I’d like to speak to the manager!!!

I love my job.  

I love my job.

I love my job.

More importantly, I need my job.

I need my job.  

I need my job.

The story I’m about to tell doesn’t happen often, but it happens enough that it is the one things that makes me want a new job. 

I work in a very conservative town. 

VERY.  

Two former Republican presidents, and Florida governor have a home there.

There is a natural assumption from everyone, that everyone things the same as them.  

This is far from true.  I know many liberal folks that live in the town.

What makes me want to have a new job is the conversations that I’m exposed to, that makes me want to put someone in their place.  

A single gentleman came in to the restaurant tonight.  

He is a regular.  Usually, he is with his wife.  

He sat at the bar.  Next to a another single gentleman, who thinks like me, and that I’ve known for 10 years.  

There was another couple on the other side of him, who were very much on the right side of the issues. 

They all drank, and by 8:00 we were well in to political discussions.

This happens more than I’d like, but no big deal.

But as it got later, the voices got louder, and the conversation became horrible.  

Racist.  

Homophobic.  

Offensive.  

The man discussed that his son goes to a liberal, liberal arts private school and they are trying to brainwash his kids and are grooming them.  They’ve hired a diversity and equity leader for the campus.  And that person, is forcing his son to hear that he should be accepting of the people who are shoving their lifestyles down their throats.  What’s going to happen next reparations.  The fact that they got in to the school in the first place should be reparation enough.  And I don’t mind that these foreign people go to school there but I don’t trust them one bit.  They run around, asking to be taught American customs meanwhile China is trying to destroy our country.  

It went on from there, never getting any better.

As a gay man it was very uncomfortable for me.  

And this is not the first time this has happened with guests.

They sit there, and assume that everyone thinks the same as them since we are in the town that we are in. 

Fun fact:

We don’t.  Not at all.  

And if we are lucky.  

That liberal, liberal arts education will have a good effect on his son, teach him to be more accepting, more loving, more caring, and less offensive.   

Meanwhile, I will continue to sit there and repeat:

I need my job.

I need my job.

I need my job.  

PS.  They were there until almost 10:00.  Long after the restaurant closed.  

I’d like to speak to the manager!!!

In case I haven’t mentioned it, Chef bought a new property.  2 new restaurants, sharing a kitchen in one building.  

They are due to open within the next few weeks.

Because we are opening a new property, we’ve been bombarded with people who want our business.  

Especially companies we aren’t currently using. 

We’ve taken this time to reexamine costs on everything.  

We’ve looked at everything from meat, dry goods, disposables, linen, wine, beer, liquor, dishes, POS, even reservation systems.   

Everything.  

For the most part, we had the best situation to begin with.

In a couple of areas, we found better pricing, with the promise of better service.  

I headed up the search for the best pricing on linen.  

Anyone in the linen business will tell you it’s sketchy at best. Chef has horror stories about linen services in NYC.    

We ultimately decided to change companies, because the company we had been using couldn’t provide the napkins we wanted for the new restaurant.  

In the middle of March, we signed the new contract.

On March 28^th I reached out to the old company to let them know we’d be terminating our relationship and asked for direction in doing so.  

I heard from no one.  

I called a couple of days later and was told that the person I needed to speak with was at a wedding and would be back at the beginning of the following week.  

I called back in the middle of the next week.  

I was told to speak to a different person, they took a message and told me I’d be called back.

No one reached out.

16 days after I sent the original email, someone locally reached out to try and save the business. 

Too Little.  Too Late.

I explained that I’d been waiting for someone for more than two weeks to reach out and I was still waiting, and could someone please let me know what I needed to do to cancel the agreement.  

A day later, a person reached out to say that they had reached out.  And they were confused.  

I explained that they’d reached out to save the business, not cancel the business.  

At this time, I let them know that 30 days from the first notification would be April 30^th and we would no longer need their services.

I finally got a phone call, telling me to call back, press 2 and leave a message. 

I did that and a woman called me back took my information told me someone would return the call and that was 10 days ago.

Friday morning, I sent another email reminding them that we wanted our services terminated and to please confirm they’d gotten the email.

Silence.

Tonight, I wrote a final email.

A little back story.  

For 2 plus years I had a corporate job in NYC.  I sat at desk in the financial district and I helped the sales/marketing team, find leads on IT leaders in fortune 500 companies, so that we could send them proposals on our new internet billing software.  

I discovered, early on, that if you could get an email for anyone in the company, you now had the formatting for 99% of the employees at said company.  Including executives.  

Hi this is Jeff calling from Alysis Technologies.  May I could I get an email address for someone in the IT department.  

Of course, it’s scott_smith@company.com

Now that I had the formatting, I could email anyone in the company.  

Fun fact:  One time I used this system for my own good.  

I changed cell phone providers to Sprint.  I got a new phone.  And a new plan.  I don’t remember the details but it was supposed to come with a free feature.  Let’s say long distance.  

When I got my first bill, I discovered that I was being charged for the feature.  It was more than 80 dollars extra on my first bill.

I called Sprint, and was told sorry, there was nothing they could do.

I called again.  Same story.

Went to the store.  Same story.

So.

I looked on line for the corporate offices of sprint.  Found several people listed with their emails.  

I searched for CEO of Sprint, used the same formatting and sent him an email.  

I was very nice, explained the situation and ended the email with, “You spend millions of dollars every day trying to capture one customer, and yet you are willing to lose that customer over 89 dollars.”

By lunch time the following day, I had gotten an email from the CEO’s assistant asking me to give her a call.  I did.  The problem was fixed.  And I stayed with them until I moved back from San Diego several years later.  

Back to my original story.

Tonight.

When I sent my last email to the linen company.

I cc’d the entire corporate executive team.  CEO.  CFO.  Director of Marketing.  Human Resources Director.  Executive Director of Operations.  The whole team.  9 people in total.  

I was nice.  But stern and explained that it was troubling that no one would contact me about cancelling our agreement.  

2 emails bounced back.  7 did not, meaning that they went to the people I sent them to. 

I’m not trying to get anyone in trouble.  

We are in a contract with the old company, and have an out, built in, but we have to follow rules to do so.  I have not idea what legally they need from us.  It’s disconcerting that after 30 days of trying, I’m no closer to formally cancelling the account than when I started.  

I’ll keep you updated when I know more.