Livid

[Vince]

I can think of no other word for how I feel right now. Let me set the stage.

I am a bartender/waiter at a restaurant. I work there full-time, which means I average about 35-40 hours a week. Weak, I know, but I'm at the store more than most of the front of the house staff. Anyhow, the schedule for each week is different...no set schedules in the restaurant industry. The schedule usually comes out every Thursday for the following week -- so I am usually completely unable to plan ahead unless I request time off. Last weekend, I picked up a schedule, and I had the following to look forward to:

Monday 4:00 Bar
Tuesday 12:00 Serving
Wednesday OFF (Reserved)
Thursday OFF
Friday 6:00 Serving
Saturday OFF (Reserved)
Sunday OFF (Reserved)

I decided to pick up a shift on Wednesday, because a friend needed the day off, and I had Thursday off anyways. Leaving the store tonight from the shift I picked up, a co-worker mentioned that I had a pretty nice shift on Thursday -- a 4:00 Opening shift. I told him he was mistaken, but he pulled out a schedule, and it indeed says that I'm working at 4:00. Cursing at myself, I rush home to see if I did make a mistake...but no. My schedule, that I have at home (which is an excel sheet printout from the store, not something that I wrote down), clearly indicates that I do NOT work on Thursday. It is the correct week, the correct year, and I am not working according to the schedule.

So, furious, I call the store, and speak to the manager who is still there (and conveniently, the one who makes the schedule). She says "Well, I have you here on my schedule. I don't know where you got that schedule, it's not like I changed it."

:mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad:

So now they want me to try and cover the shift, as if it is my responsibility. AUGH...

[Lathum]

being a veteren of the industy as much as that sucks it is no surprise to me.

[Yossarian]

#1 - Suck it up buttercup

#2 - sorry, was looking for an appropriate context to use that today. Sucks when work folk mess you about. On the other hand, note this one down and years from now, when you're in charge, you can use it to wind up some annoying employee

[MizzouRah]

Having worked in the restaurant business for years and now married to a woman who works as a waitress, this is definitly not surprising. I hate that business.

Good luck in getting it covered. ;)

[Pumpy Tudors]

Damn, either she changed the schedule or somebody was monkeying around with it, and my guess is that she changed the schedule. I know that a lot of managers have the reputation for saying the "safe" thing, but she could've at least been honest about it. If she changed it and neglected to tell you, she could've owned up to it instead of playing dumb.

On the bright side, at least you don't work with coal miners. I inhaled and swallowed a little coal dust two days ago, and my body hasn't been quite the same since.

[Crim]

[QUOTE=Pumpy Tudors]Damn, either she changed the schedule or somebody was monkeying around with it, and my guess is that she changed the schedule. I know that a lot of managers have the reputation for saying the "safe" thing, but she could've at least been honest about it. If she changed it and neglected to tell you, she could've owned up to it instead of playing dumb.QUOTE]

Very true, PT. This is by no means limited to the restaurant industry. I'm an assistant manager at a grocery store, and I've seen this crap my whole career. Hell, I've done it, but at least had the garbanzos to be honest: "I'm sorry, I didn't realize you'd already been in to look at your schedule. Such and such came up, and I need you that day after all." Look, stuff does come up. But there's no excuse for telling stupid lies that are clearly gonna be transparent to everyone you're talking to... if nothing else, tell better lies!;)

[stevew]

Sucks Vince, I've done my 10 years of dealing with restaurant bullshit and I'll never go back. Too many lies in the scheduling, people go way out of their way, it seems to patronize you and exploit your goodwill. I've had my scheduling nightmares too, and I'm glad to be done with it.

[Eaglesfan27]

Mrs. Eaglesfan is in the business as well, and she sees crap like this all of the time. That is why she wants to own her own restaurant one day ;)

[Qwikshot]

Perhaps you should photocopy the schedule when it comes out?

[Vince]

Sigh. I've been doing this for going on 7 years now, and it isn't surprising to me either. Just irritating as all hell.

I'll probably just deal with it, but it's my ninth straight day, and I work tomorrow as well. Whine, whine...whine whine whine, whine whine.

Yeah, I need to suck it up and deal.

[Fighter of Foo]

Just flat out tell them you made plans and can't come in. Period. End of discussion.

In the future, you have to be a complete and total asshole about when you will and will not be working. Now to be fair to your manager(s) you'll tell them well in advance of them making the schedule. This won't stop them from moving it around on you so you'll be having several of conversations like this:

You: Per our discussion (2 weeks ago) I mentioned I needed to be off Wednesday and Thursday each week.

Manager: Yeah, well, um, we're short that night and I'm going to need you to come in.

You: We already had this conversation. I said I couldn't work these nights and you said OK. Now you want to change the schedule/go back on your word?

Manager: Like I said, we're short staffed, and I need someone to come in.

You: Well you can put me on the schedule, but I won't be here.



Now if you get a really hard headed manager, it might take a few night of you pulling a "no-show" for them to get the message, but eventually they'll stop pulling this BS with your schedule. This doesn't mean you need to be a perpetual hard ass about switching shifts and the like, but it does mean you're going to be asked and informed before any manager goes and moves you off what ends up being your normal routine.

So long as you don't pull any employee BS (showing up late, calling in sick, etc.) you should be fine. Having been a manager for a short time, there's really no reason schedules can't be mostly fixed in advance. Obviously stuff happens, but most of it is just sheer laziness and an ego/power trip thrown in.

[stevew]

Just flat out tell them you made plans and can't come in. Period. End of discussion.

In the future, you have to be a complete and total asshole about when you will and will not be working. Now to be fair to your manager(s) you'll tell them well in advance of them making the schedule. This won't stop them from moving it around on you so you'll be having several of conversations like this:

You: Per our discussion (2 weeks ago) I mentioned I needed to be off Wednesday and Thursday each week.

Manager: Yeah, well, um, we're short that night and I'm going to need you to come in.

You: We already had this conversation. I said I couldn't work these nights and you said OK. Now you want to change the schedule/go back on your word?

Manager: Like I said, we're short staffed, and I need someone to come in.

You: Well you can put me on the schedule, but I won't be here.



Now if you get a really hard headed manager, it might take a few night of you pulling a "no-show" for them to get the message, but eventually they'll stop pulling this BS with your schedule. This doesn't mean you need to be a perpetual hard ass about switching shifts and the like, but it does mean you're going to be asked and informed before any manager goes and moves you off what ends up being your normal routine.

So long as you don't pull any employee BS (showing up late, calling in sick, etc.) you should be fine. Having been a manager for a short time, there's really no reason schedules can't be mostly fixed in advance. Obviously stuff happens, but most of it is just sheer laziness and an ego/power trip thrown in.

You don't work in the buisiness, do you?

[Vince]

Well, in this case it's incompetence. The manager who does the schedules is a complete and utter lackwit. No matter what this person does, it is wrong. There have been MULTITUDES of errors with the schedule. Now, I've done scheduling for a restaurant before, and I know it's not easy to juggle the ridiculous schedules of mostly College-aged employees. However, this manager has been doing the schedule for 5 months now, and it is continually terrible. We're talking ZERO improvement over 5 months.

To compound this person's idiocy, we are tremendously short staffed right now. Between December and March, 10 front of the house employees have quit or been fired (leaving us with 16 front of the house employees) -- no one was hired to replace these people until about 2 weeks ago. Currently, there are 2 servers training, and 6 new people just out of training (4 of whom were former hostesses who weren't given proper training because we need them on the floor ASAP). All of these employees are borderline incompetent at the moment, and therefore must be given smaller sections, increasing the strain on the remaining employees. Monday evening, it was me (Bartending -- I ran takeout, my bar, made all the drinks in the restaurant, and had 8 tables to deal with simultaneously) and three completely new people. I had $1,900 in sales in a 5 and a half hour shift. To put that in perspective, on a Monday anything over $600 in sales is huge. On a Friday or Saturday Night, anything over $1,100 is huge. $1,900 is absurd. Between now and last Wednesday, I haven't had a day off, and I've had 4 shifts of 8 hours or more. A typical 8-hour shift at any job isn't that big a deal, but when you're on your feet for 100% of those 8 hours, it starts to wear on you.

If the scheduling was the only problem, I'd probably be a little more amenable. But this manager doing the scheduling is the same one that I had an issue with hair in a salad before (see this thread (http://www.operationsports.com/fofc/showthread.php?t=46572&highlight=hair+salad)), has also screwed up the food orders for our store, leaving us without 8 different kinds of bottled beer, chopped lettuce, ice cream, avocados and coffee beans for espresso drinks all on the same shift, and countless other problems. I was in a rotten mood last Friday night, and my GM took me aside and asked me what was wrong, and I told him in no uncertain terms that I have to work for a manager I have no respect for. His response was that I should talk to her about it, and try to help her improve. Now, I have a position of authority in the restaurant -- I'm one of the senior waiters, I'm a bartender, and I'm training to become a server trainer. But there is no way in hell I should be teaching my manager how to do their job.

I've seriously considered quitting quite a few times these last few weeks.

[Vince]

You don't work in the buisiness, do you?

Well, in his defense...

...my managers love me at this store. I go above and beyond the call of duty OFTEN. I could simply not show up, tell them where to stuff it, and they'd be unhappy, but they'd let me get away with it. Because of the kind of person I am, I won't do that. But I could.

[Vince]

Felt REALLY good to get all that crap out there though.

[DaddyTorgo]

wow. that's one sucky story, and one example of why as a manager i will never do that. if you have to change someone's schedule at least pick up the phone and call them and ask them. damm. idiots piss me off!

[Fighter of Foo]

You don't work in the buisiness, do you?

I was in retail in high school and waited tables/tended bar off and on through college.

I must have walked through the scenario I described a dozen times and only once did a manager have a problem with it. He had other problems with me as well because he was a micromanaging Iamthepower type and didn't appreciate my honesty ;), so I doubt that one would have worked any way.

I just have a very low tolerance for BS.