The End of an Error
A few weeks before Christmas I was fired from Restaurant L, the job that I held for nearly two years. I knew that my eventual demise was approaching. I was counting on it. I was pushing for it. It was four months in the making.
Some woman named Lindsay hired me at L. When I went in the very next day I learned that she had been fired. Her assistant, Mike, was thrust into the most undesirable job ever. Mike was a great boss though, probably the best boss I ever had in a restaurant. I had also never seen someone get so burned out. Mike was given no support in any way, shape, or form. He was always at the restaurant; usually working 80 hours a week. I was always impressed that Mike never dropped dead at work. But all good things must come to an end….
L never made any money. Never. The reason was that the nincompoops in charge didn’t know how to run a restaurant. Actually, they couldn’t even run Louis Boston, the poshly over-priced glorified retail store that excreted L. Mike’s exit was the result of pressure from his bosses to churn a profit. But it was never Mike’s fault. It wasn’t the fault of the restaurant employees either. And is certainly wasn’t the fault of Chef Pino Maffeo’s avant-garde cuisine. It was the fault of Louis Boston but they would never admit to that; so Mike was ousted…
Now, you would think that Louis Boston would want to bring in a manger with mucho experience to run Restaurant L. Well, that’s what you get for thinking, jackass. Enter Morna, Louis Boston’s resident human resources overlord. Morna lobbied for some time to take over L. In August her wish was finally granted. August was also when my downfall began.
It took Morna’s regime less than three months to run a well-oiled machine smack into the ground. She began of course where most dictatorships begin - extermination. Within the first month Morna exterminated four employees: Lyle, Sophia, Kelly, and Lizzy. Probably the most interest approach of these mass firings was Morna’s failure to replace them. And the restaurant was already grotesquely understaffed. Morna’s first slew of new hires all fizzled in less than a week. As September crept in her full-time summer people went back to school, a choice Morna was defiantly against.
I knew my eventual downfall was nigh but it didn’t bother me. Morna, lacking the experience one needs to successfully run a restaurant, overstaffed at the wrong times. As a result we all stopped making money. On lunches, we went from making between $100-$175 to as low as $50. Dinner was even sadder as those wonder $200-$300 Friday and Saturday nights became $80-$120. But it wasn’t just the money. She sucked all of the enjoyment out of what was once a great job. Four months working for her was enough to burn me out of waiting tables all together.
As December rolled in things were only got progressively worse. That’s when I got fired. Morna scheduled me to work when I had school one night. She knew I had school but as she put it,
I’m trying to run a business here, Ryan. I’m too short-handed and I need more availability out of you. You’re going to have to decided what’s more important to you, work or school.
Naturally I thought this request was completely unreasonable. The saddest part is that Morna was genuinely shocked by my reply that school was more important than work. So she fired me. But Karma works in mysterious ways…
Just three days later the goons at Louis Boston decided to shut down the Restaurant L immediately. Two weeks before Christmas. This put Pino on the spot and he ended up working out some kind of deal to buy the restaurant from Louis Boston. He even worked out a deal to keep the restaurant open for an additional two weeks in order to give his employees some sort of notice. Pino achieved this by firing the overpaid Morna.
Restaurant L is scheduled to reopen sometime in February. Pino invited me back to work for him when that day comes. However, I couldn’t live with myself if I had to work at Louis Boston again. Sure, I wouldn’t be working for Louis Boston but I would still be surrounded by those horrible, horrible people (except for Bob Daly).
My first day back from Xmas break in Louisiana I secured a job at an ever more extravagant restaurant, Excelsior. And so far, so good. The money is two, sometimes three times better than anything I ever made at L. The place is a well-oiled machine and the people have souls. I’m satisfied…at least for now….
January 16th, 2007 at 3:46 pm
Congrats on the job with souls…