This is mainly because I'm literally starting to piss myself off with this. I'm obviously not sure how it's perceived in other countries but I felt a stigma around Bartending and a life in Hospitality in the UK until I was probably 25, at which point I believe I'd proven myself to those closest as to how much I love it and it is a real career choice. Not just a fall back. I associated that emotion with my career, I have worked with plenty of people who have left the industry due to people around them applying pressure to get them be more 9-5. Yes obviously there are benefits to the 9-5 and it is still seen to be the normal. Even though many jobs now tend to run on later and Saturday and Sundays are becoming more common in a lot of industries. The world is changing, change with it. Whether its for better or worse. That's upto us really isn't it.
The story part is probably only going to be a small part of this storytime so I'll just get stuck in.
My First corporate management position. I did not care about Paperwork, I did not care about Audits, I did not care about Stock Reports. I did care about safety, I did care about standards, I did care about Stock Results. As time went on and I began to learn more about the tools that everybody seemed to be misusing or underutilising I saw the purpose and bought into them. But obviously I had to meet in the middle but that's the kinda difficult I am.
So in order to get me more involved, I was put in charge of Brand Standard Audits. We went from 35% - 80% - 87% - 95% over the 12-18 months I was in charge.
One of the things we'd ironically fail on was that I never did audits myself. They were long winded, time consuming, partially irrelevant and outdated. However, my approach was just, if its dirty. Clean it. If it's disorganised, organise it. Every closedown has to be a near perfect close down. No excuses. No exception. And then on top of all of that. I pulled probably about 20 over nights in my first year. Where I would literally take everything apart and scrub it and organise it. Every cupboard, every bar, every fridge, the entirety of the Cellar. That was me setting the base standard which was then easy to maintain.
That is never enough, sadly you will always have to deep clean every now and then so this would be reserved for when our Audit was coming up. So literally the last few nights before I would ask a couple of staff to come in and help me clean, or even better, some of them would offer. I told them I wouldn't be able to pay them for it. Which I hate myself for but Payroll was a hardcore issue that I was yet to get my head around or argue about. I did treat them very well with food and after work drinks but the main reason they offered to help was because they knew I was salaried so I wouldn't be getting paid either but I'd still be there.
This was 5/6 years ago but I'm still angry now. Anyway, this absolute Ballbag of a Trainee Manager who clearly only got his position because noone else had applied and it was previously poorly managed. There will be many references to him through other posts because he will always be one of the worst people I've ever had the displeasure of working with.
But I digress. It was a couple of days before an Audit. I came in with two other members of staff who were keen to clean so we threw everything we could out from the bar and all started doing our bits. When Trainee-Ballbag comes down, tries to guilt trip me infront of them because they chose to come in and then made digs at them trying to rub in they weren't getting paid. They were there because they cared about the business, actually enjoyed their job and we enjoyed each others company but this prick had to spread negativity because he had 0 interest in helping but didn't want to look bad.
Get F***ed.
Eventually he got bored and left and we nailed the Audit. Point being, even though it is more talked about that people should enjoy their jobs, I still feel as though there is a stigma around being happy, with anything.
The reason I'm so annoyed this evening is because I realised that the part in my head that goes "ha gaaaaaaaaaay" everytime I see something positive shies me away from posting more positive content. Even though I know better. I feel as though this ultimately stems from a feeling of control. When we are happy, we feel more vulnerable because we think that someone else can take that happiness away from us at any point, you could lose your job, or your partner, or your home for reasons that are outside of your control and the result of that is sadness. So the comfort in always being sad is that no-one can take that away from you, therefore making you feel in control. Why can we not feel the same way about happiness?
Not just in terms of emotions that can be fleeting but as a general way in which we look at our lives, you have to be able to find Happiness within yourself that noone can take away from you in order to be fully in control.
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