mental-health

One man may seem incompetent, another not make sense, while others look like quite waste of company expense. They need a brother’s leadership, so, please don’t do them in. Remember mediocrity is not a mortal sin.

/ fightmasterwrites / Leave a comment

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.    

When our long night is done, there will be light. There will be light. There will be light.

/ fightmasterwrites / 1 Comment

I’d really, really, really like to speak to the manager!!!

Actually.

I NEED to speak to the manager!!!

Hi.

It’s Jeff.

Remember me.

I’ll get straight to the point.

I miss writing.

I miss it a lot.

I literally write down 6 or 7 ideas in my Notes app every day.

But here’s the thing.

I haven’t been writing.

One post in a month.

And here’s why.

Back when the time the changed my depression kicked in.

I was reminded by Facebook, my blog, and my friends that this is a yearly occurrence.

Only this year it’s not lifting.

For the past month I’ve felt like I was moving in a fog.

Like I’m underwater, swimming, upstream, against a current that is about to go over a falls.

Most days have been like this.

Most people don’t know.

Most days Adam doesn’t know.

That being said, there have been weeks that have been very dark.

Like I’m already over the falls.

And again.

No one knew.

I went to work. I did my job. I was friendly. I was funny. I was outgoing. I led meetings. I solved problems. I made lists. I crossed things off my list.

No one knew.

I came home.

I scooped the litter boxes. I did the dishes. I folded the laundry. I cleaned my office. I sorted the mail. I went to the dump. I took the cans to the redemption center.

No one knew.

And I’d go to bed.

And I’d lie awake, wondering what the point of it all was.

Is.

Here’s the thing.

I’ve dealt with depression my whole life.

Well, since puberty. It really started when I hit 13 or 14. We moved from the neighborhood I grew up in. To a house where the nearest neighbor was not close. Then we moved again, this time to a small, small town, where I was called a f*g on the bus every day for two years till I got my driver’s license.

At this time, my relationship with my parents sucked, for absolutely no reason at all, other than I was not quite what they wanted in a son. I read. I didn’t miss school. I got good grades. I was really a text book pretty decent kid. Not what they wanted.

And the depression started.

And I learned to hide it.

I hid it through high school.

I hit it in college.

I hid it in Atlanta, Kansas City, Cincinnati.

And I continued to hide I couldn’t.

And then it came pouring out, like someone had run over a hydrant.

And for the next few years life pretty much sucked ass.

And very few people knew it.

In 1998, I moved to NYC.

And in the fall of 1999, I was at Marie’s Crisis, a piano bar, singing show tunes. And a cute boy named Mike, caught my eye across the room. The chorus sang out, Suddenly Seymour, as I made my way across the room to introduce myself. I did things like that back then.

And I ended up going home with him.

And we dated for about 6 minutes. Not months. Minutes. I think we went on three dates. Long enough to learn that he made a 110,000 year, he was in marketing and his partner of three years had just died of AIDS.

He was depressed.

I was depressed.

We agreed we were too depressed to date each other.

And one night we chatted about our depression and he suggested I go to his psychiatrist.

Mike and I stayed friends until I left NYC. In fact, I had a fabulous trip to Europe with him and a couple of his other friends in the spring of 2001.

I ended up making an appointment with Mike’s doctor.

And on my third appointment he wrote me a prescription.

He warned me not to go home and read about the medicine on the internet, as the medicine was usually for schizophrenics. I am not schizophrenic.

At this point I didn’t care. I was desperate for help.

I went home.

Took the medicine.

And woke up the next day a new man.

Seriously.

It was that fast.

It didn’t fix the problems, but the depression lifted.

I felt human.

I continued to see this doctor until I left NYC for therapy and drugs. He didn’t take insurance. Had a fifth avenue office, and my weekly visits cost more than my rent.

But I wasn’t depressed.

You hear of people selling their bodies for drugs. I would have sold my body for these drugs.

I was on a cocktail of three little pills that changed my life.

When I left NYC, I had a recommendation for a doctor in Maine. I saw him until he retired 8 years ago. At one visit he essentially told me I was cured. My visits were always the same.

Life is good. Life with Adam is good. My job is good. My home life is good. The cats are good.

Month after month after month after month.

The same.

Until my mom died.

I held it together for the cancer. And the funeral. And the clearing of the house.

And about four months later, it got dark.

I went to a new doctor and they said, relax, you are normal. This is called grief. Give it time.

And I did.

And it lifted.

And now for what is 24 years, I’ve been on the same cocktail of drugs.

Three little pills kept me normal.

Until March of this year.

The time changed and I changed.

And I got depressed.

And it has not lifted.

I’m in a fog.

I’m swimming.

Well actually sometimes it feels more like drowning than swimming.

And no one knows.

And I wouldn’t be writing this at all, except, Adam went to bed early and I’ve had a cocktail, and the fog is there, but I kept myself busy tonight and it’s the best I’ve felt in a bit.

But still there’s fog.

Still, I’m underwater.

I learned a lot in therapy in NYC.

I learned that the depression always lifts.

And that’s always been true.

This year is starting to feel a bit different.

I also learned that to talk about it takes the magic out of it.

No one knows.

No one knows.

No one knows.

Until you tell them.

So, I’ve told a few people.

And now I’m telling you.

I need to find a way out of this.

Tonight, a friend told me I needed a hobby. So instead of driving around after work, which I’m wont to do, I came home and started scanning. There’s more to come from where those came from.

I’m on vacation starting Monday. But for the first time in a bit, I’m not excited about it.

We are going to NYC to see an amazing array of shows, but I feel like it’s going to work. I’m hoping that once we are in the car headed south, that the sun will start to shine.

And the fog will lift.

Until then.

I need to talk about it.

So, I’m telling you.

And you know what.

As a white, American, man in his late 50’s it’s hard to ask for help.

We are taught that asking for help is a sign of weakness.

That only weak sissy men ask for help.

I’m not a weak sissy man…

But…

I need some help.

I wish I could tell you what that looked like.

But I can’t.

But if you could send some good thoughts my way, until this bullshit lifts I’d appreciate it.

Edit: I just posted this and the thing is there is no reason for the depression. Adam and I are fine. I have a job I really like. Our home is great. The cats are great. There is NO reason to feel the way I do. Which is the reason it sucks. I can get behind depression when someone dies, or dumps you, or fires you. But this. NO BUENO.

I smile. I don’t complain. I’m trying to keep sane as the rules keep changing.

/ fightmasterwrites / Leave a comment

I’d like to speak to the manager!!!

In September of 2023, I approached the owner of my current restaurant about working for him.  

I’d had the summer from hell, as you all know.  

I’d been told that I couldn’t take a day off, after working sixteen 6-day weeks.  

I said fuck that, and decided to explore my options.  

One of my options was to reach out to my old boss from ten years ago, and see if there was any possibility that he’d have space for me.  

We talked over the course of three weeks.  

The conversations were part interview, part venting, part just being friends. 

At one point, he told me that he had concerns about my writing.  

He was very clear, that he’d never tell me to stop. 

 He’d never edit what I wrote. 

Nor would he censor what I wrote about.  

But.

He did think that I often demonized the guest, when telling my side of the story.  

We didn’t discuss it for long, but he had made his point.  

We moved on.

However, I heard what him.  I thought it about it.   

He was not wrong.  

I did demonize the guests occasionally.

Probably more than occasionally.  

I wasn’t always empathetic to their side of the story.  

Within days, I started to write differently.  

I approached the stories differently.  

That’s not to say, I didn’t still share the evil, horrible things people did and said to me, but I tried to frame it in a different light.  

I was ultimately, offered the job, and I turned it down.  

I was promised, gold and silver and shiny things if I stayed.   The owner of my old job, actually cried when I told him I was going to leave.  Looking back, I realize I had seen this on a Lifetime movie before.   

Fast forward a year, and I have the new job, and I’m in a much different place.  

The reason I share all of this is because several of you have reached out to share that you noticed that I seem lighter.

Last night a friend texted that she liked how calm most posts are now.  

Another friend asked if my restaurant didn’t have assholes that dined there.  

The truth is.

I’ve changed.  

Because my circumstances have changed.  

Yes, there are still assholes.  One is sitting upstairs at table 22 right now.

Yes, there is still stress.

There is always stress. 

But it’s kinder, gentler stress.

It’s what one might call normal stress.  

I’m also generally not tired when I deal with It, because I didn’t work a 12-hour day the day before, then drive an hour, and get 6 hours of sleep.  

I’m also very much supported by my boss, who is a collaborator.

 Who asks my opinion and then considers it.  He might say no, but he doesn’t make me feel stupid when he does.  

So.

Yes.  

I’m lighter.

And because I’m lighter, I write about different things these days.

And the things I write about are considered differently.  

Last night, at 1:30 in the morning.  I couldn’t sleep.  Not because of stress, I just couldn’t sleep.  

So, I pulled out my phone.

Opened the Notes app.

And listed things I could write about. 

In all seriousness, about 50 new subjects.  

And not one of them victimized a guest.  Or an employee.  Or a manager. 

They are stories from my past.  

Colorful stories of the golden era of Jeff’s youth.  

Stay tuned.