And I'm out....for good...

I went to California; I got my master’s degree, and I came back to Louisiana. The chicken shack was opening a new store. I started back working at the non-profit. I could not become a counselor because my degree was out of state. I didn’t know this at the time. When they opened the store, I decided to help out with marketing. I then started working 2-3 nights a week at the older location. Within 2 weeks I was promoted to an assistant manager. I was approached on Facebook by the manager and by the owner in person to start working full time. I was told that I could look into getting my own store. I thought about this for a while and went back to the owner with a plan to be the GM of the older location and work my way up. We decided on several things including pay, and I left the non-profit after a year. I learned how to do many things. I thought this would be better since I was in charge. I was wrong. People that the owner liked could literally shit in somebody’s food and he would have looked the other way. He did not like confrontation and would not confront anybody. Usually people got into trouble when he was at work, and they did something they weren’t supposed to do. His anger would get the best of him, and he would “go off” on that person. I excelled at the older location. I maintained labor and got food costs down. I also helped the store maintain a profit despite it being the older location. I was given high marks from the business consultant. There were things that did not go well down at the older store. The new store would walk in and take things from the older store. These employees thought that they were more important than the employees at the older store, and there was a definite ridge between the two stores. After I went to a new store opening down south, I came back to find out that I was moving to the new store, and I was not happy at it… Not one bit…

There were several people that I was able to help get promoted. They would not have been promoted if it had not been for me. Their personal beliefs were a problem for the owner, even though their work was fine.

I was essentially demoted from GM to assistant GM. All of the things that I knew how to do, I was told I couldn’t do anymore. I couldn’t even have a key to our training facility. It was stupid. I worked there for a month and was given the ability to do the schedule. This was my absolute favorite thing about work. I love the schedule, and I was really good at it. I was always given high praises for my work on the schedule. I also worked with the leadership team to work on developing a higher caliber employee. I helped the supervisor work on training and worked hard to get training off the ground. This was a huge problem at this store. People had not been trained properly. I was given the go ahead from our supervisor and owner, but the GM did not like the extra labor hours being used for the store and complained and would change the schedule all of the time. I had to have a conversation about this with the owner to make sure that this wouldn’t happen again. Other things started to fall through the cracks. Things that the GM had to do were not getting done. I was told that my job was to make sure that she did her job. I told them that should not be my job. I had to schedule all of her meetings and make sure that she actually met with whom she was supposed to meet with when she was supposed to meet with them. I became a glorified assistant. My dreams of getting my own store got pushed back more years. I was told that the corporation was not hiring women to own stores. I was told that I should focus on my job at hand.

I can honestly say that I can be bitchy at times and that people don’t really like how I treat them. I just feel that if you do something you aren’t supposed to do, you should get in trouble. If you don’t do something that you are supposed to do, you should get in trouble. Apparently other people don’t feel this way. I don’t care about what people do in their personal life. However, if what you are doing affects your work performance then we have a problem. We had several and still do have several employees that do drugs at the store. There have been incidences of said employees falling into the fryer, standing around not doing their job, sitting down on the ground, etc. The owner would do nothing about this. One employee was caught smoking a joint on his break. He was fired and then came back a couple of months later. He walked out on the business 3 months after that. People would not show up for their shifts because they would be so hung over. There was no system of checks and balances. I had the support of the supervisor with regards to people calling in. Eventually people got in trouble when they would call in and not have an excuse. But it has taken almost 20 years. They may not now that I don’t work there. I also heard more curse words at this establishment than I have working with adolescent teenage males.

Anytime I feel that I have been overly mean or angry to someone I have apologized. I have taken that person aside after the fact and talked to them about what happened. There are several incidences when I feel that I was accused of doing something that I did not do. There was a particular girl that worked at the store. We will call her Barbie. Barbie thought that the world revolved around her. She was best friends with the owner’s child. Ask-off notes were due on Tuesday. She would always text me things after that day to fix. I would fix them unless I had printed off the schedule. I would tell her every time that she needed to write that down on the paper, and it needed to be by Tuesday. Every week I would complain and was told that as long as she is giving a valid reason to fix her schedule. Well what is the point in having rules if you aren’t going to follow through with them? Well Barbie sent me several texts one week about her schedule. I had already completed the schedule, and it had been printed. She needed something fixed. I told her that I was not going to fix it, and she would have to work what she was scheduled because I had changed her schedule approx. 6 times. She went to the owner. The owner got the supervisor to confront me about this because apparently he doesn’t have the balls to do it himself. I was livid. I was told I was being inconsiderate. I gave example after example of her abusing the system. I was told that it didn’t matter. She had a good reason to not work. I admittedly wanted to resign. She also accused me of slamming a tray at her when she was at her table. I never slammed a tray at her or anybody for that matter. Barbie did not show up for work one night. She did not tell anybody why she couldn’t work. I found pictures of her partying all night long with her friends and printed them out. I put them with her no show sheet. She stated that her dad was in jail. I told the supervisor that did not mean that she should not get into trouble. She was out partying. They said that she had a good reason. I decided it was time to find another job. She has since been promoted by the way.

Things started going downhill from that point on. I was not happy about how employees were being treated and how concerns were being ignored. We are constantly asked what we need to make our job better and what we need to make daily life better. All the suggestions were heard and then ignored. I asked for help with the GM and others with the schedule and what would make things better. I asked for them to be in the kitchen prep in order to learn and nobody did it. I asked for many things and was given false hope that things would happen that did not happen. I also had a friend at the store and our relationship began to dwindle, which only made my attitude worse.

I was constantly being told about things that I needed to work on and things that I need to do. I met with the owner several times in order to help explain to him things were not going well on my end, and I felt like an assistant. He acted like he listened, but he didn’t. I started looking for jobs elsewhere. I even thought about taking a demotion, so that I wouldn’t have to be the GM’s assistant. Well the GM and supervisor went on a vacation and all hell broke lose. One of my good friends at the store got angry at the way the schedule was and openly asked why she had to work with certain people in her area. I was already on edge, and she just pushed me over the edge. I talked to her about the problem that I had, and she accused me of yelling at her and being mean. She left crying and went and talked to another manager. The other manager asked me to come speak to this employee. I told her that I was told by the owner and supervisor to take some time before I speak to someone to make sure that I am not too angry with them. I told the manager to let the employee know that I would gladly talk to her the next day and settle this. The employee went to the owner and said that I was belligerent, ugly, and mean to her and that she didn’t know what else to do. I was then called into the office and accused to yelling, screaming, and being a bitch to this employee. I had a witness that stated that I was not yelling because nobody could hear what I was saying to this employee. I became frustrated and told the owner that I would submit my two week notice because I am so tired of being accused of doing things that I didn’t do and not being believed by him or others that I didn’t do these things. (I mean after Dani and her behaviors I feel like me yelling at an employee is the least of his concerns if I did yell at an employee). Anyway, he lost it. He got mad and said that all I have been trying to do is change things and that this is his restaurant not mine. I told him that I was only trying to make things better because he asks for ideas and ways to improve, and I have met with him many times about things that need work on. Anyway, I went to write my two-week notice, and he told me that I didn’t need two weeks, that I was done. He said, “Give me your keys, now.” I gave him my keys, nametag, looked through my box and left. I didn’t yell at him. I didn’t scream at him. I didn’t cry. I just left. So anybody that has told you otherwise is a liar. It was on camera. Why don’t ya’ll watch it?

The thing that hurts the worst about this experience is that only one person called and texted to check up on me. Nobody at the store that I gave 13 years of my life called, texted, responded to Facebook messages or anything. I was abandoned. I was left alone. And to all of you that are reading this that still works there, that hurts. That hurt more than you could ever imagine. Just because I didn’t work there and the circumstances were strained did not mean you couldn’t talk to me. Even if the boss told you not to talk to me, you are your own person. He does not control what you do outside of work. He does not control you. So for that, I am hurt.  Very hurt from most of you. I thought we were friends, family even and when I needed you most you weren’t there.  I don’t know what else to say or do regarding that because I have tried to reach out to some of you and you guys wont’ respond to texts or to messages. I guess that means we weren’t as close as I thought we were.

Well that being said, I guess I am done with this chapter in my life. I have found a good job that lets me utilize the skills that I have. And when I have an idea, people listen. Things that I have thought about have been implemented and done. So I guess all of this was done for a reason…. But that doesn’t make it hurt any less.