November 5, 2007

One of my darned waitresses gave out my home phone number again. Apparently there was an issue at a different store tonight with the price a customer was charged on a sandwich and he got mad and asked for the manager. Rather than telling him the manager would be in tomorrow morning, having the cook take care of the problem, or giving them the 800 complaint number that’s next to the front door this girls decided in her infinite wisdom to give my phone number to the dude.

I couldn’t bring myself to call and cuss her out since that’s not very conducive to keeping my job, not to mention that she’s a meek quiet thing that I have already made cry once so I just explained that unless they wanted me to start handing out their phone numbers to any customer that asks, they need to not give mine out.

We have always had our phone numbers posted for the associates. Everyone from the store manager to the area vice president has their number posted in the back room in case of emergency. When I first took over the district back at the beginning of May there were no numbers listed, so I fixed that. Now I see why they weren’t listed. As a store manager my folks knew that the better not call me unless it was truly important but apparently these brain surgeons that are working for me are too stupid to know what’s important and what’s not. Some dude getting overcharged for his sandwich at 9:40PM is NOT IMPORTANT enough to call me. It’s not as if I am going to jump in my car and go give him his fifty cents back right this red hot second anyway. He can just wait until tomorrow morning when I wake up. Maybe I should call him when I get up at 4:30 and offer to give him his money back, the inconsiderate asshole. I have his name and phone number now…

Something Rosemary said in a recent email struck a chord with me this morning. I wasn’t going to rant & rave about work last night but as I had nothing else to say I just cleaned up the area around my desk  (ugly) and then went to bed around 11:30 or so.

We don’t give our associates phone numbers or personal information out. Hell, I won’t even tell you when someone is coming in to work next unless I know you and I know it’s alright. The same is supposed to go for the associates. They are not allowed to give out employee information or our phone numbers either unless you work there.

Although I was going to try and get home at a decent time yesterday it didn’t work out as I had planned. I was busy yesterday morning and then had a ton of paperwork to finish as well. I had to get back on the floor a couple of times during second shift as they got fairly busy and it was a good thing I was there. I finally finished up with my schedules and whatnot and hit the door around six, and proceeded to the bank. On my way out to the parking lot one of the regulars stopped me and told me about some issues they were having in my store at the bottom of the hill. Issues is right. They had called the law on him because he asked for them to make fresh coffee and wouldn’t drink or pay for the old stuff. He was somewhat drunk, so I am sure that didn’t help matters much.

I bought his coffee and got him quieted down and then went to the bank, planning on hitting the other store on my way home just to see what was going on. When I arrived at the store they, along with one of the other customers let me know what had happened. It pretty much sounds like the dude was just drunk and in the wrong but they carried it too far. While I am standing there my phone rings. It’s a number I don’t recognize but I answer it anyway.

This woman tells me that she and her family were just in my restaurant to eat and they ended up walking out because the waitress got into an altercation with a customer, chased him into the parking lot and then came in to wait on them without a hat and without washing her hands.

Wait a minute.

You just ate in my restaurant.

I don’t know you.

How the fuck did you get my phone number?

I was very polite and lied, telling her I was on the way and would get the problem fixed. I was actually already there but I needed to make sure she was satisfied and get her off the phone.

Since things were under control there I got back on the phone to find out who had given my number out.

The waitress that had given them my number told me it was an accident.

An accident?

What happened, you tripped and instead of saying ‘fuck!’ you said, ‘oh, 770xxxxxxx!’ How is giving my phone number out an accident?

Fucking retards…

I will be a bit more careful about letting stuff roll to voice mail from here on out…