? Yeah, I'm nearing 21 now and I still don't consider myself an adult....

My parents had little to no idea how a hotel operated when I made the announcement that I was considering a career in lodging and hospitality.  To be honest, I knew the basics but that was part of what drew me in.  I recall having a conversation with my Ma a few months ago when I was finishing up my course on leadership and management in the hospitality industry.  I remember confessing to my mom that I was utterly scared poopless that in a couple of years if I went on to finish my bachelors at a larger university I could very possibly get a managerial position after graduation.  I remember telling her that I wasn't ready for that yet.

"You're still learning.  No one expects you to be able to run a hotel yet.  There's still things to learn and do."   Folks, my mother was right again.  I've been over thinking everything and making myself sick over it and that's only fed the Anxiety Monster.

"Count to five and do what you've been afraid of." That was the advice that Ashley gave me.  So, this is me counting to five, taking a breath and doing because I'm tired of staying in the same place when I could be doing something great.

What's one thing you would do if you weren't afraid?

Boys of Fall

This past Friday was my little hometown's homecoming.  My bestie was home for the weekend and even though I had a terrible day, my back was killing me and I was not keen at the idea of sitting on metal bleachers in the cold (and possible chance of rain) to watch a sport I had little to no idea how it was played I went to the football game.  I'm so happy I did because I had such a lovely time chatting my best friend since kindergarten who is literally like my sister (I call her parents mom and dad and I claim her brothers as my little bros).  I even figured out a little about football!

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Alma mater homecoming game with the bestie.

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A and I watched the halftime homecoming ceremony reminiscing our senior year homecoming football game in October 2011.  For the first time in high school I spent most of the football season standing on the fence watching my classmates play their hearts out and appreciated their hard work.  The memories I made in the bleachers senior year are ones that I love to revisit each year around this time.  Usually it happens when I hear Kenny Chesney's Boys of Fall.  Without fail this song takes me right back to those home games we looked forward to.

Now I feel the need to watch Remember the Titans!

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I'm linking up with Emmy for Music Mondays!

Your Servers Are People Too

One of my favorite bloggers, Ashley from Forever Ashley posted yesterday an experience her and her husband had while dining out at a local sports bar in Atlanta.  She shared with her readers about their server and how wonderful this young man had been and how he thanked them for being so great.

Photo: from WaitersToday.com

This post reminded about the total opposite of what this young server could have endured instead of the lovely conversational guests he had with Ashley and her husband.  I don't know how many stories I've heard from my classmates that also work in the food service industry and their horror stories of sorts of guests who are, let me just put it this way, less than desirable to deal with.  Even in fast food I've seen my fair share of guests who have gotten angry at a coworker or even myself for something trivial or out of our control.

The thing that I want to point out is that people who work in food service may not be doing it because that's what they want to do in life.  Think about it, most people don't want to spend six or seven days a week standing for eight or more hours, walking, carrying trays, lifting things, busing tables, standing over a grill, etc.  They are most likely doing it because they need some sort of income and that job is probably just a transitional phase.

I feel like this shouldn't need to be a public service announcement, but your servers are people too.

Even for people like my classmates and myself who want to be in this industry there are a lot of jobs we have to suffer through to make it to where we want to be.  We do it with a good attitude and give every day our best effort.  I'm pretty sure no one is seriously out to ruin your meal/day so that we can not get tips and you know, pay the bills.

Now take a moment, think about the last time you got frustrated with your server.  Was it something that the server was in control of? A lot of frustration that comes from guests in the food service area, it seems, are things that the server can't control, like running out of caramel cupcakes in Ashley's case.

It aggravates me that there seems to be this idea of giving inferior treatment to those who work in the hospitality industry.  Yes, this is a service industry but we're all humans too.  Can we not forget that when something goes less than planned?

Okay, my ranting for the evening is finished.