I’m running into this problem more and more as we train for the holiday season.  I find that new servers with a ton of experience think they are better than the training program, and then they end up running into problems when we let them loose on the floor by themselves.

I have a trainee this week who while I know her, and have worked with her before, is just very…..over-confident.  I understand that she’s been a bartender for a few years, and she knows how to serve tables, but for fucks sake you have to listen when you’re in the training classes.  Refusing to listen, or adhere to the ways things are done where you’re at now will end your job in less than no time.

Every restaurant has certain policies, procedures, and other rules.  Every restaurant has a different menu.  That is why training classes are so important, so that people can learn all of these policies, procedures, rules and menu intricacies.  When someone thinks they are too good for the training program, they usually think they are too good to follow the rules, and suddenly you have someone doing whatever they want on the floor.

Anyone have any suggestions as to how I can deal with this problem during classroom training before she gets to the floor?

I taught training class today.  There was only one trainee.  Trainee was 30 minutes late and didn’t call anyone to let us know.  Trainee came in without proper uniform, had the right idea, but titties were hanging out and everything.  Trainee failed her first quiz, and had to retake it today.  She failed the quiz again, and this was with me giving her the answers 5 minutes before.  She also failed today’s quiz.

During class, she didn’t pay much attention to anything.  She didn’t listen when I told her what would be on the test.  She just seemed disinterested in the whole process.

What am I supposed to do now?  We’re not allowed to send them home if they come in late and such anymore, because of corporate staffing pars.  I’ve tried what I know, I’ve changed the class around to suit what I thought her learning needs were, and at this point I’m out of ideas.  I’m open to suggestions…I don’t want to give up on her, but I’m almost at that point.

Ribeye

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

So this post is another one of those double topics, based on the things that happened today.  First off, I was told Sunday night before I left, to be at work at 3 pm on Tues-Friday, to teach training class *yes, the training suspension is over*.  I get up early and get ready.  I go out and start my car.  Car is not moving once it’s started, for the tires are stuck in the mud.  Have to wake up partner to borrow his truck.  Finally leave.  I get there at 3 today, ready to teach.  I look around for my trainees, and they’re not there.  I look around a little more, and I find a couple of them in the dining room.  In a class, with the boss of the waitstaff, “Flip-Flop”.   So I head back to the office to get my laptop, when I realize, I can’t leave.  Partners truck is almost out of gas.  Leaving and coming back would mean I’d run out after work before I got to gas station.

FUCK.

Now I’m stuck here for 3 hours with nothing to do. I think to myself.  I wander around, smoke a couple of cigarettes (outside, as to not get fined), and wander back in.  Convince GM to pay me for working on training stuff, so that’s 3 hours at ten an hour of my doing what I usually do here for free.  After all that, a couple of the trainees for the night class start swandering in about 5pm.  I’m wondering where their teacher is.  I go back out to smoke, and Business Manager Prick gets on the speaker telling me to come inside because I have a class waiting for me.  I tell him I’m not teaching class.  10 minutes later, I’m teaching class.  “Flip-Flop” is still on the floor, so I’ve started it for him, fully intending to go on the floor once he takes over.  Cocktail Nazi Boss walks in, tells me that I’m going to teach the entire class.  Embarrassment in front of trainees, I feel like I’m being made to look like I know nothing.  I resume class, these four patient ladies just loving me (I hope anyway), and low and behold, in walks “Flip-Flop” who proceeds to kick me out of my class.

Why the hell can’t they get the training schedules right?  Why don’t they just let me write them?  Oh yes, I’m going to be soon =).

As for the guests, I have not had a night in a long time where there wasn’t a single guest to piss me off.  Maybe the rain is like a “Ghetto Shield” or something like that, but we didn’t have any trash in there at all.  No entitlement junkies whatsoever.  I had a nice couple from Massachusetts, who was in town visiting some friends.  They were awesome, and talked to me for a while.  Then we have the little family who’s out for the mother’s birthday.  In short, a good night, and my blood pressure returned a little closer to normal.

It’s nice to not be pissed off.

Ribeye

I have to thank Rlserver over at the Red Lobster Blog for this one. The entire topic of training. I’ve mentioned this a little on the BitterWaitress forums.

Training in restaurants these days have become horrible things. First, just like what Rlserver was talking about, the managers do NOT hire quality people 90% of the time. He says that he can tell within an hour who will stay and who will fail. That is true for anyone who has been training for a long time.

I’ve taught the training classes at my job (currently on suspension from teaching, still need to post that problem), and I’ve done the 1 on 1 follow training. In the past few months, out of the 18 people I’ve taught and trained in follow shifts, there are only 5 that are left. Most of them just can’t cut it, or they do something stupid like come into work drunk. Then we have those who are hired on personality alone. I don’t know why the management of corporate restaurants don’t actually prescreen people, or call their references. I took the time one day before a class to call a few references of people that were working for us. THEY WERE HORRIBLE!!!! These people are either now gone or on their last warning, or last week of a 2 week notice.

I understand that managers are under extreme pressure in a corporate style restaurant/bar to staff the building, but sometimes they need to be a little more picky. I’d much rather have an ugly as sin fat woman that knew what she was doing, even if she was a little brash, than the little hottie that’s going to cry every time she gets seated more than 2 tables. I’d rather have the guy that doesn’t talk to anyone but who does his job than the guy who talks to everyone but does nothing else.

During training, we have to deal with these rejects. We have had trainees that failed their tests 2 and 3 times, yet somehow the managers still put them on the floor. Why do they do this? Back to the staffing issue. They think that by cutting our sections down to nothing, and letting the rejects on the floor, that we’re going to have less complaints, turn the tables over quicker, and not have as many comps. The truth of the matter is, restaurants lose MORE money putting morons on tables when they aren’t ready. If they don’t listen in class and pass their tests, that shows that they’re not trying to learn the menu. That means they can’t answer questions, they ring things in incorrectly, and we lose money because entire checks are comped.

During follow training, we have people who stare off into the distance when you’re trying to explain something, and now we as trainers no longer have the authority to tell them they’re not to come back the next day because of corporate staffing pars, and the fact that corporate is always afraid of some discrimination lawsuit. We just have to talk and talk, and they don’t have to listen to a single word of it.

The fact of the matter is, all corporate restaurants need to allow franchising. I guarantee you that franchise restaurants will bring in more money, because franchise owners and their managers actually have more skill in hiring. They take the time to check things out because they don’t want their restaurant to fail. In corporate run stores, you have all kinds of people. Hostesses who stand texting on their phones and are just plain hateful at the door. Instead of “Hey guys, how are you tonight, is it going to be 2 for dinner?” The ones I work with say things like this, “How many, it’s gonna be a while, here’s a pager.” or just, “How many, 2, follow me.” They aren’t even expected to be nice because corporate restaurants just hire to staff a building. It’s sad really, how do you think Shoney’s failed and closed down half it’s restaurants. Fifth Quarter at one time was a really nice place to go (the one in nashville is closed now), but now it’s like fucking Waffle House because it’s totally corporate now. It’s TRASH!!!

O’charleys used to be a really nice place to go, and speaking as a former employee and a former cocaine user, O’charleys now only hires trash. JUST TO KEEP IT STAFFED!!! The servers and cooks there have NO skill what-so-ever!!! Trust me, we have half their old staff at my job now. RLserver is right when he says the good ones leave. The good ones usually go on to fine dining, or they get out of serving after school. Me, I’ll admit, I’m better at serving than a lot of people I know, even with my temper. It’s what I’ve mainly done for 11 years. I’ve been a trainer at both corporate and franchise owned restaurants. I LOVE serving. Yes, you don’t get to hear the good stuff, it’s just not as entertaining, but it’s there. I’m one of those who probably won’t get out of the biz for a long long time. I just wish that some of my experience could be put to good use and people higher up would actually listen to it. I wish they’d listen to other excellent servers who know what they’re doing and would know how to make a restaurant great..But it’s corporate.

Ok, so it’s ended up kinda rambly, but then again I’m tired.

Till tomorrow night everyone,

Ribeye..

Ps. Thanks again to the Red Lobster Blog for giving me the idea for this topic. I didn’t totally steal it, just borrowed it a little.