"If I had my choice between a table of men or a table of women, it is always better to have a table of men. I'd much rather deal with some guy trying to grope me than some snotty little bitch with attitude."

--Waitress in the West Village

.......

I've been thinking a bit about why owners are usually such whacked out creeps and the thing I've come up with is that they've just never had to work in a real work environment. The type of place where most of you readers get your paycheck has rules on issues like sexual harassment, promotions, and work duties. And if all else fails, there's the human resources department.

That's not the case in most restaurants where the owner rules like some petty god--the largest turd in the toilet.

And since they're aren't any rules, except what the owner makes up on the spot, paranoia reigns among the workers whenever the big turd is around. Here's Roger talking about his owner.

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But the big question is always when our owner is going to leave?

Like tonight. He came in for a couple of hours and then said, "Okay, guys. You're in charge, I'm going home." And he took off.

So we're pretty sure he's gone at this point. But some nights it'll be like midnight and we're thinking, "Is he going to leave? 'Cause I really want to order some food." Or "I really want to cut one of the servers and he doesn't want to make any of the cuts yet."

So you're kind of waiting around, waiting around. "Okay, what time did he come in? So he's been here since noon, okay. He was here all day yesterday, so he's got to be tired. I'll bet he's leaving any minute."

Maybe he's even gone. 'cause sometimes, he'll sneak out the back. So sometimes you don't even know if he's there or not. He'll just leave. So it's, "Okay, go downstairs and knock on his office door." This happens every single night, trying to guess whether our owner is still in the building.

It's horrible. Sometimes he hasn't even been in all day. That's even worse. You ask the day people, "Was he here today?"

"No, he wasn't in all day."

So it starts to get 8:00 p.m., 9:00 p.m., 10:00 p.m....Maybe he's not coming in at all. Or he'll drop in at 2:00 a.m., and if he drops in at 2:00 a.m. and there's two of us here and we're completely drunk, we're gonna' get fired.

So then you start to hold out. "Okay, it's 3:00 and we close in an hour. There's no way he's coming in." But you never really know. He pulls weird hours. "I was in the neighborhood," even thought he lives way uptown.

He's playing us, totally. Sometimes, he'll leave and then he'll come back in two hours. And you're thinking, "It's a good thing I didn't go home early."

And you can get to the point where you can figure it out. If he leaves and he's, "Alright guys, make sure this place looks clean tonight." He's probably not coming back. He's making sure everything's set for the morning. Ya' know?

9:09:03 AM     comment []