You don't quit a bad job, just a bad boss
It struck me as odd at the time. I was heading into work for the lunch shift, and the busboy was walking the other direction. But that really wasn't the odd part. The odd part was that our new manager was following behind him.
“I was just kidding,” said the new manager.
I have seen enough interpersonal fights up close to know the telltale signs. One doesn't bartend for long before realizing that interjecting oneself into an argument is a great way to get two people to agree — that they mutually don't like you!
There's an adage that domestic disputes are the most dangerous police call to respond to. I don't know the science behind that, but I do know from experience that a fighting couple will turn on anyone who attempts to interfere, be they a friend, cop or bartender.
This particular drama had to do with a different dynamic: employer and employee. But the emotions involved were just as dramatic. Johnny Paycheck's song, “Take This Job and Shove It,” wasn't a No. 1 country hit for nothing. And here it was playing out on a little cement overpass over a suburban creek.
Apparently when one has pissed off the only guy who knows how to do his job and the thought of doing it yourself — and poorly at that — is staring you in the face, one might make some compromises.
Just like when I'm behind the bar, I pretended not to see what was happening. It can be comical to realize that people will only whisper if you are looking at them. They seem to not realize that if they can hear you, you can hear them even if you are looking in the other direction. Many a time I have turned my back to ring in an item on the register only to hear a comment while I am looking the other way. Just FYI, my ears are exactly the same distance from you when I am facing the other direction as they were when I was looking directly at you.
“You don't have to set all the tables,” pleaded the manager, his arms reaching out like a jilted lover. “I'll do it! I'll set up table 84 myself.”
The busboy pulled away physically from the psychology involved. Words, like actions, can have physical consequences. “I will buy your lunch!” An aloof stare.
“You can go home early!” A look away.
“I will do all your side work!” The busboy slowed down. Having seen many interper
sonal interactions, I knew the pleas were having the desired effect. In other words, it was working.
“I mean, I'll get Sam to do it,” corrected the manager.
Funny how promises made in the heat of the moment get diluted the minute that moment cools down.
“Come on now, I said I was sorry. It won't happen again.”
I have also seen enough interactions to know when someone doesn't actually mean what they are saying. It can be pretty obvious to an outside observer when someone else is being manipulated. Odd that from the inside, it can be so much harder to tell.
Apparently when one has pissed off the only guy who knows how to do his job and the thought of doing it yourself — and poorly at that — is staring you in the face, one might make some compromises.
The little tableau had played itself out on that walking bridge and now the participants were walking together back toward the restaurant and I was following behind them awkwardly.
Sometimes in the restaurant business the focus of energy doesn't go toward the actual problem, it goes away from it. Ask anybody in the business how many meetings they have sat through about behavioral problems or policy standards where the biggest problem in either category doesn't even show up. The stellar employee gets a lecture about trivialities while the waiter who nodded off during a meeting doesn't even get a talking to.
“I'm sorry I asked you to do extra side work,” the manager said, literally hugging the busboy.
“We are down two people,” replied the busboy, uttering the first words I had heard him say.
“Yeah, yeah, I'm sorry,” said the manager. “Just let's get through this lunch.”
After that lunch, there was a different type of argument. First about an employee meal, then about side work, then about leaving early.
Leaving me with these thoughts:
• The following week, we had a different busboy. And the week after that, another one. Then another, and another, until finally we had no busboy at all.
• People don't leave bad jobs, they leave bad bosses.
• The manager also sent home our best server once for wearing navy blue socks instead of black ones. I say once because the waiter never returned.
• Seek out the people who value you in both business and personal relationships, and then make sure that you then value them, too.
Jeff Burkhart is the author of “Twenty Years Behind Bars: The Spirited Adventures of a Real Bartender, Vol. I and II,” the host of the Barfly Podcast on iTunes and an awardwinning bartender at a local restaurant. Follow him at jeffburkhart. net and contact him at jeffbarflyIJ@outlook.com.