Clarity

The rose colored glasses are gone. The world is a dull gray, at best. My hope for the future and seeing the best in the human race is gone. My vision of a group of people working together to build a successful restaurant has been stomped into the ground.

The General Manager of our rink and many of his employees are thieves. My contact at corporate has made it clear, he is not interested any issues we are having. Even after agreeing to start over and work together, Todd and his cohorts continue to sabotage our business. My partner doesn’t have my back. It almost seems as though he and Todd have been in cahoots to drain me of my savings before continuing to build the cafe and bar into a viable business. I can hardly pay my bills and definitely cannot invest another penny. My body is falling apart from all the hard work.

No knight in shining armor is going to gallop in and whisk me off on his mighty steed. Chef Irvine and Jon Taffer will not be calling to help me get back on track. Not even a wonderful philanthropist like Ellen DeGeneres can save me now. It’s time to quit.

After letting Pierre’s email sink in for a few days, I replied, ‘Buy me out’. He acted surprised. I don’t know why. After reading this blog, I know you’re not surprised. You’re probably more surprised that I stayed so long. Me, too, now that I’m looking back. It was truly a mistake to believe things would work out once these issues started presenting themselves. I was very sad. I really did love having a cafe and bar.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying you should not believe in your vision of starting a business. All I want you to do is think way outside the box about what may go wrong and plan for that. After reading about the issues I encountered, you can see there are a lot more hurdles than drawing people to your doors and fixing equipment. Be prepared and make your dreams come true.

My Employees are Your Employees

Back in the Olden Days, when I was in high school, my Dad came home one night and was talking about some decision that was made at work and how he disagreed with the plan. I asked him why he didn’t just do what he thought was a better plan. He explained to me that the company was paying him to do a job, whatever the company decided that job should be. It was the best work advice I’ve ever gotten. I’m not saying I keep my ideas to myself, I’m saying when the decision is made I do the best job I can do to support the company’s needs. Does anybody think this way anymore? I can’t tell you how many employees I had that absolutely refused to follow our kitchen procedures because they knew a better way to do everything. Even people I thought were my friends, who came to me when they were destitute, were defiant.

We hired a lot of high schoolers, for most this was their first job. Many times, their parents would come apply for them, but I told the parents their kids would have to apply for themselves. It took a lot to train the kids, many had never cooked before, or even washed their hands. So we always hoped people would stay a while after training. Some did. Some didn’t. Some quit and went to work for the rink. So my employees became their employees.

People are free to work where ever they wish. Even if they hadn’t gone to work for the rink, they probably would have quit anyway. So I don’t have a problem with that, except for one thing. Todd knew he was interviewing my employees and he was my landlord. In the spirit of keeping a good relationship, I truly expected him to make sure the kids knew they should give 2 weeks notice and work for us those 2 weeks and then start their new job with him. Instead the kids would quit and start their new job the next day or give 2 weeks notice and call in sick for every shift. I would come in to work their hours and there they were sitting at the front desk working for Todd. They didn’t look very sick. I would have been happy to give Todd a copy of their schedule so he could work around it for 2 weeks, but he wasn’t interested in working with me on this issue at all.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I was glad to get rid of some of these employees. It saved me from having to fire them. Still, it left me in the lurch for employees to quit so abruptly. I don’t blame any of them for changing jobs, the rink job was so much easier than cooking food and cleaning up a kitchen. Like I told you before, the rink employees didn’t have to do much. They checked in a few people and then sat around the entire evening. There were no mature adults working the front desk to encourage the employees to keep the lobby clean or police the bleacher areas. Working at the rink was like getting free money for doing nothing. Changing jobs was kind of a no-brainer. I just think it could have been handled with a little more respect from Todd.

Baby, Bye Bye Bye

I can’t read minds, so I have no idea what Pierre and Robbie were thinking when we were planning the restaurant. Now, it sure seems like they both thought we would stock the restaurant, hire a bunch of people at $10/hour, and sit back to rake in the dough. So it’s no surprise Robbie decided he wanted out not too long after we had our fight. I was pretty disappointed because I thought sure Robbie was our ace in the hole. He was young and had the energy to really make things happen.

Robbie didn’t say much to me, just that he thought working more hours would make him feel burned out and he didn’t want that. It was Pierre who told me Robbie wanted out. Of course Pierre’s idea was for me to give Robbie his $12,500 back and I would become 2/3 owner of the restaurant. He thought that was fair because I was doing most of the work and would reap more benefits when we started making money. So, I gave Pierre a check and he got Robbie to sign away his partnership in the restaurant for the return of his money. I went along with it because I thought our finances would turn around when we got the liquor license and eventually I would make my money back and more.

That’s when I learned how vengeful Robbie could be. His friend, Dawnell, had already quit. Another friend, Dan, had just started working every other weekend. After Robbie left, Dan didn’t show up for a shift and then said he was quitting because he was only working to help Robbie. We owed Dan about $150 and he wanted to come by and pick it up in cash. I told him he would have to turn in the payroll paperwork so we could take out withholding and report the earnings. Dan never came back. Robbie said some mean things to me because I didn’t pay his friend. I had every intention to pay Dan, I just wanted to do it legally. I don’t know why Dan didn’t want to get a regular paycheck. Before Dan quit, Robbie sent me another friend and her daughter. They didn’t show up for their interview, so I called the Mom. She said Robbie told her not to come because the restaurant was closing. Their family really needed the money and we really needed the help but Robbie made her feel like a traitor if she were to take the job. Really? We didn’t do anything to hurt Robbie and yet he sure wanted to hurt us.

My mistake here was refunding Robbie’s money without question. We had a fight and Robbie quit, Pierre attacked me verbally, Pierre hadn’t put in his seed money, and I was killing myself working all the time. Restaurants fail even in the best of circumstances. With all this crap, we didn’t have a chance.