Neophyte
Erm, hi.
It's been quite a couple of days. I think I am receiving karmic retrobution for all of the shit I've doled out over the years to my former Sous. It's been trying but I'm happy to say that I've remained very even and fair even though I'm screaming inside at each new and frustrating development. I'm probably not the best at hiding my contempt but at least I've swallowed some seriously nasty remarks before letting them fly.
I'm just now realizing that I am in a position of authority and it isn't business as usual and even though there are a few people that aren't getting it, the majority are and I need to remain vigilant to keep it up. It's a lot more difficult than it sounds on paper, let me tell you.
Of all the people I thought I'd have a problem with, I wasn't anticipating it to be Mel. We're a lot alike (at least I see a lot of my bad traits in her, much to my dismay) but we've always managed to work well together. She's always received preferential treatment from Adam and Nada and over the winter Tansey and Susan made a lot of promises and gestures that have given her the wrong idea. First, they gave her a DOLLAR raise so she makes more than I ever did and she has about 1/4 of the training/schooling/job experience--she's not even competant enough to be left alone on nights--and yes, I'm very bitter about that after going through what I went through there last year and at Manor Hell. In short, she's entirely overpaid. Then you throw in the fact that the other day she told me that she's a supervisor, which, I gotta say is news to me (and probably Craig) but even if that is the case I think a supervisor should defer to the Sous and Chef when they are present but that is also not the case. I've spent the past 3 days knocking heads with her over the simplest of things to the point that it feels ridiculous.
Now, I'm a hard worker. I learned early on that you never treat dishwashers with disrespect or like a dog because they are essential to a kitchen that runs smoothly. I always thank them for picking up after me when I get to busy that I can't get my dishes to their station and when I'm not busy I always fetch what I need or deliver my dishes to them and thank them when they take them. When I do ask them to get something I always thank them for rushing back to me with what I need. At the end of the night I clean, if it's just me and a dishwasher I help out with the trash or sweep while they catch up on dishes, etc. I think that should be the standard. Now, over the past month or so I've been the only person maintaining the kitchen so now that I'm starting to get staff back I'm scaling back what I do on a nightly basis because a) I'm tired and b) my boss has expressed to me that he doesn't expect or want me to continue in that capacity for the remainder of the season.
The first time I closed with Mel she wiped the counters and asked if she was done (while I was still cleaning) so I asked her to wrap the line and its contents while I cleaned the flat top. She ended up leaving before I did that night and after she'd gone I checked (as I always do) to make sure everything was covered and she didn't wrap anything in any of the fridges, just the top of the line. It was frustrating but I tried to be understanding because she was only working a few shifts, but I won't like and say it didn't piss me off because it did.
This past week she started back full time and is just as casual about working. Sure she shows up 20 minutes before her shift, but then she goes for a coffee and a smoke and comes back 5 minutes late. She still doesn't know the menu, when I try to show her how to plate things or make things she never says "okay" it's always "I know" or "yeah" which is frustrating because if I leave her to do it without showing her it's wrong every time and she gets mad at me for correcting her. She's been bitching about "that's not how we did it last year" and Craig and her schedule and everything else you can think of since she came back. It's like this big black cloud of gloom when she's around.
She leaves messes for the dishwashers everywhere and bosses them around in a very abrupt manner and it's pretty off-putting. She really got to Jackie the other day and short of writing all out here in a play by play, just believe me when I say all of those things I consider to be common sense/decency have gone by the wayside with Mel. She was on her 8th hour of work and Jackie was on her 10th and she expected that she could just leave all the cleaning to her because she was there. I put a stop to that, told her to sweep and mop, etc while I did the produce order after I'd cleaned the flat top and helped Jackie with the garbage. She got pissy about it but she did it and I let her leave. I still had to do a lot of stuff after she left still but it was better than listening to her bitch.
And I give myself credit for really not losing it because of how she behaved during men's night--which was a colossal mess after the easy week before, let me tell you--because I was at the point where I really wanted to just leave her to do everything to give her a taste of what it could be like but I knew she'd pawn it off on Jackie, my best dishwasher, who works entirely too hard to let that happen. The next night she had the audacity to say "well, I swept and mopped last night so you can do it tonight." I chuckled and said "I'm sorry, but no, I don't think so" and again she got bitchy.
And let me rewind for a moment. When she showed up for work on Wednesday I immediately told her she needed to put a hair net on. I'd found her hair in some cheese and pasta that she'd portioned a few weeks prior while she wasn't working and I wanted to tell her before she started working because it needed to be adressed immediately so it didn't happen again. Well, she ignored me. Craig witnessed the whole thing and asked if I was going to enforce it when she ignored the order. I said I didn't really know what else I could do because she won't listen to me. He said he agreed that it was a problem and readdressed it by saying "Heather asked you to put a hair net on an hour ago Mel, aren't you going to put one on?" She replied by saying that she didn't think I was serious and then she came to me and asked me if I really wanted her to put one on because they don't make her wear one at school yadda yadda yadda. I calmly explained that I had found her hair in food and if she could tuck it into her hat, then fine do that, but if she couldn't then she needed to cover the exposed hair in a hair net. Again with the "well, this is how I wear it at school...." thing and I said "this isn't school" but I apologized if I had been abrupt when she I asked her initially but that I wanted to tell her before I forgot and a few hours went by, etc. She replied with "That's okay Heather, I'm used to you being a bitch." And it wasn't said in a joking tone. Yeah. So I said, I didn't think that was the case but she was entitled to her opinion. Then she said "Come on, you've been a bitch for the past two years" so I took the opportunity to walk away instead of furthering an unproductive conversation. But she finally put a hair net on.
She lied and told Craig this job was her first priority when she'd rather waitress/bartend on weekend nights than work for us because we "can't pay her $250 for two hours of work" but gets pissed when Craig schedules around her availability because she's "only getting four days and two other people get five." I mean, she's not available two days out of the week because of school and (yep, she isn't even done with her culinary program--oh, and she doesn't want to be a chef either, btw) she doesn't want to close because it conflicts with her other two jobs (yeah, you read right, this is her third job and she's bitching about her hours) and we don't really need extra help on certain days because they are slower than others and that's how you keep your labor down. But she's expecting us to conjure hours for her and then give her special treatment so she can leave earlier to get to other jobs and it's retarded.
She tried to switch shifts with me the other day and I said "I'm the Sous Chef and the Chef wants me here when he wants me here for a reason, you need to make other arrangements." I think that was a fair and logical solution. Every kitchen I've ever worked in has not allowed switching shifts with people that aren't on par with your skill level because they need you when they need you else they'd have scheduled the other person. It's not about playing favorites, it's about ability but she doesn't get that. "Well, Adam never had a problem..." and on and on and on. My response is that, as much as I like Adam, he did not run this kitchen like a real kitchen. But she's never worked in any other kitchen so she doesn't get it. She's only worked in the comfort and safety of her college and Greenhills where she whined until she was given whatever she wanted so she stopped bugging him.
The ironic thing about it is that Craig begrudgingly let her ask Ashley if she would switch with her for last night and Ashley agreed (much to my relief, really) and Mel, who came in at 11am, ended up getting sent home after four and a half hours because we were dead and I didn't need two cooks. She would have gotten more hours had she worked the shift she was scheduled but I'm sure she's going to turn that around on me but I was going to wait a bit longer when Tanz told me to send her home. I know it's going to come back to us somehow... like we're trying to run her out or something. I can just hear it now... Oh, they're cutting my shifts and sending me home early and only scheduling me for days I don't want to work and closing shifts and blah blah blah. Boo fucking hoo.
So yeah. That's my life right now. She's slated to be my closing cook for the majority of the next few weeks until we get Matt back and it's going to be trying. I can't say I'm not learning anything anymore. Craig has evened out and things are a lot better on that front (thank dog) but now comes the hard part, I guess. Living through the Mel era without stepping into the big piles of dog crap littering the playing field. Augh.
-H