I Can't Believe It Part 2

I would like to take a moment to speak to all my young male friends ... Whatever you do ... Do not ever, and I mean ever, wish to be surrounded by women all day. I know when you're young, that sounds like a great idea, I get it. In fact, I am giving you this advice because I probably did that sometime in my teenage years. But, be careful what you wish for, because ... you just might get it. My staff are all women, sounds great right? Think again, all nine of them are over the age of 50.  Give that some thought.

And now more stories from the geriatric ward.

So, I don't have a single good story that is long enough to warrant it's own post. As a result I have decided to write a post of little vignettes of the fun that is my work life.

Let us pick up where we left off, and talk about the Bookkeeper. This morning I was entering yesterdays sales numbers and I noticed a discrepancy in my deposit. Personally, I blame the calculator, that's my official story, and I'm sticking to it. Anyway, I called over to the North Campus to inform the Bookkeeper of the situation. However, when I called, no one answered the phone. After a few more unanswered phone calls, I sent her an email explaining the situation. About an hour latter, I get a call. Surprise, surprise, it's the Bookkeeper, and she is calling to tell me that I should have called her instead of sending an email. My response, "Yeah, I tried that, several times. No one answered the phone." Can you believe it?

Staying with money and counting ... I have one cashier that takes an unusual amount of time to count her till at the end of the night. I kid you not, it takes her close to 20 minutes. For comparison, my head cashier counts all three in the morning and it takes her ten minutes. It takes me about 30 minutes at the end of the day to count all three and do the deposit. One day last week, her math is wrong, not the end of the world, it happens. I call her into the office, point out the mistake and have her redo the deposit sheet for her till. Problem solved, sort of. The next day, her math is wrong again, so I have her correct it. I come back 10 minutes later (all she had to do was correct the mistake) to verify her count, and it's wrong again, and now it's a different error. Fun times my friends, fun times. 

Another story about this particular cashier. You will no doubt hear many stories about her, so lets call her Patricia. Every now and then, we get auto-shipped product. Sometimes it's promotional, sometimes its a new product and occasionally, it's for a new menu item. Often if it's promotional, we will receive a display case.as well. A few weeks ago, we received two very large boxes from Cadbury, the chocolate company. Turns out, the boxes contain build-able displays and several boxes of chocolate bars to fill the display cases. Seeing as I do not have a lot of free floor space in my cafeteria, it is my habit to build one display case and use the product in the other box to refill that display case. After I build this particular display, I place it in the cafeteria and fill it with product. When Patricia sees it, she freaks out, "Oh my God, this is horrible." I ask her whats wrong, and she tells me, she can't possibly count all of that product for our weekly inventory. She tells me it's just too much to count and that she will need help. I swear every word of this story is true. I know it's hard to believe, but you honestly can not make this stuff up.

Another story about my boss. Last week I needed to have someone come in and take a look at some of our coffee equipment as there were a few issues. When this happens, I get a copy of the work order when the repairman leaves, and the invoice is sent to the North Campus about a week later. While inspecting our equipment, it was noted that we should replace the tank on one of our coffee machines. This particular repairman is very familiar with my store and thought the tank might still be under warranty and said he would look into it for me. So, of course, this is mentioned on the invoice. Upon receipt of said invoice, my boss emailed me a copy as per usual and he has a few questions, again not unusual. Now I think I have mentioned before that some people clearly do not thoroughly read what is put in font of them. I'm fairly confident most of you can guess what came next. Yep that's correct, my boss asks me why they replaced the tank. Now, keep in mind, we just replaced the tank on the other machine, so he should know the process and the cost. Patiently, I explain that the tank was not replaced, rather that he recommended that it be replaced and that he was going to check if it is still under warranty. For some strange reason, I did not get a response to that email. I wonder why?

Believe it.

I'll Hold

I was going to call this post, The Bookkeeper Part II, but there is no Part I, so I decided on a different tittle.

In April there was an event on campus, and participants were given vouchers to redeem in the cafeteria. These vouchers were worth $10, but did not have any cash value. My cashiers were given clear instructions as to how to redeem and enter the vouchers into our POS system. Seeing as they have no cash value, the vouchers were not to be treated as cash. You'll want to remember that.

As often happens, we had a busy lunch rush and I was not able to watch over my cashiers as they took the vouchers in exchange for lunch. Nor should I need to, they have all worked here for several years, and, they were given very clear instructions. Additionally, they all assured me they knew what to do.

They did not.

Whenever we redeem vouchers, they must be kept, ideally the voucher should be stapled to the receipt for which it was redeemed. I understand this is a bit time consuming, and inconvenient especially when we are busy.

I don't care.

This is your job and this is how things are to be done. Do you think it's fun working in a kitchen on Valentines Day? The Chef yelling at you to get a dozen orders started, and while your at it, plate the last call that was for 15 orders? It's you job, get it done.

It's a disaster.

Not only do most of the vouchers get punched in as cash, one of my cashiers did not keep the vouchers, and the cleaning staff had already come and emptied her trash can. She should have been in it ... did I say that out loud?

So at the end of the shift I had to go through all the transactions for the day and try to determine which ones should be closed as vouchers and change them all before I could close the day. After talking with someone at head office and figuring out the best way to do this, I got to work. It was a long and tedious process. The accountant at head office had also instructed me to put all the vouchers and all receipts in the weekly envelope we send to them (this consists of cash out reports and invoices from that week).

Think that's the end of the story? ... not by a long shot friends, not by a long shot. If you recall, I was thinking about calling this post, The Bookkeeper Part II, and I haven't even mentioned her yet.

In order for everyone to be on the same page, when I called head office to find out how to resolve this issue, I included our Bookkeeper on the call. So she was on the call when I was told to send in all the vouchers and receipts. But for some reason, the day after they were sent in, the Bookkeeper called me asking me to bring all the vouchers over to her.

A few weeks later, she asks for them again. I tell her everything was sent to head office. When she asks why, I remind her, that's what head office told us to do.

Fast forward to today and now we are into September. I get another call about the vouchers. I try to always answer my phone because we have a ridiculous shipping and receiving routine at my campus. Basically, delivery drivers must call the department they are delivering to. Someone from that department must walk down to the delivery area, open the bay door and escort the driver to and from the delivery area. I have had a few instances where I was unable to get to the phone and missed a delivery. in both cases, not only did I not get the product, but we were also charged a fee for the fact that the product could not be delivered. So now, I always try to get to the phone.

So, when the Bookkeeper calls asking for the vouchers, I explain that per head office directions everything from that day, were sent to head office months ago. She asks if I have any record of how many vouchers there were and what the total value was. I tell her I will need to look in the file from that week.

The lunch rush is just getting started, and as we are on the phone the repair guy I have been waiting on finally walks in. So I tell the Bookkeeper that I have to go because I need to talk to the repair guy, and she says ... "That's Ok, I'll hold" ...

Are you freaking kidding me? You'll hold? I need to explain to the repair guy what the issues are, and there are more than one, and the cafe is filling up with students. 

But that's Ok, you'll hold? Because apparently you have nothing else to do?

I have no idea how long it will be before I can look for the file, and once I do find it, I don't even know what I'm looking for. I also don't have time to explain all of this to the Bookkeeper, so instead, I say "I'll have to call you back" and hang up.

About 10 minutes later I am back in the office. It does not take long to locate the file, but there is nothing in it to help answer her questions. I call her back and explain this, she thanks me for looking and we both go back to work.

Don't be surprised if there is a revision to this at our year end in a month or so. Some people apparently work in the Redundancy Department of Redundancy.

I Don't Write The Checks

And now a couple of stories I would like to get off my chest with regard to our Bookkeeper.

Our Bookkeeper has a great sense of humour and she has a knack for saying the right thing at the right time to ease tensions. I will often call her to rant and she is always quick with a joke that perfectly puts things in perspective. This is not one of those stories.

Let me preface this by saying ... I hate doing paperwork. I'm not good at it, it's boring and I do not enjoy it. In my current job, I do a lot of paperwork. I saw that eye roll ... lol

We have a system for entering invoices that is somewhat ridiculous. We have two portals, with the first portal, the supplier uploads the invoice and the unit manager goes in on a daily basis, matches the invoice number, confirms the total and submits the invoice for head office to pay. With the second portal the unit manager logs in and manually submits the invoice for head office to pay. In both cases the unit manager does not write a check, that responsibility lies with someone in accounting at head office.

Everyone with me so far? To summarize, the unit manager enters the name of the supplier, the invoice number and date, as well as the dollar amount of said invoice. And at that point, the unit manager has done their job and is no longer responsible for the processing of the invoice.

About 6 months ago, I receive an email from our Bookkeeper. Attached to the email was an invoice that I submitted as well as a letter from the supplier. The letter notes that the invoice has been partially paid and they are asking why. My Bookkeeper would like me to look up the invoice in the appropriate portal, and to call her to let her know why it was not paid in full. When i I look up the invoice, I see that the full amount has been entered. So I call our Bookkeeper and the following conversation takes place:

Me: I have no idea why the invoice was not pad in full. I looked up the submission and it is for the full amount.

Bookkeeper: Well, why was was it not paid in full? Why was only a partial payment made?

Me: I have no idea. I did not write the check. You need to call head office and ask them.

Bookkeeper: Well that makes no sense. Why wasn't it paid in full? You need to go into the portal and find out.

Me: I have no way to find that out. As I mentioned, the invoice was submitted for the full amount.

Bookkeeper: Well then why didn't it get paid in full? It's your responsibility.

Me: Actually, it's not my responsibility. I do not write the checks and I did not write this check.

Bookkeeper: Well the supplier wants to know why it was not paid in full.

Me: I did not write the check. I have no idea who wrote the check. I'm sorry but I can't help you and I have a cafeteria full of customers that need to be looked after. 

At this point I hang up and leave the office to look after customers.

A few weeks later, I receive a similar email about the same invoice, asking the same questions. So I pick up the phone and call the Bookkeeper. I explain that she asked me about this a few weeks ago, and that since I did not write the check, I have no idea why I has not been paid in full. She again asks me, 'Why wasn't it paid in full?' I tell her, I have no idea, the invoice was submitted for the full amount. I ask who signed/wrote the check? She tells me she is not sure. I then suggest she contact someone at head office, find out who wrote the check, and ask that person why it was not paid in full. She then asks me why it was not paid in full. 

I DON'T KNOW. I DID NOT WRITE THE CHECK. CALL HEAD OFFICE. CLICK.

Top Down Leadership

Follow this time line.

Just prior to the start of the school year, I get a call from our bookkeeper. She is asking me to reconcile my cash on hand. This is something we do at the start of each semester, as required by the company. For me this task involves counting the floats that make up our cashiers tills, petty cash in the safe, as well as the vending machine petty cash. Our vending machines are subcontracted to a vending machine supplier. Sometimes vending machines don't work like they should and we need to reimburse people when this happens. The following week, she calls and asks me to bring over the vending machine petty cash box, as the company is changing vending machine suppliers and we will no longer be responsible for reimbursements.

Late last week I get an email from my boss, telling me when the changeover will be taking place.  He has included the email from head office and of course, like a good employee, I read it. This is what it says "Please be advised that as we switch vending machine suppliers, our units will be swapped at all campuses (except for South Campus) and residence next week." Wait back up, South Campus is my Campus.

I call our bookkeeper and ask her about the changing of vending machines. The following conversation ensues:
Bookkeeper, "Yes, we are changing suppliers and will no longer be responsible for reimbursements."
Me, "But the original email clearly says 'Except South Campus."
Bookkeeper, "Are you sure?"
Me, "Yes, It clearly says, "Except South Campus."
Bookkeeper, "Let me pull up the email and see." After about 30 seconds, "Well, yes it does say that. I guess we will need to get you a vending machine float."

I still don't have a vending machine float, but that's not the point. Before that email got to me, my boss read it, and our bookkeeper read it, and neither of them noticed that it said, except South Campus. How does that get missed? Additionally, our bookkeeper tells me she has been on the phone all day with head office regarding this issue. And no one mentioned the fact that South Campus was not part or the swap out? Seriously?

Stay tuned for more stories about our bookkeeper ...

The Schedule

I would like to introduce you to my staff, both those that work for me and those whom I work for. I will do this by telling you about their activities throughout the week. I'm thinking I will do a weekly post, chronicling their shenanigans for that week. I will change the names to protect the guilty and myself from repercussions.

In my current role, I am in charge of food services at the South Campus of a large post secondary educational institution about an hour outside of Toronto.

The ridiculous things that happen are often stranger than fiction and I feel like I need an outlet, otherwise I might go nuts. So, I hope you get some entertainment out of this, and understand that this is my outlet for sanity.

In the middle of the summer, I got a new boss. While I feel I have a much better relationship with my new boss, he does provide me with some entertaining and frustrating moments. Let's call my new boss Bruce. As we are gearing up for the start of the school year, Bruce asks me to email him a copy of my staff schedule. This is a completely normal and expected request, and of course I have said schedule and send it along to Bruce. Fast forward a week, I get a similar email, Bruce explains he has had difficulty accessing his email and needs me to send him the schedule again because the previous email is buried in his inbox. While I think this story sounds a bit flimsy, the guy is new and he is still getting acclimated, so I send along the schedule.

Another week goes buy, and I receive another email "Trying to get a handle on staffing needs, can you send me a copy of your staff schedule for the fall semester." Now my WTF radar is going off. My boss works at the North Campus, the North Campus is the main Campus and there is another food services manager who works there. Anna is my counterpart at the North Campus, and she sent me an email a few days before that read like this, "Bruce is trying to understand our staffing needs, could you send me a copy of your schedule so I can talk to him about our staffing needs." Of course I sent the schedule, and now two days later Bruce is asking me for the same schedule. By this time, I'm getting a bit frustrated and it's also become somewhat amusing, but wait ... there is more to this story ...

The following week, the three of us have a meeting to discuss staffing needs. When I sit down to this meeting, Bruce looks at my and asks if I have a copy of my schedule. It takes a significant amount of effort, but, I keep a straight face, and pull out a copy of the schedule because I actually kind of thought that might happen. As we are talking it becomes clear that Bruce has no idea what my staffing needs are. Fortunately, by the end of the meeting he appears to understand my needs.

We have had some difficulty filing the grill position (that's a story for a later day) and the Pizza position (another story there). The individual we initially hired for Pizza walked out during her first shift. Fast forward to today and I receive the following email: "If you had a full time Pizza person, what would their schedule be?"

To be continued ...

I've Never Done That Before

So this happened the other day.

I was opening a bag of French fries with my Swiss Army Knife. As I was cutting the bag open, my knife snagged and moved in my hand. Before I knew it the knife was out of my hand and into the deep fryer.

As you can imagine, it quickly sunk to the bottom. A few minutes later the casing floated to the surface, with the logo still visible.

This was on Friday and we immediately turned off the fryer. Obviously the pill would need to be changed, but it was way too hot to do this on Friday.

So, I had to wait until Monday to retrieve me knife, and by then it was ruined. Fortunately I have another one to replace the one o dropped in the deep fryer.

I'm Back

It has been years since I posted here. Not that my life has been boring, just felt I did not need to share. In the interim I have been married, divorced, lived in several different cities and became a chef.

It's my experiences as a chef, both for a large international company and as a private caterer that I will be drawing on for these new entries.

I will try to find a balance between the old and the new. My current staff will provide a bulk of the stories but there are a few jems from the past few years.

Some future post titles: Johnny Bucco, Chicken Stock Fiasco, The Wedding, Where the Game At?, Jackie Robinson and many more