Seems that American Hospitality Concepts (parent company of Ground Round corporate-owned restuarants) made a conference call to their restuarant management staff on Friday (the 13th, no less!) and told them to pack up and get out… customers and all!
No more chili-cheese fries.
No more buffalo chicken salad.
Never got a chance to try their wings.
Oh yeah, and “Happy Valentine’s Day” to all the employees who tried to show up for work the next day!
Unfreakinbelievable. Basically told the store employees to take the burgers out of the diners’ hands and kick them out of the doors, and the same for the employees. Go home, do not pass go, do not collect your pay, benefits, vacations, etc. What a bunch of thieving, lying corporate bastards.
This is one of the reasons I want to become self-employed - if I’m not making money, it’s because I’m not getting it done, not because some suit who’s never met me is making decisions about my life.
Disclaimer: I’m IN NO WAY DEFENDING Ground Round here because that is just crazy, bizarre-o, fucked-up, appalling mismanagement.
I’m just popping in to point out that if you do become self-employed, featherlou, one of the very first things that you will find out is that you have a lot less control over anything than you could ever possibly imagine. Speaking from experience, the SNAFU potential of being your own boss is quite literally, stunning.
Because nothing exists in a vacuum, unfortunately. But good luck to you if you do decide to take the plunge.
The Ground Round I used to frequent also closed rather abruptly, but it has been a few years since it was closed. I thought they had been doing a good business, it always had a decent crowd. Still miss the place.
I showed up for an appointment one day at my regular clinic some years ago…the door was locked and a handwritten sign said that the clinic was closed, and I could pick up my medical records at a given day. Apparently, they shut down the clinic one evening. No advance notice to ANY of the staff, doctors, or patients. That sucked big time. I really liked the physician’s assistant that I normally saw, as he studied diabetes management very carefully. His wife was a diabetic, and he knew a lot of lifestyle management tips that he passed on to me. What’s more, being a PA and not a doctor, he felt freer to take a few more minutes with each patient. He was VERY good at lancing boils and removing moles and skin tags. I wish I knew where he practices now, I think that I’d still go to him. He knew his limits, and would always refer me to a doctor if he found something that he couldn’t treat.
Just about any company that is going to close operations or lay-off people does it in a suprise manner. Even if the employees know that lay-offs are coming, the company won’t inform them who is being laid off. During one lay-off I suffered through, lay-offs were going to take place on a Monday morning. The Vice President of each department was going to show up at each department at a certain time and fire people. Even with all this knowledge, they didn’t want us to know what time the firings would take place. All I could think and still think is, “what a crock of shit”. Of course after the lay-offs, we were told how we were all valuable to the company and blah blah blah bullshit bullshit bullshit. I made it another year before getting caught in the second round of layoffs.
Anyway, I’d have been happy to be one of the customers, especially if I had a very expensive dinner.
So what would happen if a rogue manager refuse to cease operations, and kept serving food and collecting money until supplies ran out, or just kept buying supplies and paying wages from the proceeds? If the even the regional directors were fired, would corporate headquarters even know?
Popping in from the other side of the fence . . . I’ve found that the opposite has been true. Yes, I do still have work-related stress, but usually it is of my own making. When my husband was downsized and my income suddenly became the one that was paying the bills, the idea that I can’t be fired came as a great relief. I can “fire” annoying clients, and I can seek out more and better-paying ones, and I can work as many or as few hours as I need or want. Perhaps I just haven’t reached the SNAFU point that Triss mentions, but I’ll never go back to being a wage slave. I say go for it.
Back to dissing Ground Round. These situations always truly suck.
One of my favorite places was the Waldenbooks store at Ballston Common Mall. Just after Christmas 1996 it was operating normally, no hint of anything in the wind. The next time I was there, two weeks later, BAM!! Locked up, dark, empty, no warning, no explanation. :mad:
I wondered this myself. If i were the manager of one of the restaurants, i would have stayed open the rest of the evening which, according to the article, is “one of the busiest dining-out nights of the year.” I would have told customers that it was cash only, and i would then have divvied up the money among the employees.
Yes, i guess that would have been theft, which would make me a bad person. But it would also be a pre-emptive strike to offset the “theft” that’s probably about to happen–the loss of vacation pay and back wages for the staff. I know the article said that such issues had not yet been sorted out, but if the company’s creditors want to be paid first, then that’s what will happen, with zip left for the employees.
Wow, this story brings back bad memories for me. I was working at Eastern Airlines Reservations Center at Logan Airport in Boston in March 1989.
An annoucement came over the loudspeaker “All employees are to unplug their headsets and leave the building.” That was it. We all retreated to our favorite bar in East Boston and proceeded to get sloppy-assed drunk. To top it all off, my last paycheck bounced.
My bank is in the parking lot of the mall where the now-empty Ground Round stands.
I’ve been to the ATM at my bank twice since I noticed the “no longer open for business” sign and each time, there’s a car driving around the restuarant… reeee-eeealy slowly. Ever hopeful, eh?
I wonder if there wasn’t some rogue manager out there who turned it into a free-for-all after they got the news? In my mind’s eye, I can see all of the former employees walking out a few hours after that conference call with bloated stomachs and bags full of supplies, food and liquor.
I’ll bet money that at the very least anything perishable left with employees, at every single Ground Round closed that night. If I’d been a manager there, I’d have somehow not seen things like meat and vegetables and such going home with people–it’s going to be a loss anyway, and it may as well feed someone. And I think I would have let the staff sit down to a nice dinner before they left. I would have drawn the line there, myself, but I wouldn’t be surprised if at least a few stores were more or less cleaned out.
I was happy to read about the manager letting the folks already there finish their meals–he didn’t have to, and had no way of knowing if he would get paid for his work, but he did it anyway. Good for him.
As far as continuing to operate, I’d bet anyone who tried it would have trouble getting suppliers to keep bringing stuff. It’s entirely possible that they pay their bills through a central, corporate office. And even if they don’t, the suppliers know that GR is effectively out of business–why keep delivering when they know the place is running under the table, corporate will find out eventually and they probably won’t get paid. And there’s no way in hell they’re getting liquor delivered, since their license is probably in question as well. I bet, though, that a lot of places ran cash-only that night and split it between the staff, as mhendo suggested.
The Ground Round near me did the same thing. Open and doing business as usual one day, closed up and outta business the next.
We went there quite a lot. It was a great place. Too bad they treat their employees in such a shitty manner.
Why the bloody hell couldn’t they wait until after closing? Would it be too much to ask for someone from the corporate office to drag his ass in late to at least let people finish their shifts? Or what about that morning before they opened, before people sat down to fucking eat?
A friend of mine was recently laid off from one of Lexington’s finest independent bookstores–no cause, just a routine staff reduction. She was brought to the office, told she was being let go, and then escorted off the premesis; they knew she didn’t drive, so they had already arranged a ride for her. I just couldn’t work for a place knowing that I’d be treated so disrespectfully, or that at any point I could be ten minutes from being out on the street and jobless without even a chance to say goodbye to anyone. I see why they do it, I guess, but that doesn’t make it any less disrespectful.
