I did a brief stint at a coffee bar that had coffee and alcohol. “coffee bar” get it? I didn’t really fit in there. Their ‘head barista’ wore his title like a boy scout badge. The restaurant wanted people who’s purpose in life was to be a barista. Bless their hearts.
My probation officer forced me to shamefully return after I left to receive my last paycheck, which I’m glad she did because I would not have returned on my own volition.
I worked there long enough to master my coffee game, and I could confidently barista anywhere. Unfortunately, the skill came too late. I needed the skill years prior when the lady didn’t even let me finish my first shift. She was like “uh-uh, we need a Barista. Not you. Bye.”
Eventually I landed a manager position at a southeastern regional fast food restaurant. The “restaurant” is famous for fish and it’s not Long John Silver’s.
I landed the job on a recommendation from a former coworker. The job paid a solid salary, guaranteed two days off, and closing time was 10pm. Even on a nightmare of a day, the latest anyone left was 11:30pm. That’s a rare find in the restaurant industry. My training was at an out-of-state location where I was treated like absolute dogshit. One of the trainers hit me in the head with a bag of broccoli. Another trainer kept getting angrier and angrier with everything I said and did to the point where I expected violence. When I was getting trained on the cash register, the general manager stood an inch from my ear and shouted ad infinitum. Another trainer let two people go early, but not me because “of my fucking mouth”
I never received an apology for this treatment. I told my former coworker who recommended me the job, this treatment felt a little racist. I was the only white employee there.
My former coworker talked to the staff, and the area manager came in for a meeting with all of us. This job awakened a fury within me strong enough to start shoving these fucking people out of my way. I won their respect and they were nicer to me.
Unfortunately, their kindness was a ruse. The store they chose for me to manage was their weakest and worst performing store. The scenario could be spun as, the hot young new manager coming in to turn this store around!
No.
Not at all.
Our employees were a skeleton crew made up of a guy that nobody (but me) liked, a woman who was wearing adult diapers and moved at the pace of a slug, two high school kids, three other “managers” who were not managing anything, and me.
The guy that nobody liked (but me) died. I’m not kidding he got fired, and two weeks later he died. Diaper lady was still there when I left and so were the managers. They really liked to put me on drive thru due to my eloquent speaking. The girl they had working drive thru only worked part time, was still in high school, and rude would be an understatement of her communication skills.
Working drive thru was wild. Somebody gave me weed that they packed in the face mask because they didn’t have a bag. People would tip me on occasion, and on my last night at work somebody actually passed me a joint from their car window. I was not drinking at work when I worked here. I did drink during the training shift because the abuse was just too much, but after they transferred me, I held it down.
Once I was getting a feel for the store and its employees, the one older lady manager (with a very sick sense of humor) did something evil. She re-hired somebody that she had fired ten years before who immediately started shit with me.
I have never before reached such heights of wrath in my life.
He brought it all to the surface. I attempted to reconcile at the end of the night and he said we were cool. He lied.
The next day he started at it again, I gave the woman who rehired him an ultimatum: it’s him or me.
She said she sided with me. She lied.
My last day on this job, after hitting the aforementioned joint from the drive thru, I walk back in the kitchen and see a giant smoke cloud. The only people in the restaurant were me and the two high school kids. My one hit could not have done such damage.
The kids told me earlier, “They were going to go smoke weed out back.” I told them, “don’t tell me that shit and take the trash out.” I come to find “out back” was inside the kitchen.
Total failure as a manager right here.
As luck would have it, another employee happened to walk in right at this moment because she had forgotten her purse. Those high school kids were petrified.
She left, and one of the employees had disappeared.
The store is still open for another hour, I am still working the drive thru and putting orders out while I’m looking for this kid. I find him with a cut on his face pacing around the dining room and rambling. From what I recall, he thought he was in that Lil Nas X music video with the devil and the angel. I called his grandmother to pick him up. Conveniently, the other kid tells me, “Um, mister, he’s my ride.”
After I closed the restaurant, I left a big note saying “As of this date this time I resign.”
Perhaps before, maybe not long after, my next stint was at a bar with a provocative name. Someone higher up in their chain of command at had seen me playing drums and thought I was cool, so he threw me to the wolves. The general manager was this 7 foot tall woman who weighed like 380 lbs.
The restaurant manager was this woman who looked like the woman who owned the vegan ice cream store’s white trash cousin.
Once again, I am treated quite poorly. The bartender guy there did not like me at all. I’m not sure if it’s because he was threatened, or was just a tool. Most of the girls there were pretty neutral towards me until I started getting more phone numbers than they did. Not on purpose, on a given shift I’d have at least three or four people leave their phone numbers on the receipts. I don’t think any of those numbers grew past a talking stage but it was more fun for me to see my coworkers’ reactions.
I drank on the job here. It was okay with management if tables bought me shots. We could also drink after our shift. I felt comfortable enough to come into work with my own bottle of tequila. I left the cup above the time clock with full intentions to sip on it through my shift. Immediately got pulled aside and written up. It did not (and still does not) make sense when drinking was okay or not okay. I believe teetotaling policies ought to be absolute. Don’t leave me wondering where the line between inside drinks and no outside drinks lies.
One bartender lost his job when he walked through the kitchen said “Good game” and proceeded to slap me and the girl next to me on the ass. The girl told the GM and he got fired for sexual harassment. The thing is, this guy was gay as a three dollar bill. Personally, between the the two of us victims, I had the sexual harassment claim not her.
I consider ass slapping typical kitchen behavior.
My last night at this job on a smoke break, there was no designated smoking area. I hid in the dumpster cage, and the twelve foot fence closed shut on me. The cage only opens on the opposite side leaving me to climb the fence and drop to the ground on the other side to escape.
I showed up for work the next morning and the GM said, “yeah…you’re too wild man.”
I had turned the coffee maker on before she fired me but didn’t have a chance to put the filter in- so coffee was exploding everywhere as I walked away. What a mess.
I found myself on the other side of the state waiting tables at a different restaurant. One day I came into town looking to charge my phone. I had been camping all week in famous mountain range. My server brought me a couple extra drinks than I ordered, followed by a job application. After I fill it out the hiring manager comes out and conducts an interview at my table. I was wearing short shorts and I hadn’t shaved in days, but sure why not? Big Gay Tex came out asking for something to write on, I hand him my check and he takes it and writes on it. I said, “You take it you paid for it.”
Ten minutes go by and there was nothing said by anyone.
I figured I’d see them Monday anyway and skirted on out of there. At my first shift I was greeted with, “Hey! There’s the guy who didn’t pay for his food!” For the first time, I was treated pretty well by my fellow coworkers. We had only one asshole manager who I liked to call ‘Big Gay Tex’ everybody else was cool.
During my stay at that restaurant, I got in trouble for asking a table to order me shots. One table out of several. I accepted tips in the form of shots or wine or beer in lieu of or paired with cash. One out of fifty ain’t bad. Didn’t get fired.
I didn’t get fired the night I lost someone’s debit card either. I’m sure if you ask my coworkers they’d all have different stories. Perhaps the day I snuck over to the liquor store mid-shift, or maybe the day I spilled a whole pot of coffee on my hand and still worked my shift with some serious burnage on my hand. The best thing to come out of this job was when I met the fry cook. The fry cook played drums, we liked the same music and we’ve both lived in the same places at different times. Naturally, he joined my band. We played some gigs and I took him on as a roommate for a while. We’re still friends.
The job ended when I fucked a coworker. She transferred to my restaurant from a different location, and I could just tell what was about to happen. I can’t fuck coworkers, I learned this. After I realized her and I were becoming a regular thing, I quit.
The last kitchen of my life Imade hotel breakfast at a 3-star extended stay. The general manager was caught stealing shortly after she fired the assistant manager.
By the time I quit, I was one of three people who had been there the longest, and I was not there very long.
A caution to the reader: I don’t recommend eating three-star hotel breakfasts. Expect microwaved frozen stuff. Consumers have to really trust the kitchen staff to be hygienic because the health inspections for hotels are quite generous. My shift was 4am to 10am. Due to “labor costs” management insisted I clock in later than scheduled. I refused.
After a sizeable staff exodus, corporate sent a man covered head to toe in warts to turn the hotel around. He had plans and ideas on how to run the place and was not interested in anything I had to say. An excerpt of our discussions modeled as follows:
Me: “Generally, we don’t put the entire box of food in the fridge from the freezer. We put it in bags and containers.”
Warts: “There’s pertinent date information on the box. Back home we have fresh seafood come in and we need the dates.”
Me: “We write the received date and the thaw date on the bag”
The hotel is in a landlocked state. I don’t see this three-star extended stay serving shrimp ‘n grits.
For my grand finale, I took a bunch of food from the fridge home with me. I was enrolled in a class that was throwing a breakfast party at the end of the semester, and I didn’t want to come empty handed.
The hotel says I stole the food.
I haven’t worked in kitchens since, and God willing, I won’t have to.
Need Job Will Travel 
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