And I'm back...

When I came back to Louisiana, I had no other choice but to go back to the chicken shack. I started off as a team leader but quickly worked my way back up to the assistant manager position. Dani was still in charge, and I was still not happy about it. However, I tried to ignore her as best as I could. I don’t remember as much about this time in my life. One reason could be that I was driving from Ruston to West Monroe every day that I had to work and was working a significant amount of hours. I still had to write my ask-off note every week even for scheduled events because if I didn’t, my ask off note would be wrong. I was also placed in charge of a Wednesday night catering event. I was in charge of preparing for the event, loading the van for the event, and working the event. I had other helpers, but I was in charge of the operations of the event.

When I worked at night, I would come in and there would be nothing done. That being said, I started coming in early just so that I could prepare for things in advance. One particular time I came in and had no salads, no wraps, no desserts, and no sandwiches. It was a good thing that I came in early. I frantically made the items necessary, but I still ran out of everything. I made a comment about the prep team not doing what they were supposed to and let another lady who was in charge of the manager know about the situation. Dani approached me the next day and started screaming at me. She stated that if I had a problem with her I needed to come to her face, and that she didn’t appreciate that I was ALWAYS talking about her behind her back. I walked away. Walked directly into the office with the owner and told him that it was she or I. She came into the office and started crying. She is a liar, so I am sure they were fake tears. I told him that I am tired of her coming up to me and others and accusing us of things without asking questions or finding out the situation. I told him that I didn’t even know she was on the prep team, and I told the appropriate person about the situation. It ended up with him taking her side and telling her how great a manager she was. I left approximately one month after this incident.

There was a lot of drama at this business. People were always spreading rumors about other people and saying things about others that were not true. I tried to work on these problems, but it didn’t matter. Our opinions never mattered. Our ideas never mattered. Why ask us for ideas if you aren’t going to use them?

I went and worked at a non-profit organization in town. I decided after a year that I was moving back to California to finish my master’s degree. I decided to see what I could do at the chicken shack in order to make some extra money in the meantime. They decided to do an overnight shift. This seemed awesome to me. Working with 1-2 other people, no customers, and just food prep. My friend Loren and I decided to see how we could work this in our schedules. I worked Thurs., Fri., and Sunday. She worked every night of the week. It wasn’t bad at the beginning. However, our lists of responsibilities continued to increase and increase until one night we just left. Our shift was from 10p-2a. That is just like anybody else’s shift. Nobody else is required to stay later in order to finish his or her tasks. They finish what they can in that time, and they leave. We were asked to go to Wal-Mart in the middle of the night to buy produce or things that we run out of. We were not managers. We did not have access to the safe. We were required to squeeze lemons, filet all chicken, prep for salads, prep for bulk salads, etc. One night the day person did not move the chicken over for us, so we had no thawed out chicken. We said screw it. There is no reason for us to do more work when we aren’t given the credit for it. We always did the most that we could.

Another time an agency came to clean out the vent hoods. People are not supposed to be in the building when this happens. They are also not supposed to be making prep. Nobody told us about it. The GM at the time, that’s right Dani was finally gone, told us that it would be fine. After 2 hours we could not breath, we were coughing, and we were nauseous. I got walking pneumonia from this experience. Never a thank you; never I am sorry. Nothing. All we got was ”why didn’t you finish your list?” That is how it always was at this store. The GM at the time wanted to get their own store. They asked me about things that they needed to work on. Needless to say that 5 years later she still hasn’t worked on those things. Every single thing on that letter that she said she would work on - she did not work on. That is when I went back to California to finish my master’s degree.