Job Hunt 2.0

This year has definitely been an odd one for me. After two and a half years I decided to quit Chuy's and work for the O'Charley's that was about 10 minutes from my house. The business appeared to be there moreso than Chuy's and the commute was a fraction of what I'd been dealing with so it seemed a good trade off. O'Charley's was good at first but it seemed that when our location closed for a week and renovated, it became ratchet central and it was obvious that "my kind" was not wanted there. I got hired on a La Hacienda, trained and was told that I was going to be a backup server until I was added to the next schedule and I'd be called with the schedule. No one called me, I called them, they said they'd call me and I never got a call so I said...I'll try Uncle Julios. I really wanted to love Uncle Julios...my enthusiasm turned to disgust very quickly.

Uncle Julio's training was horrible. Apparently they were so desperate to get us on the floor before the weekend that they scheduled us 2 doubles and shoved 4 days of training into 2 days. I had no clue what any of the food tasted like and still don't. When I was at Chuy's, they forced us to eat EVERYTHING in the course of a week before we opened. The other 4 people in the training class with me were less into training and more into playing which set me up to almost explode on them within the first few days. My first day on the floor and the GM asks me if I can work that night and he'll make sure I make over $120...that fucker left that afternoon and I got stuck in a BS section in the back that was being held for a party of 30 that I was to take with 2 other people including one of the trainees from my class. The party of 30 became a party of 25 and the managers forced me to take 12 of the people among all of my tables and another girl to take the rest of them. All separate checks and impatient from the time they sat their butts in the seats until they left. The only person that tipped me decent from that party was a girl I worked with at Chuy's all the rest treated me like crap. I said NEVER AGAIN will I put myself in that position. I had asked for all daytime shifts to leave my lucrative times open for UBER. BTW, $2 Taco Tuesdays are the worst shift I've ever seen in my life, it's like everyone that normally goes to McDonalds goes to Uncle Julios and tips the same as they would at McD's.

When I started, I let the managers know that I couldn't work the evening of Oct 27 before they even thought to work on the schedule. I'd been there a week, making marginal money because it's slow as hell at that location. Sunday rolls around and I'm told the schedule is out. I check it and find that I'm scheduled several nights including the taco tuesday night. Terry, Ernie and I had spent $100 each on tickets to Phantom (the one I wrote the scathing review about) and told the manager that I'd requested that day off in Hot Schedules and let them know before I started. I was told to get it covered. I was also told that there were 5 house shifts that night and they had to be covered before my shift could be covered. I also looked at the house shift list and it seemed there were 20 uncovered shifts throughout the week and not enough employees to cover them. I realized this was a sign of bad management. I also started thinking about conversations other servers were having in regards to making no money, looking for other jobs and then it hit me, if they are talking about this, I'm not the only one making no money and dealing with crazy stuff. The other nail in the coffin was their tip out policy. Most restaurants make servers tip out a small percentage to the bartenders, food runners and support staff, usually no more than 4%. At O'Charley's our tipout was 1.5%. At Uncle Julios it was 4.5% our gross sales and sometimes an additional 1.5% for a plater(whatever that is???) and an additional 1% on a food runner. The numbers are definitely not in the server's favor. There was all sorts of "not right" going on in the place. They are desperate for servers and are losing them through their own foolish attempts to keep them with the company. During the week, I witnessed 2 servers get offers to become managers. This is the first place I've ever seen this, one of those servers had been with the company for just 8 months. Yay for a management position but do you really want to work in a place that makes rash decisions with servers like that?

So when the manager told me that I have to get my shift covered for Tuesday, my reply was "You might have to do that yourself as well as all the others because I think today is my last day." I went to the bathroom and sent the GM a text that read "Hi Bill, this is Adrian. Thank you for the opportunity but I feel that Uncle Julio's isn't a good match for me." I worked the rest of the shift and my last table was Terry and Ernie. I did my side work and didn't come back. I kept Hot Schedules on my phone and noticed that they added several shifts to my schedule after that day. I'm thinking they were A. Trying to entice me to stay. or B. Piss me off. Also, the fact that my log in name for my schedule was "AndyMorgan" was a bit of a tip off that they don't have their shit together.

Oh yeah, Ernie ordered Chicken Tamales and Terry ordered Cheese and Onion Enchiladas. Both weren't happy with their food but didn't complain or send it back. Terry said it was the worst Mexican he'd ever had. Unfortunately, I'd have to agree that everything I had their was subpar, even their queso dip is nasty...I comes in a refrigerated bag. BTW, there's a bathroom in the kitchen...NO JOKE, someone is pooping within 10 feet of the place that the food is made. There are bags of rice stored in front of the bathroom door.

I have an interview tomorrow at another place. ;-)