More and more room service

Yesterday was another day of supervision of trayline. Unlike the day before, we assumed more of the role of a supervisor. This meant that we had to look at a list of tasks, find out which ones were done and still needed to be done, and then go out and know who to assign them to. Then, we had to tell the staff member what they needed to do. Definitely weird telling someone twice my age what they had to do when I had been there for a week and they have been there for years upon years. But, overall a great day for practicing supervision. It's nice that the staff in the kitchen are becoming more comfortable with us being there. We're interacting more, helping them on trayline and cold production, and just talking to them. One staff member put it best, "I love coming to work, it's like one big, loving, and dysfunctional family."

Today we visited a nearby hospital, Henry Ford Hospital in West Bloomington, and got to watch a cooking demonstration and had a quick tour of the kitchen and hospital. This 24-hour room service operation is SO nice, but they only serve about 120 patients at each meal. U of M? About 400-500. They have everything made to order, nothing from a frozen box, everything from scratch. Optimistic, yes. Realistic, probably not. But, it was nice to see what other organizations are doing. The hospital was beautiful and had wonderful art. They also had a farmers market inside the hospital, which was neat. 

Other than that, not much! Just working on a literature review for foodservice, which is about employee recognition programs and ideas. Not as easy as it sounds! There are lots of options but choosing one for PFANS needs a strategic approach. More on that later...

And, Gram, probably my (only?) religious blog reader, reminded me that I didn't say anything about the salad creation/taste test results. Unfortunately, we didn't win, but another group did. They created a delicious Michigan Salad with dried berries, raspberry balsamic vinaigrette, Granny Smith apples, and sunflower seeds. It's all in the hands of the executive chef and department directors. Over all though? Amazing experience and learned so much. Even though the Michigan Salad won, there wasn't one salad that wasn't tasty!

Weird to think I'm already halfway through my second rotation...

245 days...