The Restaurant Doctor - Electronic House Call

ELECTRONIC HOUSE CALL - August 6, 1999

DIVERSITY SIMPLIFIED
I was just at the CHART (Council of Hotel and Restaurant Trainers) conference in Chicago and a lot of the program was devoted to diversity -- what it is, what to do about it, techniques to manage it and on and on. What struck me is managing diversity much simpler than we make it out to be.

Very simply, diversity is simply about respect -- respect for the wisdom and unique perspectives that every person on the planet brings to the table. It is not about coping with race, gender, ethnicity or any of the obvious differences. Spend your energy creating a climate of mutual respect, you will not have to worry about diversity issues.

NEW YEAR'S, TAKE TWO
I received a nice note from Jennifer Jolis from Fairbanks, Alaska, concerning my thoughts in the last issue about why you might choose to close on New Year's Eve this year. She suggests that a brunch on January 1 to celebrate the first fabulous meal of the new millennium might be a hit!

WHY 2K?
Thanks to Rudy Miick for passing this little gem along

For those of you running Windows, this is a fix for a small Y2K problem almost everyone should do. After running this quick little test, much to my surprise, I learned that my computer would have failed on 01-01-2000 due to a computer clock glitch. Fortunately, a quick fix is provided, should your computer fail the test. I submit the following for your consideration

TEST:
Double click on "My Computer".
Double click on "Control Panel".
Double click on "Regional Settings" icon.
Click on the "Date" tab at the top of the page.

Where it says, "Short Date Sample" look and see if it shows a "two digit" year. Of course it does -- that's the default setting for Windows 95, Windows 98 and NT. This date RIGHT HERE is the date that feeds application software and WILL NOT rollover in the year 2000. It will roll over to 00. Click on the button across from "Short Date Style" and select the option that shows, mm/dd/yyyy. (Be sure your selection has four Y's showing, not just two). You will see a "faded" sample in the box above it to know what it will look like.

Then click on "Apply" and then click on "OK" at the bottom. Easy enough to fix. However, every single installation (yy) of Windows worldwide is defaulted to fail Y2K rollover. How many people know about this? How many people know to change that? What will be the effect? Who knows! But this is another example of the pervasiveness and systematic nature of the problem.

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