V-day Aftermath again...
2004-02-21||xx||12:15 p.m.
(This was written after Valentine's day weekend- I'm just transcribing from then...)
"He's just mad because you bit him..."
Well, yeah, of course, but it's more than that. It's a deep and unifying frustration over the events of the past weekend. It's being so angry at your job and manager that words can't even begin to express the futility you feel. The deep harboring resentment and anger at being so out of food that it begins to boggle the mind as to the idiocy of it all. It's something that no one person not in the same position would ever understand. It's so many things, on top of one another, in their smelly rank scent, destroying the joy that one once had towards their job, ending the fun and ushering in an era of resentment and frustration. And then, the damn bird bit me.
So yeah, of course i am fucking mad she bit me, but, as always, there is more to it than that. This past weekend was one of the busiest of the year in the resteraunt business- the Valentine's day weekend. We did almost sixteen thousand on Saturday alone- twelve of that in seven hours. That's an average of seventeen hundred an hour, not a bad figure for a kitchen to produce. Yesterday, being Sunday, we did another nine thousand and tonight were expecting much the same with it being President's day. And tonight we only have three cooks. Granted, we are three of the best in our kitchen but none of us are in top shape after the weekend, nor the proper mood. We might be ina better mood had we not run out of everything last night, but, as I have said before, our kitchen manager needs help.
I don't get it- the Valentine's day weekend is one of the busiest of the year, so naturally, if your expecting more, you should buy more food, right? I would, especially if knowing it was a holiday weekend. But he didn't up it sufficiently and as a result, Sunday, off he went to Sam's Club with petty cash. Petty cash that in no way was the same as buying from a food distributor. You still had a middle man, despite the bulk purchase, and as such, paid retail. Every week it happens, this paying retail for food items and I don't care what we sell, and what we run out of, paying retail for items for resale is just losing us money in the end. But that's the financial aspects of it- the things that are making me mad stem more from stupidity. He knew, when he went to the store, that we would soon be out of mashed potatoes, one of our biggest sellers. Why in god's name didn't he pick up a fifty pound bag of potatoes so we could make our own? Or at the very least a ton of instant mashed potatoes? How hard would it have been to add in garlic puree and heavy cream? How about coleslaw? Some cabbage and some carrots and voila! We wouldn't be out. Sesame seed buns? Bulk wings? Cook off extra potatoes so we have skins? Celery? how about we don't even go to the fucking store and we just do our job right in the first fucking place and order shit right????
I am, so fucking pissed off right now that I am ina quitting mood. I'm in a mood that calls for walking in and telling Matt that either he gets his job right for once or he is going to missing a few cooks to go with his food. This, this is bullshit- I have NEVER seen faulty management to this degree nor an inability to manage inventory. And I know, i KNOW that if I were to get near a piece of paper that the words would flow and I would en up cussing him out in the most profane of way. I'm to the point that I no longer enjoy work, i merely go in and slough through the day hating every stinking minute that i run out of food. It's embarassing and annoying. I don't know what to do. Should i go in and sit down at a manager's meeting, a place where I have no place and speak my mind? Should I simply ignore him and go straight to Rachel with my concerns and displeasements? Or should I simply continue to develop a smoldering, burning anger that one day is going to consume me and explode in a nasty, profanity spouting moment of truth? Running out of food is bullshit and working with this person the same. I only wish everyone could know him, so they would understand when I say Mattwon't accept what I am saying and listen, he'll gloss it over and think he came out on top of the situation smelling rosy. He's locked into that i am a manager, your not, so how dare you question me phase. Well, it's like this- i am a cook, who has seen kitchen managers come and go there, who has seen nearly eight years of business in that store, who has held the position of Key when no one would help us. If anyone has the right to say, Hey, what the fuck is up, it's me. I've been loyal to Pargo's for all these years, the better part of a decade. Who else but someone with that kind of dedication then? If not me, then what is the hope for us all?
And then, my bird bites me. I'm not so angry about that, more the tone in my sister's voice when she realized I was having difficulty getting the bird to perch on my finger, and go quietly. I have told her, time and fucking time again that when Jinx hears her voice all bets are off. I am getting bit, and the bird is rambunctious. To suggest i couldn't care for my bird and get things done really tore at me so when i got biyt, I got mad. And frustrated. And just...
And that was my thoughts- this Monday after Valentine's day. Hating my job every second more.
PS- The reason my bird was so nasty was my sister took her to get a microchip implanted under her skin for purposes of identification. Jinx, of course, was sore... and took her anger out on the soft tissue that was me. And she of course, blames me for the microchip... It has been a apinful few days.