A new post! it's a miracle!

Wow, it's almost April, and my last post was Feb 12th.

So February and March happened. It's all a blur, but I'll try to get caught up.

Today is March 27th, so I've been serving now for over 2 months?!? wow, hard to believe. That went really fast. I'm still enjoying serving, some days are better than others. I find it really depends on the people I'm working with whether or not I'm going to have a good night. There are people there that are a lot of fun, and I like joking around with, and there are others that I try to avoid for the entire day/night.

I do try to stay positive, and make sure that the guests at my table get my best service even if I'm not having a great day or night. Guests usually seem genuinely happy at the end of the meal, so I feel pretty good about that. I had a great table from Kitchener Ontario the other night, who not only drank lots of wine, but had fun chatting with me about Guelph, and Canada, and working down here in Florida.

I've also had great american tables who like to joke that I always say "Eh" and such, I usually try to play along, and kid around with them, but after you hear it for the 20th time that day, it's a bit less entertaining.

As I put in my last blog post, this last little while there have been a lot of great people who have had to leave, it hasn't been easy being left behind here. Lot's of new arrivals too, and I'm sure they are good people, but they can't replace those I've had to say goodbye too. I hope they are all doing well back in Canada.

3 of my favourite people to work with all left on this past friday. It was really really hard to say goodbye to Lyndsay, Ali, and Heather. There have been others that have been tough to say goodbye to, but these three were the ones I spent the most time with over the last 3-4 months. Watching them drive away I knew that nothing was going to be the same here. Everyday so far it feels like something is missing, and I don't know if that will go away. I'm trying to work as much as possible over the next while to keep myself distracted, and save up some money so that when they come back to visit (they promised!) I can spoil them.

I'll try to post more often, I know at least 1 person reads this now.

-Dan

Loving Serving

Ok, I've been serving for a full two weeks now.

And I'm loving it!

Each day is something new. I've had so many fun groups at my tables, and really just tried to have fun with everybody, and chat, and stay positive. There have been a few times where I feel like I'm running around like crazy, but they all seem to be happy with my service.

It's such a unique place to be serving, people coming from all over. Some at the beginning of their vacations, some at the end. Some having a really good time, some having a long day. But all of them are happy to be at Le Cellier.

I'm really glad with the trainers I had, I feel like I come to the table with a very positive attitude because of everything they taught me. I really can't thank them enough, and I'm going to be very sad when they've left me here.

People leaving is the hardest part of this place, this past month we've lost some people that I was close with. They've gone back to Canada, and I'm still here in Orlando. I guess things will go on, but it's just weird having people constantly leaving, and new people constantly coming, trying to keep up with all the new people is tough. And losing people you've grown close to is even tougher.

I'm not looking forward to the next month or so for that reason. It's going to be a sad time. I'm glad I'm enjoying serving, or else it'd be tough to keep me here.

Dans a Server!

It's true, I am now a server at Le Cellier in Epcot. It's pretty exciting really, I just passed my assessment today, and I'm really looking forward to my first few shifts.

That's the big news for me at the moment, but I wouldn't have made it without the amazing trainers I had (having never been a server before, I needed some help). Training at Le Cellier consists of 4 days with 4 different servers. This allows you to learn different styles in hopes that you can take good things from all of them.

Day 1 - Lyndsay was my trainer, she is awesome. Got there very very early in the morning (early for me anyway), and went through the Disney standards for service. She was very positive and told me stories about her first days of service. I was nervous as is to be expected, so I thought I'd just follow her around and watch her do her thing. The first table sat down and we went over to greet them, she introduced herself and I, and during her spiel, with a big smile on her face, she turned to me and asked "Dan, what would you recommend?" AH! So I told the guests about the Filet, stumbling slightly, but I got through it. This continued for the shift as she would often tell tables "If you have any really hard questions, ask Dan." But it was a lot of fun, and she taught me a lot about connecting to tables, and listening, paying attention.

At the end of the shift, our last table (2 adults, 2 kids), she said that it was all mine. So I went over and greeted the table, did my spiel - mentioning that I was in my first day of training, and served drinks. When I got back, the young boy wanted to ask me a question, but was kind of shy about it, so his father told me "He wanted to know if we are your first table." and I said that yes, they were the first I was serving mostly on my own. When I brought back the bread both kids had written their autographs for me on pieces of paper! It was awesome. It was also the fathers birthday, so we went and found him a birthday button, made a birthday card, and got the kids some special Magical Moment cards, thanking them for being Dans first table. It was a lot of fun to have a special table like that on my first day of training. Lyndsay was very supportive the whole day.

Day 2 was with Patrick, another great server, and great trainer, and we continued where I left off. Thinking again that I'd have time to settle in, Patrick took the first table, before saying that the next table was all me. And the next one, so I had two tables going at a time but he was always there if I needed him. So I handled much more guests, and got into the flow of having multiple tables on the go at the same time. Patrick has a lot of fun joking with guests, so he taught me more about that, having a lot of fun while serving. It was great! He was very encouraging saying I was doing great, and letting me handle things. We had some guests that were enjoying us, and others that seemed more interested in getting in and getting out. He also taught me more about the wines and beers we serve, how to sell them, how to know who is going to want what. Pretty cool stuff, had another great day.

Day 3 was Ali, another fantastic server who always has a smile on her face. By this time I had heard that Day 3 was where they really start to test you out. You are handling all 3 tables in a section at least part of the shift, and they intentionally do things like sit 2 tables at the same time to see how you handle it. So I sort of knew what I was in for when the shift started. Started out ok, we had three tables of 4, 4 and 6. Things were going fine, but it was a bit slow, and after having a few parties of 4, our assignor came over with a big smile on her face. I was about to be double sat. So down comes a party of 4 and right behind them a party of 7... It was time to start moving! I greeted the party of 4, since they got there first, did a shorter spiel and took their drink orders, then greeted the party of 7, and got there drink orders. Brought out all the drinks at once (with Ali's help following me with waters), got them all done and I was off to the races. Ali kept saying I was handling it really really well, everything was under control. The tables seemed really happy, and I wasn't stressing out. After finishing with those two tables, I got double sat again! AH! apparently it wasn't intentional the second time but geez! So I did it all over again, and by the time I finished with that the shift was almost over. I was exhausted! But really it was a lot of fun too. Most of the guests were really really fun, and liked to joke with me about me being in training.

Day 4 is assessment day. That means that for the day you get a 3 table section, and your last table is one of our managers along with your Trainer. I trained with Johnny, and he was pretty good. By this point I knew most of my stuff, so he was mostly giving me tips on how to handle the assessment, and what to expect. Which was really really helpful, because when you greet your table and your boss is sitting there it makes you kind of nervous. But I got through it, and passed, and was really happy with it, I got a very nice review. There were definitely some things I needed to work on, but many of them were related to nerves that will pass with time.

So thank you very very much to all my trainers, and all the other servers, food runners, podium and kitchen cast members who were all very supportive and encouraging, I couldn't have asked for more. During my assessment every time I entered the kitchen, everybody was asking if they could help me in any way, it was awesome.

So tomorrow is my first shift all on my own. I'm pretty excited about it, though it starts at 10:15, which is earlier than I'd like. But I can't complain really.

Also, in between those training shifts I went and saw a hockey game with some great ladies, which was a lot of fun. I love hockey, I love great ladies, what could be better?

alright, bedtime now, thanks for listening!