Not Afraid To Tell The Bigwigs To Cluck Off

I was working at a big department store in the deli section. Specifically, I did most of the cooking for our hot cases. In this story, I was making the packs of fried chicken and handling the rotisserie chickens. I had my routine down pat: start with half batches so any of the three people who wanted that in the morning could get it, and for easy cooling to save it.

One day, multiple bigwigs from corporate were stopping by for a visit and noticed that the hot cases weren’t full to the brim at 8:30 am, despite multiples of every option being available, which indeed had to be taken out later to be cooled and saved. They told the store manager, who told the co-manager to tell the deli to make more — which is what he did.

Co-Manager: “Hey, these hot cases aren’t full.”

Me: “Because we won’t sell that much.”

Co-Manager: “They need to be full.”

Me: “I’m not going to waste that much time and food.”

Co-Manager: “Listen here. I want you to start cooking chickens, and I don’t want you to stop.”

Oh, no. Did he really say that?

Me: “Are you sure?”

Co-Manager: “Yes. I. Am.”

Me: “Gotcha.”

And so, I got to work. I was pissed about this brown-nosing POS not realizing that I was the one who increased sales and reduced waste to the point where it was seeing the best numbers in years, but I did exactly what he said. I did not stop cooking chickens. The ovens were both turned on and were stuffed as full as they could go. I was using both frying vats to cook the fried chicken, which pretty much required a filter clean after each batch.

I was only forty-five minutes into my shift when I was told what to do. I did not stop cooking chicken for the entire day. All of my coworkers asked what I was doing. and I responded that I was only doing what I was told.

As the bigwigs were winding their visit down, they saw the now full-to-the-brim hot cases and told the co-manager to relay that it looked great.

Co-Manager: “Hey, the hot cases look great!”

Me: “Thanks! I did what you told me to do. I didn’t stop cooking chickens all day. By the way, we are out of chicken.”

The co-manager got wide-eyed and quickly left. A short while later, he returned looking like he’d gotten a talking-to, and I’m guessing he’d actually looked at the numbers to see how well the deli had been doing.

Co-Manager: “You can go back to the way you were doing it.”

Me: “Thank you.”

And this is the cherry on top: we had just gotten a truck that day, which meant that for the next three days, we had no chicken to cook at all. The best part is that all of that chicken was properly cooled, stored, and donated. The driver was VERY happy to be getting a literal pallet of fried and rotisserie chickens. I’m sure it helped feed a lot of people.

Strangely, that co-manager was transferred shortly afterward, and I can’t imagine why. I left shortly after to a place much closer to me.