Sep 28, 2006 15:08
Ok, now I'm not usually one to bitch about opening my store. Getting up at 4am, yes I bitch about that, but not about opening in general. All of our usual open crew is cool. Everyone shows up on time, and everything gets done by 7:00. Thank god. Unfortunately, today's open was not like that.
I show up at my store around 4:50am. My shift supervisor shows up about five minutes later, and we go inside. I'm brewing coffee/tea/setting up the am pastry case, and Lindy is counting tills, when we realize, it's nearly 20 after, and our third opener hasn't arrived. WTF, we both thought. Brittany has a tendency to be late in the morning, but never this late. Lindy called: her cell was off. We called her apartment: no answer. Our prognosis, Brittany decided she wasn't going to work today, and not tell us. This would be her third no-call no-show, and we couldn't get any other partner to cover her shift. None of the 7:00 partners could come in early, they were already maxed out on hours. We couldn't even call our general manager, she's on vacation this week. So it was just me, and Lindy. Prioritize anyone?
Thursday mornings are our busiest mornings. I don't know why, but from about 5:45-8:00 we are non-stop. We usually meet our daily sales goal before noon on Thursdays. In the cafe, there are always at least 5 people, and the same can be said about cars in the drive through. Not cool if you're barring for yourself. We ran out of Verona (we're one of the top sellers of whole bean in the region, so we couldn't afford to take Verona off the shelf), so we were stuck with only brewing Italian and decaf Verona all day. (By the way, where is the logic in brewing a bold and extra bold coffee instead of a bold (or extra bold) and a mild (or medium)?) Thankfully, most of the people who come in that early in the morning our some of our best regulars, and when they saw two frantic girls running around, they knew what was wrong, and completely understood when we told them what happened. We gave out a lot of free muffins and scones today, and gave a lot of discounts.
Amanda finally called us back around 10:00 and told us that she and Brittany are going to have a long talk on Monday when she gets back from vacay, and her shifts are being spread out to other partners in the mean-time. No one thinks she'll be coming back.
I ended up staying an extra hour after my shift just to cover so people could take their lunches, and get the pastry case switched over... and by switched over, I mean pretty much stock it. We didn't have the time or the coverage to get it fully done for AMs.
If I'm ever scheduled to work with Brittany again, if she isn't let go, I will personally call her before the shift to make sure she's coming.
I will NEVER open a store with only two people. Ever again. I'll quit. I can't deal with that stress much longer.
So, I bid you a good day.
-Amy
(ps. x-posted on the baristas community, for the most part.)
stress,
work