Employee Series #1

I thought it would be nice to have you meet some of our long-standing employees of the Bavarian Inn Corporation.  We will start with those employees with 30 or more years of service.  As the main author of this blog, being that I am under the age of 30, this is outstanding that we have employees that have been with us for more than 30 years.  In today’s changing society, this becoming less and less heard of.  These are the wonderful people that have kept the Bavarian Inn functioning with the same quality and German atmosphere since 1950.  For a brief history of the Bavarian Inn, please read more here Bavarian Inn History.

Our first employee is Judy Crawford from the Bavarian Inn Restaurant.  Judy has a very important job, making sure the Bavarian Inn Restaurant office team is trained well, functioning outstandingly and correctly and making sure all the computers, printers, copiers and servers are running perfectly to get the job done.  I have special connection with Judy, she was my first manager when I worked at the Bavarian Inn Restaurant for 8.5 years and have had the lovely pleasure of working with her.

Here is her story:

Judy Crawford
Bavarian Inn Restaurant
MIS Director/ Office Manager
42 years of experience

I began working at Bavarian Inn Restaurant on July 15, 1967 as a Frankenmuth High School co-op student.  I would go to school in the morning, and start work at 1:00pm.  I worked 20 hours a week and I believe the wage was $1.30/hour.  When June came around time for graduation I was asked if I wanted to stay, and since I am still here you know what my answer was.

My duties on co-op included taking reservations, answering phone calls, cleaning menus and then whatever jobs my office manager found for me.  My direct boss was Tom Fechter, and my office manager was Eleanor Gugel.  The entire team I worked with at Bavarian Inn was wonderful, everyone was helpful and I learned a lot from my office experience.

I have learned many lessons during my employment.  One was how to properly address an envelope. Back in the early days of the June Bavarian Festival, our tickets would go on sale on February 1^st, and when the mail arrived that day we had stacks and stacks of requests, of course, everyone wanted Friday and Saturday night.  Why, because the pitchers of beer during festival week went down like cool fresh water!

Eleanor would open the mail, book the event and it was my job to count out the tickets, record table number, number of guests and names on each ticket.  We could seat 400 in the main dining room, so you can believe my hand was hurting by close of day, as usually we booked the entire week in that 1^st days worth of mail.  We separated the stubs from the tickets, and mail the tickets to the guest.  I was in charge of typing up the envelopes, which I did.  However; about the 100^th envelope Eleanor noticed that I did not have a Mr or Mrs on the envelope, so I had to retype the envelopes the correct way, and now to this day I address everything with a Mr. or Mrs.

Another lesson learned was how to properly set a table.  Many days we were asked to help clear tables in the dining room when those unexpected bus groups would appear.  I remember being extremely busy and as I was setting up a table, Marie Fechter, the dining room manager, told me the serrated edge of the knife always points toward the plate.  I’m thinking, who cares, but guess what, to this day my serrated knife edge is always pointing toward the plate.

I began writing payroll for our team of over 700 at the time, when I jokingly asked Tom Fechter if he could write his numbers a little clearer so I could add the sheets up better when he took over while Eleanor was on vacation.  He showed me how to write payroll, adding up timecards, figuring taxes and processing paychecks, and from then on I was in charge of processing payroll.  I think Eleanor was kind of pleased to be able to have more time to close the books.  Judy Keller would say she never knew anyone that could write payroll, answer calls, take a reservation and type up the reservation sheets all at once.

In 1981, we divided the office and accounting duties, and I moved into the accounting end of the business.  My new manager was Crystal, we purchased a big hunker of a computer to process our payroll.  My fingers were so relieved!  Crystal and I went to Flint, Michigan to learn how to take care of all the accounting business with that big mainframe computer.  We switched out software and computer in 1986, and our training was in Beaverton, Oregon.  I went on my very first airplane trip and half way to Oregon I was ready to jump out of the window, I was so tired of flying.  I don’t think I am cut out to be a flyer, but I might have to learn since I now have family in Arizona, and that’s a 30-hour drive.

In 1996, Karen Zehnder and I were heading to a seminar and she said Bavarian Inn wanted to get computerized in all their retail shops and upgrade their dining room registers.  Karen asked me to head up this project, I then began my current position as MIS Director.  Thanks to Bavarian Inn I now have an Associates Degree in Computer Science.

I can honestly say I still enjoy getting up each day and look forward to work, every day brings a new challenge.  Thank you for this wonderful opportunity, I’m proud to be part of the Bavarian Inn family.

Thank you Judy Crawford for all of your wonderful years of service at the Bavarian Inn Restaurant for the past 42 years.