Adventures of one who is totally floored.

It is that time of the month again. This month we pushed things to extremes. We had the usual meeting of the brains trust to decide where to go. It is then my job to call and book. We had a choice to make as this establishment “The Mini Coathanger Hotel” it has has two restaurants. I asked which is better for us. The young lady on the phone said “how many?” “Öh about 12″ I replied. “That’s a big group” “It’s for our steak club” Well lets just say that she was impressed and offered to email the menus so we could decide which of the two restaurants would work better for us. The problem was I have been having the same cut of steak every month so that I can best provide a level playing field of comparison. But the restaurant we were going to did not have that cut but the other restaurant did. Being a a cheeky bugger I asked if I could get my cut even though they don’t serve it in that restaurant. I also joking said I would provide them with our report card. Which they were very excited about and keen to see. I drafted with the consulation of De Niro and the Rainbow Connection a form to be filled out so we can give accurate feedback. We even placed Location on the top of the form so it gave the impression that it gets used every month. It turned out that the young lady I was speaking to was the Marketing Manager.

We rock up after the usual pre dinner drinks which are staged in the front bar of every hotel we go to. The staff were very attentive to our needs. The waiter even approached me and let me know that I could get my cut of steak even though they don’t normally serve it there. Then things started to go down hill. It took over an hour and a half to get our meals. When they did arrive they had a lot of the meals mixed up. They were given to the wrong person or were the wrong cut or wrong sauce. Out of the 11 steaks only 4 were cooked to order. The Lovely One’s sirloin was medium well almost well done and was to be a medium. My steak was the wrong cut and the sauce was not on the side as requested. When it returned it was medium rare to medium and the sauce was the wrong flavour. I was too hungry to send it back again. It was very good however just wrong. The other girl who sent it back as it was wrong then sent it back again as it was way undercooked to her preference. When it came back it was burnt all the way through. The general thing heard was the steak was brilliant but was let down by the way it was cook and the small size of the sides. The lowest score was 3 out of 10 and the highest was 9.5. I am in the midst of compiling the report and sending it to the marketing manager. I don’t really want to as it is not very glowing and everyone was quite disappointed. But you have to hear the good with the bad I guess. We are willing to give it another go so they can redeem themselves.

Till Next Time Send It Back,

Chops

I think I can be a fairly flexible and understanding sort of guy. I can even be accomodating. But you want to tick off Chops there are two simple things you can do. Which by the way a event recently did both in the space of two hours.

1. Say you arriving to set up for a event at 6am on a Sunday morning and then not rock up till 7am. And then to be oblivious about the whole thing and not realise that you caused me to leave home just after 5 in the middle of winter. That is not the first impression you wish to make with good old Chops. Because he is already seconds away from being down right captain not so flexible and sticking to policy.

2. After Chops says do you need any more tables for your displays and is everything ok. And you reply it’s all good and we don’t need anything and you check with the boss and it is all good. Then when I am having a cup of tea with the Rainbow Connection and it is the Audio Visual Guy saying “um you need to get up here quick”. I get there and they just started taking half trestle tables from their classroom set for their delegates and moving them. To explain classroom set is a half width trestle table set with cloth, pad and pen, mints, glass and water jug X2 as it is set for two people. They decided to grab three by the time I got there. They got a whole lot of “Excuse me what do you think you are doing?” “We need some tables” “Well those are set up for your guests. Did you consider not moving every thing and asking some one for some more tables” His reply was “Oh sorry about that”. I so wanted to say “Oh you will be”. It is so much easier to give you tables that are not set and what if the glasses fell and broke as you moved them as you did not move the stuff to move them just pick it all up.

In way of postscript they turned out to be very mellow and good to work with. It was there first attempt at anything like this. So it is a steep learning curve. They also ordered the same dessert for three days with lucnh. They thought it was not possible to get sick of macadamia tarts three days in a row. But trust me friend it is easy to jaded by the same dessert. I have been on that journey many times before.

Till Next Time Just Ask First Please,

Chops

This week we have a couple of gigs on at the same time. We have 1700 professionals in a certain medical type field and they are the global experts at this discipline. This gig is looked after by the Rainbow Connection. They are running the poor man ragged with silly comments and questions and changing their minds constantly. The delegates are also 95% of a certain gender.

I am looking after 250 professionals from a non medical field. They are of the opposite gender to the professionals of the other gig. They also are running about 95% of the one gender.

My gig is off in a corner of the building and share a foyer with the much larger conference. We have had to take extra ordinary measures to stop them eating the catering of my gig. We thought well they are all rational intelligent people as they are world leaders in their field we will put up two large A3 size signs. The Signs say X Corp guests catering ONLY. But the signs are not enough which i thought may be the case. You get to know what approach to take with various fields. With a scientific / engineering gig signs work well. But with functions of fields that are more socially inclined signs will not work even with bright flashing lights. I have to stand guard during breaks to ask the other mob to please put down that food as it is not for their conference. I even had one guest walk up to me as I was standing by the sign and say “What does that sign mean?” as that person read the sign out to me” “Well” I said with trying not to drip in too much sarcasm “It means that this catering is for another function which is not yours” Oh checking out the sweet delectable things the other conference had and walked away. The other thing we thought they would notice is that the other gig is made up of 95% of the opposite gender and they are wearing different name tags. It seems that they only have eyes for food.

It happens quite a bit unfortunately. On one occassion I had a guest say boldly “But the food they have looks much better than what we have”. Which I replied with “You will need to speak to your organisers as they picked off the same menu as this function”. So please think of me tomorrow as I stand guard and knock back wave after wave of the not so bright brigade. Which is kinda scary because they are medical professionals and you or a loved one may be in their care.

Till Next Time Do You Think I Could Use A Cattle Prod?,

Chops

Gentle Reader,

With all the commotion of going overseas and coming back and attempting to get back to normal i forgot something major. We have celebrated the first 1000 reads of this here blog!!! I wished I was able to say if you hit a link you would be sent a certificate celebrating this momentous occassion. But I am not good with certificates and links so I am very sorry. But it was cool I checked the afteroon before I flew out and then I landed in Korea and was about to fly out and there was the 1003 stat to greet me. So thank you all so very much in helping me reach this glorious moment. May there be thousands more hits to come Hurrah!!

I was ill the other day with the living snot pouring out of me. Unfortunately this was actually the case as I was just diagnosed with a case of sinusitus. It is so attractive to be pumping saline up your nose at the table but you do what you have to do. I had forgotten a previously arranged lunch engagement with the Police State. But seeing he lives quite close to my doctors office and the times met up quite nicely I went ahead. Whilst at Lunch the P.S’s phone rang. It was the one others refer to as Ghandhi. After catching up the Police State says to the one others refer to as Ghandhi do you want to speak to Chops. As I was only hearing one side of the conversation this is all I really heard. Oh yeah it is quite entertaining. You know he always has the best stories. Oh yeah his style of writing must baffle those who don’t know him. All I do is read it out loud and say it like he would when he tells a story and it makes sense. Gentle Reader, I am sorry and I know my grammar and formation can be quite poor. But thankfully no one seems to really mind except for my friends. If you do have hassles just read it like a script and out loud. I have been told it makes much more sense. I think you need to read it in quite a frantic way. That is usually the way it happened. The sad part is sometimes I do give it a quick scan to see it made sense and is logical. So My apologies for the poor grammar I could pass everything through the Lovely One for her to check but that would only slow things down. I already have to many excuses for the lack of updating the blog. But thanks for reading anyway.

Till Next Time Here Is To the Next 1000 Hits,

Chops

I realised there are a number of stories I never got the chance to tell while I was away and now is as good as time as any to give them a whirl.

I wanted a tour of the place where the convention was. I brought with me the big guns cause I know what these places are like. I rock up the reception in shorts, tshirt, cap and headphones. I gave my name and title and business card and she was not overly impressed. It was one of those oh your from the minor leagues isn’t that cute sor tof reactions. I then pulled out our flash new sales kit which includes me in it somewhere and showed her the floorplan of the House Of Chops. She instanly seemed more impressed. At the point the event manager for the conference I was at walked through. She introduced me and said I would like a tour and where I was from. I gave him my business card. Once again a very similar reaction till I pulled out the sales kit. At which point he said so when would you like the walk around?

The tour itself was not all that interesting. A few little things like the 5cm square holes in the floor to run electricity. I can’t fathom how they get away with that one. The hole wasn’t covered or have tape around it to make you aware of it. So how did you snap that ankle funny story really.

I was in the massive ballroom which sits comfortably 3000. It was immaculate and the lights were nice and bright. I thought it was strange. Carpets get such a work out usually. On closer inspection I realised how they pulled it off. It was carpet tiles all they do if it gets ripped or stained is just pick it up and replace it with a nice new fresh one. Pretty clever hey.

Till Next Time Just Replace it With A New One,

Chops

I have now returned to the House of Chops. I was somehow itching to get back for some strange reason. I have a new boss which will not be discussed here. As always things keep moving when you go and with the new boss comes a raft of new procedures and such. It is not so bad. I am also in the midst of going for the permament version of what I already do. That should give me some security and such.

I was greeted by quite a few people saying it was good to see me back and they wondered where I had been. I had 4-5 people say they missed me and the place is better for my return which is very sweet. But as I woalked along I could feel it happen. People look at you different when your in the suit and you walk different as well. It was kinda funny that the uniform has a certain prestige and power attached. I felt like a sheriff in the ol west. But everything has settled down in my town now the sheriff is back!!

Till Next Time There Is A New Sherriff in Town,

Chops

i alluded in a previous post that I have been confused for another nationality whilst away. I have mainly been though of as a irish man. It may have something to do with my hair colour and the chops. SO many times they have thought I am irish. After looking at a certain cereal package here (lucky charms) i can see why they think I am off the packet.

I now understand that they think we and New Zealand are the same country and are joined like them and Canada. Too make matters worse a Kiwi band played main stage and they kept saying we were the same country and we sound the same. No way we sound way way different.

But one of my fav things at the festival was to sit on the hill and watch the bands. It had a nice breeze and was close to the ice cream vendor. After bands would play during turn arounds I would talk to those around me. it was interesting and fun. I was tlaking to a dude beside me thinking with his hair colour and tan he was from California. He was Austrian how bizarre to be sitting next to a Austrian in a crowd of 30 thousand. So there we were the Australian and the Austrian making fun of the Americans and there excesses. What a bizzarre planet we live on it can seem so big and yet so very small.

Till Next Time Free the Lederhosen!!,

Chops

Gentle Reader, This time tomorrow I will be on a big metal tube wooshing towards Korea and then back to Home. The trip has gone so quickly. I have learnt a lot and come in contact with so much random stuff. Like the other night after being given chocolate pie for dinner we went to a all night restaurant for Meat and stuff. As paying for the bill everyone else nicked off outside. The waitress asked ” I’m sorry I know you get asked this a lot but What’s it like in England” I replied with “I’m not sure I’m from Australia!!” I don’t mean any offense to the brittish readers of this here blog but it is like asking a american what it is like to live in Canada.

It was all good. The trip has been amazing. I have missed home and the lovely one and friends and wished they were here to share it with me. But is has been awesome and the hospitality is amazing. But some times it is just good to be home.

Till Next Time So What’s it Like in Uzbekistan?,

Chops

Greetings from a Big Dusty Farm in Middle America. I am at a big christian music festival in rural America. It came together last minute. A total Blessing.

Tomorrow i see some awesome bands and Brian McLaren is doing seminars on the emerging church. It should be awesome. Better go and see more Rawk!!!

Till Next Time Swallow Some Dust,

Chops