WORK REVIEW: poor leadership and HR enablement created a dysfunctional work
* this is my opinion based on my experience working there*
I was the assistant manager at Cafe Sweet Street for a little less than a year. I have a lot of experience in management in another industry but I was excited to get this role as I've always wanted to get into food.
Upon starting, my experience was great. It's a fairly easy job and you also get a free meal each shift. That being said, when I was told about all the turnover they experienced - I was confused.
I was primarily tasked with running the front of house. The General manager(GM) was also the head chef and primarily managed the kitchen staff. During my first few weeks there, the front of house girls trained me on what to do and it became clear very quickly, that no one had properly trained them.
There were no standard expectations set for cleanliness, how food or drinks should be made, and the girls just kind of did whatever they wanted. I quickly took action to set expectations, improve customer service, re-train the girls on cleanliness issues and how to operate the coffee bar.
Over the course of my year there, it became very clear to me that the GM was a primary issue. He was rarely present in the cafe, did not take the time to train his people or set expectations, yet, GM would seemingly get upset when things were not done to his liking. Other issues that I observed goes as follows: GM would be passive or speak condescendingly to the girls, make it difficult for more than one person to call off at a time, would not help the FOH staff out if they needed it, and would never take responsibility/accountability when he was wrong.
GM would react unprofessional when a pregnant team member started to have a lot of appointments because it would mess up the schedule. Due to frequent call offs, there were many times where I had to close kitchen and FOH alone because GM could not be bothered to stay beyond his scheduled time.
It was a running joke throughout all of Sweet Street that he was an asshole. And if you did not know, he is also related to the owners.. which he would often complain about the owner and how she was extremely difficult.
Anyways, when I went to finally address these issues with him, he wanted to have a meeting with HR. When we had that meeting, it was a "surprise review" for me rather than a conversation to address some of my concerns as we had previously agreed on. GM took this opportunity to turn the issues on me and made it seem like I was the one who was not doing my job. Mind you, I did not have a single write up my whole time there. As a result of this "meeting" turned ambush, I decided to resign right then and there.
When I finally got to addressing my issues, the head of HR (HHR) all of Sweet Street decided to dismiss all of them, gaslight me and continued to enable GM by avoiding any form of accountability. I want to make this abundantly clear: HHR only seems to care about protecting Sweet Street the company, not the employees.
I have visited the cafe a few times since resigning because I still have old co-workers there who I visit and the food is decent.
Well, my last time visiting the cafe The HHR approached me and asked to speak with me. When getting to her office, she very rudely flooded me with questions, one of which was "why would you ever come back to the cafe?"(mind you, I am a customer who has returned to the cafe several times to eat since resigning). When I told her that I still have old co-workers here and do not mind supporting the cafe by eating here, I was told "we don't need your support" and that I am not welcome here. This is both funny and ironic because the cafe does not seem to be receiving a lot of business most of the time and would more than likely benefit from my support. I suppose what I had addressed from the "meeting turned ambush" left an impression.
Anyways, i will not be going back but this is an FYI to anyone applying. I have even heard that they already turned around a couple more people. read more