Kumu Hula Association May Day Festival - Working the Booth

On mother's day weekend, an annual festival called the May Day Festival was held at the Pleasanton fairgrounds. The festival was filled with food booths, booths with handmade items and there was dancing.

People didn't start showing up until around 10:30am, but my best friend and I arrived at 8am to help out my paddling group's booth. I had cleaned out the lau lau pans prior to the festival, but my best friend and I had to serve from 10:30-12 and from 2:30-4. 

There were four people at a time in the booth: one for being the cashier, one for serving macaroni salad, another for serving rice, and another for serving the actual lau lau itself. Lau lau is pork and cuddlefish wrapped in a bunch of tea leaves. The outer tea leaves aren't edible, but the ones inside are. It is a very delicious meal because it's buttery, warm and goes great with the macaroni salad.

I'll have to admit that working in the booth wasn't hard, but adjusting to customer's needs could be a bit annoying sometimes. We had one lady come up to the booth and ask what a lau lau was. Even though we had a sign with a picture and explanation, we still described the lau lau to her. She seemed interested so she ordered a plate. The four people in the booth formed a train line and we served the plate to her fairly quickly. When we got her a fork, she opened the plate and very rudely said "Oh, no way!" She asked for her money back and we were left with a plate that would get could if someone didn't buy it within the next five minutes. Luckily someone did, however, I learned an important lesson as the customer and salesperson.

As a customer, I should read signs and notes so that I don't cause the salesperson andy trouble. Because of my experience working at the lau lau booth, I saw what a salesperson has to deal with everyday. As a salesperson, I should not get annoyed with the customer. Perhaps they have a reason why they didn't read the sign.

All in all, working at my paddling group's lau lau booth was a great experience for me. It was fun, but it taught me a lot of things at the same time.