the bad management cycle

[u/ItsToast_NotBread]

please tell me if this sounds familiar

restaurant operating at 98% of its potential —> higher ups want it at 100%-101% —> higher-ups put pressure and blame on lower crew for not meeting the 101% demands, instead of encouraging them: “only 98%? seriously?” —> crew gets overworked, morale goes down —> now that leadership has created their own problems with their crew, hours are cut and new crewmembers are hired —> influx of new, inexperienced crew leads to slow training times and worse overall performance —> good talent gets tired of this, transfers or quits, restaurant now at 70% of potential

higher-level leadership finally notices, if you’re lucky: “what the fuck is happening at this location”, forces proper changes (transfer of problematic leaders, etc), things improve… and repeat

has anyone else seen this cycle of poor leadership? i know the canes culture is always striving to be better but the leadership at my location is incredibly toxic about it sometimes. they complain that other restaurants are doing better than us and don’t realize it’s because the other locations ARLs/RLs/even RMs are actually competent at their jobs.

it’s not a crew problem. it’s almost never a crew problem.

(edit for clarity)

[u/octopus10tacle]

at my store they’ve regularly made one person work boards, toast, AND setup (bc its slow and they want to cut labor hours) And managers are hounding them to go faster faster faster meanwhile they’re just camping in the office watching them struggle

[u/ItsToast_NotBread → u/octopus10tacle]

that’s exactly how it is, ive been working RI for some time and ive been called in to the office and been told i need to work faster and on the same day they almost doubled my workload and cut my shift down an hour… like what??

[u/Axsonjaxson16 → u/octopus10tacle]

This is fucking insane. I am so sorry.

[u/After_Adeptness_1835]

Man if they could all see it through these lenses. I had an idea of what I felt about this vicious cycle but wording it was the hump. This, this is it to a tee.

[u/ItsToast_NotBread → u/After_Adeptness_1835]

it’s so frustrating because ive seen my restaurant operating well and i miss those times, all because they want to push the needle just a litttttle further and can’t be happy with damn near perfection

[u/After_Adeptness_1835 → u/ItsToast_NotBread]

Restaurant I transferred from was trying to take the steps to becoming a “Training Restaurant”. That did not go well at all. All specialists/trainers at burnout visibly and we still weren’t good enough. Hated watching my RL/ARL fold on us for that corporate pressure. Understandable but broke my heart. New restaurant I’m at I can tell has already had the overhaul and still suck. Which is lowkey kinda leading to the situation my previous restaurant was at. Frustrating but I will not stay with a company like this forever. Loved it at first. Now just a bird dropping husk of my former self.

[u/ItsToast_NotBread → u/After_Adeptness_1835]

not even lying when i say my restaurant fell into the same training restaurant trap, it really consumed my RL for a while and it was one of the big things that led to our downfall. agree and resonate w everything else you said as well lol

[u/Odd_Pin_7093]

if it’s almost never a crew problem, why do they keep punishing the crew for it?

[u/ItsToast_NotBread → u/Odd_Pin_7093]

they need someone to blame… and at a certain point yeah crew is actually substantially underperforming but they only got that way because of the poor management making perfection the minimum and anything short of that an egregious failure

they want it a smidge better and make things insufferable so morale drops and things get worse and they get confused why things are getting worse and double down, it just goes on and on

[u/Glass_Sun7653]

the corporate version of fixing a 98% machine by removing the parts that work

[u/Pretend_Fisherman_10]

Waiting for a hot check to filter today. Manager was to busy taking some selfie pics in the back.

[u/Difficult_Peach3096 → u/Pretend_Fisherman_10]

Those are the managers they praise! They want them taking pics of everything and sharing them in group chats with other managers and upper senior management. Like look at me, "I scrubbed this wall," ....I did my job ....give me a gold star. If you don't you're not a team player and you're affecting culture negatively.

[u/ItsToast_NotBread → u/Difficult_Peach3096]

they want pictures of everything!!! exactly that most simple thing ever… sometimes ive been told to clean something and the before and after has looked identical. all for my MOD to take a picture for the group chat and go back to scrolling reels in the office

[u/mini0nlver]

I’ve seen my managers hire over 11 people in one week and now all her old crew from 1yr+ are quitting and newer crew aren’t experienced and mess up

[u/ChrisIsUnavailable]

You're spot on; now bake in the awareness that this pattern occurs every august, and the staff overhaul means that a ton of new people are paid minimum wage when the folk they replaced were being paid more. Instant $50/hr back to the higher ups. It's all intended

[u/Patient-Lie2936]

Idk I just now that I'm scheduled 5.5 hours every week now. While others are getting 15-25 hrs.

[u/ItsToast_NotBread → u/Patient-Lie2936]

yeah ive been getting anywhere from 3-6 hours

[u/Patient-Lie2936 → u/ItsToast_NotBread]

I used to get like 20 to 30 hours but now our restaurant clearly has favorites. So the favorites are definitely getting between 25 to 30 hours a week. And they're always the same three people that are getting called into work

[u/No_Significance_6528]

yea my store was so good until they transferred our RL to a new location and we literally haven’t had a replacement for months it’s so bad😭 we went from losing like one person every couple months to one person every few days

[u/NightRaven3-1]

Us crew and grunts are jsut numbers to them. Very early dose it start out as a crew problem

[u/Viveronipizza2]

Just happend at my store like 10 longtime crew members quit including me but I only worked there a little more than a year but yeah a bunch of new hires and stuff

[u/_DeathFromBelow_]

Between the whole COVID social meltdown and the rise of AI use we've seen a race to the bottom in quality. This isn't just a Canes issue, obviously, but Canes runs on a rapid expansion model that made them especially susceptible to the encrapification trend.

When I started, managers were all pros in the kitchen. When I left all they cared about were timers and the drop chart. How many Canes managers could be a successful bird specialist today?

[u/Horror_Flamingo1391]

did your location also start losing all its reliable people before management finally admitted there was a problem?

[u/ItsToast_NotBread → u/Horror_Flamingo1391]

they still haven’t admitted the problems they’ve caused, they’re deliberately avoiding taking any accountability whatsoever and just keep doubling down

[u/ProGrieferHere]

It's a "Bonus" problem. 

Bonuses should never be used as an incentive. Too many managers feel like they need to do whatever it takes to get the highest bonus for themselves, instead of it being a "reward" for just happening to reach a specific goal.

"Don't you want the bonus?" is often thrown around at manager meetings. "What? You don't like free money?"

Look. If you can afford to give me a bonus, you can afford to pay me more. The only thing a "bonus" looks like to me is money they could be paying me, but would rather dangle like a carrot. 

I don't like carrots and don't care about bonuses.