Popcorn & Pop: My Ten Days at Stampede

So all in all, 10 days have passed that marked the 100th anniversary of the Calgary Stampede. For those who are reading that do not know what Stampede is, it's pretty much a annual summer event celebrating our western heritage. There's the rodeo (which I believe was the origins of the stampede), a carnival and various musical/talent acts.

Like how I stated in my other post(s) on Stampede, I was working as a floor supervisor at the Grandstand. Throughout these ten days, I learnt a lot about working in the food industry and, perhaps, the most important, the value of money. I don't think I will frivolously spend money again.

Anyways, these ten days were long, but full of exciting events. I got the chance to work with an amazing crew. Sure, at dull times, we were slacking off, but when it got busy, they were working their butts off. We never had a real system established in our stand, but we managed to get things done.

Throughout this role, I managed to see how different people work together, whether they were my superiors or my "subordinates". As always, there were times were everything was running smoothly, and at times when things were out of control. For example, not ordering enough supplies for the day, to a fight almost breaking out, to rising tensions between who takes on a particular job. During this time, I started to learn how to manage these situations in where I could passively gain control of the situation without escalating the problem to a point that I would need to ask my boss to handle the situation.

I also learnt the importance of praise and how that could really help motivate people to work hard. I never really praised those who worked under me before (ie: Karate), and now I see why it's important. People want to be acknowledged for the work they put in. It's a form of external motivation! =)

Well all in all (I'm still tired and recovering from STampeded =P) it has been a fun experience. Will I do it again next year? Who knows? It was definitely a challenging role to be a supervisor. Throughout my 10 days, I never really gotten the chance to take my break and eat lunch. (Kind of good, seeing that my waist have shrunk even more! =P) Throughout the 10 days, all I had to snack on was popcorn and pop (and the occasional hotdog during the last couple of days... even though I wasn't supposed too!)

To end an unremarkable post for today... here's a picture I took near the grandstand at night during the firework show.

Despite the top right being slightly cut out, this was perhaps my best shot of the night, last night. I learned that I got to keep my iso to around 100, aperture to around 8 and shutter speed to about 4 seconds or so. When I tried a higher iso and faster shutter speed, I got too much noise in the picture =(