Managing a restaurant requires knowing what's going on at all times. Doing this means problems can be addressed immediately-in theory, anyway.
One day, I came back from the daily bank drop, and was at the counter. It was mid afternoon, and I started checking reservation numbers, and stocking the bar. The chef and his staff were prepping in the other side of the restaurant, and he was figuring out what the daily specials would be. No one else was around because the lunch crew had left and the dinner servers would be in later.
I walked around the southern half of the dining room, to make sure the tables and cushions were clean. That's when I smelled it. Bleach. Strong bleach. I walked over to the bathroom, to see if one of the busboys (they were all boys except one) was cleaning. I found a woman hunched over the toilet, cleaning with paper towels. Behind her, I saw a cloth bag that was full of clothes and a wooden sign.
Because I had only been working at this restaurant for a week, I was still getting to know who does what. I politely said, "Excuse me... hello?" The woman looked at me and told me in a high pitched voice that she was "cleaning real good, no need to worry." I wasn't sure who she was, so I said, "Okay, okay," and walked off to find Amanda, who had been around the restaurant for years.
"Amanda, there's a woman cleaning the bathroom. Does Danny hire people, homeless people, to clean?" Danny (the owner) didn't strike me as Mr. FeelGood when it came to hiring, but I was naive and stupid. "What?" Amanda said.
"Come look. Tell me if you know who this is." We walked over the bathroom and she grabbed my arm and started nodding her head no, to signal this woman wasn't welcome. Amanda whispered, "She's around a lot, and is crazy."
I coughed, and the woman was still shuffling her gear and looking around the bathroom, which was by now sparkling clean. "Yeah, you need to go," I told her. She started telling me she was allowed here and that we couldn't discriminate. I started to get angry, confident I could handle her since she was maybe five feet tall and I am close to six feet.
"You need to go," I kept repeating. Her ranting got louder, and angrier. "Now!" I said and pointed to the door. I circled behind her, to be sure she didn't take anything on her way out. Amanda was nodding and saying, "Yeah, go." The dining room smelled of bleach still, because the bathroom door was open.
Once the lady got outside, she banged her fists on the windows, screaming that we were racist and she wasn't doing anything wrong. She kept screaming as she walked down the street to the corner, pointing and yelling in the restaurants direction. Finally, she took off towards Sacramento Street.
I was hard on myself, and felt incredibly stupid. What was I thinking, assuming Danny would ever hire her to clean? Amanda and I rehashed the details. Turns out the woman is a constant presence in the 'hood, and is borderline homeless, a drug user, and definitely crazy. Amanda nodded her head and was laughing, "You are so sweet. 'Does Danny have homeless people working here?' C'mon, no way!" she teased.
When I talked to Danny on the phone about it, he said "with people like that, you have to tell them with definite force to leave now, and that they are not welcome. If they see weakness, that's it, your problems will only get worse."
Lesson learned.
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