#offsitecatering

Monday July 10th 2017 

So in my first post I said that I would expand on my experience with the catering company I worked for called Feastivities  Since I did not go out to eat today nor did I cook for myself (yes I ate but just like a child. i.e cereal) I figured today would be as good a day as any. 

I got this job right after high school and thought It was going to be great I was making $10 an hour and got to choose what shifts I wanted. What fresh out of high schooler summer before colleger could complain with a job like that especially since it was her second job for the summer and she wasn’t expecting to be working more than part time at the other job (ACE). Boy was I wrong. The company was not an on site caterer, this means that the company did weddings at multiple locations throughout the Philadelphia and surrounding area. Ok, I'm sure you’re reading that and it still doesn’t sound so bad but it gets worse, trust me. While the sites that they catered on are simply beautiful none of them were set up with even tables or chairs for the wedding all of that was provided and set up by the company and then broken down and taken back off site at the end of the event. Guess who had the lovely job of setting up? Yes, young padawan, the hourly staff. This meant bringing in chairs and tables and decor       -_-. Some of the tables were splintery and the managers on site didn't care that the table was 3x your size and weighed more than you could lift you better get that table in there before they start yelling at you like you're a piece of ishh a dog left on the ground. Another thing was weather. It didn't matter if it was 98 degrees out you were moving them tables from the truck into the venue. 

Let’s go back to the on site managers for a second. Not all of them were bad but a lot of them were. They didn't care if it was your first time at the site even if it was your first day with the company they would give you an order (not ask) and expect you to know where everything was and not ask questions. I don’t work like that, and intern I don’t manage like that either. I ask and I teach. So these things didn't sit well with me. Also, I'm not going to ask someone to do something that I wouldn’t do myself. I had one manager tell me to take a 10 foot rectangular table up a flight of shiny marble steps into the great hall of the site by myself, and when I told him there was no way I was able to lift the table up the steps on my own without dropping the table on the expensive steps or hurting myself he proceeded to get an attitude yell at me another task to do and move the table himself with an attitude. I called the main office about him but I only worked a couple more events after that. Then at the end of the night there was no gratitude. A lot of the events had 10 hour work shifts due to set up and break down with sometimes tight and awkward spaces for the staff to clear and just in general not be seen doing wait staff work. And not one “thank you” or “good work tonight team”. That’s ridiculous! I have no idea where managers stop seeing their employees as people but I swear sometimes they just need to be punched in the face. 

I hate to talk bad the venues this company caters at but some are not thought out to the best of their abilities. But, I have to mention them. All the venues were gorgeous in their own right but even with how pretty they were some had an awkward layout. There was one venue that was in Center City Philadelphia that was so small that the ceremony space that we set had to then be turned over into the dining room all during the one hour cocktail time. The cocktail area was maybe 200 square feet and was only separated by a curtain. Why even have your wedding there it wasn't even a picturesque part of the city it was in the middle of a block on Chestnut Street. Another place was an older I want to say Tudor style home but I'm probably wrong in that area but regardless the house was a bunch of rooms and a long hallway. None of these rooms were big enough to seat all the guests together and definitely not a place that a seated dinner could be coordinated swiftly at. This site leant itself to only be able to have a station set up for dinner and missing a lot of special moments cause everyone couldn't all be together. Needless to say that venue shouldn't have been for weddings. Yes, it was beautiful but geez was it not thought out properly. 

Being a food blog I have to mention the food. It was average wedding catering. The traditional steak, chicken, vegetarian options, appetizers that you see at most wedding. Definitely nothing to run home and plan your wedding around since your single and caught the bouquet. It was average. On top of that if we did get to eat the food we were rushed while doing so and was usually on some stairs or standing up. I get that a lot of companies do this as well and have the same time constraints but dude it just wasn't worth it. 

I ended up no longer receiving emails for shifts after I called and yelled at the head people about screwing up my tax stuff at the end of the year. Not that it mattered I was about to transition into being a college student and no longer wanted to be bothered with that job. I still had the conference place anyway and I enjoyed being there more than anything.

QUICK END NOTE: This company did introduce me to one of the most beautiful spaces in the Philadelphia area called Elkins Estate. It is a huge complex that holds multiple building but the one mansion we used for the event blew my mind away (this is the one with the marble stairs that lead into the great hall mentioned previously). Unfortunately Elkins is now in limbo with talks of being torn down :’(. I dreamed my wedding would be there after working that event but now those dreams are crushed. If you ever get a chance to get into one of the tours for this gorgeous estate GO do not hesitate as no one knows how much longer it will be there. If you find out that I ever won the lottery you can be certain I will be owning that estate