Chameleons and the…Little things that…

Chameleons and the…Challenge of change

Kitchens are interesting workplaces. They can be pretty hectic and are often filled with loud even angry sounding voices that reflect the urgency of getting the food prepared, plated and delivered.

And the folks who inhabit them are sometimes pretty high strung – especially the head chefs in those otherwise demure (at least in the front of the house) upscale bistros. Or in the case of a school cafeteria they can be more like a ladies’ sewing circle than a busy kitchen prepping to feed a few hundred excited and hungry kids.

Maybe that gamut of situations is what we like. And even if that high strung chef is someone you’d like to avoid ever having to speak to, there’s always that oasis of calm that another customer of yours represents. But aside from the variability that range of customer types presents us with, the real challenge is being sufficiently adaptable to interact constructively with them all.

If we have it, that flexibility may well be our greatest asset – or our worst weakness if it’s not all that well developed. Being in sales demands a bit of the chameleon in us. Just as we adapt to deal with the difficult buyer types, we have to change colors a bit to fit into those very different account environments as well.

Next up: Overly focused on that oasis customer?

 

Little things that…can matter most

We all know that sound. That metallic banging as the operator slams yet another scrap tray on the end table to clean it. And because of that little problem we’re also familiar with the never-ending task of straightening them. And if we don’t that’s at our own peril because those still bent trays will result in service calls to deal with crummy results that are the consequence of the plugged wash arms they’ll cause.

Another bane of our soaper existence are missing, worn, or improperly hung curtains. That critical one between the wash and power rinse tank is the worst culprit. Leave it out and the wash tank and power rinse tanks end up swapping solutions. And that means insufficient detergent concentration in the wash section and soapy rinse water in the power rinse – which now doesn’t rinse very well.

And then there are racks that are broken, missing and misused. Use that short cup rack to run tall glasses and some are very likely to come out either streaked, broken or both. Ditto the racks with chewed up drive channels in that rack conveyor machine They waste water, detergent and especially time as they sit waiting for a good one to push them the rest of the way through the machine. And we can’t ignore misuse of flatware cups and racks that will cause flatware mayhem.