Small Victories

Well in life we all have our small victories. I have been back at my old restaurant following the debacle at the bistro where the owner felt that he deserved a slice of the tips.

I made that decision for the simple fact that if I trained at another restaurant for another week I would lose pretty much a full month's income and I don't think my landlord would take to kindly to that one, plus I had just dropped $600 on textbooks and for some of us of the proliterate class that can be a bit of a hit.

Initially I was just going to work the holidays and move on, but there has been a few developments along the way.

Mostly the loss if about 50% of the staff.

That being so there were fewer top servers left as the winter rush picked up and that meant more money for me and a few others that had managed not to get fired or decided to move on.

The one real issue for me upon my return was the fact that the general manager, who was a corporate yes man in the highest sense, had brought the chain restaurant notion of small sections that theoretically would lessen guest complaints and such.

Well that theory in my eyes is just that, a theory, while the reduction of my section by 15% is more a bit of reality.

So several of us were on a campaign to human resources and the other new assistant managers to improve section sizes to what they were for four years, because although our new GM had been there for three weeks, he apparently had a better idea of what changes needed to be made than, oh say the entire staff, other managers, owners and anyone with a nervous system.

So for several months we went on with smaller sections and weaker servers to fill them. The staff we had to replace was pretty much the best one I have ever worked with, their replacements belonged at the Olive Garden.

Well, weeks of bitching, complaining and a few talks to one of our restaurant's owners payed off.

"How come your section sizes are so small?" He asked me on one occasion.

I was sure to let him know my opinion, one that he brought up in a management staff meeting, he was concerned about our lack of tables and its effect on our incomes. That can be a true rarity in this business.

So the next week the GM gave us some BS story about how impressed he was about how we handled the holiday rush and such so he was going to enlarge the sections. Like it was his idea, really it was the efforts of the service staff and our protest above his head that did it.

Personally I think it would have been better if we just kept our strong staff and those capable of being proficient servers instead of hiring sub-par staff, but that's just one man's opinion.

Irregardless we won, and the only good part about this whole deal is there are few servers that they feel can handle the largest sections and large parties, apparently I am one of them.

So I guess every cloud has a silver lining, and in this one I am cashing in on the inexperience of the staff with a larger section than they can handle and first pick on large groups.

Damn, it make it hard to quit, I think I might make this work for the moment.