Camp and things

SONG OF THE DAY:

"Words" Jason Mraz

I went to camp this weekend...not as a camper, but as a counselor, or a "cabin leader" as they call them now. I suppose I still was a camper though. It was great fun, and I wish it had been a week long instead of a weekend. I found myself re-introduced to the joys of middle/high school days. First of all, you can't get them to be quiet all at the same time. The talkative girls might FINALLY be quiet for a brief moment, but as if someone sensed a void, they quickly jumped to fill it with their whispered conversations. It was unbelievable. Also, I think there is a gap somewhere in their childhoods that needs immediate attention so as this trend will not be continue through future generations. These kids have no idea how to play the simplest of games. Capture the flag. Easy, right? NO. I couldn't believe how many questions they had. "So, what are we supposed to do?" Um...you're supposed to...capture...the...mmm....flag. They had tons of scenarios. "So what if the person who tags me and is taking me to jail trips on a fallen log and lets go. Can I run?" (that wasn't a real question, but it wouldn't surprise me). Another thing--we would get done explaining every rule and then some person would ask "so, where's the jail?" Are you SERIOUS!? We already covered that, at the beginning.

Besides all that, it was great fun. I had an awesome group of girls in my cabin so that was cool.

I never really was a big fan of camp. I mean, I liked going, but I never really had any friends at church so the social part wasn't a draw for me. My brother and I were the only ones in our church youth group that didn't go to Raytown or Blue Springs' schools. We were ghetto children. So we always sat by each other in church (still do actually) and the few years where our camps overlapped, we hung out with each other at camp. We didn't have the typical older brother/younger sister relationship. We fought of course, but it never lasted long because we were each other's playmates, so if we didn't make up, we'd have no one to play with. But he let me tag along with him and never minded. Very cool. But anyways, being on the counselor side of camp was awesome.

I just used "awesome" twice in this blog. Not sure how I feel about that.

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On to McNews--I got to be the "prod man" today at work (production manager). Not really a coveted position. It means that I'm the person in charge of the grill and making sure all the wall product is down and they have enough of everything (chicken and stuff, not meat). It can be an easy job because all you're really supposed to do is stand there until they need something dropped, but on the other hand, if they have to wait on any food, you get all the blame. Well, I only had five grill people, six including me, and they decided to open side 2 which left me three on one side, one on the other, my meat person, and then me. I decided to jump in and help so I initiated* (I'll explain in a second) and did the prod stuff. Really busy, but it made the day go by faster. During change over, there were three of us in grill, but they sent one girl on break right at 10:30 which is obnoxious, because they KNOW we're going to be busy and change-over is hard with two people, but they tend to do that every time. If she could've waited 10 minutes, we'd of been fine. But anyways, I was left with my other grill guy, who, while he's nice, does not help you at all. He put himself on meat and was over there by the grills while I'm pending orders, doing everything myself. It was not a huge deal, I can handle it, but it would've helped if he could have at least pulled the product when it was beeping (gee, let ME get that for you) and stuff like that. My manager finally told him to help me.

Anyways, I'm going to explain the grill stations to you. I'm sure you really don't care, but too bad. You have a meat person who is in charge of the actual grill and doing quarter/reg meat and grilled chicken. The Prod Man is in charge of wall and the overall grill area and people. The bun person (not a fun job) gets to...drop buns in the toaster. That's all. Just drop buns (if you can't guess, I get stuck there a lot because no one else wants to do it). The initator looks at the screen and puts the buns on the proper wrap/box and puts on the ketchup/mustard/tartar/mayo/mac sauce as required. Assembly person puts on all the rest of the condiments and finally the wrap person puts on the meat/chicken and "wraps" the sandwhich. This makes me happy, but some managers, when they write the schedule and place people, will abbreviate those positions without thinking. So if you're on "assembly," you get to be something else for the day. Makes us happy.

Enough.