Dear Feastlings,
Many of you know firsthand the ins and outs of small business ownership, but I do like to pull back the curtain for those who find the grass greener over here if only to still your envy.
I’ve been aiming to sound upbeat overall, as I’m aware I can come off as a whiner, but I find myself self-censoring a bit. That may be all well and good to protect oneself given the current political climate, but I’m walking that tightrope between optics and honesty, so today I’ll lean into honesty.
I don’t know what’s happened to people. Up through the pandemic, people worked here for ages. We had people who worked with us ranging from 14 to 21 years, and they were the majority. We still have a few like that- some who’ve been here for nearly 20 years, and plenty for ten or so, and in this industry, that’s considered quite some time. But now, it’s normal for me to interview someone, hire them, and have them ghost us on day one. Or they’ll come work a stage, which is something of a tryout in kitchen parlance, and they’ll tell us they’re excited and then never return. That one set this letter off, on the heels of one who, while hard to read, seemed interested and happy, worked a week and then slipped into oblivion.
A year or two ago, I got an email from a guest who told me, based on my story of a new employee who’d disappeared on us, that I had no respect for my employees and that she’d never return to Feast because of what a terrible person I must be. And while she has every right to believe that, it stung, and started me on a trip down an introspective rabbit hole where I evaluated every unreasonable thing I might have done as an owner and a boss for the previous twenty-plus years. I wrote her back about the ways I’ve shown respect to the people who work here, how I’ve been at their weddings and funerals and birthday parties and they’ve been like family to me, and she didn’t reply. I took her off the email list, and made my own judgements about her- I looked her up on social media and decided she was a spoiled person who’d lived a life of privilege and who’d never had to manage people, let alone people who disappeared without notice, or embezzled from her, or tried to work the system to bilk it for whatever they could get.
These people have mercifully been few and far between for us, but her email still creeps back into my consciousness when back-to-back no-shows throw the kitchen into tumult, and in the past two weeks, they have. There’ll always be a part of me that’s self-centered and overwhelmed enough to fail to see everything from an employee’s perspective- I regard that as an occupational hazard of being a human being- but I like to believe that there’s been a sea change in the work force and that people flaking on us isn’t purely a function of some dystopian work environment that I’ve created here.
On one level, I have respect for the people who’ve prioritized work-life balance, as I haven’t for most of my career. It’s an industry where people work nights and holidays, where we miss many of the important life events in which others participate. There were a lot of Christians in here making and serving food last Sunday, and they did it with professionalism and without complaint, and that’s part of what makes me love the people who work here: those who’ve stuck around are here for one another, and that, to me, is special in a time when people are less here for one another than I’ve seen in my experience.
I work with people who give of themselves for each other, and for our guests, many of whom I also regard as part of our extended family. Today I have another interview, and tomorrow, another, plus someone coming to work a stage, and I look forward to welcoming into our family someone else who behaves the way the people here do whom I’ve come to love, but boy, am I tired of interviewing people. I’m all for work-life balance, but I think all three of the words in that term should be given equal weight, and I’ve watched life beat out work and balance for a while now. Now I’m the one who thinks the grass is greener on the other side of the fence. Yesterday I got an email from the guy who showed up to train for two days and then disappeared, asking when he could get his money, and from my vantage point, earning money for watching other people work sounds like a pretty good gig, if somewhat inconsistent.
Regardless, we’re plugging along here with the people we have, still not able to open for a sixth day, and with me still wondering what I’ve done wrong. Was the woman who told me I’m a jerk without knowing me right? It’ll gnaw at me, I’m sure, while we get back to normal around here- the lion’s share of our charity events are behind us now, and we can focus on this Saturday’s end-of-the-month wine tasting
and the extra, formerly secret but now not-secret wine tasting on Tuesday evening,
next month’s menu, and what we’ll be offering for Mother’s Day- that menu is coming soon, and yes, we’ll be open on another Sunday, including some of the moms who work here, because that’s who this crew is- people who help each other out. We just need a couple more of them.
I do still wonder if I’m the one who’s wrong, or if it’s the new roster of applicants, and then I think of this:
No. No, it’s them who are wrong.
See you soon, I hope.
Your pal Doug