I’d like to speak to the manager!!!

Management is hard.  

That’s what my friend Laura says to me, over and over and over.  

She was my first AGM when I became a manager!

She tells me often that management is hard.  

She is not wrong.  

I had the same conversation today with my front of house manager.  

I always thought the hard part would be knowing the job.  

How to do financials. 

How to manage labor.  

How to make sure the needs of the restaurant were met, like ordering trash bags, and paying the rent. 

Turns out that’s the easy part. 

The hard part is managing people.

The personalities.  

All different.  

Not unlike teaching.  

Who needs a hug? 

Who needs a scolding? 

Who needs to be sent home to breathe.  

Who needs a cheeseburger. 

Thinking back to ALLLLL of the manager’s I’ve had in my life, and it’s been a lot, there is a lot I’ve learned along the way.  

My first manager was a friend of my parents.

She fired me for being insubordinate.  

To her daughter.  

My next manager, chain smoked like a chimney.  Was about five feet tall.  Weighed about 80 pounds.  And was a firecracker.

She put up with no shit.  I followed her from the Georgetown Wendy’s to the North Park Wendy’s.  I stopped working for her when my car died and I could no longer get to Lexington.  

I always joke that when I got hired to be a restaurant GM, I sat down and said who do I want to be like. 

The name that came to mind was Mike Cook from Daryl’s restaurant in Lexington.  

Cookie.  

He was horrible

First question when you got to work was what kind of mood is Cookie in?  If he was in a bad mood, everyone was in a bad mood.  If he was in a good mood.  Everyone was in a good mood.  

He was one of the worst manager’s I ever had, because you never, ever knew who you were getting.   

And that I’ve spent the last 13 summers asking myself what would Cookie do, and then did the opposite. 

For all of my faults as a manager, the one thing that I don’t do is take out my personal mood out on my staff.  If I’m depressed?  If I’m mad about something?  I don’t yell at them.   I put a smile on my face and keep it to myself. 

Last summer, was the first time, I developed crack in my facade.

I had employees who could see the pain.  They helped as much as they could, but to no avail.  

In the past though I’ve had lots of good, and lots of bad manager.  

I’ve had managers who played with my schedule.  

I asked for 10 days off at the Hard Rock.  

The 10th day fell on the beginning of the next schedule.  

I went away on my trip, and didn’t show up for day 10 because why would I be scheduled.  

I was told I was being fired for a no call – no show.  

It took about 10 minutes in the GM’s office dropping the word harassment, and discrimination 17 times, for that decision to be reversed.  

The manager who played with my schedule was transferred about 6 weeks later because of me.  

While I’m on the subject of the Hard Rock, two of the best GM’s I ever worked with were there.  Great attitude.  Fair treatment.  Listened.  Cared.  Treated the staff like gold.  

Back to the subject.  

Managing is hard.  

Managing restaurants is especially hard.  

And it’s truly not for the feint of heart.  

I’ve learned a lot over the past 14 summers.  

Do I still fuck up?

Of course.

Back in 2014 I made a rule for myself.  

If I snap at an employee… 

I buy them a beer at the end of the shift.  

Not literally.

Because that would be illegal.

What I do, is take 20 dollars out of my pocket and give it the employee, to buy themselves a beer after work.  

And I ALWAYS apologize. 

ALWAYS

I usually only have a couple of occurrences a year.  

I won’t tag her in the post, but one of my favorite employees of my GM days, was a girl who hosted for me.  

We butted heads a lot. 

She gave her notice at the end of the third summer, in a letter to my boss.  

She gave him all the reasons that she hated me and that was the reason she was quitting.  

Fast forward six months, and she is working in a restaurant, in another state, and she texts me to say that she was sorry.  

She was wrong about me. 

After working in a restaurant, with actual bad management, she realized that I was quite fair in my expectations.  Was pretty clear in what I wanted.  

And wasn’t so bad after all. 

Since then, she has finished her degree, has two kids and I love watching her grow from 8 states away.    

She is not the only person to share the same sentiments with me.   

To end the story, she was the last customer I spoke to on October 29, 2017 the night before we all lost our jobs.  She was in town visiting and had come to the restaurant to see me.  She sat at seat 51 at the Front Bar and we chatted.  

She left.

I went home.  

The next day when I got to work, the locks were being changed and yellow envelopes were being handed out.

I was told, it’s just business.  

It’s not personal.  

But that’s another story.