I work at a family owned restaurant as a second job on the weekends. I usually work 11AM-11PM on Saturday and the same hours every other Sunday. We are severely understaffed and everyone is working themselves to the bone. I am the only bartender in the restaurant for the entire weekend, but this works to my favor money wise. I can usually make the equivalent of my entire full-time paycheck in a single shift.
We have a liquor license that will allow us to serve until 12:45AM but our hours have always been 11PM close because it's a family restaurant and we don't attract a lot of young people. Every single other member of staff aside from one of the owners leaves at least an hour before me at night, including the manager. Anyway, she comes up to me the other day and says “Hey good news we can stay open until 12:30 now.” As I was in the middle of the rush and didn't have time for a sit-down conversation. Also, we've always been able to do that, we just didn't because it didn't make sense.
I refuse to work from 11AM to 1AM or later (earlier?) when literally everyone else is going to leave before me. I'm good with 12 hour shifts and 2 days off a month. It's not my job to be the sole facilitator of this extension of hours. I guess the easiest solution would be to come in later as the night shift is where the money is, but I wake up at like 5AM for my full time job so I'd prefer to come early and leave early for the sake of some sort of consistent sleep schedule.
I think I'm just gonna tell her that I will continue to do last call at 11PM until she can find someone who wants to close. My fear is that they won't support me on this, and if someone comes in after last call and I tell them the bar is closed, the owner who stays behind will be like “No no it's okay we can still serve” and then what? I argue with him in front of customers? There's been more than one occasion where the last customer has paid their bill and I've all but closed the bar, but then one of the owner's friends comes in hoping we're still open and I'm put on the spot to serve them as the only member of staff left. It's extremely aggravating.
I'm just looking for some advice as summer is fast approaching!