My First Summer

Preparing the food orders for Thursday (Cash-Wa) and Friday (Sysco), I started thinking about the way things used to be. Originally there was no telephone in the dining hall. The only phone was in the camp office. Hence, to order food, I would have to go up to the administration building to use the phone. (There were no cell phones in 1990 either.) Being a busy office, it was hard to hear. Plus, I was tying up their line and often got a busy signal with the food vendors. Sometimes, I would drive home to order food. At the time, the vendors required that I use product numbers (542200) rather than the item (1/2 oz. strawberry jam packets) for what was to be ordered. It was a large undertaking. Presently, the dining hall has a dedicated telephone number. I place several orders per week and get food deliveries 3 times per week while milk, juice, and ice cream is delivered twice per week. A salesperson from each vendor comes to camp once each week with a wireless laptop. They have real-time information about what is available in their warehouses. I simply tell them what I want, and they confirm the order. They are familiar with what we use on a regular basis, which makes ordering much easier. I could place web orders, but even the salespeople advise against it for two reasons. First, there is no information provided about stock outs. In other words, I could place an order, and only find out that they were out of a particular item when the truck arrived. Second, the order entry requires a high degree of precision and product knowledge. For instance, recognizing that ice cream is ordered by the carton of 24 serving cups rather than a case of 6 cartons. We have very good working relationships with all of our dining hall vendors, which has made my job a lot easier.