[Sca-cooks] Arghhh feast service

[Stefan li Rous]

Jadwiga, Autocrat in a coffin of pastry...asked:
> the person arranging feast service for our event in a week and a half has
> now announced that the 11 people he has lined up can only reliably serve
> high table (8 people at high table) and I'd need an additional 13 people
> (one per table) as part of the feast service staff -- offboard and being
> fed beforehand at the event's expense -- simply to provide simple service
> to the other 13 tables.
>
> Am I crazy, or is he?

I don't think either one of you is.

However, and understand I don't have all the information here, it
sounds like what we have is someone wanting to show off before the
Crown and make a big splash, while considering the rest of the
feast participants not worth his time.

That is more than one server per person at the head table. That
is rather high, especially if the rest of the hall is not going
to be served without doing the serving themselves. Even with
one server per table vs. eleven at the headtable, I think
things are wildly out of proportion. (Now, that statement
probably doesn't sit well with some Royalty...)

How many servers total were budgeted into the feast originally?
More than doubling the cost of the serving at the last minute
is not acceptable. Whose budget is this coming out of? I would
assume the headcook's. I would nix that on those grounds if I was
the headcook.

Who is in charge of the servers at your events? The event steward
or the headcook? Whomever the head server is reporting to needs
to have a talk with the head server. This may simply be a breakdown
in communication about what the head server was supposted to do. He
may have thought someone else was taking care of the "peons" at
the regular tables, while he would take care of the fancy stuff.
This is why I like to have group meetings of my various event
coordinators prior to the event and especially in the early
planning stages when I'm running an event. Just to make sure such
gaps between different reponsiblities and everyone thinking
someone is handling a particular item get worked out.

If this headserver is changing what he agreed to do earlier, then
tell him to round up the extra servers. I still think this is a
major change to the budget that shouldn't be allowed.

Stefan
--
THLord Stefan li Rous    Barony of Bryn Gwlad    Kingdom of Ansteorra
   Mark S. Harris            Austin, Texas          stefan at texas.net
**** See Stefan's Florilegium files at:  http://www.florilegium.org ****