Sunday, January 25, 2009

In The Beginning - Post 1

So, as my first entry into my first blog, what are my first thoughts about what I should write first?

Well first, a quick note about myself. I have worked in the Hotel and Restaurant Industry for 30 years, including a few wineries; from busboy to manager in charge of five departments, my favorite department being banquets. I have worked and lived in Washington, Arizona, California, Nevada and Maui, HI. Because of my food and beverage background, I was able to migrate to Australia and now have dual citizenship. I lived in Australia for six years (Port Douglas, Caines, Alice Springs, Sydney, Adelaide and Noosa), working with numerous establishments there.

As most of my activities at work and away are centered on service in some form or another, I shall start there; especially since this blog will be about service offered, service standards and the service industry. It will also be about service outside of the hospitality industry, service known as “small acts of thoughtfulness.”

I think a lot about the service offered at restaurants and hotels, I am not a food critic but I am a service critic; as my friends and sister can attest to, and in those 30 years in the industry I have watched American service standards slowly and surely deteriorate. What might be considered good service today would be considered poor service 25 years ago (definitely a future subject).

But poor service is not only the industries fault but it is also you, the customer’s fault. That’s right, the customer’s, and it’s all about that gratuity. Many times we as Americans tip way to much for the services rendered (another future subject). That being one reason for poor service, but there are other reasons as well.

I try to keep up to date with hotel and restaurant industry news, in fact a very good source of information on the net is http://www.hotelinteractive.com/, which writes about current events in the hotel industry and has many excellent articles and authors. After being in the industry for 30 years, it is interesting that many of the subjects written years ago cycle back around and for the most part, haven’t changed in content; on management, service, the employee and the industry on the whole.

It will be interesting for me to see not only on what I write about on future articles (I have a few ideas) but how I write each article and the mood it brings. There are times when I love this industry and there are times when I can’t figure out why I am still in it. But every article will be only my opinion unless otherwise stated. I may upset some of you at times or maybe all the time and some of you may rejoice about the written content. But that is what's great about my own personal slice of the web.

What I can mention now is that I support a healthy and positive work environment, a good work ethic, a team philosophy and a quality experience for every customer. What I am against is laziness, a poor work ethic and an indifferent attitude towards co-workers and customers alike. That will forewarn you about future articles.

I can only hope that, as time sneaks away and articles written, my writing skills, techniques and vocabulary will vastly improve.

Thank you for your time, enjoy and have a great day.

David Jones

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Looks like a very interesting blog. Hadn't thought much about tipping as related to service (except for really, really bad service). Will look at my restaurant experiences a little differently from now on.

Anonymous said...

I think, this blog is a great idea, we all can benefit from this. Let me know as soon as your web page is active. Good luck. Kiko