| | I've started at the Ritz-Carlton now, that fact alone leading me to several story-worthy points. I'm not really sure if I'm allowed to talk about their unique system for remembering guest preferences and subsequently catering exclusively to them, but I can tell you that during my orientation they put that system to use for us, the employees. If you know me at all, you know I likes me some milk. There were a few pitchers of milk out for use with the pots of coffee, but of course I went and poured myself a small glass to drink to go along with the danish I had picked up from the breakfast spread. The orientation training leader saw me doing this, and on the second day of orientation, right after I sat down with a muffin he came over to me with a tall glass of ice-cold milk. These people know how to please. It is their business, and business is good.
The other thing I wanted to mention was the fact that typically within a restaurant operation there are things that go on in the kitchen that I personally don't think you, gentle civilian, should be concerned with. In fact, in concerning yourself with back-of-the-house affairs may serve to break down the quality of your dining experience. Well, I don't think this is the case at the Ritz-Carlton. Of course there are "politically correct" ways of doing things, which is what you do when the health inspector is around, and then there's the normal way, which works just fine in terms of sanitation and is surpassingly efficient in terms of time management. (One needs to understand that doing everything the ServSafe way, which is the foodservice sanitation certification that people in my business must be trained in, means washing your hands for 30 seconds at a time after touching anything, and I mean anything. The standards are typically relaxed inside of a kitchen. But I digress.) The fact of the matter is, in a kitchen where quality receives as much emphasis as it does in a luxury hotel/resort, there just aren't any devastating secrets I could reveal that would make you second-guess what you were about to put in your mouth, and, shortly thereafter, attempt to digest. Uh, not that you should be worried about that sort of thing outside of dining at a luxury hotel. Listen. Things happen, dark things. You've got on well enough so far without brooding over the consequences of these things, so paranoia really need not enter this equation.
Working as an overnight baker has its unique challenges, mostly what the hell I'm supposed to do with myself when I'm bored at 4 am on my days off. I found that adjusting to a new sleep pattern took me three days, so that was easy. I've also noticed that my perception of the changing of days between one night to the next morning has blurred together, since that's my work shift, and now I go to sleep in the afternoon. I guess this point doesn't really carry any significance, but it's definitely odd always being up when the sun rises and going to sleep once it reaches its zenith.
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| | Posted 6/28/2008 5:16 PM - 9 Views - 0 eProps - 0 comments
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