Day 23 – Rainy Day Fun

I had off until 5 p.m. and was going to go hiking, but that didn’t work out due to the rain and snow. So I hung out in the Paradise Inn Lobby and read my book, knitted, and played cards with a couple of people who were off. Dinner service was really busy though.

I do realize that I haven't posted a daily picture of Mount Rainier take just after midnight while it was clear for a hour.

Day 18 – A Slight Promotion and Another Busy Day

     There is one bad thing about working the lunch/dinner shift. No real free time to go hiking (snowshoeing). But I like not having to get up at 5:45 a.m. to get ready to be at work at 6:15 a.m. As we were setting up the food and beverage, Wes came over and told me that they were going to train me as a back-up server. This was great new supposing I have only been here a week. They paired me up with one of the older servers Brian and I was learning from him while bussing his and another server’s tables. Towards the end of shirt, Brian let me do a couple of tables by myself. The only issue I had with my tables was the timing on the food, but according to Brian that will come with time.

     Today’s dinner service was about as busy as yesterday’s without the large parties. Again I was bussing tables. Bussing tables might seem like a demotion from being a hostess but its not. For the most part hostess don’t get tips while the bussers are tipped by the servers so that means that I am making my hourly wage plus tips which means that I will make more money.

     According to the original schedule I was supposed to be off Monday and Tuesday, but before dinner service they told us they made some major changes which sucks because I had already made plans. Monday, my roommate and I were going to Seattle to get a few things and do some of the touristy things and Tuesday I was going hiking with one of the bussers, Tarra. The new schedule wasn’t that different from the old one except that I had to work breakfast Monday morning, and instead of all lunch/dinner shifts mostly hosting, I am working a mixture of breakfast/dinner and lunch/dinner shifts mostly bussing.

     My roommate and I are still going to Seattle we are just leaving latter than originally planned. Tarra and I are no longer going hiking together because she is working Tuesday.

     On another note, my cough has almost cleared which is a good thing, I was getting worried.

     I am working on a entire post dedicated to the people I work with so you might know these people I mention and a little bit about them.

     The Daily Mount Rainier Picture, note how different it looks from yesterdays.

Day 17 – A Creative Solution and Staffing Woes

     Yesterday, my black dress shoes had caused my feet to hurt due to a combination of hours on my feet and very hard insoles in my shoes. I was getting ready for work, when I thought about my hiking boots having very comfortable insoles. So I took my hiking boot insoles and put them in my work shoes to help stop my feet from hurting.


     Despite the snow, the Saturday crowd was fairly large. Most of the people who drove up are either climbing the mountain, serious hikers, hotel guests, or on one of the many tour buses. Ok, so those groups of people are kind of obvious. Most the climbers and hikers start early in the day so they don’t eat in the dining room. The guest and tour bus people have three dining options if they didn’t bring their own lunch: the dining room, the Jackson Visitor Center Café, or the Hotel Café. Most people choose the dining room, because it has real food and a nice atmosphere. Today, we were really unlucky at lunch because all the tour bus people had brought their lunch and we spent most of the lunch standing around doing nothing.

     So lunch was very slow, but things were looking up for a decent dinner service. Of the 121 rooms in Paradise Inn, 52 were booked. Dinner service started off with a large party of 10 people and a couple of tables of four. It was enough that we were not simply standing around but not overwhelmed. This changed very fast. Suddenly we had a line out the door, a party of 10 people, a party of 8 people, and like 8 other table come in with in a like 15 min span. On staff we had 3 servers, 2 bussers (I was busing), a hostess, a bartender, a cocktail server, and the assistant manager. We were not equipped to handle this many people in this short time frame. I was literally taking orders, delivering food, and filling water glasses. I did not even have time to clear tables when people left. Finally, things slowed down but we were still busy. After all the customers left we had to change the dining room over for breakfast which means setting up the buffet, removing the table cloths, and resetting all 50 tables. For the buffet, they build this Volcano, basically a ring of rocks with a can of heating gel in the middle and berry compote on top. I have been the designated Volcano builder, since it has to be a certain height and be flat on the top. All this work took us about an hour and a half so I didn’t get off work until 10:30 p.m.

     On suggestion from my mother here is the new daily Mount Rainier Picture. Note how lovely the mountain  looks today.