About 4 years ago I started working at a bar in my city. I was ecstatic. It enveloped everything I could ever want a company to be and more. They embraced the weird and quirky of their servers and it was a family. If you had a problem you talked to Dad, our GM, and when he left to be our Regional Dad you talked to Mom, the new GM. We felt that we mattered not only as individuals but as a team. We made too much money for what we did and we were a happy little clan.
But as companies do when they are making a lot of money, we expanded. Went corporate. Mom resisted a lot of the changes the higher ups tried to impose on us saying that we were the OG store. We were what made this possible and not to mess with success. But the time came that Mom had to move on.
We are not happy anymore. We are not a happy little clan. Everything has gone downhill. And fast. Veteran servers who have been with the company 7 plus years are getting the worst shifts while new servers are getting to close every weekend. People with open availability get shafted while people who can only work two shifts per week (closing Friday and Saturday of course) get the best shifts. Every week.
It is getting frustrating. People who have just started are getting promoted ahead of people who have put in the time and effort. All the hard work we have put in gets outshined by how frustrated and angry we are now. A lot of us have the mentality now of “why should we go above and beyond when it goes unnoticed” which is sad.
I am 30, I can not be a server forever. I should have started managing years ago. But the cash money of the floor has been seductive. I am at the point now where I need to jump ship and find a company that maybe doesn’t leave me so frustrated every day.
sober server 