Company BBQ Team- #1 Draft Pick

Joining the BelFlex Staffing Network company traveling BBQ team was my favorite part about working for BelFlex, for many reasons. First and most importantly, It was an All-Star line up. Everyone would fly or drive into the location for this event. Including our President, Vice President, Regional managers, etc. It was a goal of mine to join since my first day at work. The first time I met the Vice President of BelFlex, I told him I wanted to travel with him and learn from him. He told me that he would let me and he kept his promise. He eventually taught me business development. I physically signed every contract, he coached me through the process over the phone. During my tenure at BelFlex, I assisted multiple locations across the United States. I started in the Columbus, Ohio office. I was promoted to take over the office in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. While in Alabama I traveled to Fountain, Inn South Carolina to join the company traveling BBQ Team. I took over the office in Fairfield, Ohio. My role in Fairfield was to train the team or start a new team. I trained the old team. Even though my stint at Fairfield was short, I wrote reports on the team, I felt like they were ready to continue without my assistance. We changed the flow of the office, created more candidate sources. We improved client support and we added new clients. We became a team. While managing the office in Fairfield, I competed a warehouse transition for the BelFlex Middletown, Ohio office.

I was over qualified to join the BBQ Team. My experience came while I worked a brief stint at UPS. I was a temporary employee at the UPS until I was hired by BelFlex. I have always been an aggressive employee, this is the reason why I always get promoted. UPS had a similar style company BBQ event. I walked passed the grill and asked the guy on the grill to takeover. He was more than willing. I grilled for over 200 employees that day. I had a conversation with my cousin before I started working at BelFlex. My cousin told me "Make sure they know your name cuz" he said, it doesn't matter if you know who they are. I added to his thoughts, I wanted to be known and known for excellence. I tried to learn names. I have always asked for more responsibilities. I have never been a person who focused on pay. Honestly, there is no agreeable amount anybody can pay me for my services. I look at salary and pay as something that comes with going to work. I will never be able to choose an amount of money that is worth taking my time away from my family. Most of the things I have done, I would have done for free.

BelFlex had a national contract with Faurecia. Faurecia was the only customer I had in Alabama when I arrived. Eventually my office reached 15 clients. I pitched the company BBQ idea to all of our customers. We prided ourselves on going above and beyond for all of our customers. The company BBQ was the best way to show appreciation to your employees. Its how we perfected the company BBQ that set us apart. We handled all of the functions of the company BBQ. We cooked the food and served it to all of our employees. We never hired a catering service. We made hamburgers and hot dogs on the grill. We let our employees order their steaks and we cooked them fresh and delivered them. We ordered potato salad and baked beans from local businesses. Everybody kept asking us "Who made the potato salad." We laughed all day. It was the running joke we had. Sometimes I would say I made it. Whenever I ran to the truck or separated from the team, I would see somebody on the traveling BBQ team, I knew it was coming. They would be like "who made the potato salad?" I would already have a smile on my face. It was great way to bond as a team and with our employees. We ordered a cold storage truck and placed our food and ice in the truck. We kept everything fresh. We bought coolers and kept the drinks on ice. We parked the truck in the back of the building behind the cafeteria area. We ushered the food inside the cafeteria in assembly line fashion. The President of BelFlex maintained the grill and the Vice President was the runner. No way we were going to ever fail. We gave away expensive items. We cooked for all shifts. For 3rd shift we starting cooking around midnight. I arrived close to 10 minutes late for the event in Tuscaloosa. Since we had everybody in town, everybody noticed it. I tired to slide into the event working. The Vice President mentioned me being late. We had to maintain a certain pace to keep the warehouse functioning. It was organized chaos at its finest. We did this once at year. We kept all the leftover materials and gave them away in our offices.

The Faurecia in Fountain, Inn South Carolina had over 800+ employees eat lunch the day we cooked for them.It had to be 100 degrees outside, the only place to set the grill was in the Sun. My job was to pass out drinks. I was told to keep ice in the cooler and wipe off every drink with a towel. I did my job so well that I made it to the grill in South Carolina. The grill crew was more serious than what I expected. The President told me "throw some dogs on the grill" for him. I was a rookie. I was rushing. I grabbed about 30 hot dogs and threw them on the grill in a pile. My pile of hot dogs went up in flames. The grill was so hot that our gloves kept melting. The President told me to hurry up and fix it and I did. I grabbed the spatula and I started dancing repeating "This is how you grill." We lost about 20 of the first 30 hot dogs I put on the grill. I looked over at my friend loading the other grill and quickly stole his routine. He whispered to me, "Every time they mess up, they blame it on us." He was right. I stayed at the grill the remainder of the time in South Carolina.