Backstory- and it’s kinda long. TL;DR at the end.
I've been working at this bar for several months now. Been in the industry for about 7 years.
This place was started by a couple guys who have never worked in a bar or restaurant, and managed by two clowns who also haven't.
When I got there in the beginning, I was so excited about what it was bringing to my city that had been missing. A unique place that I wanted to move up in.
After a few weeks, I brought up my experience and expertise in the industry, in hopes of a management position so I could help the business grow, and was told basically “we aren’t ever going to move you up, because people who have been here longer might feel bad” and instead of moving anyone up, just put all the responsibility of managing the bar on the food and beverage guy.
Cut to a month and a half ago, this tool running everything drastically over-hired because he doesn’t understand the market in my city like I do. And now everyone behind the bar is getting around 17 hours a week. We aren’t making nearly enough money to pay our rent and buy food.
After talking with management, they all but say that the plan is no plan, and insinuate that they are just waiting for people to quit so that the problem “solves itself”. Essentially just starving us out until enough people quit.
I can understand being over staffed, but the problem lies with them not driving enough traffic to warrant the staff being there. And the giant slap in the face is the main guy in charge spends more than half of his time staring at the camera feed looking for things to bitch about, instead of did trying to drive traffic. And on top of that, shooting down every idea anyone brings to him to bring people in.
Sorry this is long winded, but I want to have context.
So today, I go into work like any other day, and start setting up my well. About 5 minutes in, the manager comes in and says “I’m going to have you serve tables today.”
I explicitly asked in my interview if that would happen and was told no. And since then have verified and been told, no, I won’t have to do that. I am a bartender. I don’t walk around serving tables. I make drinks and take care of people at the bar.
So I respond to him by saying “wait, you’re having me serve tables?” out of surprise because that’s not what I do, almost as a verbal double take, and his response was to shout and berate me in front of customers and coworkers to tell me that I am lazy, and ungrateful, and etc etc. Then he says “I am not asking or requesting, I am telling you to serve tables.” like I’m his fucking child. “Otherwise, you can go home”
So yeah. I went the fuck home.
5 minutes into a shift, as an excellent employee who is always on time, always staying busy, great with customers, pulls in a ton of money, gets things done, etc. he tells me I’m lackluster and ungrateful for the 17 hours a week of work I get.
I can’t keep working for power tripping, boot licking, brown nosing losers anymore. I’m trying to start my own business teaching cocktails instead of making them on someone else’s behalf. I am so sick and tired of arbitrary authority, and being treated like shit by other adults who think they are better than me because daddy gave them a loan to start a shitty business or because they are a man-child with “manager” in their title.
Idk what to do from here, or how I’m going to pay my bills, especially since my fiancé just moved out a week ago, but my god did it feel good to just walk out on a shift he really needed me for with a giant private event 30 minutes away that somebody had just paid good money to hold. I hope it was a disaster, and that the failure falls on this piece of shit manager. And I hope I can figure out how to pay my rent that essentially doubled this month when my fiancé left me with the other half.
Not looking for any advice, and with my resume, I’ll find another fantastic bar gig elsewhere, but just wanted to rant and to celebrate my decision to stick it to the man and artificial authority given to small losers who have nothing to live for.
Fuck that place, fuck Elijah, and I hope that place fails sooner than later. Because the writing is on the wall that they are on their last leg.
TL;DR: I walked out on my shitty bar job when my asshole manager berated me in front of my peers for asking for verification on a stupid request. He’s a small man looking for power and can’t handle it. I destroyed the night by leaving, and hopefully that sends a message to the incompetent ownership, that the rest of the staff is valuable and deserves respect. I’ll take the jobless bullet if it means my coworkers get treated better. Now I just gotta figure out how rent is getting paid after my fiancé moved out in the same week