The Pepper Lady
At a Country Coach rally in Eugene Oregon with over 250
coaches in attendance I once had a funny experience with “the pepper lady.”
There were approximately 500 rallyers, plus vendors, sales personnel,
management, seminar presenters, and other included employees, etc at dinner
each night. So in a sea of 650 plus faces or so, I had a particular job at
dinner each night. Find the pepper lady and deliver her plated meal to her
personally.
This person and her husband were first timers. We were
excited to have them meet fellow Country Coach owners. She was deathly allergic
to pepper. She sent emails verifying that CC rallies did indeed accommodate her
special needs? In writing and in conversations she noted her legal right to
receive special accommodations for her disability/allergy.
(Every rally form we
published had a paragraph regarding the menus, and that people with special
diets such as Atkins, no salt, no peanut oil, etc. should plan to accommodate
those needs on their own in their coaches. With 500 people it would be
difficult to be fair to all—I don’t eat fish, I don’t eat beef, we always had
plenty of special requests.) That being said our caterers usually made a few alternate
proteins for each dinner for those who cannot eat fish, beef, etc. I was amazed
at how accommodating our caterers were over the years in fact.
These first timers seemed even a bit more adamant about
their rights, having contacted the president of the owners club and me as the
company representative before they ever arrived. So, I spoke with the Club
board and with the caterer to get their feedback. They agreed to present her a Pepper-Free
dinner every evening with her then being responsible for taking care of her dietary needs at breakfasts, where she had options on the buffet that
were pepper free. She agreed this would
be fine.
Dinners were a seated affair with linens and table décor….really
beautiful table sets (no disposables here). Wait staff distributed plated meals
hot and tasty to 80+ tables within 15 minutes. They’d hire a local dance team
or charitable organization like the Kiwanis who would form a serving line all
decked out in crisp white shirts and black slacks. Being a huge event room, it
was quite a sight to watch. They were a well oiled machine delivering those plates to our waiting guests. I would visit the
kitchen early each evening to check on her entrée ahead of time. When our
guests were invited into the main event room to seat themselves for dinner, and
the catering staff started distributing plates to all of those seated, I’d go
and get my special plate to deliver.
My pepper lady and I played a game: Find where she was seated tonight. I think she enjoyed
the special attention and would change up where in the event room she sat every
evening. I’d go ‘find’ her and present her plate. She was very pleased with the
added concierge service and they both had a great time at the rally turning in
a glowing rally survey. It ended well.
According to their survey, they’d never felt so welcome and were happy
with all aspects of the rally experience.
It was one of my many unusual
experiences at a rally. My main concern was ensure my pepper lady went home from a
Country Coach rally happy (and to avoid any embarrassing claims being filed
against my company for not accommodating her dietary needs, of course).
How I loved those rally planning days at Country Coach LLC and the many unique people I met over the years (Like Brian and Kay Case, pictured here at a rally, who were not by the way the Pepper Lady couple:). That
aspect of my job is just one of the many reasons I can never say thank you
often enough for the beautiful experience of 18+ years in the Country Coach
marketing department.
Thanks for the Memories!
If you love making new friends, there are still many area chapters of Country Coach owners out there who rally on a smaller scale. I particularly like the COUNTRY COACH FRIENDS CLUB; they are an international chapter of FMCA and members comprise several past presidents and officers I worked with while at the now defunct Country Coach LLC.
If you miss the good old days of Country Coach rallies, I encourage you to visit this growing vibrant club; They put on wonderful rallies!
www.countrycoachfriendsincorporated.com
March 14-19, 2016
