Crummy Day, Seemin' the...clouds will stay....
Sigh. What a lousy day. The bosses are in bad moods. The employees are slackin'... And here I am, stuck in the middle. Guess that's the job of the General Manager. Take the feces storm, and keep it rolling downhill.
Let's see....what's going on today? We had to fire an employee. That's never fun. No matter how much they may truly deserve it, it is most assuredly no fun.
We ran out of cold cups. It is summer, and the majority of our sales are cold drinks. Frozen coffee drinks, iced lattes, etc. The afternoon girl informed me that we were out, at 5:00. Right about the time when our vendor for these cups closes. Nice timing.... Had to serve cold drinks in the insulated hot cups. Man, I hate having to do stuff like that. Makes the shop look bad...
Had to kick a pervert out. Permanently. We've gotten a couple of reports that this guy was viewing porn on the coffee shop computers. These are public computers, in full view of the seating area. I've never caught him in the act, so to speak, but customers have, and complained. Two young girls spoke to a couple of police officers who are regulars, and they were interested in talking to him. I told them I would handle it next time I saw him. Michael was all hell-bent on doing it, so it was a matter of who saw him first. I think he knew something was up, as he hadn't been in in a couple of weeks. Then I'd heard he'd been in over the weekend, when neither Michael or I were there. I was in the office, trying to do some paperwork, when the girl at the counter hit the buzzer (indicating she needed some help - the next tale of woe, BTW...). I went out the the front and helped her, and in the process, noticed Porno-Man sitting at one of the computers. I finished up the orders I was making, and went over and asked to speak to him outside. Hey, at least I had the common courtesy not to do it in front of the store crowd. I informed him of the complaints, of the fact that it was a family atmosphere, and that viewing pornography in public was illegal. He never argued or denied his acts. When I mentioned the police, his eyes grew quite wide. I told him to leave my property, and never come back. Ever. He quietly got in his car and left. Thank goodness. It could have gone a whole lot worse. Then again, wasn't exactly a thrilling adventure for me. I thought I would enjoy it more. I didn't. Not fun.
I have a metric butt-ton of work to do, but have been unable, as I've been playing barista instead of GM. I've also been training new staff, and they can't exactly be left alone. Well, the girl on duty formerly worked at another shop, one of the "corporate biggies", and had been training for a week. I figured that it would be a good time to disappear into the office and get some work done. T'was not to be. Every two minutes or so, she would hit the button which rings a buzzer in the office, and I would have to come out and help her with an overwhelming crowd (it was never more than three people, and always in the same group), or answer a silly question which she should have already known the answer to. They say that there are no stupid questions.... Well, when you are supposedly already a trained barista, and have had a week to learn our way of doing things, and you have to ask how to make basic drinks.... There *are* stupid questions.... Needless to say, I didn't get much work done at all.
I then had to come out and help her clean up for closing. In the process, I found 8 dozen muffins fresh from the bakery, sitting in the refrigerator. They all had to be individually wrapped. It was already late, and she was slow as molasses rolling uphill in January, so I help her close, sent her out the door, and proceded to wrap the muffins myself. I then went in the office and counted down the registers, which I should have been doing while she was cleaning, instead of cleaning with her. I'm not terribly happy with her performance so far, but I suppose I need to give her another week. Hopefully, she is just not confident with the new job yet, and will improve. Otherwise, another one's going to have to get the sack, and two weeks of training will have been wasted.
A complete nutcase freaked out on a bunch of friends of mine. She's been trying to finagle her way into my circle of friends, and offered to cook an elaborate meal for us at our next gathering. She got a little bit testy when we declined to let her join our e-groups list, as most of the folk hardly know her. She then proceded to take comments made on the list, of which she is not a member, out of context. She went ape-shite, and posted some rather rude remarks about these friends, and generally got everyone pretty riled up. I emailed her personally and told her that her behavior was way out of line and she needed to knock it the f*% off. She emailed me back, apologized for the misunderstanding, and informed me that "all was forgiven". WTF?? We were not the ones needing to be forgiven... C'est la vie. At least the vile little psycho hose beast went away.
To top it all off, I chatted with my mother on the phone for a little bit. This, in itself, is not a bad thing. I love my mother. She's a great lady. One of my dearest friends, no less. The problem is that she has been having minor health issues. She had cataract surgery on both eyes. One of them was not done right, so she had to have it redone. It seems that she's going to have to go back for a third surgery. In addition, she has fluid in her inner ear that is not draining, and antibiotics have not cleared it up. She's going to have to have a shunt put in to drain it off. These are minor things, but they've got her frustrated and depressed. I really hate to see my mother depressed. She raised 5 kids on her own, and is a really strong individual, so it hits me a little hard to see her so down. And I'm stuck 300 miles away and can't go over and comfort her. I'm bummed, but have to stay positive for her sake.
So....that was my Monday. How was yours?
Let's see....what's going on today? We had to fire an employee. That's never fun. No matter how much they may truly deserve it, it is most assuredly no fun.
We ran out of cold cups. It is summer, and the majority of our sales are cold drinks. Frozen coffee drinks, iced lattes, etc. The afternoon girl informed me that we were out, at 5:00. Right about the time when our vendor for these cups closes. Nice timing.... Had to serve cold drinks in the insulated hot cups. Man, I hate having to do stuff like that. Makes the shop look bad...
Had to kick a pervert out. Permanently. We've gotten a couple of reports that this guy was viewing porn on the coffee shop computers. These are public computers, in full view of the seating area. I've never caught him in the act, so to speak, but customers have, and complained. Two young girls spoke to a couple of police officers who are regulars, and they were interested in talking to him. I told them I would handle it next time I saw him. Michael was all hell-bent on doing it, so it was a matter of who saw him first. I think he knew something was up, as he hadn't been in in a couple of weeks. Then I'd heard he'd been in over the weekend, when neither Michael or I were there. I was in the office, trying to do some paperwork, when the girl at the counter hit the buzzer (indicating she needed some help - the next tale of woe, BTW...). I went out the the front and helped her, and in the process, noticed Porno-Man sitting at one of the computers. I finished up the orders I was making, and went over and asked to speak to him outside. Hey, at least I had the common courtesy not to do it in front of the store crowd. I informed him of the complaints, of the fact that it was a family atmosphere, and that viewing pornography in public was illegal. He never argued or denied his acts. When I mentioned the police, his eyes grew quite wide. I told him to leave my property, and never come back. Ever. He quietly got in his car and left. Thank goodness. It could have gone a whole lot worse. Then again, wasn't exactly a thrilling adventure for me. I thought I would enjoy it more. I didn't. Not fun.
I have a metric butt-ton of work to do, but have been unable, as I've been playing barista instead of GM. I've also been training new staff, and they can't exactly be left alone. Well, the girl on duty formerly worked at another shop, one of the "corporate biggies", and had been training for a week. I figured that it would be a good time to disappear into the office and get some work done. T'was not to be. Every two minutes or so, she would hit the button which rings a buzzer in the office, and I would have to come out and help her with an overwhelming crowd (it was never more than three people, and always in the same group), or answer a silly question which she should have already known the answer to. They say that there are no stupid questions.... Well, when you are supposedly already a trained barista, and have had a week to learn our way of doing things, and you have to ask how to make basic drinks.... There *are* stupid questions.... Needless to say, I didn't get much work done at all.
I then had to come out and help her clean up for closing. In the process, I found 8 dozen muffins fresh from the bakery, sitting in the refrigerator. They all had to be individually wrapped. It was already late, and she was slow as molasses rolling uphill in January, so I help her close, sent her out the door, and proceded to wrap the muffins myself. I then went in the office and counted down the registers, which I should have been doing while she was cleaning, instead of cleaning with her. I'm not terribly happy with her performance so far, but I suppose I need to give her another week. Hopefully, she is just not confident with the new job yet, and will improve. Otherwise, another one's going to have to get the sack, and two weeks of training will have been wasted.
A complete nutcase freaked out on a bunch of friends of mine. She's been trying to finagle her way into my circle of friends, and offered to cook an elaborate meal for us at our next gathering. She got a little bit testy when we declined to let her join our e-groups list, as most of the folk hardly know her. She then proceded to take comments made on the list, of which she is not a member, out of context. She went ape-shite, and posted some rather rude remarks about these friends, and generally got everyone pretty riled up. I emailed her personally and told her that her behavior was way out of line and she needed to knock it the f*% off. She emailed me back, apologized for the misunderstanding, and informed me that "all was forgiven". WTF?? We were not the ones needing to be forgiven... C'est la vie. At least the vile little psycho hose beast went away.
To top it all off, I chatted with my mother on the phone for a little bit. This, in itself, is not a bad thing. I love my mother. She's a great lady. One of my dearest friends, no less. The problem is that she has been having minor health issues. She had cataract surgery on both eyes. One of them was not done right, so she had to have it redone. It seems that she's going to have to go back for a third surgery. In addition, she has fluid in her inner ear that is not draining, and antibiotics have not cleared it up. She's going to have to have a shunt put in to drain it off. These are minor things, but they've got her frustrated and depressed. I really hate to see my mother depressed. She raised 5 kids on her own, and is a really strong individual, so it hits me a little hard to see her so down. And I'm stuck 300 miles away and can't go over and comfort her. I'm bummed, but have to stay positive for her sake.
So....that was my Monday. How was yours?
posted by Turtle at 1:15 AM
2 Comments:
Zoinks! Quite the excrement tornado, amigo. Ah but command can be a lonely thing, and at the risk of sounding like someone out of a Jack Lemmon/Walther Mathau movie, it just sticks in my craw the way the kids today seem to think that half-assed, or even one-quarter assed efforts at work should be lauded as mighty acomplishments. I don't think we ever put our bosses through anything like that back at Zipz. Even when the soft serve machine blew up in your face. (although, I don't know about you, but I certainly ate my share of the profits) ;-)
Hang in there, and remember there is always that magical, soul-healing water of Lethe that is tailor made to soothe those after-work blues...beer.
I'm sorry. Consider yourself mentally hugged. I totally understand ALL of it. I'm middle management here at the school and am stuck in between the Big Dogs and the bottom level employees, many of whom just do NOT get it. Yes, I do actually expect you to WORK for your paycheck, AND I expect the work to be done properly. Ask me sometime about the maintenance guy who, when assigned to paint the walls in the library, painted AROUND all the artwork on the walls and all the furniture.... I'm not kidding.
And as to the psycho, yeah... been there too.
D
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