The Olive Garden, sure people in the area have been waiting 2 years for one to open. But did they know they would have to wait 2 hours for a table every weekend until eternity.
The Olive Garden, when you are here you're family, yes certainly a highly dysfunctional family that stabs you in back and front (with dirty knives below) at every blink of the eye. Ahh memories!
The Olive Garden, a garden of lies...
1. We are committed to open, honest communication, mutual respect and strong teamwork.
Wrong! The open door policy is behind a closed door and retaliation is sure and swift, there is no respect, how can you respect someone that you (management) have been trained to treat like a slave in the cotton fields.
2. We are clear on each individual's role, accountabilities and key performance measures.
Wrong! Clear as mud. Noboby has any idea who does what. The right hand doesn't know what the left is doing. Drinking coffee, smoking a cigarette, on the cell phone, no hands on the wheel, who's driving?
3. We do not compromise standards in selection, training and job performance. Wrong! Unless no prior experience, being under the age of 25 and having no frontal lobe are the standards. If these are the key ingredients damm that's manager material.
4.in the process of making a change, we seek the opinion of those closest to the action, listen and value their ideas. Wrong! Listening and understanding actually require the sensory perception to first, close your mouth and open your ears, use what little brain god gave you and then take action, but then again, take action at the Olive Garden means time for a write-up. Which to those laypeople outside the Olive Garden world, means see principal one regarding the closed door.
5. Everyone should expect regular on-going training opportunities to sharpen and advance their skills.
Wrong! This only applies to management and management track employees, because lobotomies are expensive and they only service the small percentage of management types at a group rate.
6. When accountabilities are not being met, we act quickly! Correct! But then again see principle 2 on how accountabilities are described. If someone does something against Olive Garden's everchanging landscape of policies, they are written up, which is basically a written warning not to do that again, whatever the perceived wrong may be. These are the rules today, not tomorrow and subject to change constantly.
7. We will achieve the results and share our successes.
Correct! Let's all get together for Alley Ralley and talk about our numbers and what we are doing wrong and how we can improve those numbers. Its funny but how come we dont actually get any recognition for our success, but the management team does have one thing to say "Sell More Alcohol"! Hmmmm... The Olive Garden or Bucket of Drunks, take your pick.
Enough about Olive Garden's policies, let's talk the real meat of the issues.
-Schedules - It is our understanding that when an employer requests your availability that you are being given a choice, Not so at the Olive Garden. You can say you cannot work on a particular day or days but then your manager will cross that out and say you must have anytime availability and that you should be flexible and that changes to your availability can be made over time, lets say after 90 days. Ok, we'll go with that. One problem after 90 days have elasped you change your availability and your prevailing schedule is accomodated until... A new person is making the schedule and chooses to ignore any and all requests. This includes any religious holidays that you request specifically and with proper notice. We have been told after the fact, that you can make requests for time off, but they don't have to honor them. HMMMM, alright who died and made you God (management)?
Your schedule is changed on a daily basis, but it up to you (the employee) to check your schedule every day and be on time, even if your schedule is changed 5 minutes before you get there.
Dinner business decline, what is this shit? In every other restaurant in the United States, you know not only what time you are expected in, but you have a reasonable idea of when you might be going home. Therefore DBD means roach motel, you can get in but you can't get out or have a life or make any plans, or breathe, not paying you to breathe or go to the bathroom, that is considered a break.
If your are ill, please come in and check your schedule and attempt to find a replacement, if a replacement is not available, you must work your shift and spread your germs (aka hospitaliano) to your guests. This includes the bed ridden, hospitalized, comatose and dearly departed. You can still be written up if you or any member of your family are deceased. Death days are not payable by the company. Birth is also not an excuse for being tardy or absent from your shift.in labor? Dont worry we can hokie the mess up. (see more on hokie below). Who knows you may be the winner of the New Menu item contest, Placenta soup anyone? Wait a minute, I ordered minestrone.
-Breaks What are these breaks you speak of?
On a six hour shift, (by the by most shifts run 8 hours or more), you are asked by management will you be taking a break? It is unlawful to ask that of an employee. You are also allowed by law to leave the premises for said break, but the Olive Garden has found a clever way to prevent this, they won't cash you out in a timely fashion, therefore you have used 25 minutes of your 30 minute break, trying to get cashed out, because if you leave the premises with store money, it is considered stealing and you will be terminated or god forbid written up.
-Break facilities - Yeh right. These so called breaks are to be taken in the linen/closet/bread storage area next to the Unisex bathroom (which by the way is bigger than the break area) and if you extremely lucky, you might get a chair that day.
-Uniforms - Hmmm, sure but we purchase them, but upon leaving the job and moving on, we were asked to return our uniforms, hmm, we purchased our uniforms from Walmart not Darden and paid for said uniforms with our own money. Uniforms are not issued by the company.
-More on uniforms - Aren't black socks bad for your feet? My phys ed teacher told me only white socks are permitted for sweating feet, otherwise the dyes will seep into your skin and poison your blood. Gees hope everybody has their health insurance premiums paid up.
-Setting the pace - Sounds delightful doesnt it? In neverland, perhaps. How is it possible to set the pace of the meal for each individual party when the host staff is directed to triple seat each and every server at the same time. This applies to servers who are not even on the clock or near the restaurant.
-Running food - Sure everyone can run food, providing you are an octupus, We are beginning to wonder if we should be serving the calamari or should it be serving our guests?
More thoughts on food... Shoot the messenger - The server is responsbile for any and all food coming out of the kitchen, funny but we are not cooking the food, just taking the orders and trying to run it to the table. If something is wrong, no matter how minute or phony a guest complaint may be, the server is punished, regardless, the food might be cold, undercooked, overcooked, have a foreign object in it, just plain wrong or our favorite, not what the guest wanted (not ordered, because we are all psychic and that's why we get paid the big bucks $2.63 an hour, WOW!)
Hardened Noodles - that's ok, just slop on some more sauce, stir it around and call it brand new.
NCO - Neat, Clean and Orderly. Sounds Swell!
Lets start with the dishes, the dishwasher is not just a machine, but 3 people and a machine. Unfortunately, the dish machine does not work correctly and we have dirty, spotty dishes, silverware and plates, Yumm, I'll have a bowl of that! No extra charge for the crusted on food always on the plates, funny I didn't see that on the garnish list.
Let's not forget the floors, that lovely shade of rust brown, makes me think of long walks in the woods, with bugs and critters under the leaves, please note the floors are not vacumned, but and I can't say this without a tear in my eye, but, Hokied. Broken glass, vomit you name it, we hokie it.
Gum - used gum, Does your chewing gum lose its flavor under the table overnight? We can honestly say no, tastes great, less filling. For we are those that scrape the discarded gum off the bottom of the table with the knife that we will proudly serve to you the next day (dont forget dishmachine is subpar, yummy!).
Endless Soup, Salad and Breadsticks: It has recently been brought to our attention that this is a lie. Unless the Webster's definition of endless has been changed to the number three. After that we have to charge. Could that have been brought to our attention, perhaps during training or even been put in the small print on the menu and on the commercials (which by the way are endless and insulting to the average american intelligience)?
Smoke breaks - This is when the back door is opened and half the employees leave the floor and desert their stations, because it won't be opened again for at least four hours or more. This is also called a "trash run". Remember the people that handle your food are handling trash. Nothing against smokers, but where we come from, asking permission to smoke outside when your station is in great shape is very very sad. Wouldn't it make more sense to leave the floor when you can, not when management thinks they might throw you a bone.
Hospitaliano! Translated into Olive Garden speak can mean many things.
1. Noun "to hospitalize" to hospital i go, to the bathroom i go, i go a lot.
2. Verb - Going out of your way to get written up.
3. Adjective - drunkeness, to achieve a state of stupidity.
4. A great meal complemented by a great glass of wine, hmmm, does this mean all Italians are drunks, if this is the case, many members of the Italian community are going to be very upset and we are not above letting them in on this little secret. Does anyone know any teamsters?
5. Sell more alcohol, please suggest a different wine. For every course of the meal, despite guest's objections that "they dont drink". And when they say, "I dont drink" offer them a cocktail instead of the wine, cocktails dont have alcohol, do they?
In summary, we would like to say, please dont work here, unless you want to give up your soul to a faceless entity that is ruled by the dark minions of the underworld garnished with steam, why is steam so important? It signifies hell... Please dont eat here, unless you have no regard for your internal organs, your fellow man or your own self respect.
Our names are not signed, we wish to remain anonymous, because if our friends ever found out we worked there, we would be more than embarassed, we would be banished from the real italian communities around the world forever.
0 comments