rollups

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. 

18.5 feet x 12 inches = 222 inches

My rollup prototype was 1.5 inches wide. 

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

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