Restaurant worker here.
I've been working at this place for the past 2 years.
Also, not I'm not English/American, so I'm sorry for any mistakes.
Things are as follows
Back in January our chef quit, over unpaid wages and lack of interest from the owners. Huge faux pas on their part, this man was kinda crazy but exceptionally good at his job.
This brought in a huge turnover in the kitchen, which compromised quality for both food and service (lack of leadership in the kitchen means dishes don't come out in the proper order, and things like this).
In the last few months my personal stress level has been getting worse, and on top of that my manager quit because of family issues, he gave two months notice in March.
If that weren't enough my best coworker/friend quit for a better office job with better pay (I'm really happy for her and I was totally supportive of her getting out of this shirtshow).
The owner has been absent in this past couple of months. He's planning to come back for a couple of months starting May because we will inevitably be short staffed, and he's bringing in a new manager to train him himself. He's not the most positive person to have around, gets anxious easily and sometimes shouts and becomes angry for the dumbest stuff. And I should put up with this behavior.
I myself have turned down the offer to become manager of this mess, and plan on asking the owner to cut my hours anyway because of stress.
Now for the part that's actually making me think about leaving.
I've been managing orders for the restaurant for the past 3/4 months with no pay increase (didn't ask for one though, considered it beneficial for my skills), i have a part time contract and I am required to work full time, with the majority of my pay being cash, not covered by contract (so every day that I work that's not covered by contract i get paid cash, i hope i explained it in am acceptable way).
The remaining staff is uninterested in the job and has no passion whatsoever, or is outright confrontational and rude, and this makes it even more difficult to keep up appearances and be positive while working.
This arrangement was fine during the pandemic (the owner didn't lay us of because my now former manager convinced him otherwise), however with the booming amount of work around here and better contratcs (working conditions will not be better though ) I'm seriously thinking about changing jobs.
I'm so beyond tired that i can't think straight.
Hope i made some sense.
If I decide to leave, what would the best course of action be?
PS. I'm not in the US, I'm in Europe, and work conditions don't translate very well. Looking more for general suggestions… Or for a place to just put this out. Maybe I just need to vent. I'm sorry.
Thank you for your time.
I hope this is a valid post and didn't waste your time.