Ah, where was I? Last time I wrote about my workplace here, it was to discuss some issues related to food deliveries in Manhattan. Today, I have another update from the frontlines of the food service industry in New York City.
So, let us establish the context. I work at a midtown café, which is relatively new… It has been in existence for just over 2 years. Statistically speaking, this makes it successful (after all, a vast majority of new food establishments close down within 6 months). We never see the owner, who does not even reside in the United States. The face of the business for us is the manager. Like I have mentioned before, he is a fair-minded, easy-going person with a good eye for successful innovations, who shares equally with all the employees the meanest of tasks during busy times. We all respect and like him. Moreover, ever since he became a manager, the business has prospered. As a context, on an average weekday during 2014, we used to make somewhere in the vicinity of $2,500 to $3,000… Now, that average is closer to $4,000. Within a year!
Follow me below the fold for the diary.
So… Suddenly we get tidings that the boss (read, the owner) has finally noticed our remote and insignificant existence. Yes, we have been successful, but now that he has seen how much we have improved within a year, he likes the “potential”, he believes even now we are not doing enough to make more money for him… Sales should be closer to $6,000 per day, we learn.
So, get this. He appoints a manager for the manager. Before we know what has been going on, she arrives and announces that she has “secret-shopped” us for over a week. She (let’s call her Gloria), finds two significant faults with us. First, we did not choose to serve her when, on a weekend day she came in 30 minutes AFTER closing time, when we were cleaning and mopping the place and ask for service. Nobody remembers her but she claims she came in and was told that we could not serve her because we were closed. We are treated to a half-hour lecture on the importance of taking EVERY possible sale… Even if the kitchen was closed, even if the register was closed to for the day, we should have asked her whether she wanted an energy bar, or an orange juice or something. What’s wrong with us, she asks… It doesn’t matter it is after closing time, a sale is a sale… Turning customers away because you are closed is bad bad bad for business. We should know better… A customer will never return if they are insulted, if they feel snubbed somehow. We vaguely try to protest that we were CLOSED at the time… that cleaning the place and making it ready for the next day is a job in itself, as important as serving customers. But no… A sale is a sale she repeats and that is final. I know I was on the shift when she is supposed to have come in, but, again, I do not recall her…
Our second fault? Wait for it, wait for it … We are “too professional” with customers. Too business-like, it would appear. Not smiling enough, not looking like we are having “fun”. I stifle an internal groan. I have a lifetime of experiences with managers and bosses who insist that we have to be having “fun” at work… In case anyone wonders where that has led us, I would recommend Barbara Ehernreich’s excellent Bright-Sided. But more to the point, it is not true. As a front-of-the-house employee, I can testify that we are having fun all the time… We joke with each other and with the customers… We often share a laugh with the regulars… We are a happy team (or were, till Gloria showed up). Now, when it is lunch rush and there is a line, we do focus on speed of service and perhaps our cheer may seem less… But we do make the sales, right? And if we are faulty for our “professionalism” then I for one am glad this is the worst thing that can be said of us. I am almost tempted to ask whether we could be having fun, given fault number one, above and our relentless focus on making more sales.. Fun, after all is kinda extraneous to sales... But I keep my counsel for the moment.
But now, more changes come. We are given a new schedule… It is our old schedule, except now we are told we cannot go overtime or we have to WRITE an explanation to our manager-of-the-manager. We look at the schedule… End of evening shift is marked as 10 pm… But… we close at 10… That is, as per official policy of the establishment, we are supposed to serve a customer if they come in at 9:59 and ask for service. So 10 pm is kinda iffish anyway as a closing time. But after we officially close for business, there is a closing procedure and cleaning which take anywhere from 45 min to 1 hour. So you mean to tell me, I cannot stay beyond 10 pm and if I do I have to write an explanation? Every time? As in, “I am sorry I could not mop the floor in 1 second. I apologize but my gross inefficiency has resulted in an overtime of 20 minutes because the register needed to be counted… because the display case needed to be cleaned… because the coffee machine needed to be washed… I am really really sorry about that.” When we timidly inquire what she means by imposing such a firm and unwavering closing time… what will happen to cleaning? … to closing the register accurately?... Gloria smiles a triumphant smile and launches into another tirade… Everywhere she has worked before, it would appear, employees are cheating the boss out of his justly earned profit by stealing working hours… Everywhere is overtime inflated unnecessarily… Everywhere lazy good-for-nothings slouch about and take an hour to do what can in fact be done in mere minutes. She looks positively glowing… she has uncovered our little game, she has only been here a mere couple of weeks but she has managed to put her finger on the problem… She does not call US lazy good-for-nothings… she uses that expression to describe those other places her expertise has miraculously fixed… They complained too, she tells us… but then most of them learned the lesson and whoever did not, well… Shrug of the shoulder would indicate no concern with their fate. There is still no answer to the question of how to clean the place and not do it in overtime. The implication would seem to be that we have to do the closing on our own time.
After she leaves, our little team is not so happy anymore. We make some calculations… The new schedule rule will cost each one of us between $60 and $100 per week. Moreover, it is illegal. We talk about how our reward for increasing sales by over 1/3 in the course of just a year will be LESS pay. We feel outraged. Plans are discussed to look for new jobs ASAP. I am considering my options. But one thing is clear… the corporate mindset has made its ugly appearance at our little café. The boss may make more money out of it… Or it may fail and close down… But what defies logic, to me, is the fact that we were in fact SUCCEEDING… Sales have been steadily going up, morale was great… We were definitely not a case study for “Kitchen Nightmares” or “Bar Rescue”… And yet, and yet, here comes Gloria to rescue us… As a TV show, this would be hilarious… Because of how it has affected me and my co-workers, laughter is not really the first reaction that comes to mind…