A New Holiday for Hospitality Employees.

I used to work for a major hotel chain in the Canadian Rockies. It was a lot of fun and definitely part of the formative years of my life. Lots of fun was had by almost everyone that worked there.

The only downside of working there was you had to work Christmas Day. Normally, people are in merry, festive moods during the holiday season. That rule of thumb goes out the window when you are on holidays during the holiday season.

People were miserable. Nothing was quite as good as it would have been if they'd stayed home. Which begs the question, why didn't they?

Since we had to work Christmas, I proposed a new holiday for hospitality employees: Say What you Think Day. A day where employees could say whatever was on their minds. To employers, to guests, to whomever they pleased.

That would be better than the pair of socks and underwear Aunt Betty got you now wouldn't it?

Sour Grapes on Sour Cream

I wasn't always in the restaurant business. I much like many people have held a string of jobs, some which I loved and some which I hated. We opened our first sports bar a few years back. I remember being excited, not only at opening a business, but at the thought of having friends come over to "my bar" and watch football, hockey or whatever tickled our fancy. I had visions of all of us sitting around having a great time sharing stories and beers before we departed to our respective homes.

Fast forward a few years and we now have a successful sports bar and my visions have come true regarding having friends come by and watch all of our favourite sporting events. It was everything I had hoped for with the exception of one fact that escaped my rose coloured glasses.

Some "friends" don't appreciate all that you do for them.

Don't get me wrong, some of the people I count as old friends still remain good friends, and some of the people I didn't know as well have become better friends.

Now as most people will tell you, I am generous to a fault. I buy more than my fair share of beers for the boys, sponsor their teams and ask for little in return other than to help promote my business to their circle of friends, helping us bring in more business.

This brings me to the point about one of my friends. Although we like people to be comfortable here, a couple of friends have become so comfortable that they now treat the bar as their own living room, and expect more than any other guest. As I posted in my previous blog, nothing in this business is free and this friend constantly complains about portion sizes he receives. Especially about his sour cream. He loves his sour cream. I know, because he never stops complaining about it. He also loves his sports. God forbid a day ever comes when we are out of sour cream and our satellites are down. If we couldn't get his favourite team and sour cream to him there would be a riot!

I mention this because as you may recall, I said some like to treat it as their living room, which is fine. But let me tell you this: I would never sit in their living room, complaining about the size of my portion, or that the beer is not cold enough for them. Or their wives who would probably be serving it to us. So I guess I'm saying "Do unto others as you would have done unto you."

The friend is still a friend (although not as close as we once were).

And this post was SO therapeutical. Thanks for listening.

What's up with the Bitch at Table 14?

Seriously. This woman claims that we should not be charging for a side of mayonnaise for her sandwich. If mayo was an ingredient on her sandwich, I would gladly give her some for free, but its not, so its something EXTRA. Now, I'm not sure about you, but when I order something extra I expect there to be a charge. Not Mayo Lady. Apparently she is under the assumption that when we run out of mayo here at the restaurant that the Free Mayo Fairy drops more off gratis! Trust me, if this was the case I would gladly give away free mayo all the time. Alas, I have to pay for mayo and therefore must charge for said mayo to recoup my costs. Sorry. So really, what's up with the bitch at Table 14?

Heart Health for the Servers Father

Why is it that when someone calls in sick it's always their father who has had a heart attack? And why do said fathers only have heart attacks on a Friday or Saturday? Is it not OK to have one mid week? I know if I was to have one, I'd want to have it on the Monday so I wouldn't have to work all week. As for it always being the father, do mom's not have heart attacks too? Or is it that you would feel too guilty jinxing your mother or grandmother with the bad karma this would inevitably bring? I'm not saying that some of these calls are not legit, but I've noticed a trend the last few weeks where a lot of fathers are having the Friday or Saturday heart attack.

To combat this, I've decided to have a father/daughter/son staff meeting with the Heart and Stroke foundation being the headline speaker. Perhaps they can give some heart healthy tips to the fathers, and also let them know that its OK to have one mid week. I'll keep you posted as to how this works!