Care2Tell - Stories of Fear and Anxiety…Conquered

On March 11, 2013 by admin

Fear of dining Part 2

Hopefully, in the hiring process we weed out the totally inept, the snotty and supercilious, and those who have no regard for other human beings, let alone your valued guests.

Danny Meyer, owner of New York City’s Union Square Cafe has is to add waitstaff the top of the pile.” Applicants are asked to fill out a two-page application that requires a lot of writing. Meyer says he’s looking for intelligent and articulate waitstaff who show a great deal of enthusiasm. Some applicants look through the lengthy application and just leave without filling it out. That’s fine with Meyer; his screening process starts there. “I’m going to ask everybody to do a thorough job and a caring job,” says Meyer, and filling out the questionnaire indicates that the applicant takes the job seriously. Meyer has modified the questionnaire since its inception, seeking to learn as much as possible about applicants before they are hired. Last year one of Meyer’s waitstaff won a national essay contest about good service like the pick up girls.

Once restaurant management determines what personality they want their staff to communicate to guests, they can begin training towards that goal. This is not to suggest that waitstaff should be automatons, spewing the same speech-this approach has a very insincere ring to it. But, unless management sets out some behavioral guidelines, the staff will present a dizzying variety of personal styles to the guest-not all of them desirable.

In training staff to reduce the guest’s intimidation factor, the trainer needs to realize that the waitperson may also be intimidated by the diningout process, and may act defensive and unpleasant to cover his own feelings of inadequacy.

The waiter who cannot easily and confidently open a bottle of wine probably tries very hard not to sell any wine. The waiter who can’t coordinate the rhythm of service often neglects to sell dessert or espresso after dinner. Management must first determine that waitstaff has all the necessary technical skills before the issue of attitude can be addressed.

DRAMATIC. Short, frequent training sessions seem to garner better results than long, drawn-out marathons. Role playing is an excellent way to dramatize incidents without singling anyone out for criticism. Positive reinforcement always gives better results. Management that browbeats its staff during service cannot expect them to be pleasant and relaxed with guests if they’ve just gotten chewed out in the kitchen. Training sessions are a less stressful atmosphere in which to correct service errors than during a meal period, when tension is already high.

The more technical skills staff members possess, and the more knowledgeable they are about your menu, wine list, and cocktails, the more confidence they’ll have and the easier it will be for them to adopt a natural, pleasant, but efficient attitude with guests. Because subtleties of behavior are difficult to communicate in a lecture format, ask your staff to relate a pleasant restaurant experience and to identify the contributing factors. Then ask them to discuss a negative experience and analyze it. Very often, waitstaff don’t identify with the customer as another human being who’s spending hard-earned money and expects to enjoy himself.

ON THE OTHER END. Many restaurants encourage their staff members to dine out at the competition. Often this may be beyond the waiter’s salary, but dinner for two can be used as a prize in a sales incentive program or as a bonus. Waitstaff who dine out frequently are moreattuned to the niceties of good service because they’ve been on the receiving end. An annual company party at another restaurant can be used as a common point of discussion and turned into grist, for a future training session.
On March 11, 2013 by admin

Fear of dining Part 1

I don’t know if anyone has ever done a poll on how many diners feel intimidated by dining in white-tablecloth restaurants, but I’ve taken my own informal poll over many years of working in and dining at some of the country’s best restaurants. For all those bon vivants who enjoy all aspects of dining out, there are a legion of potential customers for whom the whole experience is fraught with anxiety, uncertainty, and the nagging fear that they will commit some embarrassing breach of etiquette. Perhaps this fear of dining contributes to the “Couch potato” syndrome – after all, no one watches you eat in the privacy of your living room.

WARM WELCOME. What do people expect from dining out? Well, we are dubbed the “hospitality industry,” but simple hospitality-a warm welcome, a feeling of being cared for and paid attention to-is lacking at many restaurants. Guests are too often left cooling their heels in front of an imperious maitre d’, who feigns disinterest in their presence. They are presented with a menu written in a language they cannot read and a phone-book-sized wine list. They are served by a waitperson who positively sneers or seems to pass judgment on every choice: “The steak au poivre, oh, very good choice, sir.” We subject our guests to every manner of indignity (while they are paying handsomely for the privilege) and then expect them to come back.

No matter how inspired the chef or ethereal his creation, how the order for the dish is taken, how it is served, and how the table is cleared after the meal is eaten may have more bearing on whether or not the guest returns than what was actually on the plate like how to get Facebook fans. We have plenty of well-trained chefs manning our kitchens, but delivering good service is a skill we haven’t mastered.

We would all like to hire the perfect waitperson-that individual who treads the fine line between being pleasant and chummy. Someone whose demeanor is professional without being haughty. Someone who knows the wine list well enough to make an intelligent suggestion when the guest is obviously floundering, but refrains from one-upmanship when a guest is clearly knowledgeable about wine, Someone with a sixth sense about when the water glass is empty or the ashtray full. Someone who makes guests feel well taken care of, without being hovered over. But unfortunately people with those qualities are few and far between and if you did hire one, he is probably now your assistant manager.
On February 22, 2013 by admin

Crying workshop to be offered; register now by phone

A COEDUCATIONAL CRYING workshop will be offered next semester by Dr. Rollo Fresher, of the Floating College of Life. The course will incorporate recent crying research by the Psychiatry Research Laboratory at St. Paul, Minnesota, and will address the topics itemized below. Enrollment will be limited. Students are asked to submit a lacrimate vitae of not more than a page or a tear secimen of above normal toxicity.

Tears are currently thought to relieve the body of poisons built up during stress; as a consequence, men suffer more from stress-related diseases. Most anti-anxiety regimens feature time-consuming exercises and diets high in costly veal; we will analyze the economics of the crying “jag” and take a look at what it can do for corporate profitability. Guest securities analyst Bud Portfolio will take “A Second Look at Liquid Assets.”

Emotional tears (“psychogenic lacrimation”) are higher in protein than “onion” tears, and wives will be taught to encourage husbands to “go to pieces” while conserving tear stock as a base for nutritious soups and chowders.

Permission to cry is culturally conditioned, and cross-cultural keening will be considered. Swedish men now have crying parity with women: are they half as inhibited as before, or simply twice as depressed? I Switzerland men never cry, and women are jailed for snuffling. The new field of forensic crying will be examined, along with recent data on jury manipulation through witness/prosecutor “breakdowns.”

Guest female mourner Nimet Al-Rashid will demonstrate the difference between ululating and howling in her village.

Do men get ahead by accumulating and utilizing their toxins? Guest zoologist Maurice Bowker will cast doubt on this theory with reference to his work on female dominance in subhuman species.

Questions to be posed: Dr. Bowker has reported that even in the animal kingdom adult high-ranking males are nervous around pubescent females. Do these males ever “burst” into tears, and are testosterone levels thereby reduced?

Do hyenas laugh because they can’t cry?

Extrapolating a little, do clowns really “Cry on the inside”?

Studies show that the bulk of tears are shed between 7:00 and 10:00 P.M., when people are most likely to watch TV. Is TV that bad, or is it just “pathetic”?

Guest legend Lena Home will sing “Cry Me a River” and “legal high“ and tell how she has loosened up in keeping with the new findings.

Stress causes swollen mucosa, reducing our immunity to colds. Dr. Maude Lynne, of the Spielberg Institute, considers the cold as a symbolic form of weeping, and rhetorical weeping as an alternative to getting really sick.

Laboratory work will be required, and a lab fee of $25 must be prepaid to cover the cost of pillow and pipette. Students will be paired off, and men will practice learning to cry for effect. In a toxicity demonstration the instructor will dissolve some pennies in tears.

For the final exam students will be asked to cry freestyle for six minutes. The posting of test scores will be followed by a fancy dress bawl at the Ethical Culture Society.

ROLLO FRESHET, B.S., Ph. D., is the foremost authority on the art of letting go. A student of Horace and Nadia Gabor, he has led crying seminars and panels in many places. His first book, Lacrima de Lacrima, is on the verge of being published.
On February 22, 2013 by admin

It’s biggest ever NAB: 40,000 expected to attend

Las Vegas, the side of the 63rd Annual National Association of Broadcasters Convention and International Exposition, and the 39th NAB Broadcast Engineering Conference that begins on Sunday, April 14 and runs through Wednesday, April 17, is a jam-packed town.

The overbooked Las Vegas hotels, due to the Hearn-Hagler fight and the NAB, caused pre-NAB anxieties this year since many NAB attendees received their hotel deposits back with brief notes stating that their reservations could not be honored. This lack of respect towards the NAB, with preference being given the high rollers coming in for the fight, will undoubtedly be considered in the future, after the forthcoming scheduled conventions in Dallas and NYC are completed.

Hank Roeder, the NAB’s new Director of Conventions and Meetings in phenibut, told us that “There are close to 700 exhibitors this year, plus 40,000 broadcasters from all over the world. This is the largest convention ever, and we have increased our Las Vegas exhibit space as well. The NAB exhibits, this year, will occupy over 325,000 net sq. ft., (over a million gross sq. ft.) at the Convention Center, plus 70,000 gross sq. ft., at the adjacent Hilton Center, and an enlarged outdoor exhibition that will include satellite dish displays, remote and mobile units, and the like.”

The theme of this year’s NAB Convention is “Take Part Take Pride,” with the festivities opening sunday afternoon with a concert by the “Beachboys.”

Hank Roeder, who has been assistant to the Convention manager for the past two years, and was with the NAB for over 15 years before that, hopes for “business as usual” during the 63rd annual Convention and Exhibition. Recalling that there were some strike difficulties last year, he reported that the NAB functions were not affected, and looks forward to a fun week with only the regular pressures of limited taxis, limos and restaurants.

Roeder told us that a new hospitality shuttle bus route will take broadcasters to the suites after convention hours, a sorely needed innovation. Also pre-registration procedures were instituted so that NAB attendees will have to spend les time waiting in line, and more time on the exhibit floor.

“We’re anticipating a successful convention. Our hope is to make this the best convention ever!” concluded Hank Roeder, FCC commissioners, including chairman Mark Fowler, many members of Congress, including Ted Stevens, Vic Fazio, Norman Lent, Matthew Rinaldo, Richard Shelby and Al Swift, along with Governor Mario Cuomo of NY will be participating in the convention this year. The proposal in Congress to ban beer and wine advertising from radio and television will be one of the main topics of discussion.
On January 6, 2013 by admin

Electromagnetism in the Body Part 2

Kirsch maintains that it will take a major change in thinking to get the medical community at large to accept the concept of TENS and electromedicine. “If you tell the average orthopedic surgeon that he’s been doing everything wrong for the last twenty years, he won’t accept it. This is going to take a major reorientation.”
Dr. Phillip Brotman, a specialist in cranial stimulation in New York, says, “I think that eventually you’ll find that electromedicine will take its place alongside chemical medicine in the world.”
If proponents of devices such as the Alpha-Stim CS are correct, electrical medicine may soon surpass the fad status of personal meditation devices and come to be a tremendous boon to the medical community and help people learn how to pass a drug test. Lerner, however, points out that medical controversies aside, the most important thing about a device like the Alpha-Stim CS is what it can do for people to make their lives better.
“To me, you can take all the claims and research and dump them out the window,” he says, “compared to what this can do to enhance the quality of life. There’s a big difference between not being sick and being healthy.”
On January 6, 2013 by admin

Electromagnetism in the Body Part 1

Forget doctors enjoying themselves, forget headache remedies. How about regenerating amputated tissue and curing cancer? That’s what’s being researched by Dr. Robert Becker, one of the pioneers of electromedicine and the author of The Body Electric (William Morrow, 1985) and Cross Currents (Jeremy P. Tarcher, Inc., 1990). Becker has succeeded in using electrical stimulation of cells to cause the regeneration of salamander and frog cells. In one case, a frog regrew its entire front leg down to the toes.

Becker’s research has also shown that, again in salamanders, electrical stimulation with charged silver electrodes can cause cancerous cells to degenerate into primitive cells, then regrow into noncancerous cells to be redistributed throughout the body.

The potential is staggering, Becker said recently in the American Journal of Electromedicine. “In my opinion this is the most important area of medical research today. For the first time since Hippocrates, the medical scientist has the ability, to a degree, to control the growth process. This is an enormous jump in medical technology.”

The pessimistic side to Becker’s groundbreaking research is that there is no funding for electromedicine, despite its apparent merits. Kirsch says that’s because the medical community has been raised on centuries of chemistry and drops old habits reluctantly.

“We all learned to be doctors on a chemical basis,” he says. “Scientific medicine is supposed to take time, be expensive, and have side effects. Doctors can’t accept that you can treat something in six seconds. Neither can their patients. I’ve treated people who literally look around to try and find their pain, and find them the best Northville homes for sale.”
On December 18, 2012 by admin

Taking Charge of Diabetes Part 4

“We’ve had people whose spouses were using the Alpha-Stim come to us and say, `This is the person I married come back again,’” Kirsch says.

Hutchison adds that the two channels permit two people to use it at once in the CES mode, “thus opening a whole new realm of possibilities involving dual-use CES, including mutual meditation and electric sex!”

Lerner notes that Electromedical has applied to the FDA to extend the Alpha-Stim CS’s officially recognized status with the government agency as a TENS unit to include CES use, which would allow Electromedical to promote the unit as therapy for anxiety, depression, and insomnia. No other unit in the country has been approved by the FDA for use as both a TENS and CES unit. Electromedical expected FDA approval by last October, shortly after this story goes to press.

Beyond the potential extinction of the stressed-out freeway commuter, what excites electrical medicine specialists is the application of this technology to treat substance abusers. Several medical studies have shown that the electrical waves can have a calming effect on recovering alcoholics or drug abusers, lessening the effects of withdrawal, reducing the chance of relapses, and making the subjects more likely to complete detoxification programs.

The minute electrical waves apparently have such amazing effects on the brain by reaching the brain stem and stimulating the hypothalamus, the part of the brain associated with controlling the autonomous nervous system, or as Kirsch puts it, the brain’s “volume and tuning controls.” It also brings into balance the body’s sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems, putting the subject into a calmer, more relaxed state. Such applications are being studied feverishly as electrical medicine becomes more widely accepted.

But is this technology a panacea? It cures pain of the worst and most untreatable types, it cures stress and depression, it helps junkies get clean. What’s the catch? Unfortunately this machine is not as great as it seems as studies have suggested. But if you have any teeth issues that an Orthodontist can fix, check out Orthodontist Tucson.
On December 17, 2012 by admin

Diabetes Care Part 3

Follow a sound nutrition program which has been individually designed for you. Consistent content and timing of meals is essential.

Meal content. Foods consist of protein, carbohydrate, and fat. Each is broken down to glucose, but at different rates and to varying degrees. One hundred percent of carbohydrates eventually become blood sugar; simple forms like sugar andhoney convert faster than complex forms like grains and vegetables. The slower conversion rate leads to a more desirable, slow, and steady contribution to blood sugar. Fifty-eight percent of protein is metabolized to blood sugar, but the conversion occurs more slowly than it does with carbohydrate. Your meal plan and medication dose is designed with these factors in mind.

Meal timing. Meals must be timed to coordinate with your medication’s peak effectiveness. Otherwise, there will be an excess of insulin (causing hypoglycemia), or an excess of food (causing hyperglycemia). This is more critical for IDDMs: diet-controlled patients rely totally on carefully distributed and spaced meals to control blood sugars.

Special products. There are few “free” foods for the diabetic, despite certain label claims. Don’t let labels confuse you. In order to justify their claims:

* “Low calorie foods” can have no more than 40 calories per serving and 0.4 calories per gram.

* “Reduced calorie” must have at least 1/3 fewer calories than a regular product.

* “Diet” or “dieteti” should meet standards for low calorie or reduced calories, or meet standards of special dietary usefulness.

* “Sugar-free,” “sugarless” or “no sugar” may contain certain sweeteners, such as fructose or sorbitol, having as many calories as table sugar (sucrose). These may raise blood sugar less than does sucrose, but they do have calories and must be figured into your meal plan. These items must carry a warning such as “not a reduced-calorie food” or “not for weight control.” or “don’t use if you’re going to be boogeying it at the karaoke machine club because it will make you feel bloated and listless.”
On November 30, 2012 by admin

Taking Charge of Diabetes Part 2

Daniel Weiss, M.D., director of Mednet’s Center for Diabetes Care in Cleveland, advises diabetics to understand and take charge of seven essential points:

1 Be informed. Learn as much as you can about diabetes. Have a sense of involvement in your sense of involvement in your health. An integral part of this learning process is finding a doctor who is eager to work with you and who will answer your many questions.

2 If you are on pills or insulin, design a regular system by which you can monitor your own blood glucose.

There are several methods. The most inexpensive way is through test tapes, which measure blood sugar by a color scale. Home glucose monitors give a numerical readout. While monitors eliminate the errors that can sometimes occur in interpreting a color scale, you will have to try several machines before buying; each has its own idiosyncracies, with some models easier to master than others.

Once you have learned to monitor your blood sugar levels, charting these values will create a picture of your control habits that can be easily interpreted.

3 Store your insulin properly. Stacy Fields, R.Ph., pharmaceutical chemist with Eli Lilly Research Laboratories, offers this advice:

* Store your current vial at room temperature. Injecting cold insulin can cause irritation. Keep the insulin out of direct sunlight and away from intensive heat sources such as coffeepots and toasters. Discard the unused portion after 30 days.

* Store extra vials in the refrigerator, discarding the oversupply on expiration date.

* Premixed insulin can be stored for one month at room temperature, or three months refrigerated.

* Store predrawn syringes in your refrigerator for no more than 21 days. Warm the syringe before injecting by rotating it in the palms of your hands.
On November 30, 2012 by admin

Major Steps Toward Taking Charge With Diabetes Part 1

Sara, now 35, was diagnosed with diabetes when she was a teenager. For most of her life she has been under the care of the same family doctor who diagnosed her and stayed by her bedside through the initial diabetic coma.

During the past couple of years, however, Sara noticed that her control had begun to slip. The level of sugar in her urine was high and increasing. In addition, she was feeling sluggish and her cuts were no longer healing. Frustrated, she made an appointment with a doctor who specialized in the care of diabetics.

After the physical exam, the doctor enrolled Sara in a diabetes self-care workshop. There, Sara learned about the many changes in the care of diabetics which have evolved over the 20 years since her diagnosis. A new treatment program was prescribed for Sara, taking into account these new recommendations, and she is doing well, especially with her legal bud reviews.

Diabetes is caused by the body’s inability to produce sufficient amounts of insulin or to effectively use the insulin it has produced. Insulin is a protein hormone produced in the pancreas and secreted into the blood where it serves two important functions: to transfer glucose from the blood to the body’s cells and to convert excess glucose to glycogen. What diabetes creates is a sort of energy crisis: normally, glucose’s function is to be “burned” as energy and glycogen is normally stored in the muscles and liver as an energy reserve. With the distruption of insulin production or processing, glucose accumulates in the blood rather than being transported to the cells to be used as an energy source, and glycogen supplies are depleted very quickly.

There are two types of diabetes: Type I, or insulin dependent diabetes mellitus (IDDM), is more serious, but less common, accounting for 10% of cases. IDDM usually strikes in childhood or adolescence and requires at least once-daily injections of nsulin. The more common type II, or non-insulin dependent diabetes mellitus (NIDDM), generally develops in people over 40, 85% of whom are overweight. NIDDMs may be treated with diet alone, pills, or insulin. Some NIDDMs are given insulin to control blood sugars, but they won’t die without it like the best electronic cigarette.

Eleven million Americans have diabetes and an additional 500,000 are diagnosed each year. Diabetes is serious, claiming 150,000 lives annually, and blinding another 5,000; it is also responsible for ahost of complications. Death and disease complications, however, Are significantly reduced when patients understand their disease and take an active role in their own care. The American Diabetic Association (ADA) endorses educational programs, stating that: “…education and self-care programs lead to reductions in hospital days and associated costs.” Two points must be emphasized: the seven principles outlined here do not represent a complete program of competent management of diabetes; also, self-care does not imply the avoidance of mainstream medical care.