Bring it On, Ya Crazy " #@&%*!$ "

It's been raining here for days and days and days. For Pete's sake... I can't remember what a sunny day looks like.

Worked a day shift and it was pretty slow. One big pop at noon and then it dwindled down to nothing. Once the lunch starts to slow the managers start cutting the staff. They send home three of the servers, send home one of the hosts and all the cooks but one (LABOR LABOR LABOR.) Corporate is on the managers constantly, especially with this economy to keep labor costs down. The poor managers...they get it from complaining customers to complaining employees to complaining higher ups. It's no wonder they all have bi polar tendencies.

Case in point.

Last Friday the general manager was on a rant for no apparent reason. There were only four of us there. All of us have been with the company for at least twelve years...some for fifteen. We are the cream of the crop. We all are the hardest workers who always look good and know and do our job without having to be told (not many of the other 50 employees do.)

We had just opened the doors when he took us all four out to a side room and verbally exploded in our faces. I think you could see sparks flying off of his frantically moving lips while he railed all four of us out . We said nothing (We're smart like that) and tried not to look at each other while he finished his diatribe. It was like he literally went nuts there for a minute. With our morale bolstered (NOT) we went back to all of our tables that sat out in the restaurant wondering where their server was.

We had a slam banging lunch and the manager came up and personally apologized to each one of us privately at some point during the mad two hour crunch. I guess he realized what side his bread was buttered on.

After it was all said and done , I went up to him and commented on what a good lunch we had. He agreed with me and said it all went really smoothly (I told you us four were the best.)

I then said that it was really nice to see business picking up and "If all it takes for us to make money is you reaming us a new one...I say BRING IT ON YA CRAZY BASTARD!" I followed up my joke with a quick hug and told him that I loved him. He laughed, he knows how crazy I am and he is really more of a good friend than just a boss.

He came to work today after having the weekend off and appeared to back to his normal self. I know what tremendous pressure he is under and being a managing partner in the store just adds to his load. I was a manager for the last restaurant where I worked and I wouldn't do it again for a million dollars (well maybe for a million...but not much less.)

Today after it all died down and we were down to one cook and two servers, the bartender and one of the servers decided to order something to eat. Then I asked another server to split a burger with me. I heard our manager talking to one of the maintenance guys who does repairs and pressure washing for us what he wanted to eat so I jokingly yelled back to the only cook (an AWESOME guy and another good friend) "Hey Dean, we got a ten top walking in!"

Such is life in the crazy world of an even crazier server!!

Til next time...COTTON