Do Your Job Or It’s Nacho Job Anymore

It was a Friday night in our taco restaurant, and [Newbie], [Coworker], [My Ex], [Counter Guy], [Assistant Manager], and I were working. Another guy was supposed to work, but he had called off sick. He was the main line cook for the night, with [My Ex] and me as second and third. In our restaurant, you have the person who starts the taco, and another person who adds the cheese, lettuce, etc., and then the wrapper.

I was scheduled to come in at 3:00 pm and leave at 11:00 pm. Since the guy called in sick, [Assistant Manager] asked me to stay a little later. No big deal, more money in my pocket.

Well, no one realized that Friday night was prom night. It felt like every local high-schooler and their date decided to eat at our store before the big dance.

I was thrown to the front of the prep line, starting the orders. I had the most training at it, and at the same time, it wasn’t much; I could handle slow periods at best. [My Ex] was also still relatively new, so I had to tell him what went onto each and every single taco. We were slammed in the front and slammed in the drive-thru. I was doing my best to keep up, but we started to fall behind.

All of sudden, [Assistant Manager] disappeared, leaving me and [My Ex] alone on the line struggling. The drive-thru started to get backed up, so [Newbie] came over to try to help with the wrapping and pushing out orders while in between orders.

The next thing I knew, [Assistant Manager] was walking around, eating a bag of nachos, telling me to move faster, yet not doing a thing. I swear, if looks could kill, he would have dropped dead right then and there. I really wanted to yell at him to come help, but I thought he would fire me on the spot if I did.

We were busy for five solid hours. By the time it was time to close down the dining room, no one had had a break, no one had used the bathroom, and we were all furious because of [Assistant Manager]. [Counter Guy] was scheduled to go home when the dining room closed, but we talked him into staying a little bit longer to cover all our breaks. I managed to talk [Assistant Manager] into running the line for fifteen minutes. I was supposed to go home at the time, so I took my break first since my ride was there to pick me up and I had to explain the schedule change.

I called my [Store Manager] and [Assistant Manager #2] and gave them the lowdown. I sucked down about five cigarettes in about ten minutes, scarfed some food down in three, and smoked again. Then, I returned back to the war zone.

[Newbie] and [Coworker] were both given their breaks and [Counter Guy] went home. Then, [Assistant Manager] did the dumbest thing in the history of stupid things. He sent [My Ex] home. Why? Because married [Assistant Manager] decided he didn’t like [My Ex] but had a thing for me. I had massive creeper vibes.

So now, it was just [Newbie] and [Coworker] scheduled to close, and [Assistant Manager] demanded that I stay, too. Out of the three of us, no one knew how to close the line.

At midnight, we got slammed again with drunk and hungry teenagers leaving Prom. [Assistant Manager] did nothing to help but sat in the office and read emails or fired off some creepy/sexually-harassing remarks to me now that [My Ex] was gone. [Newbie] was trying to help me as best as she could despite her inexperience, leaving [Coworker] to run the counter by himself and deal with the angry drunks.

Somehow, we managed until closing time, and then we had to figure out how to close. [Coworker] took over dishes, [Newbie] bagged up the leftovers, and I started on scrubbing the line. I think we did better than expected, considering that we had no clue what we were doing. By some miracle, we managed to do it all in an hour.

This was 3:00 am now, and I had been there for twelve hours, with only one break. However, [Assistant Manager] wasn’t happy with it and made us do it all over again! By the time he was happy with it, it was 4:45 am. He never once helped.

By this time, I was scheduled to be back in three hours for my next shift, which happened to be with [Assistant Manager #2].

[Assistant Manager #2] walked through the door, took one look at me, and said, “I’ll call in [Normal Weekday Opener] and you can cover one of his shifts this week.”

I basically fell into my bed, still in work clothes, and passed out. [Store Manager] called me later that day to ask what had happened and why I had overtime. (Oops!) She was, by far, the coolest manager ever because she just listened as I went into a full rant on the phone with her, swearing and name-calling and all (and started crying).

The end result? [Assistant Manager] got written up by the [District Manager] and was not allowed to close on weekends or to close with me anymore.

I thought that was all that was going to happen, but I got one more drop in my golden goblet; it turned out that [Store Manager]’s brother had come in that night during the insanity. He told [Store Manager] that there was “a [description of me] who looked like she was about to murder [Assistant Manager] cause he was eating nachos on the floor and not working when it was crazy busy.”

[Assistant Manager] was demoted to a shift manager and then transferred to another store that was less visited, popular, and successful than ours.