A friend contacted me in December to talk to an owner opening a new restaurant for me to be the GM, while she ran the bar (which is her passion). She’s known the owner and his family for a while, and I’ve known her for a while. (Hell, I was the minister for her wedding.) So, by connection, I bought in to it when he said I was family.
I’ve been in the restaurant industry 20 years, and this was the most infuriating and time consuming experience I’ve had. But I still bought in to the BS because I was killing myself for my family.
But now I know “family” just means you get overworked, underpaid until you bitch enough to maybe get a raise close to what you were promised, and then get let go out of nowhere with a “love ya bro, no hard feelings”.
The weirdest part is that my friend and I basically ran the place because the owner was never there, and her and I would have a few misunderstandings from time to time. But over the past few weeks, I’ve had a weird feeling in my gut around the owner and his wife, while at the same time my friend has been a huge ass-hat to me at work for reasons I couldn’t conceive. Then it started where I was constantly out of the loop with stuff. My friend would tell me that the owner, or his wife, or “the investor” wants this, or doesn’t want that. Stuff I should be included about since I’m there 9 to 10 shifts a week. When I finally confronted her about it, she said that I disrespect her by going behind the bar without asking (by the way, when I did this, it was to take a bus tub back, polish glassware, or sometimes make myself a bitters and soda, but mostly to help the short staffed bar) and that if she was a man I wouldn’t disrespect the bar that much. That even if I’m a manager, I should ask to go behind the bar, touch her bitters, or grab myself a beer at the end of the shift.
Now, from anyone that knows me, this is entirely bonkers. I was raised by women: mom, grandma, even my great grandma when I was young. I am very liberal, very pro-choice, and also have younger sisters I am easily overprotective of. After my wife cheated on me I even made sure my therapist was female; I’ve just always talked with women easier. Any female I’ve spoken to about this situation thinks my friend has lost her marbles, and obviously has some issues with needing to be in control. Which I’ve heard about from others, I just never believed it or saw it in her before this.
So, question is: I already know about the issues I had with the owner, but is it wrong to assume that my friend, who went passive aggressively crazy towards me, and also has a better relationship with the owner and his family, had something to do with it? Or was this completely coincidental that I was let go all of a sudden because the owner “can’t afford me”?