My wife and i work at a busy hotel in Norway, in the restaurant, as hosts. Company recently did a campus where they emphasized the importance of telling stories, and how it's done. What a bunch of nonsense. 95% of the work we do at the restaurant is setting tables for groups (like 10 different things per person), washing dishes, refilling fridges, cutting lemon, refilling coffee and hot water thermoses, etc. Only 5% is actual contact with customers, and that's just explaining what's where.
We both hate this job, firstly because it goes against our values (we oppose animal exploitation) and secondly because of other staff. We're only here because we're having a baby and want to have him born in Norway. World of difference in healthcare than the country we're from.
Anyway, we're both getting extremely exhausted and quite frustrated with the evening shift and how they leave things for us. When we come to work in the morning, we need an hour or two to prepare everything before the groups start arriving. Recently, this hour or two has turned into us cleaning up after them, which means we have to work twice as fast. They leave leather table mats dirty and greasy all over the restaurant, they leave tea bags and stuff out on the counter instead of putting it in the drawer so guests are robbing us, box with rice was missing this morning, sugar bowl also missing, rice cooker and soup heater were not cleaned, half of the drinks missing from the fridge, nobody ever bothers to clean salt and pepper grinders of refill toothpicks, and this is just what i can remember off the top of my head. There's so much more.
Imagine having to set a table for ~30 people having only 20 minutes of time, and you bring the plates and the fucking forks and napkins and glasses and wet wipes whatever on the trolley, and then you see oh, the table mats are greasy and stink of food, cutlery is unpolished, and plates are not washed properly. Then you gotta go back and get another set of plates from a different cabinet and you notice OH THEY PUT 3 COLUMNS INSTEAD OF 2 AND NOW YOU CANT CLOSE THE DOOR. Take out the plates and put em back properly. Then you go and get the leather mats from the clean pile OH THEY DIRTY TOO – gotta clean them too. Etc. Etc.
I complained to the manager many times. Her excuse is that “it's always like this” and “some people work here for years and still don't do their job properly.” Zero authority in managing people. I also post pictures on teams almost every morning of the past week with instructions on how to do things and how not to do things. Nobody cares and they do the same shit over and over. This morning i put the whole evening shift in a group chat and said “hey team, let's keep our work area clean! Table leather mats need some love – please clean up after yourselves to make the morning shift smoother. Appreciate it!” Then i added 4-5 pictures of their fuckups and asked them to put themselves in our shoes and think how they would feel if someone leaves extra work for them, every morning.
One guy just left the conversation. Others just ignored it. At least fucking own up to your mistakes instead of hiding like little bitches.
If i didn't know about hanlon's razor i'd say the lot of them are actively trying to sabotage our morning shift. So frustrating. Today was the last day we tripled our effort so that everything goes smoothly for the customer. I wish, i fkn wish they do the same tonight. There's gonna be a pile of crap waiting for them.