They're all Douches

Hello friends. I was away for a glorious 4 days to visit my hometown and my bestest friends and my family. It was lovely. It was NOT the Italian Restaurant. Alas, I have returned to the fiery shithole that is my place of employment, and it took no time at all for me to be once again pissed off, resentful and disgruntled. And it all started so quickly...

I had literally just walked in the door, I wasn't late (for once) and was counting on a good 15 minutes to get situated before entering the thunder dome. But the phone was ringing, and I didn't see the morning to go person. Since I am the night to go person, and since I think anyone who is standing by a ringing phone should answer it (what an idea!) I picked it up.

"Thank you for calling the Italian Restaurant, this is Waitress, how can I help you?"

"Hi Waitress! Is your soup and salad still 6.95?"

"Well, yes until 4, so for about 15 more minutes"

"Oh, well I would like to order it to go, with the potato soup, and extra olives on the salad"

"okay, anything else?"

"Yes, lots of breadsticks!"

Ah, the vague 'lots of breadsticks' request. We don't just give these babies away, but I have to make sure she knows that so she doesn't slash my throat when she gets here

"Okay, you're order comes with 2, did you want to purchase 6 more for $2.65?"

"uh....isn't it unlimited?"

"Not for to go orders, you get a fixed amount, which is 2 per order"

"You're KIDDING me"

I just don't say anything because she is obviously expecting me to suddenly change my story since she copped an attitude.

".........."

"You only get two?! That's rediculous!"

I explain how we portion it, you get two portions of each item, she finally accepts defeat, doesn't order extra bread, and is sufficiently bitchy when she picks it up. Oh and I 'forgot' her extra olives. The second I hung up from that call I got another one of some chick who needed to know all the ingredients in the breading on the chicken we use in the scampi. And by this point I hadn't even clocked in or rolled up my sleeves. Bad sign.

I had spoken previously about Dude Manager, who I called DM for short. Well I am officially changing the acronym to DOUCHE MANAGER cause this guy fucking sucks. Whoever it was that commented on my last post that he is not really that bad, please let me change that idea for you.

As we already know, he had threatened to take away my shifts because he didn't think I was running enough food. Well I get my schedule for the week and my usual Thursday night to go shift isn't there. I think this may be a mistake since he hasn't been doing the schedule very long, so I ask the person he scheduled, who doesn't normally work nights, if he needs me to work it since DM messed up the schedule. This is via text:

Waitress: Hey, DM scheduled you my Thursday night close, did you need me to work it, don't you work your other job that night?

Co-worker: you really pissed DM off...

W: uh, are you joking?

CW: no...sorry

W: Can you call me at work and tell me what happened?!

So he calls me on the work phone and tells me this; a girl who used to work all to go but is now a server was asking DM if she could have some to go shifts, to which he said "you mean I actually have an option of who I schedule?"  and this co-worker guy told him "well, waitress wants to be full time and there are a few people who normally work certain days" and he said "well I want to schedule to go people who actually run food and take control of the alley without being asked" My co-worker, aware of my issues with DM, took this as a direct reference to me. And lo-and-behold, he took away one of my shifts. Might he slowly and surely be taking all of them away?

Of course I am super irate at this. This guy does not know me! and not to point fingers, but the co-worker who he gave my shift to and another togo who works a few days a week can't even run food because they have back problems, so what the fuck is that?! And the thing is, I DO run food. As far as taking control of the alley, we almost always have someone expo-ing the window, and I guess the expectation is that if this person walks away, I am supposed to immediately notice and jump right in. If you ask ANY of the culinary assistants, they will tell you that not only do I run food, but if they tell me they are stepping away from the window, I ALWAYS watch it for them. I just can't believe this asshole walks in here and makes this judgment about me and thinks he can just fuck with my life like that. I need those shifts! So I decide I am going to talk to the GM about it. Problem is, she is crazy. And she was kind of extra crazy last night because she was working alone, and we were on a wait for like 20 minutes (the horror!). So I waited until I could tell she has cooled her jets, and gave myself some time to plan how I was going to present it so she wouldn't get defensive. I finally saw her heading to the office, seemingly not freaking out for the moment, so I followed her

"Hey GM, can I talk to you for a second in the office?"

"Yeah sure, what's up?"

"When I work to go with you, do you feel like I do a good job? Like, do I run food and get things done?"

She gives me a pensive look "well...you could run more food.."

"Well everyone could run MORE food, but I'm not a bad to go person am I, you don't think I'm lazy?"

"No, why would you say that?"

"Well, I get the impression DM doesn't like me and thinks I'm lazy, and he's taking away my shifts"

"what, why would you think that? He wouldn't do that!"

So I fill her in on both my conversation with him and what he said to my co-worker, concluding with the fact that twice now he has not scheduled me my regular days

"Well, he hasn't said anything to me about that, and he really hasn't been here long enough for me to know if that is something he would do, but I'll talk to him about it. You're doing a fine job, don't worry"

It was like some kind of Christmas miracle! Not only did the Crazy GM actually listen to me, she didn't get defensive, didn't make it into a problem about me, and admitted that she wasn't so sure about DM at this point! I would like to point out that I have NEVER gone to a manager about a problem with another manager, but when it gets to the point that my shifts are being taken away, that just hits a little too close to home, ie my fucking bank account asshole. The douchebaggery and the threats are one thing, but even Bitch Manager has never actually fucked with my schedule. So who knows if she will actually talk to him, and maybe he will talk to me himself and yell at me for talking to GM and not him, but whatevs, I needed to say something.

On that note, I am going today to talk to someone about a job I am trying to get. Cross your fingers for me. I can't handle 35 hours a week of this madness anymore.