Valentine's Day RantΒ π
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efore I get into it, Happy Valentine's Day to everyone! I hope that your day was filled with love, hearts, and all things fun and fantastic! ππ
I also apologize in advance for my long rant. π
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1:33 βββγ βββββ 4:25
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As someone who works in the service industry, both retail and food service, Valentine's Day this year SUCKED. I started off the day by getting coffee and doing my hair and makeup to match the holiday as usual, then I left to head to my first job, my retail job (at a jewelry store). I was scheduled an hour before the store opened, which isn't too ridiculous because we have different holiday procedures, such as making sure the floor is set correctly, as well as filling all of the online orders from the day/night before.
I got to the store to find out that no one was there yet. Context: my manager was supposed to be there a half an hour before I was to open the doors and look through all of the emails and things from the day before, i.e. all of the stuff I can't do because I'm not a manager and I don't have a key or access to the store's emails. I tried calling the store phone, the usual way to get let in when the doors aren't unlocked yet, but no one answered. Five minutes go by. Then ten. Then fifteen. At this point, I'm now considered late, and I'm texting my other coworkers to see if they had heard from her (the opening manager that day) at all because she was no where to be found.
Finally, thirty minutes later, she shows up, breakfast and coffee in hand, headphones still in like nothing had happened. Fine, whatever, I'm not going to let it ruin my day. I clocked in (finally), and got to doing my opening tasks such as putting the registers out, filling online orders, etc. When I go back to the office to sip my coffee before I have to open the stores for customers, I noticed she hadn't even opened the laptop to check emails, and was simply sitting there eating her breakfast and scrolling on her phone. Now, at this point, I'm pretty pissed. But, I shrug it off and get ready to open the store.
It was busy, as expected, all of the usual last minute gift-getters rushing to get their partners things the morning of. Then, the same manager that had been late and ignoring her job (basically), comes up to me and tells me that she's going to send me home an hour early because we're over the expected payroll for the week. EXCUSE ME? I had stayed an hour over the day before to help one of my other coworkers, so it's not like I'm going to miss out on the pay, but how is it my fault that you can't do your job and figure this out beforehand instead of telling me two hours into my shift??
Anyways, I leave that job, sit in my car and think about my choices of jobs, then I head to a few different stores to see if I could find something cute to wear at my other job, since they allow us to dress up for holidays. All three stores I come up empty handed, so I end up driving home and getting changed and eating some food before I leave.
My second job I expected to be busy as well, especially since I'm a server. You know, everyone going on a little date night out to a restaurant. Fine, whatever, I need the money anyways, and I'm only expecting a lot of two tops anyways. For those who don't work in the restaurant industry, two tops are just parties of two (so a four top would be a party of four, so on and so forth). As soon as I walk in, everyone is saying hi and Happy Valentine's Day, the usual friendly coworker environment. I get out on the floor, find out I have an amazing section (I had two tables that were six tops, and a table that was a four top, so 16 people total could fit in my section at a time).
Everything is going great, just a bunch of lovely couples. The wait wasn't too bad at this point (around three o'clock), it was only around 65 or so parties, so like 130 people total. Now, our restaurant can hold 60 parties at a time, so this seemed pretty manageable. However, around five o'clock, I check out the wait to see this monstrosity:
Now let me explain this image for those who don't understand. Let's start at the left side of this image. This is what our wait looks like: 236 parties. That's 236 reservations on the wait, which equaled 624 people. Our restaurant can only hold 120 people. That is ridiculous in of itself. Now, moving to the right side we can see the time that the hosts are quoting people for a table. FOUR HOURS. So, if we use common sense, that means that if someone called or booked on our website at say four o'clock, they would be waiting until eight o'clock to actually sit down at said table. Crazy, right? Oh but it gets better.
Now, at this point, all of the servers who were working doubles were still here. People who got to the restaurant at 10:45am and 11am to open the restaurant. It's already five o'clock. They've officially lost hope of being cut because how could we afford to close tables and let servers go home when there's a 600 person wait?
Our restaurant closes at 10:30, so logically we would have had to stop taking reservations at 6:30, since those people would be quoted four hours, right? WRONG. Two of the head managers decided that instead of taking into account how the servers were doing with the constant onslaught of people, they were going to keep taking reservations up until close. 10:30pm. So, if we think about it, these people will be waiting until AFTER we close to sit down and start eating. That's just wild.
The rush continues and continues, with the restaurant continuously running out of things such as salad bowls, peach syrup, lemons, limes, and oranges. Stuff we needed. But, clearly they didn't care before so why would they care now? Finally, around 10:15pm, the rush begins to die out, and the closing manager, my savior at this point, says she doesn't care, she's locking the doors at 10:30 and we aren't taking any more reservations or tables after that. THANK GOD. The floor finally gets cut, and everyone begins to clean their sections and set the tables for the next day.
Luckily, the money wasn't bad, and the people weren't too awful, which made it a little better. What really took me out was the fact that we were there until AFTER MIDNIGHT cleaning, prepping, and sweeping, and a lot of the same servers were scheduled doubles the very next day, and expected to come in at 10:45am or 11am.
Long story short, after getting home late, I ended up giving up my double shift today to sleep and take ibuprofen, because yesterday kicked my butt.
Β°:. β Β° . Β° .β’οΌβ’ β β‘ β β’οΌβ’. Β° . Β° β .:Β°
Anyways, I hope everyone had a wonderful Valentine's Day weekend, and it was everything they thought it was going to be. ππ
Β°:. β Β° . Β° .β’οΌβ’ β β‘ β β’οΌβ’. Β° . Β° β .:Β°
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