Friday, February 03, 2006

And the struggle continues...


Some times it's difficult to get excited to go to work anymore. When the company you have worked so hard for, for so long turns it's back on you, it's hard to enjoy what you do. Our store has been focusing on what is referred to as T vs. A - the difference between what we really have (food resources) versus what we should have in theory if nothing was wasted/stolen/ruined. It would be interesting to know if after Red Lobster started screwing with their servers if their T vs. A got worse. I would suspect it did. People are now trying to save $ where before they were making a lot more and didn't mind paying for their salad or cup of soup. Red Lobster, in their infinately lacking wisdom, feel that constantly harping at their staff is the key to everything. It's hard to get people to change their ways when they don't care much for the company they work for. It's amazing the level of frustration that is expressed among our staff because of these new asinine policies. Daily we have exasperated staff. The new system penalizes the good servers for the bad ones. There is no longer a reward for being a good, strong server. It used to be if you could handle it, you could take some more tables, make some extra money. Now we are handicapped. I gave equally good service prior to the change over, my customer satisfaction surveys can attest to that. So now rather than going into work, making enough money to pay my bills, and then going home, I have to go into work, listen to the other experienced staff complain incessantly about this terrible system, struggle to make enough money to make ends meet, and go home frustrated. The inefficeincy of this current system is mind blowing. We can only pre-bus and walk so much food, and then there is nothing left. We now have bussers, making our pre-bussing task easier (as well as cleaning the tables), and we now have fewer tables each, making our work easier, and we now have more people to split the side work among, making our work easier. In theory, having less work to do sounds really great, but in reality the pay off is making 40% less on a nightly basis than we were previously. I don't know about you, but I don't have enough hours in my week to work 40% more to continue making the same amount of money. If I thought it would work, I would see if we could unionize, because at least then we would have some power. Right now the system is "here comes a gigantic turd, you must swollow it" and our only choice is to open up and say yum or to walk out the door. Red Lobster is destroying a whole generation of their quality servers.

I started this blog as an outlet for my frustration. I sure wish somebody at the corporate level of Darden/GMRI/Red Lobster would pull their heads out of (insert spot here) long enough to read this and understand what a gigantic screw job they have done to their service staff employees. I generally don't vent much to my fellow co-workers, as it only serves to incite the natives. They are frustrated enough without my adding into the frey.

Red Lobster has over 670 restaurants in North America and more than 63,000 employees. The company served more than 141 million guests in fiscal 2005 (ending May 29, 2005) and enjoyed total sales of $2.4 billion. The company is a subsidiary of Darden Restaurants Inc. (NYSE: DRI) . Darden also owns and operates Olive Garden, Bahama Breeze, Smokey Bones Barbeque and Grill and Seasons 52 restaurants.

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3 comments:

Anonymous said...

You sound like an educated, eloquent and responsible person. Could you tell us why you choose to stay in this environment? You could be at a restaurant that treats employees better. Or even work at a management level.

Anonymous said...

I'm a RL server too and I definitely feel your pain! We're experiencing the same CRAP at our resturant - we use to be Diamond Club now we're struggling and after 4 GM's in 2 yrs.; lack of stability; additional side work - now we have to breakdown and clean the salad bar areas (our AC's get $10/hr. we get $2.13)we're frustrated beyond words! We want to unionize too but I don't know where to contact a Union Rep. Do you? We are also in a "Right to Work" state in the south...

Lobster Boy said...

I choose Red Lobster because I had quit my previous career to go back to grad school, and as a result moved 5 hours away to where I live now. Red Lobster was close to my school, I knew the system, I knew contacts in the Red Lobster system that could make sure I got an interview, and compared to other chain resturants, Red Lobster's per guest and ticket averages are far higher so that's where I decided to go. I could work at a high end place (and might be making that transition this summer) but when I first started school that wasn't an option because I needed the flexibility of the RL schedule. I was doing just fine at RL until they started this stupid 3 table BS. I certainly had my complaints, but they were things I could/would live with.

Regarding the "right to work state", I know that affects unionizing, but I don't think it prohibits it. My current state is also a R2WS and there are restaurants taht are unionized. Contact a union in your area and see where it takes you.