BeerBorg

A bit of background: I work for a grocery chain that has food courts in their stores (kitchen, chinese, pizza, soup and sandwich, salad bar). I work in the kitchen and besides the food court we do lots of catering. A few weeks ago I went from working days to taking on the new Kitchen Night Manager position, which we needed to whip the night crew into shape.

Anyways the store as whole and our kitchen struggles with kids screwing around on their phones all the time. We aspire to provide great customer service, so we can't have miffed customers being ignored while Dumbass is checking Facebook. Only allowable cell use is on breaks or when out on caterings for work use. My manager apparently had enough yesterday and started sitting everyone down and telling them they would be fired on the spot for violating policy. I was working at a store in a nearby town that day because they needed help, and was off the weekend.

So I come back after 3 days out to find out that in my absence the kids at night did a shitty job, and pissed off all the daytime people, so I got an earful about how things have to be. Which really sucked because I had been getting really good feedback about the progress we had made (at least the nights I worked). And my manager tells me I am to fire people on the spot for fucking around on the phone, no matter what.

So of course this girl who gets the talk from my manager before he leaves for the day. She goes out on a catering, so she actually needs to have a phone with her. When she gets back as we are discussing how things went and she pulls the phone out to check the time. So I warn her that she needs to keep the phone put away now that she is back, got a little attitude back, whatever.

Not 15 minutes later as I am checking her notes for what that catering need to replenished for tomorrow (its 3 days a week of salad bar, every week and we can store food on-site) and I look over and she is flipping through stuff on her phone. Really, how many warnings does she need.

This may sound a bit draconian, but our night crew went to hell in a handbasket, and we are expected to raise our expectations far higher. I actually prefer a laid back fun atmosphere, but we are to the point of drawing lines and making examples sadly.

Just needed to vent.

Sux to be the bad guy sometimes, but with these kids, telling them your gonna get fired if u don't stop it, then not canning them when they do... not good. Hate to say it, like her, or the others or not, your gonna have to say it. YOUR FIRED! The others should fall instep shortly there after. If u don't do this, they will walk all over you. I tried to be a nice guy when I was a boss, got walked all over. I hated with a passion to be the bad guy, but it had to be done.

Hope your day gets better. Have a homebrew at home, or 2, or 3.... or... )

Turns out I need to drink more homebrew. I usually just have 1 or 2 of my own, then switch to commercial. But once again I went to bottle and realize I was short a few bottles. Since I bottle before work, I can't solve the problem until after work.

Jp, I feel ya!

I've been the third shift lead man for about 10 years and about four years ago they dropped a cat on me they knew was trouble.
I tried the easy going approach for a while then I had to go the hard ass route.
It really drove me nuts to have to do it that way, because it's not in my nature.

Some people don't get it any other way, I guess!
Good luck my friend!

Having an employee check their phone to see what time it is wouldn't bother me; a lot of young people don't bother wearing watches anymore, preferring to rely on their phones. But yeah, surfing the web when they're supposed to be working -- ESPECIALLY when they've already received warning about it -- well, that's kind of stupid/irresponsible/arrogant. It would suck if someone had to be made an example of by being canned on the spot, but sacrificing one person in order to make the point to everyone is sometimes necessary.

I'm glad I left management, because I'm not good at that kind of thing. I always approached it from the standpoint of "we're all adults here, so let's act like responsible adults", which, sad to say, doesn't always work. One true piece of advice I got from a more experienced manager was, "If everyone, at some point, doesn't think you're an a**hole, you're not doing your job." Sad, but true.

Make the rule, put up a clock. If they use their phone, written warning. If they use it again, fire them.

At my son's work they have to deposit their phones on a rack and are only allowed to check them on break.

Yeah, it's a bitch. I was a supervisor in the CG and the PD. What really irked me was that after whipping some-one into shape, you'd have to do it again every other month. Some people will do a good job with no oversight, some want a pat on the back, some need a kick in the ass.

Yeah, that sux. I have to 'shut-down' employees checking their phones in front of customers frequently. Salesman was fired three weeks ago for his obliviousness, after receiving a written warning the week before that. I do value phones at work for on the spot documentation/pictures of thieves, accidents, and vagrants at the retail showroom. Whenever something weird is going on, I usually have an employee sending me a picture of what happened. A picture is worth a thousand words...

Absolutely the worst part of being a business owner/manager is letting people go. I hate it with a passion, but it needs to be done sometimes. It's even worse when it isn't for cause. Letting people go due to economics sucks worse IMO.

jp, I'm guessing a "helpful smile" doesn't ease the frustration in this case...

Well when I went in to work my manager, HR manager and store director each took the time to congratulate me for doing the right thing, and tell me that this would pay dividends with the other slackers that are still around.

Good to see they all have my back.

Cool, it's great to have supervisors that will back you up. I missed it, what did u do, fire her?

FrozenInTime wrote:Cool, it's great to have supervisors that will back you up. I missed it, what did u do, fire her?

Yep fired her. Out of context it was a minor offense, but she had been pushing limits from the start to see what she could get away with.

She told me it would be "my loss." In my experience people who say that always over-estimate their value, and under-estimate how their flaws affect business and morale.

gwcr wrote:Absolutely the worst part of being a business owner/manager is letting people go. I hate it with a passion, but it needs to be done sometimes. It's even worse when it isn't for cause. Letting people go due to economics sucks worse IMO.

jp, I'm guessing a "helpful smile" doesn't ease the frustration in this case...

Nope, still glad I did it though.

jpsherman wrote:She told me it would be "my loss." In my experience people who say that always over-estimate their value, and under-estimate how their flaws affect business and morale.

Dayum, u sure have a great read on ppl as such a young guy, I bet you make a great supervisor! Nice job!

FrozenInTime wrote:

jpsherman wrote:She told me it would be "my loss." In my experience people who say that always over-estimate their value, and under-estimate how their flaws affect business and morale.

Dayum, u sure have a great read on ppl as such a young guy, I bet you make a great supervisor! Nice job!

Thanks, I've been doing this for a while, and I think briefly pursuing an education degree/enjoying philosophy classes has helped as well.

I started in the meat department part-time, and a month on the job I was pulled aside and told I was to be in charge of all the part-timers at night. It was a lot harder back then figuring out how to manage PT employees, when I was also a new PT employee. So this is a new position, but I've done this for almost a decade in one way or another.