Don’t do it.
Boom! I solved that one, now moving on…
We are taught never to quit when we are growing up. “Finish what you started,” man, there are a hundred quotes all urging us to never quit.
What if you are doing something bad?
Quitting, in my childhood, wasn’t even on the options list.
It didn’t matter what it was, a promise to take out the trash, a birthday commitment, it did not matter.
If you gave your word, it was carved in stone.
Early in my restaurant management career, I tried going against my hard-ass trip, so I kept a long leash on my staff of four Assistant Managers. As long as they did nothing to interfere with the generous bonus money I received quarterly, I let them schedule each other. All I did, at the beginning of the week, is hand whomever was in charge of scheduling, a schedule with my schedule and my meetings and they handled the rest. Since their advancement depended on successful scheduling, it went smoothly indeed.
Veteran restaurant peeps know that is a dream compared to what the reality is on a Friday night, your hostess is late because she just got a new tat, so of course, she can only “try and work with one hand,” as she fishes for the night off (fat chance), the dishwasher is sick and barely able to move (but he was here), and the cook just cut his finger off on the grill line and someone needs to rush him to the nearest emergency clinic (of that, I speak from experience).
Try and remember this the next time you go out and the place you are at is busy, that they are staffed and the service is great from hostess to dessert, because that is a dream night for an operator and they are lucky to get two or three days a week like that, preferably their weekend nights when they really make their bones and establish their rep.
As you can tell, I always retain a soft spot for the food service industry and those who toil within. I loved the time I spent and the people God graced me to meet, including the Domestic Despot, to whom I forwarded my first book EMOTIONS: Not your Mama’s ABC’s.
I left school because I did not quit it. If you have followed more than one of my blogs you will know that I have this undeserved superiority complex. I only met one of my professors that I deemed to be intelligent.
I pretty much felt I was out of their league and when the opportunity to sidle up to a beautiful woman from Memphis and tour the south with a rock and roll band came along…
The rest is history.
My history.
And I would not change a thing.
I am a firm believer in the tenets set forth in Mitch Albom’s masterpiece The Five People You Meet in Heaven.
If you haven’t yet, do yourself a big favor and read it.
Stay well.
