The customer is always right! Unless they ask for less ice! (HUH?)

Working for a restaurant has many various downfalls. For the most part I only ever complain about customers, but this time it's about the company and its ridiculous standards. 

As a server I genuinely do care about my guests. I have no issue yelling at a cook to hurry it up on your food, get your refills, or even give you directions to the nearest movie theater. I enjoy making people happy and giving them a good experience when I wait on them. 

Something that my company has been pushing lately is "Full Glass of ICE" no excuses. So basically I fill the glass up to the rim with ice and the air between the ice holds what little liquid fits. 

This frustrates me because it causes several problems. First, it pisses off guests! They don't want a whole glass of ice, they pay almost 3$ for that soda, tea, lemonade, etc. Secondly, it makes me have to do more trips to get more refills. 

I have literally had guests complain and ask "Could you put less ice in the next refill?" and when I go to do that my managers will yell at me and say "full glass of ice!" so I politely say "The guest asked for less ice..." and in return I hear "Tell them you will bring them as many refills as they need. Fill it with ice!" ARE YOU FREAKING KIDDING ME! This is the same company who will comp a burger if the customer doesn't like the extra mayo they asked for, or comp a dessert because the girl who just turned 21 forgot her ID and wasn't able to order a drink. I understand they want to keep the guest happy, but they are willing to use cost of food over soda syrup.

So why would a company require something that keeps its servers busy running refills that waste glasses, ice, and time??? Their reasoning for doing this is to save on the COST of soda... Biggest load of GARBAGE ever. People will just require more refills.... And because I have to bring a new glass with fresh ice every refill, time gets wasted. Now we need more glasses (cost), more ice (water cost, electricity cost to run the ice maker), wash more glasses (dish soap, and water cost), more time from servers to get refills, keep ice stocked, and send glasses through the washer (guest waiting cost (HURTS MY POCKET)). Not sure, but I feel like there is zero progress being made in saving money. People will still drink the same amount, it's just costing more to provide the refill! 

Now this has been on my nerves for months since my company, and managers, have been nagging me to FILL THE GLASS WITH ICE! But it's really striking me because they cut back costs in such ridiculous ways!

So this same company who can't spend  X amount of dollars on soda syrup can take all of their stores GMs on conferences, all expenses paid, every year! Last year my GM was taken on a cruise with the company at no cost to him. He maybe sat in 4 hours worth of meetings to sit on his butt and drink the other 5 days of the trip! Similar trips happen each year... I'm starting to think we aren't cutting costs to save on soda, but better yet we are paying for these silly trips given to people who already make over 60k a year. 

Realistically I know they don't cut costs for these trips, but I feel like maybe if they didn't hold these trips then there would be less need to cut costs within the place where money is actually made. 

I understand I am not a business person. I'm about to graduate for psychology, not accounting, so numbers and cost/revenue aren't my strong points. Regardless of what my ability is, I think there is plenty of room to say that this company ought to get its priorities straight. If we really cared about the customer we wouldn't shove a 3$ glass of ice in their face and pass it off as soda. 

Egg Pans and Tiny Spatulas

So yesterday, the 7^th of January, was my three year anniversary with my amazing boyfriend! Sappy sap sap! Anywhoooo… I bring this up because it is important to how I am as person, but mainly a girlfriend (future wife). Something I take pride in is my love of taking care of my boyfriend. I’m not his “sugar mama” or anything weird like that, I just like doing wife-like things for him. I enjoy cooking for him, and eventually doing his laundry and cleaning our home. I just enjoy homemaker type activities that act as nice gestures for my man.

Before people get the wrong idea, I do believe in “equal work” and all that; I don’t expect to be barefoot, pregnant, and in the kitchen. I realize I can still hold a job and make my own wages, but things like cooking and cleaning for our home is something I like because he appreciates it. He does equally nice things for me; he buys me flowers for no reason, pays for dinners, and takes me to the movies. I can do nice things for him….RIGHT!

Now I will give some more relevance to this rambling explanation. Because of my school schedule, and living 45 minutes away, we were unable to spend our three years together. Today we are making up for it by having dinner and spending quality time together. (Currently I’m writing this while he writes the website for my blog. QUALITY TIME!!!) So when he saw me today he walks in with one hand behind his back, hiding something obviously. So he tells me “I bought you a bouquet!” I giggled and he pulled out a handful of spatulas! You may be thinking that is odd, or sexist, either way you should know that I LOVED IT!

Ever since my birthday last year I have been complaining that I wanted a small egg pan, just something to make an individual egg in so it comes out perfect sandwich sized. He finally fulfilled my request for Christmas, and I was overjoyed to say the least. I started using it this week and realized all my spatulas were too wide for the pan, so I jokingly said “I need a tiny spatula for an anniversary gift!” He came through, and he also got me some good baking type spatulas to go along with it, and complete my bouquet.

So this may be weird and if you’re still reading this you may be thinking “Erica, this is weird and has zero point, no one cares about egg pans and tiny spatulas!” Maybe you don’t care, and that’s fine, but I feel it is important to share special things that happen in my life. I feel that my boyfriend and I have a strong, unique, and exciting relationship! (Yes spatulas, and other kitchen ware for that matter, are exciting to me!) Mostly important to note is that my boyfriend is creative, and I’m lucky to be with someone who is so thoughtful.

Too often people take their significant others for granted. I do NOT believe in “Accidents” such as cheating. If things like this occur they are no accident, and they are likely to occur again. I speak for both my boyfriend and myself when I say “we would never cheat on one another.” We have an understanding that we are worth too much to each other to throw it away on any “moment of weakness.” There is no such thing as a second chance in my book. I feel bad for the girls that take back their scummy boyfriends who consistently treat them terribly and test their trust. I’ve never had trust issues with Matt, and he just confirmed he also has no trust issues with me. (He actually laughed when I asked him.)

Long post short, I feel very lucky to have a good boyfriend I can trust. Having trust in a relationship allows for less stress. I never worry about who he is with, or what he is doing, if he wants to have dinner with his female friends that okay with me, and he doesn’t mind me going out for a drink or a movie with my male friends. He even, without my asking, gave me a fingerprint to his phone for whenever I want to use it. We don’t feel a need to hide our texts, or be secretive about whom we are texting. That seems to be rare these days. I feel as though trust is no longer a common notion in relationships, and that is very sad. 

Matthew and Me!

Sassy SENIOR! 2015

Tomorrow is my first day of classes for my final senior semester in my undergrad at Ball State University! Bitter-FREAKING-sweet! Assuming everything goes as planned, I will be walking across the stage on May second 2015 collecting my 40,000 dollar diploma.

This semester will hopefully go smoothly. I was able to catch up and take extra courses last summer which allowed me to have a small schedule of 12 credit hours this semester, leaving me with a very EASY course load. I’m slacking off with two blow-off online classes that end March 9^th, my capstone research course, and my internship which will be off campus. Only four classes and two will be done with by Spring Break! I’m very excited to only have to be on campus Tuesday and Thursday for an hour and a half.

At 22 years old I still don’t know everything. I’ve learned quite a bit in college, mostly about myself, but it has taught me some great lessons. I don’t think I have many regrets as this experience comes to a close, but there are always things we wish we could change.

As years go on I will never regret coming to college, most people only regret never having gone. I’m glad I won’t be in my thirties looking back and wishing I would have taken the time to do something this spectacular. Some people have struggle just to graduate High School, looking back High School was a cake walk. Those who are able to stick it out and further their educations are the ones who truly worked their butts off.

My dreams go much further than college but I hope that college will give me the platform I need to move on to bigger and better things. Fingers crossed!

Good luck to anyone who is graduating in the next few months, or those who are just chugging through college as they work their way to a worthwhile degree!

Related Links in PPPS:

-YouTube Video College Tips!

-The stress of Syllabus week.