Apple Spice Junction

Archive for September 11th, 2009

People are like rubber bands…they perform best when they are stretched.  I heard this recently while talking with one of our franchisees about their staffing levels.  It made me think of a large onsite barbecue I attended with the staff of the Orem Apple Spice Junction store two weeks ago.  The barbecue was for 3500 people and everyone came at once.  We had set up 8 buffet lines to handle the crowd but it was still a little daunting to see that many people coming at you all at once.  It went so great, though.  Everyone on the staff worked so hard that night.  They had already put in a full day of catering and had been preparing food for the barbecue, also.  Nobody was complaining about how tired they were or how long they had worked that day.  The guys cooking the burgers and hot dogs on the grill had to keep all the grills loaded all the time.  It was hot outside…Utah in the summer…and it was so hot in the grill tent.  There was such an amazing spirit of teamwork going on, though.  People were watching out for each other, asking if they could get each other drinks and helping out with watching each other’s stations.  It was a great example of stretching people and people rising to the occasion.

Alison Ainge