It's Friday in Wine Country….And after three days of torrential rain, winds topping the 50 mph mark, mudslides and flooding, it appears flu season is upon us.
You didn't need to read this to find that out. The topic has highlighted the news in epidemic proportion for months. We can walk into almost any grocery store pharmacy, drugstore, or hospital, hold out your arm and someone who wasn't in sight moments earlier appears, donning a surgical mask and a flu serum filled hypodermic ready to administer the secret antibodies. I suspect eventually Dustin Hoffman will be doing guest appearances at Safeway, dressed in his white protective suit, promoting flu shots on aisle nine.
While standing in the check-out line at Sonoma Market last Tuesday a woman sneezed, mouth uncovered, and sprayed a wide swath of flu germs across the credit card processing machine.. As soon as the customer moved on, Monica, while manning the register rapidly returned the sneeze volley with a spray of Purell and sanitized the processing machine and stand. I survived the incident without sniffles.
However, I don't know if I would be that lucky if I went to dinner at a restaurant with a vibrating pager waiting system. When I used a paging system at The St. Alban's Boathouse in Greenwood, Minnesota, we attempted to sanitize the pagers regularly but that was merely a quick wipe with a wet wipe.
At a recent Cheesecake Factory visit I walked the furniture department of Macy's, pager in hand until it began to vibrate. Moments later I sat down and watched as 75% of the recently sat diners began breaking bread without ever visiting the bathroom to wash their hands. Who knows where those pagers have been or where the hands that hold them have ventured?
Along with alleviating the high cost of vibrating pagers- people walk off with them regularly, they break when they are dropped, and they continually need attention - there may be solution to the flu germ on the pager problem: Text message waitlist. Developed by Recess Mobile, Inc. the newly released RecssApp enables restaurant hosts to text message waiting customers.
This isn't brain surgery. It's communicating through cyberspace. The technology is obviously beneficial and it allows restaurateurs the opportunity to rid themselves of those bulky host stand contraptions that look like something out of well- the '80s. Plus, the bulky spaceship styled vibrators makes one to look and feel ridiculous.
Co-Founder of Recess Mobile Connect, Vitaliy Levit developed the app with his partners and has recently launched it to the restaurant community. Although pagers may not be top of mind with the current economy, the system has other attribute. It is the perfect tool to alert take out customers their food is read. It also allows customers to wander outside the waiting area and browse, window shop and walk before they are paged.
Nothing is more aggravating than to have forty-three people hovering around the host stand because the paging system barely works if the customer is in the bar.
"The system is perfect for restaurants, beauty salons, and any other retailer who has a waiting list or needs to notify their customers," said Levit. "The app allows the restaurant to reach their customers no matter where they are. It's great for the large chains or the single owner."
It may be something to consider. With the Holidays fast approaching it sure beats searching for Mrs. Rogers in a sea of red and green holiday outfits because Buffy forgot to charge the pagers.
And, don't forget the Purell. It's flu season.
