@Niner wrote:
Text yourself. That will save you the two hours you are using listening to recordings, shoptastic. But, if you need shops for the money, dining shops are not it, unless you get Five Guy shops with a decent bonus. The dining shops do not pay much, maybe $15 with Coyle, but you could spend hours writing that report versus fifteen minutes for Five Guys.
I do text myself, Niner. Unfortunately, for shops with lots of timings and/or observations, I still find myself having to replay the audio to get things accurately for the report for any number of reasons.
A quick one - and something's that happened a lot lately - would be the server surprising me out of nowhere (say, coming from behind me) and me not being able to check my running stopwatch covertly in front of them as they start talking to me. I have to wait until after they are done chatting before looking down and/or pressing "stop" on my stop watch and I know that I've missed the actual mark by X seconds. Instead of getting a great timing, I have to now replay my audio file at home to listen for the exact duration.
Or, let's say the server is talking to you and have a natural flowing convo. In order to "play along," I try to match the server's conversation flow (although, still letting them "lead" as many guidelines state) and we end up talking about stuff I did not anticipate and my brain is concentrating on that stuff instead of what report check-points I should be looking out for. On top of that, the server might talk very fast and I'm trying to simultaneously remember EXACTLY what he or she said (you'd be surprised how bad memory is when you have to verify what you think was said to you back to an audio recorder - our brains miss a lot!), while making mental note of check-points hit on the report (e.g., the server described my steak temperature to me and confirmed it) - all while trying to act normal (as if I'm NOT trying to remember this stuff) and have a natural flowing conversation.
Once the server leaves, I often have moments where I feel like I'm not sure exactly what was said just one minute ago. So, while I do text myself what I think was said, I sometimes get the feeling I was off and have to end up re-listening to the audio. Lo and behold, I WAS wrong and my memory was inaccurate. So, had I not used my recorder, I'd have gotten certain report details wrong.
I pretty much always have to re-listen to my shop's audio files at home and that takes lots of time. If it was a one hour shop, it can take two hours of audio listening (stopping to take notes, get timings, and listen to tone of voice, etc.). For me to NOT have to do this, I probably need:
a.) to know the shop's guidelines inside and out
b.) have prepped hard for it
c.) not have "weird" or unexpected stuff happen to throw me off during the shop - like the server coming out of nowhere (outside of my line of vision) to talk to me
A lot of these dining shops have three or four month rotations, so I never get to nail down their guidelines like I do with Five Guys. You need to do that shop a lot to have it memorized and second nature. That means I always have to study them again for long periods before the shop. And, with several quirky client-specific requirements for each shop usually (e.g., how the waiter holds your drinking glass or whether a server said a very specific phrase), it means never feeling totally at ease with it and always being on edge and looking out for those quirky things (on top of the usual stuff).
In the end, there's always something that makes it so that I can't just rely on my texts. I always have to go to the audio. That is, if I want to do the shop right and with integrity/honesty.
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/12/2018 11:25PM by shoptastic.