Work Rant

I'm going to gripe about work a little bit. I know; what's new. Last week was very frustrating just getting through each day. This week started in the toilet and has gone down from there. The problems are multiple and interrelated, but the biggies are:

1. The economy. It sucks. Gas prices have eased back from insane to merely nuts, but it doesn't seem to be helping us (or anyone else I talk to in town). And what business we do get is "on the cheap" (plate splits, free ice water instead of soda or smoothies, three or four people sharing one brownie for dessert, blah, blah, blah). And don't even get me started on the crappy tipping. Tips are not something I expect as the dishwasher even though I probably wait on tables more than I wash dishes, but the counter people (when we have them; see below) hustle pretty good, especially with old coots who don't seem to get the idea of a deli-style lunch counter. It seems to me that the least you could do after running a minimum-wage employee ragged getting drink refills and bagging up your leftovers and busing your table and cleaning more food off the floor than we have to clean up from a family with small kids, is dig a lousy buck out of your $500 designer bag for the tip jar.

2. Employee problems. Mainly, they keep quitting and the replacements get little to no training before being dumped on the rest of us. Today, we had a brand new counter person being trained by the counter person that was hired three weeks ago. The owner? Off getting her massage therapy. She finally showed up around noon. Of course, this is why everybody keeps quitting. That and....

3. The owner is a mental and emotional wreck. Seriously; I don't want to hear about how horny you've been since you dumped your boyfriend or why you dumped him or that you have dumped him or that he's back in your bed or your feelings about... well, about anything. What we would like you to do is sit your scrawny butt down and come up with sensible work schedules, written employment policies, written procedures, doing inventory so we quit running out of things we need to do our jobs, getting more wholesale orders so our paychecks don't bounce, etc.

4. The food sucks. At least I think so. When I'm talking to people around town, I always get some line about how great everything is. And I do like the stuff the new pastry chef turns out and some of the cookies. But the sandwiches I make? Wouldn't touch any of it. Mainly because none of the refrigerated stuff is kept at the correct temp. Meat, cheese, mayo, whatever; it all sits out for hours at room temperature. The only things I eat at work are the potato chip crumbs out of the bottom of the bag and Scoobie snacks I get from the pastry chef. I wouldn't ingest anything else on a bet. It's hard to care too much about what the food you serve looks like when you know the meat is likely rancid.

Other irons in the fire: I may go back to the restaurant. There will be an opening there for a prep cook around mid-September. I would be working five days a week. The pay would probably be a bit more and the hours slightly more (but still not 40 a week), than what I'm getting at the bakery. And starting the first of September, the restaurant is going back to Tuesday through Saturday, so I would be back to having Sunday and Monday off. Not perfect, but better than six days a week. Another possibility I've already mentioned; a small cafe about a block and a half from here that is still in the process of being built. They had hoped to open by mid-August, but I would be surprised if they make mid-September given the delays they keep hitting. I have occasional contact with the cafe manager mainly because I walk by the place twice a day, so I can at least keep my name in the front of his mind.

In other sort-of-but-not-really work news, I will most likely be starting up college in January to take the last three electives that stand between me and a college degree. I should be finished up sometime next year. The classes are only six weeks, but I'm not sure when what I need will be offered. That only took from 1982 through 2009....

Well, that should be enough whining for one night.