Our church has a contract to run one of the concession stands at Falcon Stadium. I remember my mom working concessions at our high school football games to earn money for my sister's marching band. We had a large high school (roughly 500 students per graduating class,) and she often commented about how busy it was working concessions. Now, upsize that to a sold out crowd of over 45,000, and you really do have busy! I was told my all of the concession stand veterans that I was in for an adventure, and they were right.
While kick-off wasn't until 12:30, we arrived at the stadium at about 8:30 a.m. The crew not only sells the concessions, but prepares everything. "Preparing" includes counting every imaginable item for inventory: cups, hot dog buns, nacho boats, bags of peanuts, bags of M&Ms...you get the picture. We prepare the hot dogs, nacho cheese, popcorn, etc. We had a working crew of 15, and only two of us were newbies. Everything ran like a well-oiled machine, and we had all of our prep down about a half hour before the doors of the stadium opened. That gave most of us the chance to sit and take a break for a few minutes while we watched the parachutists and band practice on the field. That was truly the last pause we would take during the game.
Once the doors opened, a few customers started trickling in. It was nice to ease into the process. I was mainly a soda-filler, but everyone does whatever is necessary to keep things moving well. I was also frequently a runner for more hotdogs or nachos or whatever else needed to be done. Before I realized it, there was a steady stream of people, and then shortly we were in the middle of a full-fledged rush on the concessions stand---which just continued for hours. Oh my goodness - I don't even know how to convey how busy we were! I almost felt anti-social at times because I was so busy filling cups with ice and soda that I sometimes didn't ever look at the customer. It was just ice, soda, lid, ice, soda, lid, ice, soda, lid. And let me tell you, I even filled two cups at a time!! I was a model of efficiency! I think the best way to explain the crazy pace is to say that I honestly didn't even have time to look at my watch. I wondered now and then what time it was, but you can't turn your wrist to look at your watch at the same time you are filling up soda! When the crowds started to dwindle and somone finally announced the time, it as already 3:30p.m! To give you a little idea of the volume of sales we did, we started out the day with 864 hot dog buns in our inventory. A couple hours into the game, the academy representative had to bring us additional buns! That's a lot of hot dogs!
Here's a picture we were able to snap before the rush began (notice that I'm all decked out in Navy attire, including Bill the Goat tattoos on my cheeks):
Despire the business (or is it busyness?), it was a really fun day. I was able to get to know some people from church that I didn't previously know, and they were all wonderfully dedicated workers. It was also a little bit of a trip down memory lane, since I worked in a snack bar in high school. It had been quite a few years since I dipped a ladle into a big pot of nacho cheese and served up a really unhealthy boat of nachos.
After the stand closed, we had a good hour of clean up to perform. EVERYTHING must be cleaned and inventoried once again. As with setup, the seasoned veterans did a wonderful job in directing the newbies, and if I had this cleaning crew come work in my house, our house would sparkle in about a half hour. We left the stand at 4:30 p.m, a full 8 hours after we arrived.
So, the net result of all my hard labor? Well, I have yet to find out the exact total of sales. We make 15% of all the sales, and then we split it among the team members. Based on past games, team members usually earn just over $100 each. While I'm happy to have had the experience and to get my missio fund-raising off the ground, that was no doubt the hardest I've ever worked for $100!
No comments:
Post a Comment