Opening day at the Santa Set.

The date here should be November 12th I have been trying to catch up, I felt lost without internet access for 2 days. I get back to my room after some long hours and I have made errors on here so now I will attempt to correct them and get caught up to date. It feels like I have a second home. I went to the warm up meeting this morning and had another one of those great receptions, from the staff at Plaza Bonita. Westfield has a set of 16 standards and I have been working on memorizing them so that I can be a real participant. One of the young ladies in the concierge had heard that I had them memorized and had decided that she would start checking me out on them. So I had to make sure that I had myself covered it was standard Number 16 at the first warm up. Which is Whenever possible, Westfield team members should escort shoppers to their destination rather than pointing out directions. So I was able to get that out for that first visit to the warm ups. Then because there are a lot of Spanish speaking people working here they are done in Spanish as well. So everyone thought I did that one well and I was applauded. Then I was asked the dreaded question from one of the Spanish speaking team members, he said ok now do it in Spanish. I said oh no that I sure could not handle that. But I am thinking that was an interesting challenge, and would help me with my Spanish as well. I may be making attempts at that in the future. The standards seem to be something that most businesses could use and benefit from. So then this young lady who had put the initial challenge out to me asked me to name all the reindeer, I told her that was her test and she missed one of the original eight. So she had to go back and study some more.

The standard for today was The Westfield vision is the principal belief of our company. It must be known , owned and energized by all. had to do a little stretching for this one but ai did make an attempt at it. I like the rah rah thing it keeps people pumped up. Later in the day I learned that Plaza Bonita Mall is ranked number one in customer service of all the other malls in the Westfield. That made me feel even better about working with such a fine group of people. I met Rhonda the new marketing director even though she wasn't there, she was supposed to be invisible preparing for the Westfield Works Wonders Event. An event set up to help charitible groups in the area. Another one of the nice things that Westfield does.

I was told that I can use the conference room in the office area to take my breaks in, that is a lot nicer than the caged set up last year an hard back chair pushed into a small table in a dingy corner of the back side long hallway, no real access to a fridge or microwave. This is so much more relaxing a comfortable chair big table clean rest room. a little kitchen area this is nice now I don't feel like I have to hide out in a cage. One of the young ladies in the concierge group even offered to go purchase some microwavable lean cuisine type dinners for me so I don't have to eat from the food court all the time.

Well the first day on the set was rather uneventful, I only had 52 on my lap. The first group was a a couple with 2 little boys they were adopting. It sure appeared to be memorable occasion
so I kept one for myself. I gave out my first 2 bells today a couple of little girls came for photos and they took them seperate but used the same red velvet coat. After the photos were done Grandma came up and let me know that their Grandpa had become an Angel this last summer and asked if I could say something to them about how their grandpa was still looking out for them. Well they came back over and I gave them both Bells and told them that when they heard that bell ring they could always remember their Grandpa. Then I had to take a short break, to recompose myself for the next photo. Then there was the young lady about 4 who came running up jumped in my lap put her arms around me and would not let go. Mom didn't want a photo to start with then decided it woulld be alright. This little sweetheart was crying her eyes out and I thought something was wrong until her grandmother informed me that she was just so excited to see Santa.

I found out today that the Westfield Mall that I am at PLAZA BONITA, is the number 1 mall in customer service out of all the Westfield Malls.

Well now I am falling asleep so I will ad more later.