Blog 10 - Interview 2 Reflection

This is me when I mentor. I am able to be happy around everyone.

1. Please explain how you are spending your mentorship time (Is it at a workplace or somewhere else?  Are you shadowing?  Are you able to do tasks that are meaningfully related to the topic?  If so, what?  Are there other people who are experts in the location?  Etc...)

     - Where I am currently mentoring I have been able to do tasks given to me. I have helped keep up with orders, have scheduled meetings, and have also attended catering thanks to the help my mentor. These things are some tasks that managers would usually do in order to keep their business running smoothly. Another person at the restaurant who has the same expertise as my mentor would be my dad, which is a manager as well, but because I know he will go easy on me I try to do more tasks with my mentor Ms. Bernal. 

2.  How did you find your mentor?  How did you convince this person to help you?   

    - My mentor was not difficult to find because she is a relative, but I know she will keep me busy helping her around the restaurant. Because she is family she didn't have any problem with me mentoring at Mi Lindo Apatzingan. 

3. How would you rate your comfort level with your mentor at this point in your relationship?  How does this relate to the time you've spent so far at mentorship/with this person

     - As is my aunt and I were close, but because we now help each other out at the restaurant our bond has grown stronger, so at this point I think I can say that my comfort level is at 100%. I feel fine going in anytime because all the staff at the restaurant is friendly and will treat you with respect which is what everyone wants. 

4. What went well in this interview?  Why do you think so?  What do you still need to improve?  How do you know?  How will you go about it?

     - I think this interview went well overall because she was able to answer my questions with the right words and she really let me know that I shouldn't give up on any situation because we are capable of fixing the problem handed to us. I would like to improve only further questions asked and maybe go into more specific questions related to the restaurant. I can go about it in an easy way. I just need to spend my time coming up with the right questions and I believe that when I come up with the questions I will be able to understand the restaurant business management better. 

Advisory Prep 3

This is what you should do when a customer starts complaining 

1. State whether or not you currently have a mentor, and what the status of your interview is with that person (I have completed the interview, I have scheduled the interview, I have not scheduled the interview, etc).

• I do currently have a mentor, and have scheduled my interview to be next week.

2. At this point, your research is probably guiding your studies toward more specific areas within your topic.  Name the area or two you find most promising and explain your reasons.   

• The two most promising areas right now is customer satisfaction because in order to keep your restaurant up and running you need to make sure you have actual customers. Without customers you will have no profit and that can cause economic problems. Another promising area right now is health regulation/code safety because you can get shut down by the health inspectors if you don't have everything clean, organized, and safe. 

3. What kinds of sources do you think will help you in the next month to gain more research depth?  Where will you go to get them?

• I actually hope to find sources about the top health regulation problems that are most common in restaurants. It will help me understand what to avoid and what to do if I ever open a business. Another area I hope to find more in-depth research on is the economic side of businesses because you need to pay attention to your income, profit, loss, and etc. I hope to talk to my mentor and ask her where she thinks I can find my articles or find a book that is all about these two source areas. 

4. Write down a possible EQ.  Please don't worry about wording other than ensuring that it provides the option for multiple correct answers.  At this point, the senior team is most interested in understanding your thought process.

• In order to help improve customer satisfaction and raise profit in a restaurant what are the steps that should be taken?

Blog 8 - Independent Component 1 Proposal

Me when someone asks me if I'm worried about IC. 

1.  Describe in detail what you plan to do for your 30 hours.

• What I plan to do is hopefully be able to arrange a "celebration/get together" with our North House class in the MPR (if I get the permission). As you might know I am doing my project on Restaurant Business Management, and the way it relates to my topic is because as manager it is my duty to;
• Have everything be sanitary
• Make sure things are up to health code
• Have a well organized "staff"
• Supply Menu's
• Supply the food
• Make sure the customers (north house) feel comfortable
• keep everything running smoothly
• I feel I will be able to fill up my 30 hours because I will need to learn how to make proper menus with reasonable deals, and etc. Also, I would need to inspect the restaurant I work at to see health codes in order for me to know what I should fix in the MPR and etc. 
• (p.s. I would appreciate it if you would be able to give me more ideas in order for this component to be better)

2.  Discuss how or what you will do to meet the expectation of showing 30 hours of evidence.

• I will be able to show the evidence of my 30 hours working on this component because I will probably be at school for part of it, and can check in with my house teacher, but also record it on my docs. I will also like to work with other students that have similar ideas to mine and we can all record all the data we have including; pics, log entry's, recordings, and etc. And possibly show our teachers. 

3.  Explain how what you will be doing will help you explore your topic in more depth.

• This idea will help me explore my topic more because I plan on basically running a small business. Even if it just takes up a day, or week, or month it will give me a visual of how it is when you manage a restaurant/business. It will give me a better understandment of all the work managers actually go under and will hopefully teach me some skills for the future. 

4.  Update your Senior Project Hours log.

• New Link posted on blog "Senior Project hours - Leslie's mentoring hours"

Blog 7 - Second Interview Preparation

This is an example of the type of presentation we like to maintain. Clean and appetizing. 

1.  Who is your mentor and where do they work?  If their workplace does not reflect their expertise, what makes them an expert? 

• My mentor is Virginia Bernal and thy work at Mi Lindo Apatzingan restaurant in Riverside. I believe that she is an expert in what she does, which is managing the restaurant. Mrs. Bernal did not attend college in order to do what she does, but what gives her the credibility of being a manager is that she has worked in the restaurant business for over 10 years and was always around food growing up. She eventually worked her way up to be manager which shows that she has improved since she began. 

2.  What five questions will you ask them about their background?

• Was business management your career choice? 
• Has your whole family been in the restaurant business or were you the first in this field?
• What have been some down falls you have had with the restaurant, and how did you fix them? 
• Is there any specific skills you needed to learn in order for you to maintain calm in certain situations? 
• Did you ever have a doubt that your business would fail? And if so, what were some routes you took in order for that not to happen? 

Blog 6 - Advisory Prep

1. What has worked well for you concerning senior project this year?  What has made it a positive experience for you?   

• Lots of things have worked really well for me such as shadowing with my mentor, going out to different occasions in order to get a better view of my senior topic.  I honestly feel comfortable showing up at my mentor's place because she has a well managed staff that will respect you and treat you in a way you would want to be treated and it makes you feel like you're at home. I feel the overall experience is a positive so far because I am able to work around things I feel comfortable with. 

2. What are you finding difficult concerning senior project?  How can you adapt to make that portion work better for you?  How might the senior team help?

• I do not find many things extremely difficult for me so far. One thing that I might have a concern with is getting a hold of different managers located in different areas that are actually willing to allow me to go in and interview/mentor with them. I can honestly say that my mentor is a very respectful, and helpful person because she told me she would make a few calls to see who would be able to help me. Another concern that I have is a simple problem which is my time skills. I need to learn how to space out my school work and outings I plan on going to with my mentor, but besides that I believe I haven't ran into a big problem. 

Blog 5 - Interview Reflection

1. What is the most important thing I learned from the interview?  Is there anything I would do differently for other interviews?

• I learned many things from this interview, but Mrs. Bernal really emphasized when she said "you need to make sure you feel a passion towards the business you're opening because if you feel no passion you will eventually want to give up". Given this quote, now I realize that you cant give it your 100%  unless you love what you are doing. I also learned that customer service is everything. If you have great service you will gain customers and make them go again and again and again, but if you have rude employees the customers won't return which will make you lose profit. So, in order to keep your business running, make sure you know how to manage a team. 

2. Did I get additional resources and contacts?  What is the most useful?  Why?

• I did get additional resources from my interviewee. She told me that I could honestly mentor any manager that has a good and growing business because they will give me certain clues on how they do what they do. I believe that if I am able to interview many more managers from different areas it will help me gain more knowledge on my senior project which will help me achieve my goal of getting a good score on this project. 

3. What makes my interviewee qualified to help me? 

• My interviewee has lots of years of practice with being manager. Having managed this restaurant for around 5 years gives her enough credibility to know what helps the business run smoothly and what makes the business drop in its sales. She has been working in the restaurant business for over 10 years, but has worked her way up into becoming manager. That just shows she is doing something right. 

This is my mentor Mrs. Bernal as well as my interviewee. 

Blog 4 - House Advisory Prep

This is a catering party I was able to go to with my mentor. 

I hope to accomplish many things through my senior project (Restaurant Business Management), from learning how to manage a staff to learning how to maintain my profits high. An important thing I hope I can learn is to maintain a customer satisfied because once your customer feels comfortable they will feel welcomed, but if you don't treat them the way they should, you will gain bad publicity and your profit can drop. One way I hope I learn how to satisfy a customer is by attending catering parties to have a large crowd to communicate with and help me gainer people skills. Another thing I hope to accomplish is to choose what career I want to major in college. My senior topic will help me decide this because it will prove if I can manage to run business or if I am better off doing something else. So far with all the knowledge on business management I believe this is the path I will end up taking, but anything can change. My final wish I hope to accomplish is to graduate with decent grades and to hopefully do good on the senior project with the help of my friends and family.