Thursday, July 16, 2009

The Retail Side of Things

This week was different from other weeks since I spent most of it on the retail side of UGA's food services. It was a change from the dining halls.

Monday we shadowed the executive director of food services around campus. We got to help write a press release and sat in on a phone interview for R&I magazine. Of course Mr. Floyd spends a lot of his time in the summer trying to sell the meal plan to the parents of the incoming freshmen so we also spent a lot of time doing orientation things again. It was a really long day, but I got a broader perspective of the whole food operation at UGA. A lot of the little things that I'd been told by different people took on new meaning after talking to Mr. Floyd about it.

Tuesday I was out at Red Clay Cafe, one of the on-campus eateries. It was a totally different atmosphere working the retail side of things. I manned the cash register for several hours. And learned to do many things at the same time while still smiling at the customer. I also sat in on their debates over new menu prices that are going into effect in the fall. Then I got to be creative and make new labels and price tags for the bakery items.

Wednesday I worked in another of the retail eateries- Barberitos. It's one of the newest units that's only been open 6 weeks. They are really popular with the students are it's pretty steady business all day. I got to see how they dealt with not having the correct produce order come in.

We also met with the last chemical company this week. They brought us a proposal that we had to add several things to. But now we can really start to analyze what we think UGA should do in the future. Which is a good thing since we now only have 2 weeks left here and the presentation that we're making is coming up fast.
Friday was different from other days in that we attended an assistant manager training seminar. The day revolved around knowing your management style and using it to interact with others to get the best results. I've attended other seminars similar to this, but not quite the same. It was interesting to hear how each style thought that they should be dealt with in a high stress situation. Hopefully I can apply what I learned in the future.

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