Have you ever thought about the popcorn/soda or candy you get when you go to a sporting event? I do, all the time. One of my jobs that I do during my teaching day is to organize and stock the concession stand for the high school. Our first home sporting event is August 26 (first day of school is September 1). We have a home football game. To me a home football games means about 200 hot dog/buns, and approximately 20 cases of water and G2. Let alone the candy, soda, popcorn, ice cream etc.
In order for the room to be fully stocked I have to order at least a week ahead of time. This is where the problem begins, because so many people are just use to items being available to them that they don't understand or just don't care to think about what happens behinds the scenes. I work with 5 different vendors to get products in the room and the vendors deliver on different days. But I usually plan on all my products being there by Wednesday of the week. So planning events we look at the type of event football vs swimming and the teams. The school closer to us tend to bring more fans than a school over 1 1/2 hours away.
I do have 1 student that helps me manage the room. Every year I train someone new and I have had some wonderful student really take the initiative and do a great job of understanding the ordering and bill paying procedure of the school more than fellow teachers. It is difficult to jump into this role in the fall for the students because it is so fast paced. In one week we could have 4 different organizations selling which means we need to count inventory after each event, and prepare an invoice for bill and then get a new inventory count sheet for the next group.
I do all of this using Quickbooks. It does a great job on tracking inventory (as long as students can count correctly) as well as a tool for purchase orders and customer invoices. Prior to using quickbooks I did everything in excel with each event on a separate sheet and it worked, but not quite as efficient (I would never go back).
Well today was the day I went into school to get the first order ready. I am always ready in August to work on this project but I have NEVER gotten concrete information on what events are happening or even who is working the events prior to needing the information. I always have to beg to get the data I need, and I often get the look or comment of you can find it or it is not that big of deal. This gets my goat. I have long and often said I am doing my job well if you don't hear anything about the concession stand, because that means people are happy with what is happening, but if something went wrong then they will hear about it. I prefer for it to work seamlessly and effortlessly, but I have people who don't agree.
First of all I do not get paid or get a prep or even 1 class period a day to do this job. I manage and teach a student on how to do all of the ordering, billing, and counting. I have long been the advocate of the group that sells on Friday night also needs to be the group that sells on Saturday because I WILL not come in or make my student come in over the weekend to count inventory on who sells what. I know there are people who think I am to narrow minded but I take extreme pride in making sure everything is balanced and comes out after every event. They go with the philosophy of just divide it in half and that will be fine, but I know of the different cost and sales that can happen I know that one group could come up short money.
I know I need to just let it go when I have the same people complaining about the same thing year after year, but it is getting harder. So maybe a new perspective this year? I don't know. I do know there are lots of times I am willing to say go ahead and manage it yourself. We will see how this year goes. I do have more flexibility in my schedule this year than last so that may help only time will tell.
I did put in 2 hours at school today (yes I even had to bring my two boys with and they had fun building box houses thanks to Cindy).
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