So how has your day gone?

I have between about 25 employees or so. It’s a pretty diverse group of folks, but for the most part they are ALL in a low income bracket, between 8-15k per year. With that comes an attitude of “you owe me” or “the government should make up the difference”. That’s not true for all of them, but I would have to say that at least 23 out of 25 have it either consciously or through their actions. It’s my job to make insure that this “diverse” group of individuals gets along while at work, doesn’t steal me blind, does their jobs, and increases my business. Sometimes that can prove to be difficult.

I have written before about the hippy waitress with 15 dogs, and uncountable snakes, cats, and various other fucking animals, not to mention her old man, Snake Man (no shit, that’s what she calls him). Her entire life is filled with drama. As much as I enjoy laughing at a little drama every now and then, this goes way beyond the fucking limit. The most recent bit is that she thinks she might have cancer and die. I really don’t mean to belittle that because even the thought of it is very traumatic, but this is just another fucking chapter in a daily ongoing saga of hippy weirdness. She can’t sleep, and has to have pills for that, she is also taking what she describes as a “mild” sedative so that she can function in her daily life (and these are all legal scrips). Lately she has been doing a really great job. She quit smoking, so she stays in the restaurant, and therefore her tips have increased, as well as her attitude. She came in Friday, and I could tell that perhaps she had taken too many of her pills, but nobody else could, and she made it through the day with no problems. Yesterday at some point she must have taken SEVERAL too many, cause at the end of the day after she got off work, she could barely walk. Today, I thought she was going to fall out she was so fucked up. I pulled her off the floor about halfway through thew shift and sent her ass home. I did speak with her out back for a few minutes and basically told her that I was not going to do anything right now since she had been doing such a great job, but that she needed to get off the property NOW. I asked her what had gone on over the weekend to have such a drastic change, and she gave me the story about maybe having cancer and she is afraid to die. I know for a fact that she had her bloodwork over four weeks ago, and am pretty sure that if I was cancer, they would have let her know by now. I am starting to think that maybe she has HIV and is just afraid to tell me. Personally I could give a fuck, it would not change anything as long as she is doing her job.

I’ve also got a bunch of drama going on on both my evening shifts. I just know entirely too much about these fucking people. My pill popper that works nights dates one of my day shift cooks. They rent from my other first shift cook. There are a couple of other people that used to work for me, that also used to live there. What a goat fuck. Anyway, he (my first shift cook) is the one that was in jail a couple of months ago for obstruction of justice, among other things. I guess he borrowed $300 from my 2nd shift cook, who is his sister-in-law (didn’t see that one coming didja?), and has not paid it back yet. Said cook’s pill popping girlfriend to the girl he owed money too “Well, I will pay it back for him”. Neither of them have yet to pay anything (they are too busy spending their 12k/yr on pills and xbox games) so things have gotten pretty tense. None of this is any of my business, except that it is making things difficult at work. The 3rd shift girls bitches about what’s not done when she comes in, and writes me three pages fucking notes about it, explaining how she is the only one in the store that actually goes out of her way to do anything (of course) and how she can’t take it anymore, blah fucking blah. Don’t let the door hit you in the ass on the way out. I need to keep her though. I need to keep all of the whining, puling, fucking maggots, why might be explained later if I don’t start beating my head against the keyboard before then. Someone, probably my cook or his girfriend has scratched on a menu something derogatory about the cook that they owe money too. She is pretty acerbic, basically a bitch, but hell, I like her. She does a decent job, she shows up every day, and takes care of the customers, and her fellow shift workers. She could probably keep her mouth shut and not stir the fucking pot so much, but the others could be a bit less thin-skinned as well.

Then we have the 65 year old grandmother who works for me. She is pretty sweet. She is slow as fucking mollasses, but she will be retiring (maybe sooner than she thinks) sooner or later. She supplements her meager income of tips and her social security check by selling pain pills. To my pill popping night shift whiner. On my property. I haven’t caught her yet, but I know she is. I am sure she is selling, bartering, giving them away to others as well, but I don’t know who yet. Her son doesn’t work for me (damn) but he does work for another shop about 15 miles from me. He also sells drugs, but not just prescription shit. I did manage to catch him in a money transfer in my parking lot one day and let him know that I would call the law if I ever saw him there again. Stupid fucker.

The fact is that they may all be low-income earners, and half of them are fucking pill heads, addicts, and alcoholics, but MOST of them have made that choice. They have the choice in what they want to do with their life and their money. I pay on Sundays. Normally by Tuesday they start trying to borrow money. Now, if it is Saturday afternoon, and I know they will be there to get paid on Sunday, I don’t have a problem lending them 5 or 10 bucks out of my pocket, but the rest isn’t my money, and I have a deal with the bank. I don’t lend money, they don’t cook fucking waffles. Simple yet effective.

I am going to have a store meeting next week and lay down the law to them, I will probably lose a couple of them, which I can’t really afford, but it is stressing me out big time and I am going to hit someone soon if they just don’t shut the fuck up.

As far as my pay goes, I get about 40% of what I make in salary. The I get 10% of all the profits, which has gone down over the last seven months or so. I also get bonuses for increasing sales over last year. I haven’t seen a sales bonus in seven months either. Both of these are due to the fact that They closed the Walmart that was one mile from me, relocated it farther away, and a couple of other restaurants have opened in their parking lot. Instant decrease. Most of the college kids shop at Walmart, and whatever is near there is just more convenient for them. I am still one of the busiest stores in West Georgia, but it has hit me for about 20% of my income this year. My other bonuses come from bullshit I should be doing anyway, like sanitation, and making it to the bank every day. I get three (count ’em) bonuses based on RETENTION and hourly LONGEVITY, so unfortunately it pays me to have more fucking patience than god and keep some of these pieces of shit because most of the time they do a pretty decent job, and I would be willing to bet that my staff is one of the best ones in the company. I have had my ups and downs with them, and I consider them to be a pretty mediocre staff compared to some I have had in the past, but they are still better than anyone else in the area.

But they stress me out. If my dream job landed in my lap tommorow, I would be giving notice. No problem. It ain’t gonna happen. The closest I have come was working in the IT department for the same company. The drive sucked and it was less money though, so I have made my bed and am going to have to lay in it. Shit, I’ve done it for almost 20 years, might as well stay now. I may be opening a new store in the town where I live in a couple of months anyway, so I will only have to put up with these stupid fucks for a little while longer. I have inherited most of them. The ones that I have hired (other than pill-popping woman) are pretty good.

If you are still here, and awake, congratulations. I need to vent occasionally. Time to go out and smoke.

Some days I wish I were working in the post office.

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