Today I will take a trip back to the days of yore. A time when I was young, naive, and worked at an even bigger shit hole than I do now, Roadhouse. Roadhouse had 3 manager/owners. Two of them were very professional and tried their hardest to keep the business afloat, despite the third owner/manager's shenanigans. We'll call this hot mess "Myrna". Myrna was a real class-act. She married into the family that actually owned the business, but the family let her and her husband's two sisters run Roadhouse. Whenever I would go to work and see that she was the manager that day, I was immediately in a sour mood. I knew with her there, all of the manager's duties would fall on me, being the crew-leader. Even though she was married with two kids, she also had girlfriends. At the time I worked there, she had two girlfriends. One of them is a good friend of mine, and I could never understand what my friend saw in Myrna. My friend is one of the all around best people I've ever met, and Myrna is gutter trash with a bad attitude. Both of Myrna's girlfriends knew she was married, but had no problems with the husband. The husband, however, knew nothing about the two girlfriends. The two girlfriends would constantly fight with each other, though. When Myrna would be scheduled to work, she would always show up late, like around noon. She would go straight back to her office with one of her girlfriends and lock the door. If any of the servers, bartenders, or hosts would need her for anything, I would have to go back to the office and knock on the door. Without a word, the door would open just a crack. A hand would appear through the cracked door with the manager's key to the computers. This was her way of saying to me, "Just deal with it yourself." So, there I would be, trying to wait tables; keep an eye on all of the servers, hosts, and bartenders; and taking care of managerial duties as well. (i.e. talking to unhappy customers, getting food/drinks fixed that weren't right, adding discounts to tables, settling employee disputes) She would eventually come out of the office when her girlfriend had to go to work. She would walk a lap around the restaurant, shaking her surgically enhanced ass, tits, and lips at all the male employees. After she had shown off, she would grab all of her brown nosing employees that were working, and they would all go sit at the bar and drink, on the clock. By this time, not only do I have to take care of all her responsibilities, but now I have even fewer employees to help share the workload. What. A. Fucking. Nightmare.
I saw Myrna once punch another crew leader in the face for just asking if she could help with a server who had gotten belligerently drunk on the clock. Myrna got angry because that particular server was one of her ass kissers.
Myrna overheard half a conversation one night between two servers on their cigarette breaks. They were talking about a local doctor being sued for malpractice. All Myrna heard in her typically inebriated state was the word "sue". She pulled them inside, screamed at them in front of the entire restaurant, "You're gonna sue me? This is my restaurant! If I want to take a shit in the floor, I'll shit in the floor and make you clean it up!". Then she fired them both without even hearing them out.
No one knew this except me at the time, but on top of a husband and two bickering girlfriends, Myrna was also sleeping with one of the local police officers. She was in the office with him one day, I thought discussing business or security. I had no idea what was really going on in there. One of the servers needed her to talk to a table. Since neither of her girlfriends were there, I didn't bother knocking and just walked in. There they were, laying across the desk, bumping uglies. It was like I was frozen. I wanted to shut the door and run as fast and as far away as possible, but I couldn't move. I just stood there in shock, mouth agape. "What the fuck do you think you're doing? Get! Out! Now!!!" , she shrieked as she threw a stapler in my general direction. "Uhhh, sorry?" , I said as I backed out of the doorway and shut the door. I went back out to the dining room, still stunned. "Well, is Myrna coming out to talk to table 28?", the server asked me. "uhhhh, no I don't think so. I mean, she's busy. I'll take care of it." I couldn't look at her for weeks. She never said anything to me about walking into the office without knocking. I guess for fear that I'd tell her husband, her husband's family, or her two girlfriends.
Myrna loved to show off. Not only did she have surgically enhanced tits, lips, and ass, but she also always wore about a pound of make up on her face. She would always wear lots of jewelry. Her clothes were always covered in glitter, sequins, and bedazzling. Anything to have people look at her. Any attention was good attention for this woman. She loved to show off her ridiculous vehicles like a pink Cadillac SUV, a pink and black tiger striped Harley Davidson that I swear she didn't even know how to drive, and a bright yellow Mustang with every bell and whistle they could cram on or in it. She always had her groupies surrounding her, mostly restaurant workers that knew they would get free shit out of her if they sucked her ass. She would come into at least once a week when she wasn't working and take the days deposit out of the safe to take her pack of followers out to eat, shopping, or to a bar/club. She also got a weekly paycheck. Yet, often when I would go to the bank to get my $12 check cashed, there wouldn't be enough in the store's bank account to cash my check. I would have to drive back to roadhouse and have them get it out of the safe for me.
Myrna finally pushed me too far one night when my husband came to pick me up from work. Him and my son were sitting outside in our vehicle waiting for me. She saw them out there and told me that they were no longer allowed on the property. I told her that they never even came inside, that we both worked, and only had one vehicle. If he didn't drop me off then pick me back up, I wouldn't have a ride. He worked shorter hours than me, but he's the main bread winner. He couldn't quit his job just so I could drive myself to and from work. She said that she didn't care, that it looked bad for someone to just be sitting in their car in the parking lot. I asked her to explain how it looked bad for my husband to pick me up from work. She then proceeded to tell me that it looked like he was waiting to sell me drugs. My own fucking husband?! He had the baby in the car, for Christ's sake!!! She went on to say some nonsense about how we were bad parents for letting our son sit in the car, in his car seat, with his dad and wait on me to get off work. She said a car could have pulled into the lot too fast and hit our vehicle and he could have gotten hurt. Yeah, that's likely. About as likely as a gaggle of geese flying out of my ass. She asked to search my apron. No problem. I took it off and handed it to her. I also went on to bunny ear my pockets, shake out my bra, and then asked her if she wanted to search my purse. She smugly said, "No, it's fine." "No, it's not fine.", I said. "You have drug tests sitting right there. Hand me one and I'll piss in it right now!" Then she said, "No, that's not necessary" I knew right then, this wasn't about anything looking bad. It was her way of exerting her power while trying to embarrass me in front of my co-workers. "Whatever, just take my cash out. I'm leaving." "You can't leave yet. Your not finished." she said with a smirk on her face. I'd had enough, "Yes I can, because I quit. I'm not putting up with someone treating me or my family this way." I sat my cash out down, then made her count it right then so that she couldn't say later that I'd shorted them. FUCK YOU, Myrna.
Last I heard, their business is still going under. They would have been long gone if the family didn't have other successful businesses that they didn't let Myrna touch. They were constantly transferring money from their other businesses to Roadhouse's account just to keep it afloat. They got in trouble for insurance and tax fraud, so the government seized those other businesses. Roadhouse is definitely going down now, after years of circling the drain. I talked to a friend who recently went to work there. She said that she had worked a double the day before and only walked with $26. I feel bad for her, even though I felt some morbid joy for Myrna's losses. Without that money, she won't have her looks, her ridiculous vehicles or clothes, or her "friends". She's insufferable. Her groupies are only around for the free shit she was throwing at them. If there's nothing more to gain, you can bet your bottom dollar she won't see them anymore. The way I see it, what goes around, comes around. I hope Myrna gets a big double heaping helping of humble pie. I'm so glad that I got while the getting was good. I've moved on to greener pastures, and I couldn't be happier. Pizza Place might not be perfect, but at least I know where I stand with the people who own it. I don't have to worry about them deciding they want to show off by treating me like shit, nor do I have to worry about them mixing business with personal shit. They actually know how to tell the two apart.
Myrna was by far the worst manager or owner I've ever had. What's your most horrifying manager/owner, manager, or owner story?
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