Perspective from the Back of House

As everything comes together it's great to see how each role fits into the intricate pieces of the puzzle. There's an incredible amount of logistics gone into making it all work from ground zero to a well oiled machine.

As the numbers in feeding go up, so does the amount of products required being ordered & received. My working partner "Becky" from P.E.I. likes to refer to them as the groceries. There's just 4 of us looking after all the inventory, receiving, rotating, storing & pulling frozen products 2 days in advance to thaw. James from Melbourne & Dave from Whales are full-time Sodexo major event employees, and have been on the ground & working full out for the past 2 weeks trying to get everything in place & organized as best as possible to make it easier for the Chefs, Cooks & Front of House staff to find what they need to get their jobs done quickly & efficiently.

The kitchen being busiest during the day, we work late in the afternoon to the wee hours of the morning to stay out everyone elses way. The delivery arrives anytime between 7pm & 10pm. The last 2 nights had 12 pallets each, weighing an average of 2000 lbs each. Almost like getting my beer delivery at Buffy's, with exception of were getting slightly more groceries here in Whistler. What's really fortunate is all the products are delivered by one company on one truck once a night.

Someone posted they didn't know where we found the time to make posts to the blog. I don't know about Bill, as he works longer hours & is under the gun a hell of a lot more than me. Myself, I use my valuable hour each way bus trip to type out mine on my Blackberry & then upload it via email. Seems to me like the most efficient use of time ;-)

Bill tells me the first day of feeding the Athletes was huge success. I'll let him tell you all about it.

Cheers, Olympic FSM Mike