Getting the Heck out of Dodge…

Yesterday was a fairly long day. There is so much that I need to do in the store where my manager just quit and I have only so much time to get it done. I finally ended up shooting out of there around 4:30 yesterday afternoon and came home to veg for awhile, then went back in around 8.

The big thing about most of these folks is that I’ve only been there one or two days a week over the last few months so they pretty much do whatever the heck they want and think they can get away with it. I am having to seriously crack down on them in order to get things right. We are going into the busy time of the year and I have to get these people right in a very short time. I have one girl that I can already see I need to let go very quickly. I am doing inventories of the floor at the beginning and end of every shift in order to see what their food usage has been and last night they were pretty slow so the usage should have been low. When I did the count last night I noticed that seven pieces of pie had been used. No huge deal when you think about it, but if the stuff weren’t rung up I might as well take thirteen bucks out of my checking account and burn it. I told my waitresses that when they turned their tickets in at the end of the shift I need the pie tickets separated from the rest. Shortly after that the biggest thief up there comes back with seven dollars and says ‘I need you to ring me up, my daughter bought a pie and I wanted to make sure it get’s verified’. Yeah right.

So she paid for the pie, which was most likely just given away to whomever and not sold as a whole pie but at least we’ve set the ground rules and she is going to have to come up with a new way to steal from me in order to make her money. I imagine she will be quitting before the month is out anyway since now that I know for sure I am going to stay on her ass daily. I already have her replacement starting training Wednesday anyhow.

The wife is driving up to the Carolinas on Tuesday to pick our son up and bring him home for Thanksgiving. I think I’ve gotten her to break the trip up and go see our friend in Hilton Head. I means a total of a couple of extra hours but it’s better than trying to drive eight or nine hours straight. We still aren’t sure where the girls are going to be yet. She might take them with her but we may also have them with a friend of ours. The only problem with that is that I will have to pick them up at certain times and there just isn’t any guarantee that I will be able to leave at those times. Unfortunately for me as a district manager, we (and the guys above me) actually work MORE hours during holidays and make sure the store managers get the heck out of Dodge to be with their families.