Miscommunication in the Workplace

I've worked in restaurants for the past four years. And for those of you who share similar experience know that communication is crucial in that environment. The Waitstaff needs to communicate with the customers, the cooking staff, the busers, bartenders, and management. Though management is responsible for large decisions and how the restaurant is run, the waitstaff is responsible for a large margin of the actual communication that goes on. Directly, everything depends on them. Cooks communicate with each other and the same goes for every other group of employees but the waitstaff brings all of these groups together to get drinks and food out correctly, clean the tables, make sure the guests have a pleasurable experience all together. With modern computers, this process occurs much faster than it did twenty years ago even. If something is entered into the computer incorrectly, the cooks will make it wrong or the bartender won't make the drink you intended. But the entire process begins with listening to the customer which proves difficult many times given crowd noice or in house music. SOFT TALKERS! AH! Many times people also want to change their meals after it's been ordered which requires the waiter to go back to kitchen directly and manually fix the problem. Any number of things can go wrong at any time: The ticket printer runs out of paper so the order you typed in doesn't print out and therefore doesn't get made (sometimes you don't realize this for a good ten to fifteen minutes which will delay the order that much longer, the cooks can mess up, the bartender may need more booze to make your drink and needs you to get more out of the liquor closet, dropping food or drinks is always a possibility, you may have put an order in wrong or to the wrong table, or the worst thing....The computer system shuts down. This requires one to manually write up the ticket and look up the price as well as the tax calcuation to go along with it. (In South Carolina, along with sales tax, there is Federal liquor tax and State liquor tax, two seperate calculations.) This happened to me once. It's amazing to see how much chaos occurs when technology fails like that. Everything takes so much longer and is more likely to not come out right. Plus the stress level increases because you section of five large tables was meant to be run with a quick computer system, not a note pad and a calculator. Then one has to explain to each and every table why their food will take longer to come out. Without the modern computer communication tools we have, working as a waiter would have been more agrevating and less precise.

Mock Interview

Going in, I wasn't really nervous. I usually don't get very nervous in situations where I have to talk to a couple people or just one person. I actually enjoy it and find myself very comfortable in those situations. Usually I tell myself that it's not the end of the world and that I should just be cool and collected. That's how I will impress them. One question that threw me was the question about how my parents feel about me working oversees. I answered it well but I did not expect questions about family members. The worst question was, "Tell me about yourself", cause honestly, how do I answer that. I could say anything but I just thought of what applied to my position the most and eliminated what to say based on that.
I think I did a really good job so I don't think I actually change anything I did. I don't know if that sounds conceited, but I was happy with my performance. I learned how it felt to walk into a room knowing you need to remain calm and keep words from spilling out of your mouth. It also got me acquainted with talking to someone older than myself because I usually talk to peers my own age, and obviously language can be different.

Presentations

I enjoyed all the presentations given in class by my peers, but there were a few that stood out to me. Margaret did a great job with the Balsam Woolly Adelgid. It astonished me that she took something that was happening around her, researched it, and came up with something. We've all seen those dead trees, but she actually took another step in actually finding out what was going on and I respect that.
The presentation by Ashleigh on how to make a Spanish friend was entertaining and helpful. I already know Spanish but I could really tell she was authentic in her feelings. She had probably used her recommendations before and knew they worked. Ashleigh also helped to break the taboo of why we don't become friends with or talk to people of different ethnic backgrounds. I enjoyed that because I have many Spanish speaking friends back home, and I have had to stick up for them on more than one account just because of their ethnicity.
Traveling is my favorite thing to do. So I took interest to Morgan's travel checklist. I've traveled to many places, so I understood the basics of traveling, but it was really cool to hear where she had been and her destinations for the future. I was also very jealous of her ski trips as I am an avid snowboarder.