The restaurant has been busy, so I have been either running around like a
headless chicken or too tired to write anything that makes any sense.
Besides being busy, we are going through more employee dramas…might be
that we will experience some real crew turnover within the next couple
of months.
All is not well behind the scenes at the café. We are
in that space where long-term staff’s know-it-all complacency is running
up against ownership’s desire to take the place to a new level. Staff
is not particularly interested in going where ownership wants it to go.
And is in fact planting its feet and pulling backward on the lead like a
recalcitrant mule…
I hate the idea of having to indoctrinate a
whole new set of employees. On the other hand, I hate having to drag my
current crew kicking and screaming to the place we need them to be. It
might just be a whole lot easier to start with a completely clean slate.
I am torn between clinging desperately to the devil I know and taking
the chance on throwing that demon over for…whatever else is out there.
It would be just my luck that the “whatever else” would turn out to be
infinitely worse than what I’m currently trying to manipulate. In the
end, the choice will probably be taken out of my hands. The attrition
has already begun, with the exodus of Flaky Cook and the impending exit
of the Good and Faithful “D.”
To complicate matters further,
business has been entirely wonky. We’re either empty or swamped, no
in-between, and no predicting when or how. Mondays are improving,
Mondays suck. Senior Night is crazy, Senior Night is tailing off.
Fridays stink, Fridays rock. No rhyme or reason whatsoever. My crew of
eight (and myself) were exhausted after our record December. But as soon
as I made up my mind to post an ad and bring on more help, sales
tanked. Called a halt to the hiring binge, and sales cranked back up to
record levels.
As my mom used to say, “I can’t win for losing.”
And
then there is the “small-town economy” dynamic with which we have been
contending since Day 1. We have learned a lot about which conditions
will spell success and which will spell disaster for those of us in the
business of vying for the limited dining out dollars within our isolated
little market. We keep tabs on the comings and goings of other eating
establishments as vigilantly as a cat at a mouse hole. The demise of
three local competitors in the fourth quarter of last year has been
responsible for our current rosy numbers. One could almost believe there
is a light at the end of the tunnel, if things could just stay this
way. If no other fool would decide to muck up the water by dipping their
ignorant and ill-conceived oars into it.
So
my life is, still and forever, a roller coaster. Which I’m afraid might
be starting to wear me down. But, just when I think I’ve had it, I get
my second (third, fourth, hundredth) wind, and I go back at it with a
vengeance.
Can’t live with it, can’t shoot it, I guess…
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