​ Messiah College Internship Journal



Tuesday, February 26, 2013​
There have been a couple of times now where I have been left to manage by myself. At the Union it has only been for an hour or two mainly because it is a larger vicinity compared to the Falcon Café where I was left alone for upwards of 4-5 hours. Last week was Open House for prospective students and I was able to talk to a father about his son’s future employment. I personally saw that as an opportunity to show customer service to a prospective student and his family. I was also able to talk to a prospective student directly during a scholarship day. He seemed very nice and was genuinely interested in this college.
I feel that I am doing better concerning supervising and getting the employees to help out. Before I was struggling because I am so used to being on the front line and doing the work myself and now the role has switched. Now I am to look at the bigger picture and make sure things run smoothly.

Wednesday, March 13, 2013
I am currently on spring break! Yet instead of going out for a mini vacation, I am working further on my course work, my internship work and my career work. I have been working on my resume, online portfolio and now my journal.
Before I left for spring break, I had a nice conversation with the operations manager, Jennifer Whitcomb. I told her some places that I felt I was struggling in and she gave me some really good advice. For the next couple of weeks, my goal is to establish what Jen calls my “flow”. I have to be out on the line and sit in a spot for a couple of seconds and actively look for something that needs improvement. It seems that within the past four year, the Dining Services has changed quite drastically. It was not as organized and structured as it is today. As I was talking to Jen, she explained some things that the Union Café was still struggling with and what she thought was best for me to work on. One of the things that needs improvement is that shift supervisors need to be supervising more and prepping less. It is alright if a supervisor steps on for a bit to help out if needed but a supervisor should not be stuck there. A supervisor’s goal is to designate tasks to employees if they are standing around. There is a lot of standing around at the Union. Another goal for the supervisors to work on is to start teaching people other stations.
There have been instances where a person on one station will get hit and people on other station will stand and stare rather than help. The reasoning behind this is because the other students do not know how to work on the other stations. I have experienced this myself as a worker and student supervisor.
So my goals for the remaining part of the semester is to work on my flow, train my eyes to look for things, and train others on other stations if need be.