- Once upon a time, I worked at a pizza parlor. The boss had two simple credos, “Customer Service,” and “Get the job done.”
If you did not upset any customers, and if your job got done, he was a peach of a guy. He often showed up around fiveish on Friday nights with an ice chest of beer, and held a tailgate party out back behind the dumpster. Employees coming off duty were welcome to sit and chat; employees ON duty were welcome to come out for a beer, so long as they didn’t tarry; Fridays were usually fairly busy. As long as the job got done and the customers were happy, The Boss was happy. One of the finest personnel managers I’ve ever known; his people would march through an ocean of crap for him.
- Once upon a time, I worked at an expensive restaurant, very upscale place. It had two bosses: the Chef and the Restaurant Manager.
The Chef was a neat guy, very chatty, very personable. His motto was, once again, “Getting The Job Done.” He also had a unique philosophy about what employees could eat – namely, anything except lobster. The restaurant was in central Texas, so lobster would have been impractical to feed employees. You could have steak once or twice a week, although you had to ask HIM to fix it for you.
You could have anything else you wanted without even asking. Popcorn shrimp, roast beef, salads, chicken fried steak, anything else you wanted. Just get it out and fix it for yourself. He believed that this policy kept food theft down. He was right, too. Every so often, he’d even authorize the sacrifice of a lobster for our lunch, although he was a bear about not wasting it – you had to be ready to learn to use those nutcrackers and lobster picks…
The Restaurant Manager, on the other hand, was an utter bastard, complete jerk, the kind of fellow who thrives on terror and humiliation. The lives of the waitresses and busboys were meager, unhappy things; they made very good money in tips, and the RM made a point of gleefully reminding them that the gravy train could be derailed with one word from him, for any reason or no reason.
Once the RM made the mistake of wandering into the kitchen and trying to order the kitchen crew around on the Chef’s day off. Big mistake. He didn’t know that the Chef had come in to whip up some burgundy mushroom sauce before going out fishing.
The Chef took him out back and did a Top Sergeant on him. It was amazing to hear. We all gathered around by the main grill vent, because we could hear everything plainly from there. Chef very neatly backed the man into a corner, cursed him, his family, his ancestry, and his manhood, insulted him to the dogs and back, and swore that if the RM EVER, EVER came in his kitchen and tried to screw with HIS people again, then the restaurant could find itself a new damn chef, right then and there, and what would the owner think of that…?
The RM stayed the hell out of the kitchen after that. Once again, Chef was a master of personnel management. We’d have gone through hell for him, and he knew it.
…and didn’t abuse it, either.
