Do you ever feel you aren't reading from the same page as your co-workers? I get this feeling often. I felt a wave of it hit me today when my boss was talking to be about all of us being on the same page and what we needed to do to keep improving our status with the guests.

I said, "Well, one of the things we need our purchaser to do is create order guides for each of our purveyors and part of that order guide should include the names of all the items we purchase from that company."

The reason for this is the Chef, Sous Chef and Purchaser were all on vacation during the holidays. Certain items needed to be ordered, but I had no idea who to order them from.

"Well, Bob has been here for 20 something years. He's very stubborn and he's just not going to do that."

Never mind that Bob's entire job revolves around making sure we have all of the products we need to produce food for our customers. It is mind blowing to me the person who's title is Purchaser follows no guide for what he needs to buy. He just pulls it out of the air and calls it in. Now, if he were a person with an incredible memory maybe he could pull it off. Bob is not a person with an incredible memory. Nor is he a person who seems to take seriously the responsibilities of his job.

Something I have noticed at this hotel is the number of employees who have been there for a great deal of time. When I say this I mean 15 or more years. It is a rarity in today's society. Or maybe just the companies I work for. They are all very set in their ways and don't really seem to care about the quality of food they produce. They claim to have high standards, but this is only when it is convenient or when they can use their reasoning to manipulate upper management.