Michigan State Week 6

This week, we began to feel how quickly the time has really gone. Our days in Brody were mainly over as we entered our sixth week; we began to move into more behind-the-scenes management and operations.

Monday
 We had a fun day learning about retail and concessions, working in Starbucks and Sparty's (MSU's coffee and convenience stores). We worked with the human resources manager; she told us about her job as a Starbuck's manager and showed us how to make quite a few specialty coffees (which we then got to drink!). There are three Starbucks on campus, so we visited all of them, spending a little time working and making coffees in the busiest one. Making lattes and cappuccinos to Starbucks' standards definitely takes experience, but we had fun practicing!

In the afternoon, we worked at Sparty's. It was consistently busy, so there was plenty for us to help with. The manager gave us a quick but thorough training, and then we got to make coffee drinks and smoothies, and heat up and serve sandwiches. In contrast to Starbucks, speed seemed to be more important than precision, as many of the drinks were simply "eyeballed" instead of being made with a specific number of syrup pumps or a carefully measured amount of milk.
I'd always wanted to try working in a coffee shop, so it was a fun day. It was interesting to see yet another side of food service.


Tuesday
We spent the morning talking with Betty, MSU's food safety and health inspector. She told us about her role here inspecting various dining locations, teaching people about food safety, and working with the managers to create the best solutions to safety issues. She was really interesting to talk to. We also shadowed her as she did a follow-up inspection of Brody. Having known that many food operations dread the day a health inspection comes, it was fun to see the respect that is clearly present between her and the employees at Brody.
In the afternoon, we worked on our project, finishing the breakfast brochure and nearly completing one on vegetarianism.

Wednesday
Wednesday was our Human Resources day, so we spent the day in Sparty's HR office. We learned about different roles within the office, from front desk assistants who call out to make sure each Sparty's employees have come in, to scheduling, which was like a giant puzzle of names and shift times. It felt funny to sit in an office all day after being so accustomed to active work, but it was good to learn about all that goes on behind the scenes that makes everything runs smoothly.

Thursday
We went to Grand Rapids to tour Gordon Food Service, a food distributor that services dining locations across the Midwest as well as an ever- expanding area south and east of Michigan. It was the coolest, most impressive place we've seen all summer. They have an automated warehouse, so when items are delivered, they enter a conveyor belt.

They are then are scanned by cameras along the way, which direct the items further and eventually place them, by crane, somewhere in the huge storage room. The crane can then pick items back up when they are ordered by customers. There are only four flours of storage from which employees hand-pick items to be sent out. These employees start their day with calisthenics, followed by 10 hours of running along the shelves picking items and dropping them onto the conveyor belt. As our tour guide described this job position, two employees jogged past us, one hopping over the belt to get to the shelf on the other side. They certainly wouldn't need a gym membership with that job! The whole warehouse felt unreal, with its high ceilings and automation; they are successful for a reason.

We got to see their office building as well, which was just as impressive as the warehouse, with beautiful art, spacious areas, green roof space, and all the latest "green" technology. We went to a presentation by Gordon's dietitians, who told us their role in developing educational material for customers and being available for questions on food products. We keep learning more and more jobs that dietitians can take.

Friday 
We got the day off to go to the Cherry Festival in Traverse City. We love doing food-related activities even when we aren't working! It was a beautiful area of Michigan, and we enjoyed the fair as well as our drive home along Lake Michigan.