OK, so here we are. Having only recently dropped out of the Hospitality Industry, which we will go into later, I just wanted to give my views on it. I remember way back in March when it was all over the news and footfall began to dwindle that we began talking about it but due to the "unprecedented" nature of it no-one could see what was about to happen. They started putting measures into place such as more thorough and regular hand-washing, as well as social distancing and an announcement from Boris where he said that although people could still go out, he advised against it. From then on footfall quite severely dwindled, people were still coming out, not really social distancing and invading others personal space, which first began the battle. We did our best to power through but it was becoming more and more obvious that something major would have to change. With tensions rising and the panic buying buying being a clear indicator of the fact that people were being to... panic.
On the whole, nobody knew enough about this virus and hadn't yet had a strong enough impact on any of our lives to instill a passion in any direction. However, that was it March 19th, Boris made his announcement. All Hospitality must close. We had already decided not to open that day so we had got all of the staff in for a deep clean. Upon hearing the announcement that Hospitality was going to have to close for an indefinite period within a few hours, the obvious response from the young bar staff, was to go and enjoy a few more drinks while I can. Although I felt the same way, I opted for a quieter venue with only a couple of friends in order to be more respectful of what was happening.
We spent another couple of days deep cleaning and organising to an unnecessarily thorough level. (Another point I'll explain later). And then on Monday the 23rd. That was it. Lockdown. Go home, don't come back in unless you have to.
Skip ahead14 Weeks and 4 days later. We were ready to open. The government had announced we could re-open provided we adapted around the guidelines they had set. Which were as follows;
Requiring use of table service where possible instead of ordering at the bar and assigning a single staff member per table
Encouraging use of contactless ordering from tables where available, such as through an app
Discouraging non-essential trips by staff within venues, such as between the kitchen and front of house, by using radios and other electronic devices to communicate
Encouraging customers to use hand sanitiser or handwashing facilities as they enter the venue
Providing clear guidance on social distancing and hygiene as people arrive on the premises, with signage and visual aids
And they adjusted the 2 Meter Social Distancing to 1 Meter with Mitigations such as; Masks, Perspex, Ventilation, etc.
So had spent a week setting up for this;
Changing layouts, Installing Perspex, updating booking systems, mass ordering sanitiser and PPE.
Day 1 - 10am Start
I was a couple of minutes late due to having to pick up some Garnishes on the way in. I walked in to 12 members of staff sat on two adjacent booths, butt cheek to butt cheek.
Already fucked it. Literally 2 minutes in.
So we split them up and went through some training with them. Handed out the face visors. Which are splash guards designed to be worn with masks and are pretty useless when serving people that are below the bottom of your visor anyway, but I digress.
Doors open. We've nailed it. One member of staff per 6 tables. Top bartenders on dispense. An extra POS outside. One member of staff to literally walk around and clean touch points on a rotation for the whole day 👏 👏 👏.
But no. By 7pm, everyone hates the visors. The customers won't stay sat down. It had been nearly 4 months. People clearly wanted to pull again.
The music was cranked up to a pre-covid level which increases the volume of people who sing and shout which further projects respiratory droplets through the air. The member of staff set on cleaning duty was washing glasses out the back but it was a new day in a new environment, so it was not expected to nail it on Day 1. We did our best to keep up appearances for a few weeks but the revenue wasn't quite there as the customers were still understandably cautious and money was tight.
Then Rishi Sunak steps in to save the day and help the Hospitality industry with the incredible Eat Out to Help Out(EOHO) scheme. Monday August 3rd, this is when s**t gets real.
EOHO was phenomenal, individuals have ran 50% off deals and never had the responses that this had, I'd like to believe that it was so incredible because it was everyone had essentially been locked up for at least 4months and not just the national coverage of the offer because if that level of footfall has always existed at the expense of £10 per head on food then that considerably raises the bar for what is achievable. The opportunity that the government had given us was the single greatest thing I'd seen in the last 10 years. Ironically the only time I'd seen footfall anything like this was Halloween 2015, which fell on a Saturday and was one of the busiest nights ever in the Hospitality industry which was destined to be repeated and theoretically beaten this year. However, this did not give off the phenomenal high that I felt working that night.
Once again, not expected to nail it straight away, that's fine, but here how it should have gone, bare minimum.
Day 1 - Problems - Understaffed, Underprepped, Over stretched.
We didn't know it was coming, and we are taught to never rota for what ifs. However, this should not have been allowed to get so out of hand due to Test and Trace we had a host on the front door that should be able to manage capacity
Solution - Staff more, Prep more, Better communication with the front door to limit capacity
Day 2 Same again
Day 3 Same again
You will get the gist of how the rest of the month went. We either barely increased staff, or didn't rota them and then would ask on the day at 4pm if anyone could cancel all of their plans and be in for 5. Or even worse, get the day staff to stay on to make it a horrendously long, busy day. This is not my first time when it comes to "cost-cutting exercises".
The footfall in August was a phenomenal opportunity, not just EOHO but almost everyday was in Like For Like growth. That was why it was so soul destroying that not once did we have to not turn customers away, staff were crying on a daily basis, the hardworking salaried manager were stretched far past their reduced salaries hours. All unnecessarily. I understand that this pandemic has put a strain on the industry to a much larger extent than anything before it but the way that it was handled by so many big names in the industry just further accentuated everything that is wrong the Corporate Hospitality Mindset that is shrouded in HR Textbook Bulls**t.
Now I want to be very clear that I love the Hospitality Industry and even the soul destroying 18 hours shifts spent grafting and arguing and consoling, I still got the buzz from the atmosphere with the volume of trade. Which made it so much harder to love and hate what I do everyday. Especially knowing that the hated parts, were avoidable but so many people in the industry have been taught and conditioned into how things are done.
I know this sounds Anti-Hospitality in such hard times but that is not what I'm saying, I believe the reason the data doesn't support that Hospitality is a breeding ground for Covid is that people lie. Social Desirability Bias in Test and Trace would suggest that if you're asked where you've been or what you've been up to then obviously you're more likely to say work or the shops, the "essential" outings as opposed to saying. "Oh yeah, I was getting smashed with my mates and we spoke to about 12 different tables of girls". These issues go two ways, the public as a whole with the anti-mask rhetoric and the downplaying of the virus. As well as the failure of the industry to create a safe environment for the customers. It was possible to create a new set rules and safe environment but as soon as the potential to make some money arises then the industry failed and tried to make it go back to normal pre-covid. If we all banded together in this accepted the climate that we were in we could have made the world a safer place in which we didn't have to go back into these stricter measures and countless more people didn't have to lose their lives. If companies had invested more in keeping people safe and putting on more staff/security to control the situation.
I chose to no longer be a part of this and dropped out until this pandemic is over and we can restart in a new world. There were many other factors that contributed to me leaving but this was definitely a huge eye-opener for me.
Although this is not the end of the world, I do believe that the world as we know it ended. I know this has been so tough for so many people and I don't want to lose sight of that but we as individuals are in a a great position to truly build back better and come out of this pandemic in a much stronger place than we started.
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