UW Madison Week #2

Monday:

This morning was a rainy adventure. Miranda and I finally figured out the bus system and took it to work. First thing we met with Frank who is in charge of event management. His background is in reslife and he degree is actually in sports management. He has been working in his position for the last 3 years.

He started by showing us some statistics about how many events happen in the building. It equals out to approximately three events a day. There are four rooms that he runs on the second floor of Gordon. Three of the rooms can be connected by removing the dividers.

He showed us some room reservations and decided we should be in charge of setting them up. We had to decide how we wanted to set a room for 100 people with circle tables.

We had to take down the previous set up first and this required some help. Three of the students that work in the dining hall joined us for the set up process. There is not any staff assigned to help with set up or take down. I learned that event set up is not as easy as I thought it might be.

We went to lunch on State Street with Frank and he had some good advice for us.

We then met with the supervisor of the in house maintenance department. He explained to us that the most important role we can play in maintenance of equipment is proper cleaning. He told us how to notice when equipment is not working properly.

Miranda and I finalized our menu for our rock and roll theme meal and sent it off to the cooks we are going to be working with.

 

Tuesday & Wednesday:

I spent the last two days doing station work at Four Lakes. I learned the opening procedures for the deli and the bakery. I spent a lot of the morning cutting up desserts for lunch. I also worked at the pasta station, grill, and noodle bowl stations while there. I got to spend a couple of hours in cold food prep as well. This is where all of the to go items are prepared to sell at the different dining halls on campus. At close they had me boil out and clean the fryers and sweep and mop. 

Thursday and Friday:

I worked at Gordon towards the end of the week and leaned some of their stations. I once again did some work in the bakery and deli, grill, and pasta stations. I got to train a little bit in the coffee shop as well which was cool.

It was a pretty slow week for the dining facilities and it made it nearly impossible to stay busy for the whole eight hours. There was a lot of standing around and they seemed pretty over staffed for the volume of customers coming in.

The work we were doing this week is a lot like what I do at my current job. I felt like the purpose of this week was to familiarize us with the facility and equipment.

Throughout the week I've become more familiar with the town and more comfortable and settled in. I've had the opportunity to explore the night life a little bit and enjoy what Madison has to offer