We see them every day. They keep the school running. They are fundamental to everybody’s favorite period. Who are they? The Sage employees!
They’re “the sweetest,” exclaimed senior Noa Rollins. “They’re pretty nice,” said junior Liam Dixon. “Yeah, they’re pretty cool,” added junior Nolan Allen.
Well, despite acknowledging how nice they are, Dixon mentioned that he “just says hi to them in the line” and, like most students, doesn’t fully know much about them or what they do.
So what does a day in the life of a Sage employee look like?
The process to prepare the food for lunch every day doesn’t just take a couple hours, it always starts the morning before, when the truck delivers the food for the next day. Additionally, they must cut all the meat on the next day’s menu the day before and marinate it overnight.
In the morning, Sage manager, Ms. Yolanda Williams, said her alarm goes off at an astonishing 4:15, much earlier than any student. After arriving at school, she enters her office, logs in to her email, and replies to students, parents, and staff who request unique services.
Next, she prints the menus for the day, which she consistently puts together 12 weeks in advance. She said she always tries to “pick out something that the kids will like” because “most of the students’ palate is just, like an adult’s palate.”
Before preparing for lunch, though, they serve breakfast, including eggs, grits, potatoes and more. Depending on that day’s lunch menu, the turnaround time can be difficult to prepare everything by 4th pd lunch at 10:40 am. For instance, on a nacho day, breakfast service only leaves the cooks with a little over an hour to “cook the chicken, you got to cook the ground beef, you gotta fry the tortilla chips, you gotta cook the rice the black beans, gotta chop up the bell peppers and everything,” said Ms. Williams. Unsurprisingly, cramming all of this in such a short time is difficult, especially since all of the food is cooked in-house.
Moreover, they must also be prepared to feed the entire student body– that’s an overwhelming 1,066 students. However, their sense of community in their team plays a crucial role in ensuring a smooth lunch service every day.
“We work as a team, but everybody has a position that they have to work in,” Ms. Williams said. If they see one fall short, “we’ll jump in and help each other,” adding that “Everybody back there, we are like a big, happy family. We love what we do, we love feeding students and our customers.”
