I cater from my restaurant. My usual business revolves around church and company functions, family reunions and large barbecue dinners. I recently booked an event for a church that involved upwards of 800 people. I made an initial bid, won the job and got my usual contract signed and sealed. However, a week or so before the event I received a call from the financial manager of the church wanting to meet. This made me somewhat nervous because within 30 days of the event, there was supposed to be a no-changes-rule in effect.
As it turned out, I had a good reason to be nervous. The business manager neglected to include in his planning the fact that they would be hosting some high officials of the church. He was pretty upset at himself for forgetting this fact. He went on to explain that he had gotten the contract approved and the money set aside, but there was no money available for upgrading the menu or the tableware.
He wanted me to figure out how to add upgrades to the food, cutlery and tableware while staying within the dollar amount we had previously agreed on.
Obviously, this didn’t set well with me because I was looking at $1,500 in cutlery and tableware alone. Additionally, I would have to employ a minimum of six more staff at $15 per hour to handle the cutlery and crockery, wash and repackage it and then be responsible for breakage.
