I’ve been a GM for almost ten years.

Trust me when I say that the worst thing that can happen during a shift is….

Worse than a fire, which has happened.

Worse than a gas leak, which has happened.

Worse than running out of French fries, which has happened.

The absolute worst thing that could happen is the POS crashing.

This happened tonight around 7:15.

On a holiday weekend.

On the busiest Friday night we’ve had since before Christmas.

Usually it’s an internet problem.

Tonight it was a system wide Toast issue.

Truth be said the POS operated in its offline mode exactly as is was supposed to.

But.

It threw everyone off.

And for thirty minutes things got tough.

I never panic in an emergency. I go to my calm place. That’s what happened tonight.

Until I didn’t.

I might have lost my cool for about 94 seconds.

I might have snapped at an employee.

For the past 7 or 8 years my rule has been if I snap at someone inappropriately I buy them a drink.

Three minutes after I snapped, I took 20 bucks out of my wallet and handed it to the employee.

She wouldn’t accept it. But I tried to uphold my commitment to always do the right thing.

The POS was down for about thirty minutes.

Then all was well.

There was no real fallout.

Except for the dude at the bar who was angry because it took a bit to process his credit card.

He yelled at my host and told her he was never coming back.

Hmmmm.

Is that a promise?

Or a threat.

The rest of the night went off without a hitch.

Except our last reservation was 20 minutes late.

Then was slow to order.

Ugh!!!