As the Burger Turns part 10

Thursday, July 12th, 2020, and a glorious day it started out to be it did about 6:45 a.m. 

Disclaimer: The title of this post is the start of my soap opera for old people called "As the Burger Turns"  Anyway, to make this clear right from the start, everything in this post is created from my own recollections, which may be faulty because I am old, or because I choose to lie about it, take your pick. At any rate, everything I post here belongs to me, the good the bad and the ugly, and is a product of my highly developed imagination. If I use a situation that you know about and it was actually different, then shaddup! , just read it and don't ruin a good story with a correction about some trivial things called facts. It's a story, stories are based on what people think and everybody knows that people lie.


I took a few days off to recharge and to get a bunch of projects done. My grass was like 2 or 3 feet tall, lawnmower needed maintenance and a bunch of other stuff had to get done around here. It takes a lot of energy to supervise that kind of work.  

So anyway, on the previous iterations of this story, the previous 9 sections, I have attempted to layout the balance of my career and tell the story as fairly and as accurately as old people can remember to do. Sometimes the fondness of memory gets in the way and in reading it later it sounds more like a tribute or a gripe session depending upon one's point of view, however, that is not intentional. I have found it to be somewhat tough to tell your own story without being one-sided in your interpretation at some point. I suppose that reaction might be human nature or is maybe a natural defensive gesture, I'm not certain how to look at that. Anyway, my dear reader I acknowledge that yes, I am full of shit, just like everyone else. 

Not only that but I have a lot of practice at being full of shit so I am better at it than most people. 

Sometime in about late 1978 or so, about 2 or 3 years after I graduated high school at 18 years old after a couple of assignments as an assistant manager at three different stores, I was promoted to the position of General Manager and assigned to the old unit called "Little East Washington". It was by a place called the Sahara Grotto located at 4105 East Washington St in Indianapolis In. The building isn't there anymore, however, in all fairness it had already been there 30 years or so when I got there. so a lot of the life it had was already wrung out of it. I believe the location now is an auto parts store now or something like that, maybe an AutoZone store. It was still in the era of curb service and no drive-thru windows yet. We still had the curb window, the microphone that broadcasted outside, the kitchen window that you put dirty dishes through and it had a freight elevator for loading the stock from the supply truck down into the basement.

So my first day there, I get to work and meet the District Manager a guy named Jim something started with a "J", and truthfully it was sort of obvious to me that he didn't know a lot about running restaurants I mean maybe he did but he struck me as a guy who would rather look good than be good. He had gorgeous hair and nice clothes, shiny shoes and expensive glasses and I never saw him get dirty, the whole time I knew him. He introduced me all around, and keep in mind I was about 20years old, I'm not sure but I don't think I was 21 yet, I just cannot remember. I remember being worried about whether or not the crew would like me, that's how rookie I was. There were several members of the crew there and two or three people that stand out in my mind to this day. 

One person I distinctly remember was the Lead server, her name was Virginia Pittman. Now I have nothing but good things to say about Virginia because I cannot tell you how many times she kept me from screwing up and kept my young full of self out of trouble. I reckon at this point Virginia was maybe 35 or so, and she was at least double me in experience and years, had a husband who was an ex-General manager named Henry, and just knew everything you needed to know. The company put me in charge of this restaurant, but Virginia was in charge of Virginia. If any of you knew her, you know exactly what I mean. It's a good thing too because I was too wet behind the ears to manage her, I was barely able to manage myself at this point. Virginia was direct and blunt and to the point and was about as no-nonsense a person as I have ever met, before or since. These are all characteristics I later learned to appreciate about her, but on the first day in that first week, I'll admit it, I was intimidated. I was a young man, she was an experienced long term crew member. She had probably seen more managers come and go over the years than I could even imagine, I am sure that to her, I was not impressive, to say the least.

I was the sort of manager that was maybe a tiny bit headstrong and maybe a tiny bit pushy, although I really have a tough time remembering myself as either pushy or headstrong. I mean I was a sweetheart and a pushover! I just wanted things to be how I said they were to be, without regard to how they had been in the past and oh, by the way, If you could get that done right damn now, that would be great. In retrospect, I am aware that I didn't know shit about shit and I also didn't know a damn thing about human nature or managing people or getting things done. After thinking about it for a bit I knew the reason they put me in this store too. The company needed somebody who would go into this restaurant and work their complete ass off, working long days and long hours,  because it was a very low-volume restaurant, meaning it was a low sales store. 

Because it was low sales it was also a low labor budget and a low sales budget restaurant as well. Being in the so-called Low range doing less than $8,000 per week made it tough to make money if it could even be done. The PNL statement in this store was a disaster a couple of years before I took the store over, and it had lost a lot of money and was a drain on the surrounding Division's combined statement. No one wanted to be associated with a store that lost money and it showed. They didn't spend a dime on repairs and hadn't bought anything new for 5 years. Of course, I immediately ignored that history, fixed everything that was broken, bought everything I could in the first 2 months, and figured correctly that they would just tell me to knock it off after the first PnL, which they did. I had already done what I needed to do by that point and because it was my first store, the DM is who took the heat for not paying attention. 

I sorta knew that was going to happen too. Those people always underestimated me and I always took advantage of it.

I sat down with the DM and analyzed with him exactly what we thought it would take to break even in this store. It was a long time ago so I won't tell you I remember exactly what was said, however, the gist of it was we needed about a 10% sales increase and needed food and labor to fall about 2% each. It was a tough order to fill, as I could see the labor falling but had no idea how to get the food to fall 2%. I mean it was out of whack, sure, but to this point, all I had worked as a manager in were stores run by strong GM's. At this point, I had about one year of Profit and Loss analysis under my belt, and all of that was either as a rookie manager or as an assistant manager, So basically, what in the hell did I know? Not much I'll tell you. There was a side benefit being narrow-minded and not knowing everything about running a store though because, with no other distractions, I could always focus on fundamentals more effectively. As a result, my shifts as an assistant manager served excellent food, hot food was hot by god! Its what I knew how to do, so I did that to the best of ability. That was one thing I never lost sight of right up until the day I retired from the business.

Fixing the PnL was my number one job here though, but keep in mind that are not talking huge numbers. For some perspective, the reductions needed to equal about $150 per week in food costs and the same in labor costs. To achieve the sales goals, we needed about 100 more customers a week or the ones we had already needed to spend about 40 cents more per meal. If we could get more customers somehow, and get them to spend a tiny bit more, then all the better. To me, it didn't seem like these goals were that big until he told me no one else had ever been able to get it done or get anywhere close to that for the last 5 years or so. 

That scared me a tiny bit. Ohh, I think I just learned about negative motivation. I thought seriously about figuring out how to blackmail this guy somehow, as I thought I might need some ammunition to stay employed. I'm just kidding of course, but I did get a comedy bit out of it that I used for several years. 

This is when I began my management career (and I wasn't under the wings of John), the East 38th street store's biggest needs were cleanliness, store organization, and employee appearance. Labor was a little high but sales were somewhat higher than 4105 and man, sales cures a multitude of sins. In the Pendleton Pike store, the problem was high food cost, and after I discovered the auxiliary stock room in the porter's garage that problem got fixed, WHAM!. I think those two-course corrections are the reason I got promoted, but it could have easily have been that I was still standing after everyone else quit or got fired, I don't know. So anyway as my new DM talked to me about the crew it was evident that he didn't like the person who was the Production Trainer, an older woman (in her 40's)  named Jacqueline (not to be confused with the Franklin Rd Jackie, not the same person), he talked negatively about her and to her the whole time he was there. 

He didn't come out and say it but I think he wanted me to fire her the first week I was there. That made me want to do the opposite and figure out how to make her look good so he would stand down and go find something else to do when he was bored. He was very happy with Virginia who was my Lead Server and was convinced she adored him (she didn't) and that she told him everything (she didn't) and that she trusted him (no way), so he had only good things to say about her. She figured out quickly that all she had to do was fix his coffee the right way, smile and hand it to him and he shut up and went away. Jackie on the other hand had an RBF problem, you should have seen the shocked look on her face when I explained that to her, she was Flabber-Friggin-Blasted by the shallowness of him. She did have a sneering look that came over her face when something stupid was said or happened, and he contributed to that a lot. Maybe that's why he didn't like her, as she couldn't hide it. I don't know. 

If you don't know what RBF is, go ask your teenager. I don't remember Jim's last name, but he wasn't around more than a year after this so in retrospect I guess it didn't matter. 

As soon as he left Virginia and Jackie took me aside and had their own first of dozens of mini-meetings with me. They asked to talk and I agreed to listen. We had a ton of these, and you wouldn't believe how much I learned after I figured out how to shut my face and listen to my staff. Well as it turns out one of his (The dm that is), "pet employees" and he had a few of them in every store, was running a mini theft ring and both of them had told him about it. Not only did they tell him about it but they explained it to him in detail, and as Jackie said to me "That dumbass just looked at me and said I didn't know what I was talking about". 

This "pet" employee had been given a lot of autonomy by the DM purportedly to assist the GM in getting things done. He unloaded the truck, had his own key to the freight elevator, and to the doors, and was in charge of moving stock to and fro when the line needed to be stocked and basically he was the one assigned to always take the trash out during the daytime and etc. 

Right about the time they had this conversation, his attitude towards Jackie changed to the negative, he told them he didn't believe them and threatened both of them with their jobs if they kept trash-talking a great employee. Basically, they both told me to "watch my ass" with this employee, that he talked to Jim behind the managers back constantly. He had already demonstrated he couldn't be trusted and they both thought he was stealing every time the truck came in and every time the trash went out. I'll never forget their closing remarks "The little snot is a snitch and a kiss ass and is always broke until he got those keys, now he has more money than anybody, where did he get it?". It was a revelation and a stunning 30 minutes, to say the least. There was a lot more than that to it, but that was the overview. 

So here's where we stand, I'm a brand new GM a rookie, wet behind the ears, don't know shit about shit, my first restaurant, has lots of problems, first leadership role, had no idea what to do next, and 2 lead crew members telling me what was going on and I could take it or leave it. Man, I was just shocked and stunned and PISSED OFF. I actually didn't really know who to believe but I was leaning very strongly towards Virginia and Jackie. Here was the deciding factor, my brother Clyde has worked for Henry (Virginia's husband) when he was the GM at one of the stores, (I think it was 3810 W. Washington but who knows?), I was talking to Clyde and telling him the story. He asked me what my instincts were telling me, I told him and he was like "You should trust Virginia". He said she has no reason to lie and has a long history and he always trusted her. 

Man, easy stuff huh?

I was a rookie General Manager but had worked for the concept for quite a while so I knew what wrong looked like when I saw it. That was the easy part. To make a long story short I made a few quick decisions and decided that the DM had no say over who had keys in my store if he wasn't going to be here running it every day. Once I made that clear to him he sorta gruffly let it go and said do what you think is right. Here's where that whole "Do the right thing because its the right thing to do", came back into play. I knew what to do, I just had to stick to my decision, stand my ground, and do what was right. 

Seems simple but believe me, when you are 21 years old, this kind of stuff feels like you have a mountain on your back. It feels like if you don't stick to your gut then you are going to be flattened by the mountain. I remember seeing the Division Manager, a guy named Gary Reinwald in my store when this was all happening and he asked me all about it delving into specifics and asking tons of questions, some of which I had not even thought of, like what if my plan failed and then what if this wasn't why the food was out of whack what then? 

The only thing I could say was "I don't know, I will have to keep looking". It turns out that even though I didn't understand it at the time, I had just given the perfect answer when you don't know what to say. No bullcrap, no bluffing, no word fill, Just I don't know, I'll find out and no excuses. I found out years later with a tour conversation with a new CEO guy (Tom Charters maybe?), he said I was the only one he ran into who didn't try to bluff my way through when I got asked something I didn't know the answer to. Anyway, Gary listened, and said one thing and then left the store, He said "Well, we'll find out soon enough huh?". Yes sir I guess we will. 

I felt so vulnerable and alone standing there on the street corner like I was the naked cowboy, about 3 days into this grand experiment called "Let's promote the rookie 21-year-old and see what happens!",  I knew I wasn't alone, but I felt so and truthfully it scared me a little bit because what If that wasn't what I needed to do? It felt like I only had one shot at coming up with a solution. It turns out that much later more seasoned people always felt like that when they faced issues they had to correct and it was just a part of owning the problem, I didn't know it at the time, because it felt like "Fix this or die". 

Oh man, everything my whole future, my entire existence was riding on the solution. So I pulled up my jockeys, tied my boots by the straps or whatever that saying is, and got started. 

I immediately made everybody park their cars nowhere near where the truck delivered. I made everyone park nowhere near the back door and nowhere near the freight elevator, which was just about the same thing anyway. My instincts were to eliminate the easy theft travel and because he came in so early I made him and everyone who came in at around 6 a.m. park in the front lot where I could see their cars out of the front window. If he was going to steal I wanted to be able to see it. I didn't single him out however because I made everyone do it, and it sort of seemed counter-intuitive to park upfront anyway because that took up customers' precious parking spots. It had a positive effect also as it made us look busier and drew in more business. Who woulda thunk it? Sometimes it was better to be lucky than to be good.

So everyone was absolutely convinced I had lost my mind when they saw where I made early people park, as the common wisdom was to park your staff as far away from the front door as you could to leave room for customers. All of my peers, except for John had something to say, he stayed quite only speaking to me if I asked him. I remembered thinking "What is the big friggin deal?", We are maybe serving 25 people in the morning anyway so having "room" for customers was not the issue. Being open was a formality and unless we got busier I couldn't see us staying open at any rate. I changed a lot of stuff all at once, as I figured less stress to just do it and get it over with. Also, It wouldn't look like I was targeting him, even though I was if I made a bunch of changes and the things I changed about him were just buried in the middle of them. 

Imagine his surprise also when I took away his elevator freight key, his front door key (which was also the back door), and effective right now, you had to start using the inside stairs to move the stock up to the line and so forth. They were using the freight elevator to move stock to the line, in the morning and after the lunch hour. Seemed only fair anyhow as at night after 5 p.m. you had to use the stairs anyway so what was the difference? I couldn't see the difference and knew it took about 1/3 the time to use the dolly and get your 2 cases of french fries and whatever else and come up the stairs. It seemed to be a no brainer to me as I was sure that was when he was stealing every time they used the back door or the lift anyway. 

See I think every time the truck came in he was taking the things he could sell quickly like beef and fries and so forth and then when as soon as the truck was done, he went home and changed into his uniform (and unloaded his stock). So also I made everyone report to work in full uniform, without regard to their job or function, and stopped everyone from changing in the store or in the bathrooms. I also put a manager in charge of overseeing the truck operation, checking off products as it came off the truck and put a manager in charge of the back door. In essence, I put the managers back in charge. Mr. Theft ring went back to his buddy the DM and told him I was making it too hard to "do his job" and he wanted a transfer to another store. Also about one week after I made these changes he was back to borrowing money every day so he could eat lunch, go figure. 

Within about 90 days or so, we had solved the food cost problem and were under budget on labor cost, had the sales issue headed in the right direction,  The PnL almost made money in the first quarter I was there and It pretty much broke even after that. We solved the sales problem by focusing on fundamental issues, by serving hot food HOT, by fixing all the refrigerators and serving cold food COLD, by running the service times that made guests want to come back and taking every comment seriously and by making sure if it was supposed to have steam coming off the product (Like a Chili 3 way) that it did. I learned that from John but I never dumped anything back on the line, because the only way we made the draconian labor budget in that store was to work the food stations harder than the crew did. That part was a nightmare. I would have had to clean it up so dumping Chili was out of the question.

The DM obliged him and transferred his buddy down the street to Franklin Road. His name was Dave or Steve or something like that and oh boy was he going to be unhappy again pretty soon.

Ha! Curb 80 all cars!

BigMike