It's not like it was rocket science figuring out it was you, but you were doing so well before so I let it slide. But, if you really want it, here ya go... banned.
Maybe it's a Gainesville users of Bell South all sound alike thing (Hey kids, if you have a distinctive writing style and personal manner, and you've been banned, consider a proxy or a VPN service for your new account). On the topic at hand, I agree that students working in the service industry are generally shitty employees, and often have an exaggerated view of their own importance to the shitty job that they work at. I also know that every food service venue I ever worked at, from Dominos to Silver Service $100 a plate fine dining, saw a shitload of drugs move through the kitchen. I've never met a Sous Chef who couldn't at least refer me to a coke dealer. And if you can work a fast food job without wanting to get high at the end of your shift - you're a better man than me. I've also regularly seen people fired because they didn't understand that your job in a shitty restaurant is either manager, or not being the managers problem. If you're the visible focal point of the manager's problem because you're bitching out coworkers or not covering shit that needs covering - you're at fault. Don't like it? You're replaceable. Good managers don't stay in shitty restaurants - they either get out of the industry, or go somewhere that isn't shitty, or open their own place where they're usually an absentee owner and have a shitty manager who again just doesn't want you to bother them. The only way to deal with shitty coworkers when you work in a shitty food service venue, is to either just put up with it and console yourself by half arsing your own job (which sucks, but is the easiest/safest option), or take the crapshoot option of mentioning their fuckups to the manager - preferably with proof, and hoping that they take some action. Which they usually don't. Good food service venues do exist, but they're rare, and they're transient - when you either have a good manager who hasn't found a better offer yet, or when you have an owner who's both a good manager and involved in the business. They're slightly more common in the higher end of the market, because they pay staff better and might be motivated to keep good managers - but even then, shitty is more common.
My first real boss was (still is, actually) genuinely one of the best people I've ever met, and his hand picked deputy was a stand up guy as well. I was a receptionist and loathed it. I was young, and arrogant, and totally unreconciled to the idea of selling my youth for $14/h. That job still ranks as the most soul destroying position I've ever held. I once received an award for the artistic way I arranged the biscuits in the meeting room. Yeah, that didn't quite motivate me the way it was intended to. My real drinking began, of the 'water bottle with apple juice and vodka in the desk drawer' variety. (Side note: on the usefulness of general humanities degrees, a degree in Communications gets you a fine job as a receptionist, and I have only myself to blame). So, there I was, a drunken, pissed off kid demonstrating total contempt for his job. And that fine gentleman created a position as a Business Analyst for me. It wasn't that easy obviously, I lobbied him desperately and survived multiple hour long interviews where he and his deputy director tried to figure out if they could train me to be useful. But once I was in, I was legitimately part of a close knit team. They trained the shit out of me, brought in senior patent attorneys to teach me about IP, sent me to conferences and courses, and genuinely set me up for success. They gave me references, and time off, and paid for, the start of my MBA. They gave me raises and performance reviews with phrases like 'rising star' in them. I went to bbqs at their houses, and they'd take me to restaurants and cocktail bars which my lower-middle class ass had never seen. Taught me about suits, and polished shoes, and networking, and staying out of / manipulating office politics, and all those other skills you need to thrive in white collar land. Sadly, after the 2 best years of my life work-wise, they left to form their own respective companies, as entrepreneurs are wont to do. The place I worked in hired people that weren't fit to lick their boots. (True story, the next 2 people they hired for those positions had mental breakdowns, one private and one at a national conference with a mic. That was actually sort of awesome.) Life sucked, viciously. I was applying for jobs with a $10k pay cut just to get out of that environment. One day I get a call out of the blue from a competitor headhunting me, offering me a promotion and a $10k pay-rise. I was ecstatic, but how did she know who I was? My old boss had told her that I could make her life a lot easier, and suggested a figure she should pay me to convince me to come over. God I love that guy. As well as being a successful serial start-up CEO of the millionaire variety, and an incredibly subversive genius, he is also a renowned thespian who performs in all sorts of high end productions here in town. And a classically trained opera singer. Oh, and he does a stack of volunteer work both privately and as part of Rotary. Just an incredibly smart, genuinely good person. We still catch up for coffee now and again. For everything, thanks CC.
Tell me if I'm wrong, but in my experiences and from the posts on this thread, can we assume that no matter where you eat, the cooks and waitstaff really like drugs? I'm not passing any kind of judgement, but I've been around enough "service industry" people to know that when they get off work at say 2 AM, they like to get fucked up. It might have something to do with the amount of Latinos working there with access to cocaine, but I'm just speculating.
This topic is near to my heart, in the worst possible way. This sort of typified my early work experience. I traded for a mid sized prop trading firm in early 2009. Now this firm was run by some fairly shady individuals, including the VP who I came to find out had been banned from the securities industry for the past year, but I was so excited to be trading that I looked past it. Fast forward to the summer, I had started to get the hang of it. Not two weeks after a meeting with my manager in which he praised my improvement and encouraging me to take more risks, I got an IM one morning in which I was down a fairly minor amount. It basically said after the day I had before (down a small amount) and my "rough" start to the day, I was essentially on probation. Now anyone who has traded or gambled knows scared money doesn't make money, but I managed to stay around even the rest of the day. On my way out, I was called into the VP's office and was told I was being let go due to "unsatisfactory performance" as of late. But not before this knob polisher told me they "thought I was going to be a good one" and "maybe I wasn't cut out for trading or the markets". The firm closed less than 2 months later and turns out I was just one of the first cut since I wasn't a major earner at that point. Even worse was the company I worked at prior to my current position. I worked at a smaller (15-20 people) diamond wholesaler. They were a customer of my Dad's and I started there part-time working on a special project as a means of making money to pay my bills after previously mentioned lay off. At the end of 6 weeks or so, they were so impressed that they didn't want to let me go and were going as far as creating a position for me to keep me. Over the next month, I helped create a role managing the network of smaller diamond dealers that supplied us as well as managing return times of goods on loan to stores from us and getting them back to said dealers. My main qualm was a paltry starting salary, but I shelved that concern as I figured I would get settled and prove my worth and revisit it. After a year, my responsibilities had more than doubled. I went from spending half of an 8 hour day goofing off to working 9-10 hour days and barely having time to eat. I implemented a new system of returns, cut down vendor inventory turnover times, and seamlessly introduced 5 important vendors into our network. Through all of this, I dealt with endless bullshit. First of all, the owner and majority of the employees were Orthodox Jews. This was important as my Gentile background made me a second class citizen. When they left early on Fridays to get home before the Sabbath began, I had to stay at the office another 4 hours with the other 2 non Jewish employees, one of whom was the owner's lapdog and honestly would call and narc on any early departures or slacking. I worked Jewish holidays they had off (with no compensatory vacation days) and it was pretty apparent even the limited promotion room available was not an option due to my lack of Jewish blood (confirmed multiple times by others in the industry at shows and conversations during and after my time there.) Then, anytime I had a gripe or complaint, I was essentially told I needed to "pay my dues." Finally, after a year, I went to the VP/head of HR and asked for a salary discussion. Mind you this woman was basically third in command of the company, worked 3.5 a week, was horribly passive aggressive...oh yeah, had been having an affair with the owner for years. I gave her a well thought out description of how my role within the company had grown and progressed and ended with a more than acceptable, and actually low ball, salary number. She asked for a day to consider and get back to me. She called me in the next week and, instead of low balling me right back, informed me that they couldn't offer me a salary adjustment at all, not even 2%. This despite acquiring the office next door in order to expand as well as hiring 2 new employees a month before. I mentally made the decision to leave. Two days later, the owner came back from a trip. At the end of that work day, as I was walking out the door, the VP called me in, while I was wearing my coat and bag, and told me I was being let go, citing a "lack of focus" as well as essentially blaming me for 2 missing diamonds that had been lost in shipping (which I was not responsible for). Retrospectively, it was the best thing that ever happened to me as my current position was more than needed, but fuck those people. They can choke on their kosher pizza.
I currently have $1200 in worthless checks from a job I worked in high school. I would say that I got screwed, but considering that I came in to work one morning to find my boss literally sleeping on the floor because his wife had kicked him out and was divorcing him and he couldn't afford a motel, I'm guessing he legitimately didn't have the money. That and the fact that our suppliers and UPS started refusing to do stuff for us until we paid off our old debts. Which we couldn't.
Can't remember if I told this before... I was hired as a web designer and support tech at a very small (4 employee) local ISP right after high school. The boss used to disappear into his office with a 12 pack of beer in the mornings and emerge after lunch to purchase more, then go back into his office. Shortly after I was hired, the receptionist quit. Since I was the new guy, I got to fill in for the receptionist. At this time I was young and convinced that I was lucky to have this job so I just did whatever they asked me to. This included receiving and recording checks that people dropped off or mailed for their internet service, which was mind-numbing and tedious. Within a month, I had received two official warning letters claiming my bookkeeping was full of errors (despite my rabid error-checking and verification of everything I input after I got the first letter). Never brought it to my attention before forcing me to sign a warning letter. Then, I closed up one night. We closed at 8pm. At 8:05 - where I distinctly remember checking both the wall clock and the computer - I began closing up, which took about 10 minutes or so. Next day, I had a warning letter sitting on my desk. The boss claimed he showed up at 7:50pm to check on things and all the lights were off and I was gone. A week later, I arrived back from lunch, went to log into my computer, and my account was locked out. He had the server guy walk me from my desk to the door, which was about 6 ft. away. I never really found out what he had against me, I was the best tech he had and his only web guy. Found out, though, that a few years later he was arrested for drugs, and 6 months after that he abandoned the building (never notifying customers they were closing), upon which the IRS had placed a lien for unpayed employment taxes totaling over $100k.
You are correct, but it has nothing to do with Latinos. Calgary is about as white as you can get for a major city. There are 7 black people (2 of them drink at my watering hole, but we don't let them in at the same time or it looks too much like a gang hangout), 2 Mexicans and one mutt that we can't identify, so we steer clear. I digress... I've been kicking around THE INDUSTRY for 25 years. We drink and *drug at an alarming rate. I would suggest that there is not another industry that comes even close to the indulgent/excessive attitude we have about these behaviours. People frequently leave the business just to save a trip to rehab or early death. *I gave up the illegals years ago since I love my life and don't want to die. I still drink enough to qualify as a heathen and keep my INDUSTRY card.