I worked at a winery in my area that had a flexible schedule, allowing me to return to and dedicate myself to my degree. I was there nearly a year to the day before this incident. During my stay, there was certainly a lot of illegal and immoral activity going on, especially in the conjoined restaurant on the property.
It was a Thursday, and a man calls stating he’s showing up with the group of 25 people on Saturday. My coworker, who took the call, stated our reservations were booked, and not only that, we cap at 16 (it’s the smallest winery out of all of the ones in the area as far as bar space.) He gives her pushback and says he’s going to stagger the groups in to get his way. She explains simple math to him, as doing that will still add up to 25 people. He was given the only alternative, which is purchasing cold bottles and leaving the tasting room, or he could not come at all. I don’t know how the phone call ended, but it ended.
Come Saturday, myself and another coworker see a large bus (think Greyhound size) park away from the gate, attempting to be unseen from the parking lot. A group of 8 are walking to the door, in which I greet them. The guy (I will not call him a gentleman as he is far from it) says it’ll be 12-14 people. Great! It’s a little busy but I can try to accommodate, and I bring them to the back bar to set up full wine tastings. But more and more people sneak in, and before I know it, I’m faced with a crowd of people I couldn’t even count from where I’m standing. I beg coworkers to come help me, but they’re busy. I ask one of the groupies if his is blanks group, as I felt in my gut this was the group that was told no. I ask for blank to come speak to me, and I then recognize him as the guy who LIED to me at the door and told me it’d be 12-14 people. He knew what he needed to do to take advantage. I told him, verbatim, “just so you know, I’m struggling accommodating your group because you were told no on Thursday.” He then backtracks and says he only wanted bottles and didn’t know why I was setting them up for tastings. Another lie. Eventually him and the whole crowd gets rowdy, and I step out and get my manager. They talk, and I go to the back to sob. Manager comes in and tells me to calm down and that I did the right thing, we’ll move on from this.
Turns out this circus clown is a “big business man”, and calls threatening the winery stating that “Facebook is a powerful tool”. Assuming he’d leave a bad review with a group of monkeys behind him to help. Because of this, my manager then backtracked herself and said I was wrong for saying what I said. The following Thursday comes around, and I am told to grab my stuff and clock out as they re letting me go.
I am at the point now of accepting I was wrongfully terminated, especially on the basis that mental and physical abuse occurs in their restaurant, but is constantly overlooked because of bias matters. I’m considering pursuing legal action, as my incident is just a grain of rice in the decaying vat that is that business. But I’m also in state of mind that I endured and dealt with so many horrible things that I don’t want to ever mutter their family name again, let alone bring them to court. Not sure what I’m going to decide, but I’m the meantime I’m just trying to figure out how the fuck I’m going to make rent now.