Okay, I got all the good stuff out of the way (see the following two posts from this morning) and now I'm going to rant a little.
Three times this summer - and mind you, the summer is not over yet - we've had teen-age employees blow us off with out a care in the world. This is of course nothing new; employees, teen-age and otherwise, blow us and their job and their co-workers off all the time. We're pretty much used to it and can almost predict the ones that will do it and when. What makes these three different is that their parents had a hand in it.
The first time was when a new employee wrote us a "Dear John" letter, stating that he was quitting effective immediately, a letter that was dated on a Sunday, mailed I guess the next day and not picked up out of our mail box until maybe Wednesday or Thursday of that week. Meanwhile, he was absent for his first two shifts of the week for no apparent reason - no one knew he'd quit, since we hadn't gotten the mail with his letter in it. Of course I called his home to see what was up and when I finally got through to his mom she told me it was all our fault; it seems we weren't "fair" because we made him take "on-call" shifts which he shouldn't have to take, since he had better things to do with his time. No matter that every body else on the DR schedule takes one on-call shift a week...(on-call means you are to call in at a certain time and if you are needed you come in. This kid failed to call in the previous Friday because he had "better" things to do, apparently) We had quite a discussion on the phone - most of which I have mercifully forgotten - and the gist of it was that she felt it was okay for her son to quit with no notice, leaving everyone here to pick up the slack. This was deemed "fair" to her.
Second time - mom calls up and says son will not be in for the rest of the week because he is out of town. No notice, no attempt to help cover the shifts, just blown off. I told Mom that that was great and tell Junior that he no longer had a job with us.
This last time - yesterday - the employee has at least given his notice and his last day is this Friday. He calls yesterday morning - Wednesday - to say he wasn't coming in again. Not Wednesday, not Thursday, not Friday. Why? Because "something came up". What is that? His parents were trying to go out of town, but because he had to work that made it difficult, so...guess what? He wasn't going to have to work after all, because he was going to blow us off, with his parents' blessings, it appears. I called his house later in the afternoon and left a message saying that I hoped this wasn't true, that his lack of notice left us unprepared for his final shifts, and would someone please call me and explain what was going on. Perhaps the kid made the whole thing up and just wanted to quit now. He was a trainee and Kevin was quite hard on him, which can be tough for a kid if he is not used to being challenged that way. But I tend to think his folks were fine with him dropping the ball and leaving his co-workers in the lurch.
What is this all about? What sort of message are these parents giving their children? That it is okay to quit without fulfilling your obligations; that you don't need to respect your fellow workers or your employers; that you are better than your job and the people you work with. I also think it shows a lack of parental respect for the child - after all, you must not think your kid is worth too much if they can just leave their job and no one will care; they must not be a useful employee and won't be missed. I mean, isn't that a part of the message you are giving the child when you say it's okay to just stop showing up for work? "My kid isn't that important."?
What ever it is, it is a pain for us. Here it is, the weekend and we have no salad person for Friday night, often the busiest night of the week. We start scrambling immediately to find someone, but it's tough at such short notice. The other cooks have to do the extra prep, the extra clean-up. It is just wrong, and frankly I blame the parents more that the child. The parents should expect more of the child they have raised, they should have raised them to be better people than that. It could make us question whether we should even hire 17 year old kids. Thankfully we know that most of the young people who work with us are great, with the respect for self and others that they need in order to succeed; we are very proud of them and the job they do for the restaurant. As usual, it is the truth about a few rotten apples...
Maybe we ought give the parents of new hires a copy of our Employee Guidelines, with a few lines added for parents of high school age applicants... "Please tell us two weeks before you go on the family vacation." "Please expect your child to give us two weeks notice if they want to quit." "Please respect your child and the job they do here."
And as you read this, and perhaps recognize yourself or your child, think about it. Put yourself in someone else's shoes and imagine that maybe your kid who's employed locally is actually an important cog in the wheel of that business, not the lazy little tw-t who lies around on the sofa all weekend, eating you out of house and home and staring at the computer screen all night. At our place, s/he is a valued member of the team, a kid who works really hard and earns every penny s/he makes. We need them. If we didn't, we'd fire them.
Three times this summer - and mind you, the summer is not over yet - we've had teen-age employees blow us off with out a care in the world. This is of course nothing new; employees, teen-age and otherwise, blow us and their job and their co-workers off all the time. We're pretty much used to it and can almost predict the ones that will do it and when. What makes these three different is that their parents had a hand in it.
The first time was when a new employee wrote us a "Dear John" letter, stating that he was quitting effective immediately, a letter that was dated on a Sunday, mailed I guess the next day and not picked up out of our mail box until maybe Wednesday or Thursday of that week. Meanwhile, he was absent for his first two shifts of the week for no apparent reason - no one knew he'd quit, since we hadn't gotten the mail with his letter in it. Of course I called his home to see what was up and when I finally got through to his mom she told me it was all our fault; it seems we weren't "fair" because we made him take "on-call" shifts which he shouldn't have to take, since he had better things to do with his time. No matter that every body else on the DR schedule takes one on-call shift a week...(on-call means you are to call in at a certain time and if you are needed you come in. This kid failed to call in the previous Friday because he had "better" things to do, apparently) We had quite a discussion on the phone - most of which I have mercifully forgotten - and the gist of it was that she felt it was okay for her son to quit with no notice, leaving everyone here to pick up the slack. This was deemed "fair" to her.
Second time - mom calls up and says son will not be in for the rest of the week because he is out of town. No notice, no attempt to help cover the shifts, just blown off. I told Mom that that was great and tell Junior that he no longer had a job with us.
This last time - yesterday - the employee has at least given his notice and his last day is this Friday. He calls yesterday morning - Wednesday - to say he wasn't coming in again. Not Wednesday, not Thursday, not Friday. Why? Because "something came up". What is that? His parents were trying to go out of town, but because he had to work that made it difficult, so...guess what? He wasn't going to have to work after all, because he was going to blow us off, with his parents' blessings, it appears. I called his house later in the afternoon and left a message saying that I hoped this wasn't true, that his lack of notice left us unprepared for his final shifts, and would someone please call me and explain what was going on. Perhaps the kid made the whole thing up and just wanted to quit now. He was a trainee and Kevin was quite hard on him, which can be tough for a kid if he is not used to being challenged that way. But I tend to think his folks were fine with him dropping the ball and leaving his co-workers in the lurch.
What is this all about? What sort of message are these parents giving their children? That it is okay to quit without fulfilling your obligations; that you don't need to respect your fellow workers or your employers; that you are better than your job and the people you work with. I also think it shows a lack of parental respect for the child - after all, you must not think your kid is worth too much if they can just leave their job and no one will care; they must not be a useful employee and won't be missed. I mean, isn't that a part of the message you are giving the child when you say it's okay to just stop showing up for work? "My kid isn't that important."?
What ever it is, it is a pain for us. Here it is, the weekend and we have no salad person for Friday night, often the busiest night of the week. We start scrambling immediately to find someone, but it's tough at such short notice. The other cooks have to do the extra prep, the extra clean-up. It is just wrong, and frankly I blame the parents more that the child. The parents should expect more of the child they have raised, they should have raised them to be better people than that. It could make us question whether we should even hire 17 year old kids. Thankfully we know that most of the young people who work with us are great, with the respect for self and others that they need in order to succeed; we are very proud of them and the job they do for the restaurant. As usual, it is the truth about a few rotten apples...
Maybe we ought give the parents of new hires a copy of our Employee Guidelines, with a few lines added for parents of high school age applicants... "Please tell us two weeks before you go on the family vacation." "Please expect your child to give us two weeks notice if they want to quit." "Please respect your child and the job they do here."
And as you read this, and perhaps recognize yourself or your child, think about it. Put yourself in someone else's shoes and imagine that maybe your kid who's employed locally is actually an important cog in the wheel of that business, not the lazy little tw-t who lies around on the sofa all weekend, eating you out of house and home and staring at the computer screen all night. At our place, s/he is a valued member of the team, a kid who works really hard and earns every penny s/he makes. We need them. If we didn't, we'd fire them.
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