Soft Opening

I am not even sure where to begin. Our soft opening was Friday and Saturday. I worked Friday from 9am-3am and then Saturday 7am-4pm. It has been a long 48 hours.

The soft opening went really well and the client was very happy. We served dinner Friday night to VIP media. Pretty much the media gets these passes to give to family and friends for them to come stay at the village for 2 nights and experience the Media Village. We had 3 restaurants open and they all opened at 6pm. There were roughly 2,200 people all dieing to get in. People were pushing and shoving to get in. All the food was free. It was a chance for us to test everything and a chance to get feedback from the client.

There was a situation with all these people trying to come in at one time. We set it up that 25 guests at a time would come in. People starting pushing and shoving and I couldn't take it anymore. I kind of gave this one guy a forearm and had the translator say "if you act like this none of you are eating." Once that was said they formed a line and it was smooth sailing.

As for what they ate. We had all sorts of food but these people were piling their plates so high. It was ridiculous. They were stealing drinks in their bags, putting tea bags in their pockets, and taking fruit like it was going out of style. I could not believe it. It is kind of hard to explain how it went and how everyone acted. I guess to sum it up they did not act like VIPs.

BOCOG is Beijing Organizing Committee for the Games. They are our client. They all walk around in these Adidas jumpsuits. They eat and drink at all the places to make sure everything is ok. One of the BOCOG members stopped me to say hello and we started talking. He was telling me how happy he was with the way everything was going and how excited he was to be working with Aramark. We continued talking and he started saying how proud he is of me and how he is impressed with how hard I was working. It caught me off guard that he was saying these things because he was a complete stranger. He then asked if I had eaten anything all day and I told him no. He said I must eat but I explained to him that I do not like to eat in front of customers while working. Well he talked me into eating with him and he tried to get me to have a beer with him as well. It was really nice to sit down with Chinese business men and hear their story. When this guy is not doing BOCOG he is a miner.

MY UNIFORM. The much anticipated uniform came out Friday. I got to work and the seamstress gave me the pants she fixed. I put on my horrible khaki pants and my blue button down short sleeve dress shirt. The collar of the shirt had so much starch it killed. I looked in the mirror and could not stop laughing. The outfit was not complete until I put on my fanny pack and hat. Let me tell you, I looked like a real winner. I found out that the pants can withstand anything. Someone told me you could pour a bottle of water on them and nothing would happen. I felt like I was in an infomercial but I took a glass of water and poured it on my pants. Sure enough dry as a bone. The outfit is so uncomfortable. As soon as I post pictures I will be sure to post them.

It has been a long 2 days considering I am working on 3 hours of sleep. We are heading to the Forbidden City tomorrow and this time we are really going. One of the hourly employees is going to take us and be our translator. I am looking forward to it. It is my second day off since being here.

One last thing. I was informed that Sandy Baron has been calling my dad nonstop asking about my blog. Sandy, I will try to post as often as possible so my dad can get a break!