Saxbys’ Post

Transcript

Hi, my name is Mabel Aaronson and I'm the inaugural student CEO of the Zaxby's Cafe at Marist College. I think at Marist we have a very unique Zaxby's culture and that we're all really just like friends with one another. And I know that that sounds cheesy to say, but you really do want to be friends with the people that you're spending a lot of time with. I love coming in every morning and saying hi and just like catching up with everyone, seeing how everyone's doing. Hello, I'm Connor Finn and I'm a team lead at Zaxby's. Mabel really has had so much patience and it's really like shown how much she's cared for. Her team has really always come into the cafe interested in people's lives, interested and stuff they do outside of the cafe. She was already so friendly to all of us that we just wanted to admit that with each other and that should became a cafe norm. We have our Saxby Sundays events where we hang out. And play Mario Kart or Bedazzle hats. And I think that that's something really unique to our campus. Again, like we are just a big community serving our community and we all just want to be friends and spend time with each other. The dynamic is chaotic, but chaotic in the best way like I could ever experience. I'm Leanna Perez, I'm currently A-Team lead at Zaxby's, and I'm the next student CEO for spring semester. Leanna I'm really confident in because every time she was at the Cafe. She was really a person I could go to whenever I was second guessing myself. Also has really been very similar in how she greets and treats everyone else in the cafe. Whether it's making friends and making conversation when you're in the prep room, back in the back of house together or even on the line, it's really just laughing. Through it all, Connor's biggest strength is always being curious and always wanting to take on and learn more responsibilities. Every time I see him, you just like. Knows exactly what he's gonna do by the end of his shift. He knows like, the amount of time he needs to take on doing specific things. And I feel like in that sense, like I learn a lot from like, just like being around him, like seeing how organized he's in his own head. Zaxby's has affected me personally because it's really been more than just the job to me. Made me feel like I was serving a community and creating relationships with a lot of team members that I can now call really good friends. Made me feel that the work I was doing was more than just serving food. But my work was personal, purposeful. I initially wanted to work in like a small environment with not a lot of people. And after working at Zaxby's, I realized that like it's so much more of an enjoyable experience to be working with people who are so high energy and so motivating. And I realized that I kind of want that in my future. In psychology, I think everyone just gets along with each other really nicely and everyone's friendly towards each other and happy to be there if you create a work environment. Where people don't want to be there and aren't happy there, then they're going to stop working. And So what was really important to me was how do I make this a functional business, but also how do I make this an engaging way for my team to have a job and be productive and help out in the cafe. So I think being friends and. You know, sharing good times altogether is like, really what's established that connection? It became a lot of work, but I didn't mind it because more work just means I get to be around the cafe more. I get to, like, think about it deeper, and I get to, like, find new ways to do things. So as much as it is harder work, the more responsibility is more fun. If I could tell my past self before Zaxby's one thing, it's really just to have no expectations for anything because things are going to be thrown at you that you're not going to expect and you never thought would really be possibilities. And being able to be confident in yourself that you're going to learn things as you go. So before working at Zaxby's, one thing I would tell Leanna to be more confident in herself. I feel like coming in, I wasn't confident in my abilities or my previous knowledge, like being able to even organize myself. And I feel like I should have been like I pushed myself, but I should have been more confident in my abilities and my way of thinking. If I could tell my past self before Zaxby's one thing, it would be to really lean into this experience and just take. Everything good and bad that comes with it. There are always bad days and there are always good days, but there's always good even in the bad days because I'm with the team and I have a good time with them. And there's just something about being a part of this community that has made this whole experience so special for me. This has Experience has really, really taught me that it's OK to be uncomfortable and it's OK to not have things go according to plan because that is how you develop your critical thinking skills and how you develop any sort of. Business because things never go 100% according to plan and you have to just learn how to adapt and adjust.