My Philosophy

Hello. My name is William Harbin, but most people call me “Sayres.” I know what you’re thinking: what a bizarre name. I like to think it’s an interesting name and that I have embodied this idea into most of my life and philosophy: to be interesting. My zodiac is Aries, the Ram: a bold decision maker even if it means being stubborn. My personality type confirms this because my personality type is mostly Lion: a decision maker, an innate leader, and a problem solver. I concur with these findings because it revolves around my beliefs of the philosophy in life and in management. I believe that the right way to lead people is by example. I’m not shy of getting my hands dirty for the sake of any task, so long as the outcome is success. I try to embody my passion for my work with my fellow employees, I keep good spirits when times are bad and I always listen to those who want to be heard. I’ve always believed that the right way to doing something is the hard way, because nothing in life is ever free or freely given. A lot people you will come across in your life will live by this “smoke and mirrors” illusion that they will work harder for you than anyone else. I say that talk is cheap and if you’ve never experienced the grind of working to be successful, you will never understand success. A preacher once said “If you want to succeed as badly as you want to breathe, then you’ll be successful.” There have been so many days I have lost sleep and even gone sleepless just wanting to make my dream of being an entrepreneur a reality by saving money, not eating, researching, designing, scheming and working many shift’s as I can for my dream. Remember the film The Pursuit of Happiness? Christopher Gardner told his son:

“Don’t ever let somebody tell you that you can’t do something. Not even me. All right? You got a dream… You gotta protect it. People can’t do something themselves, they wanna tell you that you can’t do it. If you want something, go get it. Period.”

 I’ve saved my money in a small safe for the past 6 years and even though I’m nowhere close to my goal, I’m doing everything I can to be successful. My philosophy revolves around the desire to be great, no matter the cost. If you take anything from my philosophy, take the aspect of truly wanting something and don’t quit. Quitting is dreaming in vein. Reward yourself by reaching for your dreams and striving to be successful.

Teamwork

Teamwork is an interesting topic. Teamwork, by definition, is the submission and subordinating personal performance as an efficient whole group effort. You always want to create the illusion in the workplace that teamwork is the only way to go. Truth be told, it really is. Group efforts are more efficient and time management can be controlled much easier. If you truly believe in your employees, you’ll understand that giving them the task in group efforts gives them the ability to micro manage themselves. People react to this style of management better because its taking the stress of boss pressure away and enabling your employees to gather their resources together in a collaborated effort. Teamwork is crucial tool in restaurants, from my background, because simply no server can manage his or her tables without the aid of other servers, bus boys, bartenders, bar backs, and managers. Its truly a ballet to watch the hands in and outside of the kitchen at work and working together to produce a common goal: service. I may rant here for a second, but if you have never participated in a restaurant doing the tasks asked, I highly recommend at some point you give it a try. I obtained a lot of experience from the service staff, kitchen staff, the wait staff, and the management staff about many things other than service. I learned about true teamwork; helping those by running food and beverage, busing tables that were not mine, and even picking up tables when people were in the weeds. Teamwork, I believe, works in only two places: Sports and Restaurants. Everywhere else, its just being mimicked.

Please team up and read my comic:

And a meme:

Online Footprint

So we always need to be aware of our presence online and how we portray ourselves to the public world. As a manager, lets face it, your authority will derive from how you render yourself in front of your peers. There’s always a few good tips on how to keep yourself in check online.

• Never post any graphic material about people, companies, or ideas that might offend other people. It is important to be as neutral as you can about sensitive topics to be a people pleaser.
• Always use appropriate photography. Pictures of vandilization or permisquious activities give a bad image and should either be discarded or saved to your computer and deleted.
• Stay classy. You can always post funny pictures (if appropriate for all ages) or a quote or something meaningful and still keep a great demeanor on the internet.
• Promote your business. As a manager, not only are you the task manager for all activities within a business, but you are also your businesses #1 fan. Always promote the schedule of your business because it is your JOB to make this business successful.
• Keep updating. Its easy to get sidetracked and never update your account(s) online but in many ways, its important to know that the age of instant information is now. Businesses live and die by this new technology and if your not on board, be prepared to suffer loses and criticism that might not favor your business.
• Be aware. The last bulletin transitions into this as well. There are many rating websites that judge performance, taste, atmosphere, and experience in businesses. This can cause a really good or bad shift in a company solely based on opinions of your establishment. You must check this routinely.
• Have fun. The social media is meant to be a useful piece of equipment to meet others and promote yourself. Treat this as an opportunity to make yourself and others look good.

Its also important to look up the new types of social media pieces being used. From Facebook to Twitter, Linkedin to Myspace, and from Urbanspoon to Red Cup, there are COUNTLESS websites that promote opinions and its important to be on top of it.

Please enjoy this comic:

Putting the “Power” in Empowerment

So it begs the question as a good manager: What is power and how it should be used in the workplace? Power, by definition, is the ability to act or produce in effect. Using your new ability must be taken with a serious demeanor. Remember that film Spiderman? One of the greatest quotes in movie history came from this film about power. “With great power comes great responsibility.” What this phrase means is while demonstrating your ability to create a difference, abusing it is within the realm of possibility and it takes personal discretion to acknowledge the difference between abuse and responsibility. A good manager will divvy up responsibilities and make sure they are accomplished. A really good manager will even pitch in, because while your superior to your employees, your not above them in performance in task. Never be afraid to get your hands a little dirty for the sake of the company. This topic transitions well into the ability of empowerment. Empowerment, by definition, is the authorization of legal warrant to perform specific task with consented authority. Giving someone the power to perform task is very important, because being a manager is also knowing how to be a task manager as well. Its part of the job and you must know how to perform the task asked, especially ones you might not have ever performed before Teaching an old dog new tricks is one thing, but you need to have some sort of background to guide your fellow employees to do task correctly. Power is only as strong as you can wield it and if can ‘t control it, be humble and learn how. It is one of the most important skills a manager could ever need.

Please enjoy this crude drawing for a chuckle or two:

Discrimination and Diversity

Always a rather interesting topic in the workplace, discrimination is a practice that sometimes occur in the work arena. To point out first, discrimination by definition is: The distinguished treatment of something or someone solely based on their membership. Treatment and membership are the key words for this topic. Treatment is how the situation is handled and membership is the classification of said person or things. So that being said, there is such thing as legal discrimination in the workplace. Legal discrimination is all about the ability of someone and if they can perform a task required for your business.If they cannot, you can legally discriminate someone from a job. However, this practice is overtly exploited in the sense of hospitality and management level. To be honest, most managers sometimes do not do everything by the book. People are prone to being human and performing human like qualities at their position. I have at first hand experienced in a restaurant the “seniority” theory and the new guy treatment. I have been cut hours, I’ve even had hourly pay cut from my tip and lost in the complete jargoon of explaining how my tip-out covered my hourly wage. Discrimination comes in many forms other than the job acceptance level. Make no mistake, its out there and its well practiced and perfected by people who allow such performances.

In my professional opinion, this topic is something I refer to as a necessary evil. Hear me out: I’m not condoning the practice of discrimination on the level of race, age, nationality, job class, or even personality. I do however, understand that some levels of discrimination is needed, especially in the efforts to show who is in charge. This isn’t kindergarten anymore, when your in a position of a manager, you have to do unethical things and how you put a touch on it that will be perceived that way. If you have to discipline someone and its based on how they treat a person or how they treat other people, you have to be decisive and to the point and explaining why. From my perspective, if people get along better with others, you schedule them together. It comes with the job that you have to be a median a representative of the company and you HAVE to be legally correct. Other then that though, discrimination should only ever be looked at only as a performance based opinion. Dismissal or not hiring someone should always be legally correct. Do it by the book everytime: you rehearse what your going to say, you document what you have to say, and you have both parties sign the document. If you do this, there is little that can go wrong on a legal matter.

As always, a little eye candy for your afterthoughts.

Life

As per request, we were asked to take a stance on a sensitive topic. Abortion. Pro-life verses Pro-choice. A topic most people try to avoid because it involves the creation of life and what most people consider taboo to perform. Before I take a side on this topic, I would like to delve into a theory I think most people should either invest a little into or at least open their mind to. It should never be important what another person does based on the technology that has become readily available to the public. If there is a technique or a pill that removes the fetus from a woman, I believe that no matter what side you take, it should not matter what your neighbor does. Your friends, family, or significant other may weight into the problem, but whatever decision YOU make, is yours alone. I fully believe that if you are Pro-Life or Pro-Choice, it is a choice that YOU must live with. Nevermind the protestors sitting outside of abortion clinics, the people preaching in church what God deems right to wrong, or vice versa. YOUR choice will be something YOU have to live with and most of those people who tried to influence you one way or another may not be there for you. So, with that being said, I would to take my stance on this topic. I fully believe in Pro-Choice. “Choice” is the key word, because the option to keep the child is always there, but when you make the choice, there is no going back. Abortion is not deemed a beautiful practice and some people consider it taboo. Not to mention studies show after your first child, every child after your first one will not be nearly as supplemented and gifted. Its probability, but the studies show that the chances are much smaller for every child after your first, and aborting them is still apart of that probability. My father is an OBGYN at the local hospital where I live and he deems birth should always be something you are well ready for and beautiful. Birthing a child into a predicated miserable existence should be something you should take into account. Can you budget a child? Is your home going to be child friendly? Will you have the time for your child? Being a good parent should always weight into your decision. Being there for them is something priceless. So if your not ready to start a family, I believe the option should be there.

I have swayed my opinion before on this topic. Performing adult behavior has adult consequences. Also abortions are very traumatizing to anyone who has gone through them. So its not hard to imagine taking both sides, because both sides have ups and downs. Life is life no matter what. I hope my discussion has opened  your mind that life is precious no matter what but yet also as an American I’m so thankful this topic has an option to begin with. We are the results of our choices, the actions and reactions of our lives, and whichever side you take, just remember that the decision will something you will live with. Forever.

The Action-Plan Project

There has been a quick shift in the classroom this week and because our teacher has decided that we need to forwardly progress our job opportunities, it has become apparent that we must make a list to tackle our future careers. My list starts as so:

1. Graduate with a full degree.
2. Internship and working within the same line of work.
3. Travel and visit many locations that platform to the same line of work.
4. Find a partner and save needed startup fees (loan might not be an option)
5. Design, plan, build, and open. Market and advertise

According to the action plan, starting with 1, I cannot perform this task until another year and a half which leads me to 2. The internship part of my job search has taken me awhile to line up but I believe I’m on the right track. Recently I called a distinguished Institute located in New Orleans called “W.I.N.O.” WINO is a Wine Bar and Educational Establishment for the buying, selling, and consumption of spirits. It took me about a week to catch-up and was finally able to talk with a man named Bryan, a manager and owner of the Institution. I told him about my interest in his type of establishment and if there was a way I could line up internship with his company. I’m currently waiting to fill out more of the details, but so far, this is very promising for what I want to do.

This action plan I have devised for my future really helped and in many ways for setting up future goals for what line of work I want to do for the rest of my life. The time tables have also become apparent to me when performing this exercise of how close I’ve gotten to my next goal. This exercise should be implemented into anyone who is not sure what the next step is in their goals.

I would like to include W.I.N.O. s link here: http://www.winoschool.com

Also, I would like to include some pictures to give you a greater visual idea of what I hope to one day accomplish:

 

The Principle of Quality

I also took a look at the section about Quality. Quality in the workplace is also another difficult task to accomplish, because a companies 101 practice is: what is the most amount of acceptable level of quality while also giving up the least amount of resources being consumed while doing it? The answer is not so simple. Professor Deming had a 14 point concept on quality within a practical business that would give a business an edge against other businesses. There are 2 points out of the 14 that I would like to address that should be considered the most important ( even though all points are important). The first one is never accepting the lowest bid for a product. Essentially, the key way to have a good finished product is having quality ingredients. Its pretty difficult to fool a customer with a finished product that imitates quality but isn’t. So, always use quality ingredients that you get from a reliable source. Driving prices down for local markets to compete with doesn’t help strengthen our markets. Remember the depression? Yeah. When the Dustbowl occurred in the 30’s and when our markets crashed, many local farmers lost everything because they were forced to compete with one another, driving their prices down to bare minimum gain, and losing many products due to spoilage. Same instance here: if we force our local markets to compete, many could lose everything, creating a higher demand on a cultivation that takes time. So, instead of competing locally, take upon your shoulder a company like Aramark and Sysco. It not only shows that your loyal to a company, but also it significantly reduces paperwork that links your business to a local cultivator legally. The other point I’d like to address is adopting a new Philosophy. Social strain has created the need for philosophies in a business and just like society, A persons philosophy is always changing. This demonstrates that a company isn’t so rigid and, in the long run, you will always keep up with the competition. Most businesses that setup a structure and never change are normally considered “Corporate” and, while most people need guidance, most people also enjoy knowing the business they work for cares about an individuals personal philosophy.

The Interview

I took some time in my tight schedule to interview a very close friend of mine who also runs a very tight shift at Evangeline’s. Evangeline’s general manager David Alexander Simpson and lead server Mike Justice were my co-workers during 2011 where I took the job as bartender. Evangeline’s has been apart of the top 3 Restaurant in Tuscaloosa, according to TuscaloosaRestaurant.com, for the past 6 years. It is 2^nd overall in Tuscaloosa and has many accolades to back it up. A chef I use to work with, Blake Hartley, has moved forward in his career at Chris Hasting’s Hot and Hot (This chef defeated Bobby Flay in Iron Chef back in February 2012). David took some time for me to talk to him about his routine and what made Evangeline’s so successful. “You see,” he said, “Tuscaloosa’s market is generated heavily on the University. The University of Alabama and its patrons cater to the students very heavily, creating a very cut throat market. When Evangeline’s opened, we instinctually decided that we wanted to cater to the more mature generation that still live in Tuscaloosa because the competition and the dollar return.” When I asked about the competition he replied “…Evangeline’s really stands on its own with its cuisine and choice in Spirits but if I had to compare the competitors and imitators, Epiphany’s, DePalmas, Five, Chucks, and Kozy’s are closely relatable to our Restaurant.”  The last thing David talked to me about was what he thinks has keep them as a frontrunner in Tuscaloosa for so long. “Its about service,” he said, “People love being pampered and catered to. I feel that at the end of every meal, with good friends and company, to cling a glass of champagne pro bono in toast is what it’s all about. Making memories.”

Working at Evangeline’s was an experience for me. I had great co-workers and my girlfriend worked with me there. It was a really great experience meeting Tuscaloosa’s tycoons that run the town and having equal co-workers that were very kind and open. The restaurant has a few décor updates since the last time I stepped foot in there, but rest assured, I still felt that “good company” feeling walking through the front door.

So here are their business cards:

So I hope you enjoyed my interview and review of Evangeline’s. I decided to conclude with a good tip for your next interview (Comic):

Personality Type

Peoples personalities are very important in the working world. Its now we communicate and create friends and foes. Discovering your personality type is a test that can be conducted multiple ways. I administered the test to two people and myself. All 3 of of us had different results as to what kind of personality we had. The personality is divided up into 4 categories: Lions, Otters, Golden Retrievers, and Beavers. These animals are represented by the traits people give them. For example, Lions are leaders bold yet arrogant to choices. Otters are talkative and fun, yet flaky and poor decision makers. Golden Retrievers are loyal and always forgiving, yet the blunt end of abuse. Beavers are calculative and precise, yet this can also be a double edge sword. All describe the majority of personalities in the world we surround ourselves in.

When I administered the test to myself, my conclusion left me to being a lion. I feel that this test is accurate, I normally am a leader who wants to be heard but I constantly make rash choices based on a want of an end result. I tied Retriever and Beaver, because I make also very calculative decisions how to correct my errors from my lion side, and I also reflect aspects of wanting to always fix issues and take the blunt end of the blame. My test subjects were also different. Test subject A was a strong otter, very social but very spontaneous which leads to not being there for everyone. She also was a strong Retriever, because she never wants to confront people with issues and also strong to her feelings. However, Test subject B was a very strong Beaver. He always reads the manual no matter what item he has purchased. He is always analytical and strategizing his next move in life.

I feel this test was very accurate in depicting peoples tendencies and guessing at their flaws and strengths. It is also a theory I had taking this test that the results will vary based on the day. Some days I feel more loyal to others than other days, when I want to be left alone. Results will change due to practical and varied changes of how someone will be feeling that day. I think it would stretch the results a little. Other then that, however, it seemed very interesting that I was a Lion. I never felt like a leader until a test actually pointed it out and made me feel like I can lead while knowing I’m leading people.

And here’s a few comics I located for a good laugh about Personality Test.