Saturday, September 26, 2009

Just another thing to be pissed about.

I've mentioned before how my genius managers hired more people when nobody was getting enough shifts to begin with. Then the regional manager informed them they had to cut 100 weekly labor hours just from front of house. So now, we have too many servers, the patio is closed so they were scheduling one less per shift anyway, and they had to cut out another person every single shift.

So how did they approach this? Did they tell the hostess who just finished training that she'll have to wait for shifts? Or maybe tell the girl who refuses to work more than twice a week (and has for at least a year) to shove off? Maybe schedule the new, weaker servers a little less and keep the experienced ones on more often, since we're running a short floor anyway?

Oh, no. Of course not. I think their decision making process involved a spinning wheel and some darts. Other than I overheard Lapdog telling three or four of my coworkers that he tried to not cut their hours, because they have kids. If I hadn't been so busy, I probably would've shot my mouth off and gotten in to trouble with my coworkers, because it pissed me off. Other people decided to spawn, so I get screwed out of my shifts?

It's not like I want children to starve, of course, and I'm sorry for all of my coworkers who have kids and are struggling. But not having children doesn't make me less worthy of survival, goddammit.

7 comments:

Hellraiser said...

A spinning wheel and some darts! Nice :)I think that might be the selection criteria for passing through apprentice chefs these days too!!

LW said...

I frequently run in to the same type of issue. The people with kids can just call in with no replacement (I work a one server floor) but if I tried to do that I'd get fired.
I have nothing against parents, but it is unfair.

AK said...

Parents get preference at my job, too. I agree that it's unfair- you can't get a job like serving, which you know involves long/late hours and unpredictable schedules, and then complain that you can't be home for family dinner. Or that you're not getting consistent shifts to pay the bills... there's no such thing as consistency in restaurant scheduling.

Jennie said...

I am a parent and I realize this happens. Not all parents [like my husband and I] expect preferential treatment just because we have kids, it isn't fair.

Then again my husband never misses a shift because his bosses count on him and he is constantly covering both shifts because his single co workers are too hungover to come in or simply don't need the money as bad. [He still has all his personal leave, sick leave and 50% of his vacation left, while his single coworkers are out].

There are two sides to this coin.

purplegirl said...

I'm glad it's not just my restaurant that tends to do this!

@Jennie - I know sometimes the single people tend to be more irresponsible than those with kids, but that can go both ways too. One of the women who still has five closing shifts a week gives up about two of them a week, and she has a son. I figure they either need to base it on who actually shows up for the most shifts or make it completely even, without giving favor to one group or another.

supernovanator said...

I agree with most here. If you have kids and the best job you can get is waiting, you really had no reason to have kids. McDonald's pays a lot more per hour. Walmart is always hiring.

purplegirl said...

It's probably not politically correct to say so, but I kind of agree. Of course, there are people who lost their "real" jobs or accidentally got pregnant or whatever; there are always exceptions. I shouldn't judge.