Why your employees hate you and their job.

A lot of small business owners, as well as store managers are constantly faced with one question: why is our turn-over rate so high? The simple answer would be; you are rude, greedy, inconsiderate, and are incapable of ordering what you need for the next truck. If you want to keep employees for extended periods of time and don't want to have to train new associates every week, treat them with at least a little respect and learn how to run a company.

I went in to work today (the restaurant shall remain nameless considering I'm still employed there) and noticed we were two employee's short in my position. Considering it's a Saturday, and is expected to be busy I figured a couple called in sick. When I went to look at the schedule I noticed only the four of us were scheduled, which seemed very odd to me. I than suddenly realized it was the last of the month and knew exactly why we were short handed. The managers wanted their bonuses.

The way our company is ran, management is given a profit margin they are supposed to meet, if they meet the requirements they all get a monthly bonus. So, because they wanted a bonus, we were short staffed. Very nice of them, I know.

Now, here is my main problem with this whole situation. I understand wanting to receive the bonus, if I were in their position I would want the extra cash too. However, I wouldn't wait till the last day of the month to make sure I get it and wouldn't screw my employee's over either. It isn't because I'm a nice guy, it is because I would want my employee's to be as happy has possible. Happy employee's make for happy customers, happy customers make for more money, which in turn, makes management happier. Not to mention, angry employee's steal from you more than someone who is happy with their job. I don't support stealing, but it's never-the-less true.

Instead, half their staff hates the their jobs and are looking for new places to work and, inevitably, hate. I plan on seeing if I can't find something Monday and may take the day off tomorrow. The way I see it, I'm doing them a favor. They want to save as much money as possible, so I am considering calling out and giving them what they want...

On top of all that, the light in the mens bathroom was burned out and their were no more light bulbs, despite the fact the truck arrived two days ago. I couldn't even enjoy my morning shit.

So, in summation, if you are a manager of any business, in particular, a business which hires students and high school graduates like a restaurant, don't treat your employee's like shit. Unless of course you enjoy spending the extra money constantly training new employees.

Word for the Weekend. 6/29

Following in the footsteps of Bill O'Reilly, I would like to help expand vocabularies everywhere. Every Friday I will give a new word which you can proudly use at the bar in order to impress the ladies. In actuality, using an unusual word around people tends to spark a conversation, even if it consists of them calling you an egotistical ass. So I feel it is safe to theorize these posts will help men everywhere... maybe not.

At the least, you can toss a few of these around in the next verbal confrontation you find yourself in. It really angers people when they aren't positive if your insulting them or not.

Either way, here it is.

obsequious
ob-SEE-kwee-us
adjective:

marked by or exhibiting a fawning attentiveness

"But it is hard to know them from friends, they are so obsequious and full of protestations; for a wolf resembles a dog, so doth a flatterer a friend." - Walter Raleigh

Highway Driving

I have been noticing a scary trend on the highway's near my house and have come to one of two conclusions...

1. 75 % of all drivers received their license in some sick Kellogg's giveaway.
or
2. 75% of all drivers are complete assholes and deserve to become a statistic at the hands of road rage.

Most of the highway's I drive on daily have a speed limit of 55 mph, which some people obviously feel is to fast. That's fine, despite the fact there are few passing zones along the way, I try my best at practicing patience (a virtue I find very hard to embrace.) I also rarely pass anyone doing over 50 mph, as I feel 5 mph under the posted limit is not such a great inconvenience as to warrant a possible head on collision.

However when someone feels the need to drive 40-45 mph in a 55 mph zone, I tend to get annoyed. When I finally get to an area with those long awaited dotted lines and no oncoming traffic, I eagerly floor it in order to pass the jackass in front of me.

Inevitably, the jackass I'm trying to pass, will in turn, floor it. I have spent a lot of time lately contemplating the logic behind this act. This is what I've come up with.

1. They are fucking assholes.

After much thought, that's the only conclusion I've been able to make. I'm not sure if they simply feel no one should ever pass them, under any circumstances, or because they are bitter because I have a nicer car than them. What ever the reason, I hate every last one of them, and remember the vehicle they drive in the hopes of one day seeing it demolished on the side of the road in a one car accident.

Let me send a warning out to 75% of you. If I'm ever trying to pass you and you pull that shit, I will not brake. I will keep driving faster, and if I enter a decision of a head on collision or braking and falling back in line behind you, I will do neither. I will merge into you.

When I'm passing someone initially doing 45 mph, there is absolutely no reason I should have to speed up to 70 in order to pass them.

No more feminist narratives, please.

I'm to the point in my college career where I'm about to take nothing other than male literature teachers. If I have one more semester full of feminist literature, which so many professors, particularly liberal women, feel the need to shove down my throat, I may riot.

At this point, certain professors are actually ruining feminist literature and non-feminist literature alike. I get it, you as a college professor hate men and think women are treated unfairly. Get over it and add some diversity to your teaching agenda! There is a serious problem when we have to read a story from our literature text and receive an hour lecture on the feminist aspects of the text. Focus on something else you sexually frustrated hag!

My professors don't even need to choose a literary tale classified as a feminist writing, they could have us read Charlotte's Web and lecture for an hour about how the spider was a sexist asshole.

Some readers may think I'm over stating this, but I'm not. One professor I took for a World Literature class, felt the need to dedicate at least half of every lecture, to the feminist aspect of every story we read. Get over it!

I don't think many people are paying $2,000 or more a semester, to have the same crap rammed down their throat over and over again.

Paris, best actor ever?

Well, I couldn't handle much of the Paris Hilton interview. After the first five minutes I figured it would be best to wait for the internet and news clips. Occasionally I would flip back and happened to catch something rather interesting.

Paris is such a bad actor, she can't even show believable emotion during an interview. At one point she read some letters she wrote behind bars, which I suspect were written by one her people, or at the least edited. She read a letter about her fellow cell mates and couldn't even look at the camera. It was honestly the worst acting I have ever seen and don't understand how anyone can take that for sincerity.

She also referred to her stay in jail as traumatic... I believe many things can be considered traumatic: rape, incest, molestation, being a victim of any violent crime, being made fun of in school, etc. I could continue, but would rather not depress you to much. I have never heard anyone consider a 23 day stay in jail (without prison rape) traumatic. The few minutes I watched, it felt like a feel sorry for me sob story.

Now with that said, will the media ever ignore her? They are the only reason she is a celebrity. Would anyone else like to see much less of this pompous bitch?

Paris Hilton Interview tonight.

I want to remind everyone to watch the Paris Hilton interview tonight on CNN with Larry King. I don't expect anyone to watch it all the way through, but I imagine their will be some humorous moments. She is so entertaining to watch, but it certainly isn't because of her talent.

Hello New World

First and foremost I would like to thank Jeremy for his very heartfelt and warm introduction. This is the very first blog that I have ever written, so I hope that this entry does not disappoint.

I would like to begin by introducing myself to this new world. I am a 22 year old college student majoring in English. I still have no idea what I want to do with my life, or what I can do with my degree, which I will be receiving much sooner than I would like. My one true love would be history. I pride myself on my knowledge of it, especially ancient history. I hope I do not bore too many people in my later posts since I tend to ramble on about the past a lot.

Being a college student, I also happen to hold the stereotypical college job, waiting tables in a mid priced local restaurant. I have been waiting on people for at least four years now, so naturally I have slowly grown a small hatred for people in general. Now before I am labeled as one of those ‘angry women’ let me explain. For some reason when some people enter a restaurant, they automatically assume that the waitress is their personal slave for an hour. Since becoming a server I have been yelled at, called stupid, had my ass grabbed and been offered money for sex. My favorite would be being snapped at and called “hey you”. Unfortunately the side effect of this has been an all around negative view on the human race.

As for my view on people being stupid, I think that it is due to a lack of knowledge of their surroundings, and not so much with a low i.q. Living in a small town in southern Louisiana, I see this all the time. Some people fail to educate themselves about the world around them, and because of this they do not think for themselves. In the story I am about to tell this is exactly the case.

When I was in the 11th grade I sat right in front of the salutorian in my English class. She was smart in the sense that she was good at cheating in high school; she had no real knowledge of anything.
For two days that spring my class had to take the GRE, a standardized test that scores your basic knowledge of subjects like history, English, and math. The test is not that hard, and the questions tend to be rather simple.
After the history portion of the test on the second day we received a 15-minute break, but had to stay in the room so we did not interrupt the other classes.
During this break I turned around and started talking with the salutorian behind me. As expected the conversation was about the test we had just taken. We were both agreeing that the test was very easy and we both thought that we did really well.
I then brought up one of the questions on the test:
In what war was Pearl Harbor attacked?
A. WWI
B. Korean
C. WWII
D. Vietnam
I said that I could not believe anyone could get that wrong, everyone knows it was during WWII. She then told me that I was wrong, she answered that it was during the Korean War. Needless to say we then started arguing about the topic.
The teacher then stepped into the conversation, since we sat right next to her desk. She looked at the salutorian like she was dumber than a rock, and told her that she was wrong. To this she said “Oh well, it doesn’t really matter that much”.

I find this story very sad. The school that I attended happens to be one of the top public schools in the state, and someone like that was the salutorian in 2003.
Now I know what some of you are thinking. If I am so much better why were her grades better than mine? The answer is that I am just really lazy.

I hope that everyone enjoyed my entry, and I hope that I will be writing many more in the future.

Change of Direction

After much thought, I decided to focus on moronic behavior in all aspects of life rather than narrowing it down to restaurants. There will still be many stories and observations from our shitty little restaurant jobs, but I feel stupidity is to wide spread to narrow it down to one location.

I only hope this blog doesn't diminish the brain cell counts of its readers, because as we know, stupidity is contagious.

Web illiterate companies

I always thought Americans were known for being hard working individuals. Sure Europeans go on holiday every other week but are Americans really much better? The people who run the gas company in my little Louisiana town sure don't fit the description of a hard working American.

Apparently, working more than 4 hours a day simply isn't something they view as being important, nor is choosing 4 hours a day which are optimal for their customers. Assuming most Americans work a 9-5 job, they allow exactly one hour for a normal, functioning member of society to pay them a visit and handle their business. According to the woman I talked to on the phone, they feel it is perfectly acceptable to remain open from 8am-12pm. I would love to let a well placed firebomb describe how my opinion on this matter differs.

On top of this, I seem to live in such a backwards area, they don't feel a website is important either. This is where their logic really confuses me. Obviously they are lazy people, even by my standards, so it seems obvious to me creating a website would allow them to do even less work. Why is this not their top priority? Apparently they feel handling payments manually for more than 4 hours a day is simply to much work, yet they still haven't taken advantage of the internet.

If any small business owner is reading this, let me give you some advice. Start a website! If you are important, like the gas company, people will love you because you just made their life easier. If you sell mundane crap and do not feel like spending the money on a nice website, give your 10 year old child $10 dollars to create a Myspace page. Yes, it's that simple. This seems logical to me. Unless you are a complete moron, it will not hurt your already suffering sales. Unless your computer looks like this you should not have many problems taking your company to the interworld.

Believe it or not, their are more uses for the internet than simply looking at Asian porn. Use it.

Enlisting Help

I have enlisted the help of my girlfriend of 2 years who will begin posting here soon. I figure it is a smart move considering she is a talented writer and has to deal with the scum of society on daily basis. I expect some interesting posts will be spawned from those cute little fingers. She is full of venom and resentment too, so it should make for interesting writing.

When she feels like starting, I will let her explain why she is perfectly qualified to write about assholes and idiots.

"Are you stupid, this isn't what I ordered!"

It is inevitable employees everywhere, will at some time, screw something up. Sometimes these mistakes lead to over crisped fries, a wet blouse, a dangerous chemical leak, or even nuclear war. As we can see, not all mistakes are created equal. Some will cause an inconvenience, while others will cause the end to the Reign of Man. Let the scales of consequence be the judge...

Clearly the anger and frustration one feels when someone messes up his order should not be equal to the amount of anger and frustration one feels when some jackass "accidentally" causes a nuclear war. At least you would think...

Here is the story:

I was working the day shift at a lovely little diner known as Waffle House. In case you aren't familiar with with the restaurant I'm speaking of, let me explain. It is a cheap chain diner that can usually be found throughout the South/Southeast portion of the United states. They have amazing hash browns, cheap steaks, and nearly all have roach problems. The floors are almost always torn up and dirty, and the grill is located in front of the to go bar so customers can watch as their pill popping grill cook makes their food. In other words, you should not enter a Waffle House and expect 4-star dining.

I was sitting at the low counter, enjoying a cigarette and a hot cup a coffee when I first saw the car pulling into the parking lot. As I usually did, I prayed to myself that he was only using our parking lot to cut onto the on ramp. My heart sank a little when I saw him park. He came in, sat down, and picked up the menu.

I put his order in, made his drink and went and sat back down. After about 5 minutes his CHOP STEAK was ready, so I valiantly took it from the grill cook and placed it in front of my beaming, salivating customer.

The conversation that ensued went something like this:

Angry Customer: Are you stupid, this isn't what I ordered!
JaggedEdge: Yes it is.
Angry Customer: No it isn't, this isn't a steak!
JaggedEdge: I know, that's because you didn't order a steak, you ordered a chop steak, which is what I placed in front of you.
Angry Customer: Well how the hell was I supposed to know that?
JaggedEdge: By looking at the picture of the chop steak on the menu in front of you.

I than proceeded to point to the picture which was placed on the menu for his convenience, and strategically placed directly next to the words "Chop Steak Dinner." If you look at the picture, you will see the chop steak on the bottom right side of the plate. If you are looking at the hamburger patty with a bunch of onions on top, you are looking at the right thing.

After this little encounter, which he caused, he only seemed to get angrier. I was more than happy to take his money for a meal the idiot never touched and watch as he peeled out the parking lot.

The moral of the story is this, if you are going to go out and eat, know and remember what the hell you ordered. There are few things worse than having to argue with some undereducated and narcissistic asshole about what he ordered, while knowing the whole time I'm right.

Needless to say, he stiffed me on the tip.

Welcome

Welcome to "Waiting on Idiots." If you have stumbled across this blog and are still reading, it is likely because you have, if only for a week, worked at a restaurant. If you have never worked in such a horrible environment however, do not shy away from this place. I am here to embrace every single one of you who has the wonderful job of pleasing moronic customers on a daily basis.

So as not to offend "all" customer's currently reading this, I do not feel "all" customer's are rude and inconsiderate. However, there are enough to where I feel this blog is more than warranted. If you do regularly eat out, try and make an effort to avoid the kind of behavior I will discuss in the future.

In defense of the customer, there are many incompetent people in the world of food service, as well as else where in the customer service realm. Believe me, I will rant about bad service as much as I will rant about bad customer's.

...I like to rant...

I wish, in my heart of hearts, that just maybe, one shitty customer will read this and realize the error of his way's. Call me a idealist if you like... OK, I probably am an idealist but a boy can dream can't he?