This past semester has been great, but it has also had its fair share of obstacles. On top of school, I work as a manager and event planner for a restaurant, and also have been volunteering for an event production company; it's been busy! I would say that the most notable failure that I have encountered this semester was a couple weeks ago while working at the restaurant. I work at One Love Cafe, and my mom is the owner, so I am highly involved in the operation of the restaurant and try my best to make sure that everything always runs smoothly. Well, if you have ever worked in a restaurant, I'm sure that you would agree that this does not always happen- no matter how hard you try. Anyways, a few weeks ago we were having a typical steadily busy Thursday night, when our head chef had to leave because of personal matters. The other guys in the back are great don't get me wrong, but without the leader who usually calls out orders and makes sure everything is going out the way it's supposed to, things got a little crazy. Food tickets were getting lost, people weren't getting their food, items were missing from people's orders, and there were a lot of unhappy customers. I felt like we had failed that night big time. My mom claimed it was the most terrible night of her life, and it made me feel even worse! I had to reassure her that everything was going to be okay and tomorrow is a new day and everything will be fine. The cherry on top were the very hostile reviews that a couple people left on Facebook. They were bad. I'm at the point where they don't really phase me just because I think its sad that people have to post negative things about businesses that they have no idea the amount of effort and handwork goes into keeping them afloat. But I digress. This was the biggest fail that we had at the restaurant, and I wish that those customers did not have to have their first experience at One Love on a night where so many things were going wrong. I felt responsible and it made me feel horrible because all I want is for our customers to be happy! But the next day was smooth and everything went well, so everything turned out okay and my mom felt better too.
From this fail, I learned that you cannot always control everything, and things like this happen-it's normal to have a rough time every once in a while. Sometimes things just don't go your way no matter how hard you try. You just have to remain positive and try harder next time.
Failure is definitely hard, but it is also a learning experience. It teaches you to be strong and confident with your abilities, and shows you that sometimes even the hardest working people can fail. You just have to remain motivated and keep pushing through the obstacles life throws at you. I try to handle failure by always looking on the bright side and looking to the future; there is always a glimmer of hope in each failure you will encounter and there is always time to make up for things that don't work out perfectly. I think I am more likely to take risks now than four months ago, because this class has pushed me to step out of my comfort zone and try new things. Failure is something that is natural and it is going to happen to successful people; getting back up again and trying harder is what makes you stronger.
I can defiantly relate to work mistakes I work at U-haul and some days its extremly busy and sometimes people come late or a truck breaks down or an employee makes a mistake and we don't have the truck or trailer the person that had reserved. And these people lose their f***ing minds and start yelling and cursing writing bad reviews but its unacceptable and a serious flaw in our culture that they are conditioned to behave like that. For one nothing is ever solved in their fit of rage trucks don't magically appear just like yelling at your waiter don't make your food cook faster. If anything it stresses everyone out and cause more mistakes to be made, its like if you child brings home an F is ok to be made but are you going to be-raid and cruse at them until they feel worthless no that's abuse the same rules apply to workers. Check out my blog at http://mrdreaces.blogspot.com/2016/04/celebrating-failure.html
ReplyDeleteHello Jennie,
ReplyDeleteThis was a really great post! I highly enjoyed reading about your experience. I really loved what you said in the middle of the post, that no matter what you do or how hard you try, there will be unforeseen circumstances that you cannot control and will alter the outcome. Unfortunately, I can't share my link because I was unable to do this assignment, but great job!
Hey Jennie! Your experience was so inspiring! I appreciate that you took a positive outlook after that horrific night at your restaurant and learned from it. Restaurants are never perfectly smooth and customers need to know that, it's a lot going on all at once something bad is bound to happen every once in a while, no worries!!!! It's awesome that you stayed confident in the ability of you and your mom to run the restaurant because that experience built a lot of character. Great post. If you want to check out my experience with failure you can at this link:
ReplyDeletehttp://rmathisonent3003.blogspot.com/2016/04/celebrating-failure.html
Hi Jennie, this was an amazing post, and very insightful. Thank you for sharing your experience, and it was great that you took a positive outlook from that experience.
ReplyDeleteIn the restaurant business, there will be nights that will be amazing, and those that are not so great. The only thing left to do is learn from the mistakes, and figure out a way to not let it occur again.
My blog: http://anaguevarauf.blogspot.com/2016/04/celebrating-failure.html