The Chicken?

So I heard from a little birdy that some of you are ready for the second installment of my Chicken restaurant journey... Here it goes.

So I left the store for a second time during the
summer before my sophomore year of college. I continued
working at the collection agency and was going to school. In
January of my sophomore year, my now husband proposed and we
decided to get married within the next year. That means I
was going to need to make additional money in order to
sustain my new little family. :)

I decided that the best option would be to make a
little extra money to save. I went back to the restaurant,
and I was able to get my job back. I could only work nights,
but since my fiancée worked nights too, it worked out fine.
I was also offered a babysitting job by my aunt. So during
my engagement, I was working 3 jobs and maintaining 12 hours
on the Quarter System at Tech. I was beyond stressed. I had
responsibilities at the restaurant of an assistant crew
captain without the title. Everyone asked me how to do
everything. I was a trainer without the pay or title. My
parents freaked me out about not having insurance during
this time as well, so I found out that the only place that I
could receive insurance was through the restaurant. I had a
conversation with the owner, and he decided that I deserved
a promotion to crew captain. I accepted, and I had to leave
my job at the collection agency (on good terms of course).


Due to my school schedule, I had to work 11-9 Monday,
Wednesday, and Friday and 5-midnight on Saturday. I only
ever got one 20 minute break even though this carries
through lunch and supper. I also had to travel back to
Ruston every night as well. I might have been making $8 an
hour at this time. I also worked Tuesday and Thursday for my
aunt from 3-8 and all day on Saturday until I had to be at
work. It was a very busy and exhausting time. 

I learned more information at the restaurant. I was
trained but was not appreciated. For everything that I did
right, I was yelled at about 10 things that I supposedly did
wrong. There was no formal training for managing others,
especially others that were close to the same age as me. I
just kept thinking:  “I am buying my time until I
graduate”. I constantly gave new ideas, new suggestions
for improvement in the store. The mean manager, whom we will
refer to as Danny Devito, was as mean as ever. People got
yelled at for things that were absolutely ridiculous. We
were yelled at in front of customers, told we were stupid,
and even had flat out screaming fights in the middle of the
store. The owner never did anything about it with her. On
the other hand, if someone else did something he did not
approve of, he gave them a lecture and/or fired them. People
would be openly rude to customers, but it appeared if they
were a West Monroe High School person,
  he looked the other way. If they were not WMHS
people, they were gone. It is amazing that I lasted so long.



The owner also has a short fuse. He told us to be
happy, raise the happy “temperature” in the store, but
when he got to the store, the “temperature” immediately
went downhill.  I remember one occasion where an
employee went to his car to eat his break food out of
uniform, and he got fired because the owner thought he had
stolen the food, even though we told him he hadn't.
 Another situation involved an employee that was
frequently late. Instead of writing him up or meeting with the
employee, he fired him. There were rules that we were
supposed to follow, but there were no consequences for
people breaking those rules. I got several of these things
changed. People started getting in trouble for not clocking
out for breaks, not ringing up employee meals, and for
constantly being late. BUT just like before, there was no
appreciation for these things because the main people
breaking the rules were the managers. None of these people
ever got in trouble. 

Let's not forget about people calling in to work.
During the first 3 times that I worked for the store, I
called in 1 time, and was late 2 times. I got yelled at for
calling in when I had a stomach bug. I got yelled at for
being late when my grandfather died, even though I called
and told them that I would be late. This was a constant
problem. Nobody felt like they could call in if they were
genuinely sick. Now there were some that called in all of
the time and never got into trouble, which is also a
problem. There were no checks and balances. As a result, I
worked sick several times when I should not have even been
in the store. Don't let me forget to tell you that Danny inputed 
our ask off notes, and every week my schedule was wrong. 
I was scheduled for shifts while I was in class. I had to find my 
note in a pile of notes every time to show the owner that I 
had put in the right note. She never got in trouble and my 
schedule was constantly messed up. 

Let me explain something. Even though we had the title
of assistant crew captain, crew captain, manager, etc we had
no real authority. Our goal was to make sure that the
employees did their job and that the customers were served.
If there was ever a real problem, we did not have the
authority to do anything about. Not even Danny. Only the
owner could do something. This is not how management works.
There has to be some form of power for employees to respect
management and leaders. Without any power or any authority
the employees know that they can do pretty much anything.
The only power we had was that we could send people home.
When an employee refused to work, I would send them home. I
always got in trouble for sending people home. I would get
in trouble, but the person not working, having an attitude,
using profane language, or being disrespectful to customers
would not get in trouble. We were told we could send them
home, but it really wasn't our place. On “Bar Rescue”, 
John Taffert always says there is no point in having a manager 
if they have no power because nobody is going to respect them. 
And the managers at this store were never respected. 

Things continued to get worse during this period. One
morning, I was in the drive-thru taking orders, taking cash,
bagging, and making drinks. I asked for help several times
since I was doing everything. My good friend was on the
other side doing the same thing as me. Neither of us was
being helped at all, so she asked for help several times.
Nobody would help us. We had a fry order, and “Manger
Danny Devito” refused to make the fries. My friend went
and made the fries herself, and Danny went off on her. She
started screaming at her and telling her that this was her
fault. Customers meanwhile waited around 20 minutes for
their food. This was a almost a daily occurrence. You
couldn't do anything without getting in trouble with
her. Customers and employees complained about Danny, but
Danny still worked there and was still in charge. I would go
home crying every day. 

One day my good friend, Loren, had recently heard
about a death of a friend. She was very upset. She went to
the bathroom before her shift and was crying. I went to her
and tried to calm her down. As soon as we did this, Danny
was banging on the door screaming at us to be at work. I
tried to explain the problem, and Danny said leave the
personal shit at home. So we went back to work. 

During the random management meetings that we had, we
were degraded, yelled at, and told that we better do a
better job. The customers are bad, but the "general
managers" were the absolute worst. I can't honestly
remember a good day there during this time. Letters were
written to the owner, so he could know about the problems
firsthand. All that I was told was that Danny was a high
strung personality, and we had to talk to her a certain way.
And that just doesn't fly with me, so if she got in my
face, I sure enough got right back in Danny's face.

So not only was the work environment inconsistent and
horrible but also we had old registers that broke
constantly. They always broke. That means that we could not
ring up any orders most of the time. We had to memorize
totals of items, and write them down. We had to take the
order, write it down, and tell the back to make it. Then we
had to figure out the total and give appropriate cash back,
etc. It was a total nightmare. When they started working
again, you had to ring it up and see if you got the right
total. It was never fixed while I was there this time. The
owner didn't seem concerned about the problem despite
the problems it caused.  

I am not saying I was perfect during this time either.
I have a short fuse and went off on people when I
shouldn't have. But that is what we were taught. I lost
my keys all of the time, but so did everybody else. Every
time I did something wrong, I immediately went to the owner
and told him, so he didn't hear it from someone else. I
knew when I did something that I shouldn't. I apologized
to the employees and went about my business. 

I am not saying there were not good people there and
that I did not make good friends that I still have to this
day (Big Red and Loren to name a few). I can't say that
I didn't learn anything from working there because I
did. I am just saying just because you are making money,
doesn't mean that your store is successful. It takes
more than money for it to be successful. 

Needless to say this went on for 4 years. I put up
with the emotional and psychological abuse from Danny. I put
up with the neglect from the owner. We never had the tools
that we needed to run that store. Items were always broken,
and it would take months for them to get fixed. After 4
years, I got accepted in the Masters program at California
Baptist University. My husband and I left to embark on our
Californian adventure....which would also include the great
chicken restaurant….    

To be continued...