19. Serving Up a Side of Rage
“I was working as a GM in a struggling restaurant–struggling despite excellent business because the owners would do stupid stuff like take trips to Italy to source the ‘perfect’ panini press. They also wouldn’t staff properly, I was the only FOH staff open to close, six days a week, on top of ordering/inventory/other managerial duties. I was wildly overworked, but I sucked it up because the base pay was good, plus tips.
However, to fund their lavish ‘business’ trips, costs had to be cut at the store. They decided to do this by bumping me down to minimum wage for tipped employees–effectively cutting my salary to 1/10 of its previous level.
They were also too chicken to tell me until I got my new teeny paycheck and questioned the mistake: ‘oh yeah haha forgot to mention that blah blah cost cutting blah valued team member please work with us through this difficult time.’ I had worked for two weeks at this new lower rate without my knowledge. Pretty sure that’s illegal, but hey, a lot of illegal stuff goes on in the restaurant industry. That’s not when I rage quit, though….
A couple of hours later, I’m fuming and have decided I can’t work for the lower rate, just waiting for the chance to give my notice. They called in a delivery guy who was fired a few weeks before and start talking about hiring him to do our Facebook posts and handing out flyers around town. Whatever. Then they offer him close to my old salary as ‘Promotions Manager’!
WTF? I was running the place for $2.13/hr and you’re offering this dude almost $20/hr to walk up and down the street saying ‘Eat at (Name)’? And yet, it gets worse.
They bring up our negative Yelp reviews and flyer guy suggests asking friends to post positive ones. Then doucheboss starts laughing and says ‘Hurdur better not ask KnickersUp to post one, it’ll be boohoo don’t eat there, I can’t pay my rent this month because they cut my pay without telling wahhhh.’ I wasn’t supposed to hear it I think, but I was five feet away, so of course I did.
I RAGED! Quit, told them to screw their job and good luck keeping the place open without me.
They quickly realized I was right, neither of them knew how to do more than pick up the takings once a week and begged me not to quit. So desperate were they, they allowed me to tell them exactly what idiots they were for the half hour my rage burned and just listened nodding and apologizing.
Once I had cursed myself back into calmness, I walked out 30 minutes before dinner rush, leaving them with an unstaffed floor and no clue how to even open the register.
God, they were morons. I loved that they actually listened to me tell them exactly how stupid they were. No repercussions on my side; the restaurant industry isn’t known for checking references. The store closed down about 18 months later. Surprised it made it that long.”
