Since I keep saying I’m going to tell you all about what happened, and since so many of you have asked to know, here’s the reason I was suspended from training.
A little over a month ago, on a Wednesday night a co-worker and I were working in the bowling area. We didn’t split ourselves in to sections, Ms. K (not to be confused with the Ms. K who was fired for calling me a faggot) and I, we chose to rotate. In hindsight, probably not the best idea. At any rate…
It was about 8:30 or so, and some other employees came in to bowl. These employees are notorious for tipping well, so we both wanted them. I’d just gotten a party of 15, and Ms. K was nowhere to be found even though it was technically her turn. Since she was nowhere to be found, I decided to go ahead and take the lane. Everyone there knows that if you miss a greet I’m going to take the table, and in the bowling area it’s always been like that.
I get their beers, and being that I have a bunch of other lanes, and a huge drink order for the 15, it takes about 8 minutes to get the drinks to them. I had to wait on the bar to make a ton of the drinks, which is why it took so long. During that 8 minute span, Ms. K is still nowhere to be found. I take a few minutes to check my other lanes, and I return to the employees to see if they would be eating or on a liquid diet. About that time, Ms. K finally walks into the room, and sees me at the lane. She proceeds to start yelling at me about how it’s “bullshit” I took the lane, and how it was her turn. I replied with “You should have been in your area, but you weren’t for 13 minutes, so back off.”
About 10 minutes go by, and I’m at the computer putting in another order, when one of the managers come up to me. I see it in her eyes that Ms. K has whined to her.
“We have a situation,” she says.
“I’m not transferring that check, she should have been in her area.” First thing out of my mouth. I didn’t even give her a chance to tell me to do anything.
“Well you may have to, it was her turn.” Those words, “You may have to” were later turned into “you were ordered to” on the documentation.
“No, I won’t. She was not back here, and I’m not transferring it. You can write me up.” and I walked off, leaving my manager trying to get me back. A few minutes later, I swipe my card, and I notice that the table has been transferred away from me anyway. Already pissed off that she came to me in the first place, I go hunting. I see her in the hallway, and proceed to lose it a little, “How dare you take that check away from me!” I yell across the hallway, in front of guests and employees alike, including 2 trainees.
“We’re not talking about this here, you need to calm down.”
“No, we need to talk right now!” I continue to yell. “You’ll meet me in the office right now.”
“You’re not going to order me around,”
“Then you shouldn’t have transferred that table away from me!”
Long story short, I continue to lose it in front of everyone. It’d been a bad week, low cash flow, bills due, and I was just pissed off. I go to the office with Manager A, the one who transferred the check, and Managers B and C who didn’t actually witness anything. I continue to lose my acclaimed temper in the office, and come close to being sent home and suspended, until they figure out that I’m the closer and the other one always refuses to close. So they cut Ms. K off the floor, and I finish up.
Later, I go into the office to get my “write-up”. I notice I’m being written up for Insubordination. It’s also a final written warning. This means that I refuse to do something again, I’m fired on the spot. Manager A tells me, “You’ve already been written up for this before,” which is a complete and total lie. I’ve only been written up for calling someone dumb as a box of rocks, and being late once.
The documentation also says that “Ribeye refused to transfer a check even after he was ordered to twice, saying ‘You can write me up’ “, which is also another lie. I sign it, intending to talk to the GM the next day. Conclusion, I was taken off the training schedule for over a month, until I convinced them I wouldn’t lose my temper again.
And there you all have it. In summary, don’t lose your temper on people when you have trainee’s and guests watching you, it only leads to bad things and lying write-ups.
Ribeye
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October 25th, 2007 at 9:12 am
When you signed the documentation, were you able to put in your disagreement with the stated facts? (Obviously, I never had to sign something like this.)
October 25th, 2007 at 2:52 pm
You shouldn’t have had to transfer a check when the server was nowhere to be found and you already had to do all the work. Why did she think that she could disappear for that long, do nothing, and then get the tip for it? That’s fucked up.
October 25th, 2007 at 6:53 pm
Ribeye,
If you follow my blog, you will notice something very similar to that happened to me as well. The difference is, I am not refusing to train people until the problem is resolved. I hate when managers decided to be judge, jury and executioner when they were neither witness not party to the problem. I also hate that the laziest, dumbest people are the ones who seem to get the long end of the stick — we share a lot in common
http://www.willworkfortips.wordpress.com
October 25th, 2007 at 7:56 pm
“Why did she think that she could disappear for that long, do nothing, and then get the tip for it?”
She’s probably used to batting her eyelashes to get what she wants, and when it didn’t work on Ribeye, she set out to screw him over.
October 25th, 2007 at 10:33 pm
What a whore. If someone doesn’t get their table, I pick it up and say tough luck. I thought that was a general rule with all servers… apparently not.
October 25th, 2007 at 10:44 pm
I didn’t refuse to train, I was told I wasn’t allowed to train. What’s worse, my insurance deducts from my paycheck, 80 bucks every 2 weeks. my checks are usually just about 70 after taxes with the 2.13, but when I teach, I get 10 an hour. That 10 an hour is what I rely on for insurance.
October 26th, 2007 at 2:09 am
You misunderstand - I refused to train the new employees until my issue was fixed. I do not get extra money for training, and thus, my backlash was refusing to train other employees.
Why is everyone in this industry (management/ownership, anyway) such a two-faced back-stabber?
October 26th, 2007 at 2:14 am
Corporate management is usually evil, and are trained to backstab their employees. Owners, well I can’t attest to that because I’ve only worked corporate thus far, at least until dental surgery =). We get an extra dollar an hour for floor follow training, classroom is 10 an hour.
October 26th, 2007 at 2:21 am
Follow where I work is supposed to pay $5.00/hr. But due to a lack of revenue and the owner’s new Lexus, this has been cut from the budget.
October 26th, 2007 at 8:47 am
“I’m not transferring that check, she should have been in her area.” First thing out of my mouth.
“No, I won’t. She was not back here, and I’m not transferring it. You can write me up.” and I walked off…
The documentation also says that “Ribeye refused to transfer a check even after he was ordered to twice, saying ‘You can write me up’ “, which is also another lie.
Wouldn’t stand up in court. You say that you refused to transfer the check - two instances, in fact, in your previous statements. You also say “You can write me up.”
So the only thing I can think of that would be the “lie” part would be the language “was ordered to.”
Although the exact words don’t appear in your post, a case can be made that you were advised strongly on several occasions that you were to give up the check.
I’m totally on your side - that check should NEVER have been transferred from you. YOU did the work, YOU deserve the money. Period. End of story. But your description of events doesn’t hold much water. If you want to pursue this legally, the technicality of language issue won’t get you anywhere. Go for something like lost wages instead.
Good luck.
January 6th, 2008 at 6:21 pm
That’s why when I loose my temper at the moronic actions of my special-ed co-workers (plates don’t go in pans of hot beans, silverware goes in the ’silverware pre-soak buckets’, not the ’stab my fingers on fork tubs’, ect), I make sure that there are other folks around who say things like “you know, he’s right”.