Thanksgiving!

A time for families who love each other to gather together at grandma’s house.

Or.

It used to be.

Now days, it’s a time for cranky people who don’t like each other to go out in public and share their crankiness with lots of other people.

Until I moved to NYC I’d never been expected to work the holidays because restaurants weren’t open.

Then comes the Hard Rock.

Open breakfast, lunch, and dinner for regular hours every thanksgiving. What could possibly be wrong with that?

As an employee you had to work either Christmas, Christmas Eve, or Thanksgiving. One of them. I always chose Thanksgiving. And every year it was a shit show.

First, not ever. In the history of the world. Has a restaurant ever prepped and cooked enough turkey dinners. By 3:00 or 4:00 you are telling people that they are eating burgers for dinner.

Second it only took one shift to learn that the people who eat out on the holidays don’t like each other. At all. In fact they might even hate each other. The tension could be cut with a knife.

Third, the matriarch takes it out on everyone that their family hates them.

Two years ago at RiRa a woman lost her shit because her 25 year old son couldn’t get carrots with his salmon. The carrots were for the turkey dinner. LOST HER SHIT.

So much so that she called the next day to complain about our horrible treatment of her 25 year old son.

She called from work, caller ID is a wonderful thing. When she began to threaten me, I ask if her employer knew she was using their phone to threaten people. She asked for an explanation. I explained that I had her name, her employers name, the phone number, and if she continued I’d call HR on Monday.

She hung up.

Whats fun now, is that people expect you to be open. They don’t even consider you might be closed. They leave messages, 10 for dinner on 11/25. 2 for dinner on 11/25.

They get cranky when I return the call saying we are closed.

As for my thoughts.

I think everyone should be closed on thanksgiving. Let your employees have the day.

And.

People tip like shit I the holidays. I made less on thanksgiving than any other shift of the year.

Stay home. An argue with each other. Don’t take it out on unsuspecting servers.