Last night I was thinking about rollups. Over the course of my serving career I have done a few rollups. I started wondering exactly how many I had done though. I opened up an excel spreadsheet and set out to determine how many I had done over the years. The answer surprised me.
I have worked at some restaurants that did not use rollups. I have also spent some time in management. A quick glance at my resume led me to determine that I have spent about eight years at restaurants that used rollups. On average I was required to do 50 rollups a shift. There were definitely places where more were required, but I am trying to use conservative numbers. With this in mind, I will also set my average number of shifts per week at seven. These accounts for closing shifts were none were required. This gives us the basic equation.
50 rollups x 7 shifts a week = 350 rollups per week
350 rollups x 52 weeks = 18,200 rollups per year
18,200 rollups x 8 years = 145,600 rollups
So that is a big number. It just lacks something on the screen though. So I decided to determine some way to put it in perspective. I went to my kitchen and grabbed some silverware. A short time later, I had a prototype. This rollup is 9.5†long and 1.5†wide. This led me to a second set of calculations.
145,600 rollups x 9.5†long = 1,383,200 inches
1,383,200 / 12 inches = 115,267 feet
115,267 feet / 5280 feet = 21.83 miles
Yep, I have done almost enough rollups to cover the length of a marathon if laid end to end. Let’s try a different route.
115,267 feet / 3 feet = 38,444 yards.
38,444 yards / 100 yards = 384 football fields.
A regulation NFL football field is 18’ 6†wide.Â
18.5 feet x 12 inches = 222 inches
My rollup prototype was 1.5 inches wide.Â
222 inches / 1.5 inches = 148 rollups wide
This means that the rollups I have done would cover over two and a half football fields. That is cool, but most servers don’t lay out rollups end to end. The way that we normally visualize rollups is stacked in rows of five that alternate direction with each row. A stack of 50 usually sits just over a foot tall. This divides the number of rollups by five and then only accounts for only the smallest dimension of 1.5†tall. These numbers should be far more realistic for most servers to relate to.
145,600 rollups / 5 per row = 29,120 rows
29,120 rows x 1.5 inches = 43,680 inches
43,690 inches / 12 inches = 3640 feet tall
Not even a mile tall. That number doesn’t sound nearly as impressive until you look at it this way.
Stacked in rows of five the rollups I have done would be taller than:
Shaquille O’Neal standing on
Yao Ming standing on
The top of the Statue of Liberty stacked on
The Washington Monument sitting atop
The Space Needle balanced on
The Gateway Arch using as a base
The Empire State Building
Now That is a lot of rollups
Tips2: Tips For Improving Your Tips is the new book from the author of The Hospitality Formula Network. It contains the 52 essential skills of the exceptional server. This book teaches the philosophy to turn average service into an exceptional guest experience that will rapidly increase your tips. This book shows how you can provide better customer service and dramatically improve your tips. Enter the coupon code “squared†to receive 20% off your copy today.
Comments are closed.