A day in my life

I wake up. Lately its been between 11am and 12 noon. Bad. I know. But when you get home at 12:30am and usually can't fall asleep until 1:30am it happens.
I eat some breakfast (steal some cereal from Ryan, or if there's yoghurt in the house I'll have that with granola and a banana) I rotate coffee / tea. Shower, figure out an outfit, and everyday I wish I had more "work" clothes. I have a lot of black, and I want some more coloured shirts / blouses. Each pay cheque (or every other) I pick up one more piece for my collection, a long, slow process but its getting there.

I debate driving all the way into work, or taking the Skytrain. I loathe the skytrain, it has certainely lost its charm; Smelly people, loud, long....longer than driving (if there is no traffic) and there's no washrooms in any of the stations, so the extra 30 minutes with skytrain commute makes a huge difference (i've had to pee so bad at times, because traffic on the highway made my drive from 20 mins to the skytrain station to an hour.I had to go to an A&W and buy crappy fries I didn't eat, just to use their washroom). The skytrain is also not enjoyable because when I get there (btween 1:30 - 2pm) the 9-5ers have taken the best spots, so I'm left with a quarter mile walk....this SUCKS in the rain, and at night, I have to walk across an empty parking lot in the dark, in surrey. Its scary, trust me.

I save maybe $8 a day taking the train, but add on 2 hours to my commute total. And these days I'm finding it hard to justify spending extra time. At least before when I was in class I could study my notes, but now I just sit there playing solitaire on my iphone.
Parking in the city is bullshit. Its expensive and more than half of the lots are closed by 8pm. Parking on the street is free after 10pm, but I'm finished my shift at 11pm.
Parking in the hotel is not cheap, even with discounted fare its $16 per day. Plus the gas i'm using to get into the city. So as much as I loathe the skytrain, I find myself urging... myself, to take the train more often than not.
I need to find a place downtown. Bottom line. I have 2 more weeks until i've officially finished my 3 month probation and get a big fat $5 / hour raise! So maybe by the new year I can afford a place downtown?!
I digress.

So once I've decided if I drive or take the train, and i've arrived at work I punch in. Lately I have been working "for free" for an hour each day. They refuse to give anyone overtime as often as possible and my shift 3-11 gives me hardly anytime to do paperwork and computer stuff. So i've succumbed to coming in early ( i hope they notice and it will pay off).

I log in ( i don't have a desk yet, so i'm a "floater" hoping to find and secure a computer if someone is away from their desk) and I get to work. As each day passes I find myself creating more tasks. Right now, the major one, is the Wine Syllabus Binder. My idea, my creation. Currently, we have over 100 wines on our list. My position is a Sommelier, which means I am a glorified sales person. So my immediate goal is to sell wine. And they want me on the floor at all times during dinner service.What they fail to realize is that you can only bullshit customers so much,.Agood salesperson is a confident one and with knowledge comes confidence. So the binder is essential and this is why I come in early.

So i've taken it upon myself to create this syllabus. I have a page info of each wine: Producer, background, vineyard techniques, winemaking techniques, tasting notes and any other pertinent or interesting information I can discover. With each page of info, I then highlight "Selling Features" and make notes to elaborate some technical info (if necessary).

I came up with a selling tool that I dubbed "Selling Demographics" which i loosely learned in school but I tailored it to wine sales and came up with a few of my own categories.

Educated Buyer- This specimen knows their wine, and they will appreciate selling features that are tailored to technical information.
Status Buyer- This person usually has money, and when they see a very expensive wine they go for it, or for things that are self sellers like "Vouvray" or "Sancerre" or "Chateau Palmer". They also like it when you tell them how many awards a certain product has won or the celebrity proprietor who owns the winery...etc...
Trendy Buyer- This category likes to follow the trends. Right now "Organic" or "Biodynamic and Sustainable vineyards" are a huge trend and they will appreciate this info. Also things like "Wild yeast fermentation" are a big hit.
Special Occasion Buyer- This creature wants to spend money so take full advantage of it.

All of these categories can be figured out by asking questions, NEVER assume. I approach the table as such "Hello, blah blah blah.... What kind of wine are you looking for? Red? White? Light / full body? Dry / Sweet? Oak / Fruit? The more questions you ask, the better understanding of your guest. Finally, the very important question, what is your budget? This will give you an opportunity for upselling. If they say $60-70 push for $70-$80 but you HAVE to be able to justify the purchase. This is where the syllabus comes in.
I go to my baby (the wine room) and look in the category they want. I scope out the features they want and see which wines in their bracket fit the glove and then I look for a possible upsell. Usually I want to upsell, but I'm not a scheming jerk. Its all about the experience too, so sometimes I stay in their budget or maybe even go less, as long as it fits into their category and I think they will really enjoy it.
With this system, my success rates have been great. We are still fine tuning my approach, because my position was "created" and it wasn't in thier budget, so they didn't have a job outline for me, I just made it my own (which rocks) and the servers weren't used to having me there, so its been a bit of a challenge for them to have me interfere with "their tables". However, when I sell a $200 bottle of wine for them, they aren't complaining.

So far I would say the binder is 45% completed. There is still a lot of work to do on it, but if I'm lucky I get maybe 5 wines done a day, but there's days where I have no time to work on it.

I just submitted a large document that I've been working on for the past week. Our computer system, called MICROS, was designed super fast because the hotel was a rush open for the olympics. They had literally hours to have the place in operation. So the person who created "numbers" for each wine in the ordering system for the servers didn't forecast for the future. Big mistake. The entire system needs to be overhauled and re-entered. So I decided to take on this task since i'm the wine girl now. So i've taken "Our cost" prices, cross referenced it with what we are charging the guests (found inconceivable errors) as well as assigned each wine with new numbers with allocating enough room in between each category to accomodate expansion (sorry if this is really boring). I've just submitted it to my managers today....hopefully its well received!

I will say this. It sounds like a lot, and it is. I live, breath, love my work. There are a few things I wish I could have to make my life easier, but we all have to start somewhere. I miss having tips as a server and living close to work for costs of commute, but there's ups to this job and what I've come to realize is this :exposure. That is my tip. With this will come other opportunities monumental to this position....its all just a matter of time.