Mel Tillessen

• Managing all aspects of the FOH restaurant, while communicating fully with the head chef and kitchen staff to maintain a smooth daily service.
• Scheduling over 20 staff members (casual/part time/full time) carefully to keep all staff happy with hours and balancing work-life.
• Hiring FOH staff. Prioritizing full time workers during winters down season, reducing staff hiring as we move away from summer and vice versa.
• Updating the existing training manual, to include health and safety in the workplace, allergens within our menu and order of service.
• Creating an entirely new cocktail menu to better suit our guests. (Since which has been doing markedly better)
• Visiting all Hotels in Taupo to create a good relationship and bolster our guest list.
• Helping to organise functions in the upstairs function room. Including catering, bar and decoration + set up.
• Maintaining a healthy relationship between staff and management through excellent communication. Meaning my staff would give the best possible service because they were happy, allowing our guests to have the best experience.
• Also Maintaining this same relationship between FOH and Kitchen. Without which it is impossible to quickly and efficiently fix issues when they arrise in the restaurant.
• Gracefully helping our guests when issues arise due to food or service.
• Delegation of management tasks, which I also did leading up to delegation: ordering all drinks, bar knick knacks, glassware, coffee, fresh fruit etc
• Running the floor effortlessly, maintaining a fast paced in and out flow that felt relaxed for customers and staff. Allowing stressful and busy times to become easier to handle.
• Making sure my staff always have the help they need when needed and never letting a member to become overwhelmed.
• Working with the head chef with health and safety to have the best and most efficient kitchen we can. Developing systems to allow the chefs to easily record cooking methods/ cooling methods etc
• And so much more!

• Making and serving coffee in a small cafe in West Kirby.
• Taking payments

• Had a knowledge of many traditional and restaurant specific cocktails (over 20 on the menu)
• Hepled create new cocktails for coktail of the month.
• Competed in intra-restaurant competitions against other Las Iguanas sites around England.
• Tested bar-tenders daily on free pour abilities to maintain consistent cocktails and no over-pouring.
• Ordered all stock for the bar. (Astronomical amounts - this bar was incredibly busy especially in summer due to the constant 2 for 1 cocktail deal)
• The ability to shake cocktails two at a time.
• Friendly and efficient service
• Also, before I left Liverpool I was tasked with managing the Christmas private bookings, for business Christmas parties as we had a function space upstairs.
• Trained staff how to make coffee and re-calibrated their coffee machine. You'd be surprised the English don't really know what they're doing with a coffee machine unless they work in a café!

For the second half of the Disney 1 year program I worked at Animal Kingdom greeting people and welcoming them into the park.

During my time at this park we underwent a transition between paper tickets to cards and finger scanning.

So guests were sometimes upset that Disney was taking fingerprints in order to get into parks. Because of this I did a lot of mediating, explaining that the machine would actually take a photo of their fingerprint and store that on their card, then on each entry they would have to match that photo essentially.

This would ensure that if the card was lost, no one else would be able to use it to gain entry.

Most of all I smiled and waved! Greeting hello and good bye.

The Disney company has very specific specifications when it comes to life saving. I had to go through vigorous training and testing before I was given the job.

I then worked at 'All Stars Resort' which had 6 different pools.

The job meant that you could not take your eyes off the water. Constantly scanning the depths and surface to make sure all lives were safe and well. This included occasional scans of the deck to make sure all sunbathers were also OK!

We were also tested on shift out of the blue. A fail could mean you would be disciplined. I always passed easily in record times, spotting the dummy they'd lie at the bottom of the pool.

Safety was big for Disney, so everything had to be done perfectly.

• Learning a new cuisine
• Making basic drinks
• Taking orders and relaying to the kitchen
• Writing clearly as it was not automated or computerized.
• Ensuring friendly and fast service for a dine in/takeout restaurant.

This was my first job in hospitality while I was in Dunedin studying Neuroscience. This is where I fell in love with the craft! The food was amazing, and I realized I got a big kick out of bringing people joy. The boss of Thai land also owned two other restaurants in Dunedin which I worked at also when needed. He also offered me a role in management after working for only 4 or 5 months. But unfortunately I had to decline at the time as I'd taken a Job at Disney World in Florida the next year.