Orientation Week

This week was spent with the orientation team for foodservice. Orientation at UGA is a 2 day process. The foodservice orientation people basically focus on selling meal plans. They also sell refreshments in the morning, greet people coming to eat at the different dining halls, and talk about student employment opportunities. But the main thing is to sell the meal plan.

Day 1 of student orientation starts off with registration. I spent a lot of time directing people here or there and giving directions to Tate Center. The refreshment stand also had to be set up and manned. Then we spent some time assembling information brochures for the parents and students that get handed out. Around lunch we all went to the dining halls where the parents or students were directed to eat and played greeter. In the afternoon we handed out the brochures while the parents were inundated with information about various important things on campus. Then we moved across the street and did the same for the students. Day 1 concludes with the student tailgate dinner where we basically directed people towards the food. All in all it's a 12 hour day.

Day 2 was much shorter, only a 7 hour day because the students have most of the afternoon to explore and do thing independently. We played greeter and checked meal tickets for breakfast. The major event of day 2 is the resource fair. Foodservices sets up 2 booths in the fair and spends a few hours asking everyone they see if they have bought the meal plan yet and if they are interested in working for foodservices. It's chaotic and fun since you get to talk to a lot of people. After cleaning up from that we got to go back to the dining halls and collect meal tickets again for the lunch crowd. Compared to day 1 it was a walk in the park just because it was so much shorter.

The best part of working with the orientation team was our transportation. They have this van that doesn't have any seats in it. So whenever we have to change locations everyone piles in and tries to balance on milk crates. Definitely the highlight of the day for them.

We also got all of the recipes for the Freshmen College closing banquet into FoodPro. Everything is batched out for the actual event. So now we can focus on the flower arrangements, the menu design, and tracking down enough soup bowls for everyone. Hopefully we'll get to all of that next week.