I work for one of the big contract food service companies, meaning we do office cafeterias.
I was hired to manage the dining hall. My GM wants me to be super hands on, helping the team out during service. And I am. The problem is, my clothes gets dirty every day when I help change food trays and bus the serving stations. One day I got a big stain on my shirt and I had to switch into an associate polo. I started wearing that polo shirt for a week straight because I really don’t want to wash or even dry clean my nice shirts after every wear. Another reason is because I’m moving so my clothes are in boxes. A polo shirt is just very convenient.
My GM asked me two days ago why I was wearing a polo shirt, I told him the reasons. He didn’t say anything more. Today I got a warning for wearing that polo shirt. And his answer to my problems is: 1 just don’t get your shirt dirty; 2 I know you said you moving but this is not what a manager should say.
Another thing I was warned about was a time where I wanted some information from one of the associates but she was talking to the GM. So I sat down for a minute and was on my phone for some personal stuff (A lot is going on in my life) And my GM told me that was unacceptable. Granted it was during closing time and people were busy, it was not a good look for a manager to be sitting down. But it was a pretty one off incident.
My GM works very hard, he’s basically at the office 14 hours every day. Accordingly, all the managers have to be here 10 hours every day too.
A few days after I started this job a cook jokingly asked me if I hated this job yet, I asked him why. He told me he hated the upper management. Now I finally understand why. I just hope I don’t get my soul sucked out of me before I gather enough experience to switch jobs.