Hey y'all! My name is Lindsey Mayhew and I am from New Jersey. I go to Penn State and major in Nutritional Sciences - Dietetics Option with a minor in Human Development and Family Studies. I left early Friday morning to make the long road trip to Oklahoma with my mom. We arrived around noon on Saturday. After picking up my key to the apartment is when I met Grace! :) We were welcomed with a bag of goodies from our intern supervisor Dot, which was so welcoming and sweet. After unpacking me and my mother went and visited my sister who lives in Harrah, Oklahoma. We stayed with her Saturday night and went into the city for a delicious dinner at Red Prime (highly recommend it!!). The following day we all went for brunch before dropping my mother off at the airport. Sunday afternoon, I invited Grace over my sister's for dinner to meet her and her husband, John. We all had a really good time getting to know each other better.
Monday
So far, the first day has just been kind of a blur and overwhelming. It feels like syllabus week at school, it's exciting because you don't have any responsibilities yet, however overwhelming because you get everything dumped on you for what you have to do all at once. Thankfully, I am not interning alone, so I feel me and Grace can complete everything without a problem working as team :) Everyone we met so far is really nice and welcoming. They are also helpful and are able to answer any possible questions while recommending things we should do and places we should try during our stay. There are a ton of good places to eat so hopefully we will be able to try them all! When Dot was taking us around and showing us where everything is, I couldn't keep up, I feel like a freshman all over again! I will probably have to go back and walk it myself after work to see where I am going.
Tuesday
This morning Grace and I went to receive our Food Handlers card to be able to work. Luckily, Grace remembered her ServSafe certificate so she didn't have to take the class. Unfortunately, I forgot to bring my ServSafe certificate so I had to take the class. But, the class was only an hour including taking the test which isn't bad at all. The test was extremely easy, only took me 10 minutes tops to take! Afterwards, we came back to Dot to see what we would be doing for the rest of the day. We were assigned to help Xcetera out opening their store. We spent almost the whole day restocking the shelves and talking to the managers of the store. It was interesting seeing how much thought gets put into where to place everything at and what to sell them for. For lunch, Me and Grace tried the Laughing Tomato in the Union, it was delicious! We want to go there everyday for lunch and our goal is to try everything on the menu before our internship ends (and our meal plans =P).
Wednesday
Today we met with Gary Baker, the General Manager of Crossroads. We spent the whole day with learning about the operation and what it is like being a general manager of Crossroads. Crossroads is open 24 hours and has 126 items on their menu!! Not including their secret menu. They have 13 full time employees that work during the summer while during the school year they have 40-60 employees. These employees consist of mostly students. Some of these students have the option if eligible to pay for room & board through working a minimum of 16 hours week and 10 hours service which is a great opportunity! I learned so much today what it takes to manage a 24 hour operation. I could immediately tell that Gary is very passionate and enthusiastic about what he does. He doesn't believe in hierarchy and that everybody should work as a team to reach the common goal, excellent customer service. Gary is more than willing to roll up his sleeves and step in where needed. I believe this makes running the operation more effective when everybody is willing to help out. It was impressive to see how Gary keeps track of inventory. He checks inventory three times a week and records inventory weekly (every Friday). He also uses a handy system called WhenToWork to schedule his employees efficiently and to keep track of who is on/off and when most employees need to be scheduled during the most busy times. Gary explained C-board to us in a nutshell and how he prices items to sell on the menu. He admits that he loses money in the summer due to not as many customers because most of the customers are students, however he mentions he makes up for it in the school year, especially during football season! Gary repeatedly said to us that, we aren't here for making money, we are here for OU. Gary has a method on training his employees. I asked him how long it takes to train an employee before you trust them on their own? His response was three weeks which surprised me because I thought it would be two days tops! I asked why so long and he said because a trained employee in my perspective is able to work in every position I put them in whether it be the grill or the cashier, they are fully prepared for any task. I thought this is a great method when training employees because it improves customer service by having every employee trained in every aspect of the operation. I also learned to be an effective manager, you need to be attentive and trust your employees. Gary portrayed this throughout the day when he was sitting down with us and going over everything. He had some setbacks today, for instance the grill catching on fire, but he remained calm and handled the situation immediately. He also trusted his employees that they knew what they were doing and he was able to turn his back on them to focus his attention on teaching us about his position.
Thursday
Today we were suppose to have a meeting with Robert Weaver but he had to reschedule. So instead, sent we met with Gary Baker yesterday at Crossroads he mentioned he is always changing the menu at Crossroads every semester and is willing to try new things to keep up with what is trending, me and Grace decided to look over their menu and see what can possibly be added to that enormous menu already. Grace and I are very interested in the fitter food menu and wanted to do something related to that for our recipe development project. We noticed that for Crossroads fitter food breakfast menu their option were mostly eggs. Which sounded delicious but I am more of a pancake/french toast/waffle breakfast type person (I enjoy my carbs =p). We looked up many recipes to try and find an appetizing breakfast item that would meet the requirements to be a fitter food. The requirements for the fitter foods is that it must be less than 500 calories, no more than 15 grams fat and lower sodium than the original. We found many options. Personally my favorite that we discovered were the Banana-Nutella French Toast :) It looked so delicious that I made it for dinner! I didn't have all of the ingredients so it didn't look the same but it was still delicious. How can go you go wrong with nutella!
Banana-Nutella French Toast
(got the picture from the internet because I couldn't wait a second longer to take a picture)
Also, at work today, we were able to attend a carnival!! The directors were in the dunk tank so that was entertaining to watch. Grace and I kind of pigged out at the carnival and had a soft pretzel and then a Neapolitan ice cream sandwich which was delicious and was perfect because it was 100 yesterday!! Later that evening, Grace and I had to go to the gym and swim for all the goodies we had today :) While at the carnival, we also met Dana Whorton who is charge of catering and found out that we will be working with him on Friday catering for the President at his mansion. He showed us the ballroom in the Union yesterday and around the kitchen which was pretty neat. I am looking forward to check out the President's house tomorrow (maybe I'll be able to try some of the delicious food!)
Friday
First off, I am not use to this weather out here! We have severe thunderstorm warning and I normally like thunderstorms but I am paranoid we are going to get a tornado for how strong the winds are. Anyway, as I mentioned on Thursday, today we worked with Dana Whorton. We catered the presidents private mansion. It was quite an experience seeing how much thought and detail goes into catering. Charlotte (one of the chefs that we catered with) had to take a picture of the presidents counter tops and their kitchen to ensure everything is exactly the same for when we leave. Everything was so precise. We had to serve on the left and pick up from the right. We were told not to speak to the guests but simply smile. Charlotte knew where everything was at in the presidents kitchen. We used their dishes and some of their ingredients for making the dressing to the salads. The presidents wife specifically picked out for what to be served out of her cookbook. It was Charlotte's first time making the stuffed chicken with beef but it turned out pretty good! There was definitely a strict routine for how things to be done. We had to hand wash all the silverware while carefully stack the other dishes in the dishwasher and put them back properly as if we were never there. It was exhausting to cater someones every need. I am use to waitressing but catering goes into way more depth. After all the guest had their meal and we packaged what was left into the presidents fridge we were finally able to eat but only the leftovers. I was so hungry!! The chicken and some dinner rolls were the only things left which was delicious however I wish I would of been able to try the side dishes that Charlotte made. After we cleaned up everything we packed leftover chicken stuffed with beef, side dishes and the wine in the presidents fridge. It was definitely an exhausting day but very interesting to experience how detail oriented the catering aspect is. Might I add, the presidents private mansion is absolutely gorgeous!
