If you love to travel, are easy to socialize with and are passionate about meeting people from all around the globe, the Hospitality might be the industry for you. How and where else can you live and work in places others vacation in? Hours are flexible and you'll find any shift from early morning to overnights as well as any skill level jobs. The beauty about the industry is that your background and education doesn't matter. You can be just as successful in the Hospitality with an MBA in Hotel Management or without even having finished high school. The Hospitality is still one of the only industries where you can work your way up. Most General Manager's do not have degrees and I know plenty of success stories from pot washer to Head Pastry Chefs or General Managers or whatever you put your mind to.
Sure if you want to become a famous Chef going to a cooking school will help along that path. If you would like to become a manager in the Hospitality having a College degree will help along the way and might make getting work permits easier, however it's not a must.
If you would like to combine your passion for the Hospitality and you do decide to get a degree in it, I would recommend Swiss Hospitality schools. Not only are they famous for their Hospitality but they offer very hands-on and well rounded degrees. You'll learn everything from cooking to serving, to pairing Wine & Food to Accounting, Housekeeping, Sales and Human Resources. In addition, you're studying in a beautiful country and your fellow students come from around the globe. I included a couple of links on the side of the blog of hotel schools & universities.
Monday, June 23, 2008
Sunday, June 22, 2008
My Most Embarrasing Service encounter
As in any industry things can go wrong. The service industry means humans providing a service to other humans so there already you have two variables. If you start out as a waitress in a very fine restaurant you're nervous, it's busy so you have the stress factor, you're not experienced yet on holding your tray and food plates, the Chef's in the kitchen are yelling at you as they feel you're not taking the food from the line fast enough (plus Chef's just yell at you for no reason, that's just part of the waiter/Chef dynamic) the guests get impatient and there you have a great set-up for things to go wrong.
I was working years and years ago as a waitress in a fine dining restaurant in Zurich, Switzerland. Zurich is one of the Banking Hubs of Europe (I would even dare and say of the world) and most of our guests were Bankers, discussing very important business with their clients.
One of my tables was one of our regular guests and his client. They had ordered a bottle of white wine, which I was able to open, serve and then place in it's ice bucket in front of their table without any problems. The starters also came and went without any problem. Now, the main course was ready. Zuricher Geschnetzeltes with Roesti for our regular guest (This is a traditional Zurich dish, it's small pieces of beef in a creamy mushroom sauce over a potato pancake) and Chicken Cordon Bleu (which is chicken filled with ham and cheese and then the chicken is breaded and pan fried) for his very important client.
Now I approach the table and I notice that my arms are getting tired from the heavy and also very hot plates. As I mentioned earlier this was a fine dining restaurant so we served everything separate, the potatoes, the sauce etc. so I was carrying quite a few plates. The only food on the dinner plates was the chicken and the Potato pancake (Roesti). Back to the story: I approach the table, my arms are very tired and almost shaky at that point and I notice already that the large dinner plates are dropping down a little. I see the table though just a couple of steps away and I speed up and all of a sudden-Pang-something hits my lower body, which jerks my upper body forward and the breaded hot fried chicken, which is easy slideable on its plate takes off and lands exactly on the important clients lap. Wow- I was so embarrassed and literally wished for that hole in the floor to open up so I can just disappear into it. It was the Wine chiller that I had placed in front of the table that hit me, however when I was approaching with my hands full of plates was covered from my view.
Of course I placed the plates down and started apologizing to no end. The clients however, just pulls up his arms and says "well, just take it-just take it" (referring to the chicken, which is still lying on his lap). By now completely red and sweating profusely, embarrassed to my core I try to remove the chicken from his lap (crotch area) with my serving utensil combo of spoon and fork. After a couple of awkward moments I'm able to wedge the chicken between the spoon, pressed against the fork and I remove it.
Looking back this must have been one of the most comical situations for the other diners and wait staff to look at and now I can laugh about it as well. Even though I'll never forget how I felt and my heart always go out to other staff I witness having an "accident".
I was working years and years ago as a waitress in a fine dining restaurant in Zurich, Switzerland. Zurich is one of the Banking Hubs of Europe (I would even dare and say of the world) and most of our guests were Bankers, discussing very important business with their clients.
One of my tables was one of our regular guests and his client. They had ordered a bottle of white wine, which I was able to open, serve and then place in it's ice bucket in front of their table without any problems. The starters also came and went without any problem. Now, the main course was ready. Zuricher Geschnetzeltes with Roesti for our regular guest (This is a traditional Zurich dish, it's small pieces of beef in a creamy mushroom sauce over a potato pancake) and Chicken Cordon Bleu (which is chicken filled with ham and cheese and then the chicken is breaded and pan fried) for his very important client.
Now I approach the table and I notice that my arms are getting tired from the heavy and also very hot plates. As I mentioned earlier this was a fine dining restaurant so we served everything separate, the potatoes, the sauce etc. so I was carrying quite a few plates. The only food on the dinner plates was the chicken and the Potato pancake (Roesti). Back to the story: I approach the table, my arms are very tired and almost shaky at that point and I notice already that the large dinner plates are dropping down a little. I see the table though just a couple of steps away and I speed up and all of a sudden-Pang-something hits my lower body, which jerks my upper body forward and the breaded hot fried chicken, which is easy slideable on its plate takes off and lands exactly on the important clients lap. Wow- I was so embarrassed and literally wished for that hole in the floor to open up so I can just disappear into it. It was the Wine chiller that I had placed in front of the table that hit me, however when I was approaching with my hands full of plates was covered from my view.
Of course I placed the plates down and started apologizing to no end. The clients however, just pulls up his arms and says "well, just take it-just take it" (referring to the chicken, which is still lying on his lap). By now completely red and sweating profusely, embarrassed to my core I try to remove the chicken from his lap (crotch area) with my serving utensil combo of spoon and fork. After a couple of awkward moments I'm able to wedge the chicken between the spoon, pressed against the fork and I remove it.
Looking back this must have been one of the most comical situations for the other diners and wait staff to look at and now I can laugh about it as well. Even though I'll never forget how I felt and my heart always go out to other staff I witness having an "accident".
Saturday, June 21, 2008
Profiling Hospitality Industry Professional
Hospitality Industry Professional - what a swanky word to describe the employees that were crazy enough to choose the Hotel Industry as their profession. Funny way to think about it as most hotel employees had no other choice, as a hotel offers the most opportunity for unskilled labor. A hotel is a microcosm, employing people from all kinds of backgrounds, skills and ethnicity's. Yet it's like a big household and everyone is "family" no matter where they are from, their believes or religion. Everyone is there for somewhat of a common purpose, to either make the guest/customer happy, to create a memory, trigger a smile, to make money to pay the bill or just to survive the day. But seriously before you're rude again to your server, Front Desk Agent or Room Attendant consider on what their daily work life is like. Most hotel employees make minimum wage or slightly above. Their usual work day can be anything from 8-16 hours. Due to the low wages most employees have 2 jobs and work over 20 hours a day. Most of the work is extremely physical, long hours of standing, walking, bending lifting. Exposure to cleaning and other toxic chemicals. It's true most of the employees genuinely enjoy what they are doing as the strong social relationships formed between colleagues are invaluable. There is a true sense of" We're in this together". Also, there is nothing more fulfilling than the feeling of having made a guests day and/or created a memory in their lives. This is what we "hotellies" thrive on. We will go above and beyond to provide the service you, as the customer want and paid for, however do not abuse us, don't make it personal and use us to air your frustrations. Be reasonable and show us common courtesy as we are in the service industry but not your servants.
Experiencing Hospitality versus living it
There are many blogs, websites, books etc. written and posted about travel, hospitality, hotels, service or the lack thereof. However, you will find very few describing what life in the "hospitality" is like. Yet, the Hospitality industry is one of the larges industries in the world. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hospitality_industry . I wonder why the poor souls, the service providers, which work day-in & out, providing customer service, do not speak up or have anything to say what it's like to be in the service industry? I think one of the reasons is that it's much easier to comment and criticize bad service or a dirty guest room or a Front Desk agent with attitude than describing such interactions the other way around. The angry customer, who was stuck in traffic on his way to the airport, had a flight delay, missed breakfast and lunch and is now out on a vengeance to make your life just as miserable as he's feeling, just because you happen to be the Front Desk agent having to inform him that the parking garage is full. I think it's amazing how much abuse service industry workers have to endure, more so than in any other industry. The irony is that the more angry you are as a customer, the worse your stay or experience will be as you're not only now "looking" for things to go wrong but also dealing with you as an irate guest is challenging and the service provider will not go above & beyond for you. On the other hand, if you're a nice and friendly customer even though things might not have worked out the way you like but you treat the service employee with respect and friendliness, you will have a wonderful experience as the employee will go above and beyond to make things right. Easy psychology but people just fall into their behaviour patterns. Often guests display a sort of entitlement that just because they are paying for a hotelroom or meal at a restaurant they are entitled to be rude or respectless to the server or service provider.
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