Speaking as someone who’s been fired from lots of jobs (both bullshit high school jobs and real corporate jobs) for lots of different reasons, generally no one actually gives a shit as long as you can provide personal references who can vouche for you.
If they ask why you left your last job, tell them they cut some staff.
It looks very promising at Outback. One of the servers there is also a server at Sonny’s. She’d heard about my son’s firing. Apparently, the person who complained about the salad was from corporate, so that tells me someone was out to get him. She said a manager was bragging about firing him. :rolleyes:
But anyway, she told my son to come back tomorrow at 2pm and she even wrote her name at the top of his application “Referred by Lisa ___.”
I will say my son makes quite an impression in his suit (he got it two years ago from his aunt as a birthday present, custom fit from Men’s Wearhouse) and in this day and age when a lot of kids show up in jeans and ripped t-shirts, snapping gun, and ask “Dude, you guys hirin’?” hopefully it will make a difference.
Keep fingers crossed!
Yep. I hate that when a manager gets a random bug up their ass and decides to make your life hell.
I disagree about that. Escalating for the purpose of revenge is not the same as clearing his name, setting the record straight in case it comes down to unemployment, or protecting himself from retaliation. Also, not every company has a policy against managers dating employees. Such dating is very, very common in restaurants. Maybe you know this restaurant does, but I don’t see anything good coming from pursuing that angle.
Why? How’s it even worth the bother of picking up the phone? And why would corporate believe you or even care?
Actually, that makes me see it very differently. My experience is that 3 prepared salads would be considerably more expensive than a soup-salad bar. If corporate was “mystery shopping” for some reason, the last thing they want to see is someone “giving away free food.” The manager then has two choices: admit that they’re casual about that all the time, or say “what the h*ll was that kid doing?”
I feel bad for your son that he is going through this, but I can totally see a termination happening for that kind of thing on a mystery shop, or a CSR on one of the phone calls monitored for quality control. Sometimes it just sux to make your mistake at the wrong time.
I hope things work out at Outback.
You’re right…it’s not like he’ll get his job back, and even if he did, would he want to work there?
It’s not even always kids, either. Upon leaving a NAPA auto parts store the other day, my husband overheard a woman (ratty t-shirt, shorts, flip-flops; with her kid with her): “Y’all got enough employees?”
:rolleyes:
Speaking as a corporate manager, no one gives a shit. Look, some imbecile in corporate HR comes up with all the various rules and regulations in the employee handbook, but the reality is that all I care about is advancing my career and not pissing off my boss who is doing the same (a somewhat impossible task in my current job as my boss is insane). All Sonny’s Franchise Company, Inc. cares about is whether each of their restaurants is profitable. They don’t care about the day to day management of a bunch of high school and college students who won’t be there in 9 months.
“Your manager got a random bug up their ass and decided to make your life hell”? You reported your manager to corporate because she changed your shifts around! What the fuck did you expect?! If one of my subordinates reported me I would take a genuine interest in getting them fired. Why? Because they are FUCKING WITH MY LIVELIHOOD! And forget that CYA bullshit. It doesn’t matter what you do at that point because chances are you work in an “at will” state. If a manager takes a dislike to you, they will make sure you look like shit come review time. They will take the most innocuous mistake or oversight and make it look like the worst possible offense.
Look, I don’t mean to sound like an insensitive corporate asshole. But the reality is you don’t get very far by tattling on your boss. You get ahead by making your bosses life easier. If they are dating a coworker, banging hookers on the side, showing up drunk or stoned then you keep your mouth shut, make excuses for his wife or tell her supervisor she’s “in a meeting”. If you can’t do that, go find a boss who isn’t such a douche.
Are you kidding? Do you think that when I was applying to multi-billion dollar management consulting firms after recieving my MBA, any of those companies were going to check and find out that the deli at Stop & Shop will no longer hire me because I lied to them about going to college the summer after my senior year? “We’d like to hire you, but I see that you were fired from Red Lobster when you were 17.”
Yes, you said “restaurant”. The rest of the sentence is redundant.
I mean common. You are talking about an industry that hires freakin’ illegal immigrants and ex-criminals. I’m sure your son will recover from getting fired because the boss is a prick.
Accurate, except to add the other people who bounce back and forth among restaurants. 30 years ago, I read that turnover at restaurants was 300%, and I’d be surprised if it were any less now.
At least the son will learn this early in life. Unfortunately, some people don’t find this out until they get fired from a career job.
One of my friends here was asked by a visiting VP from Head Office about “The Truth” of the country president. As my friend said, “The Truth” is that the VP would get a few minutes of glory in some meeting back home by revealing that the Japan president was an ass, took off too much time, didn’t understand the market, but since he’s politically connected, the president is safe.
Meanwhile, my friend’s life would be hell if his ass isn’t out on the streets. So, “The Truth” is that the President seems to be doing a damn good job, as far as he knows. Said with the right smile, and even corporate VPs understand you’re not going to throw yourself under a bus.
If there’s an ideal world out there that doesn’t play games, let me know.
(My bold)
Hiring at gun point?! 
Yeah, my son caught that when he read the thread. He agrees with what **Harriet ** said, about management having to cover their ass with corporate.
My main concern was whether Restaurant B is going to call up Restaurant A and ask why someone was fired. So, it sounds like my son can list his previous experience and I think this from Bosstone:
is a good idea.
My son is also learning networking. As I said, Lisa at Outback also works at Sonny’s, she knows my son and is willing to vouch for him at Outback. So, I’m hoping this afternoon we’ll have good news to report.
msmith537, I think Quartz was whooshing us.
When I was waiting tables (a couple decades ago, but I don’t think it’s changed much), networking was the best way to get a job. Turnover is tremendous and they’ll hire anybody, but will give preference to someone that a good current employee recommends. I don’t think they ever checked references. It wasn’t worth the hassle - if an employee caused trouble or slacked too much, they just fired them.
I’d bet he’ll have a job this afternoon.
Luck!
I popped in, read your OP, and figured the complaint about being undercharged was almost certainly someone from corporate.
Whether they were out to get him personally, or just doing a general undercover thing, who knows.
Sounds like he’s well rid of the place!
Outback isn’t hiring. So that means that since Lisa said they were hiring, for whatever reason, they weren’t interested in my son. 
He’s heading over to the new Olive Garden building in our town now…I don’t know when they open.
Quit worrying. Restaurant positions are very transient. If Outback isn’t hiring today, someone else will be. I wouldn’t be paranoid about the “they’re hiring/no they’re not” thing. They may have found someone in the meantime.
Olive Garden wasn’t open yet…he does have two “Come back and talk to the manager” on Monday…one at Steak 'n Shake, one at Carrabba’s. I think he’s also supposed to talk to McDonald’s Monday morning. Friendly’s wants to do a background check (fine) and call his former employer (could be iffy.)
I’m going to tell my son not to get discouraged…he’ll be fine for school tuition, his father and I will make sure of that. He’s been working so hard for money, picking up double shifts six days a week, so it’s not like he’s been slacking off. He said he was going to stop off at Domino’s and then go home.
This is 100% correct, but I would like to highlight the fact that to keep a job, DO NOT GO OVER YOUR BOSSES HEAD TO COMPLAIN ABOUT ANYTHING. WHAT ON EARTH WAS HE THINKING??? WAS HE ON DRUGS??? LSD???CRACK???
You, as his parent had better set him straight on this, and quickly. If he had done that to me, I would have gone to HR and see if going out of the hierarchy is a firing offense in the company, as it is in many companies. If not, you would have been on my A-list for a quick exit by any means possible. Also, corporate doesn’t like this any more than I would have, and they definitely do not want to hear about a PT employee not getting enough hours.
That being said, I have been amazed by the amount of turnover in the restaurant business. Telling the truth, as a server, won’t hurt him, but getting caught in a lie will definitely kill his chances in getting a restaurant job, where most of the losses are caused by employee dishonesty.
Yes, somebody was out to get him, but it was because of *his * screw up. It doesn’t mean he’s a dolt, it means he made a mistake. Learn from it, and go on. And, tell him never to repeat that “somebody was out to get him” thing. Just makes him look like a jerk.
The new restaurant, when he gets hired, will actually be amused that they could steal a top rate employee from the other place, IMHO, from my restaurant experience.
Best wishes,
greatshakes
Funny you should mention that. I was discussing this very subject with my son after I got home.
Basically, I told him his strong sense of justice and fair play is wasted at his level of employment. Corporate, as other have said, does not care that some random server is unhappy about his shifts. The manager, however, will be upset that the server has made him look bad to corporate.
I told him right now, he is easily replaceable. If he is unhappy with his job, he can look for another job, but complaining to corporate will do no good. When he gets further up the ladder and becomes less replaceable, * then complaints may be listened to. But there’s a thousand kids just like him and the manager can switch him out very easily.
*I know even in the business world this doesn’t always work, but the other manager and I complained about our boss and she was subsequently fired. Granted, her antics were well known to her boss, so we were confirming to him what he already knew when we went to talk to him. And, at our job, fortunately, we were not as easily replaced as she was.
You’ve just described almost every restaurant in this country.