SMOKE: Bastard Managers

Originally published: 19 December 2003

Allow me to preface this article by reiterating my stance that Spur Steak Ranches are without doubt the finest restaurants ever conceived - I could happily never eat anything other than a Spur cheeseburger (with cheese sauce) again.

None of the fancy stuff for me, thanks - I enjoy the food Spur makes, and since it is always made exactly the same way I know I will never be disappointed.

However...

Spur managers are a very different kettle of fish and I would rather spend the rest of my life being Saddam Hussein or Canaan Banana's little girly-bitch than spend five minutes in the company of one of those bastards.

Forget the evils of terrorism, mass murderers, cannibals and savage dictators - these guys make Satan seem like an effeminate little baby in comparison.

I'll be man enough to concede that I haven't met every single Spur manager in history and thus am making a wild generalisation, but all I can go on is my personal experience of the swines, and it ain't pretty.

My very first ever paying job was at the Golden Spur in Dean St, Cape Town, when I was still at high school, and I use the phrase "paying job" with an ironic tongue pressed firmly into a sardonic cheek.

I lasted precisely two hours on the job before I was fired and while I wouldn't exactly describe myself as Mother Theresa, in this case I deserved a lot better than what I got.

Myself and a mate - Dylan - applied for jobs as casual waiters at the Spur, not realising that there was a two-week "apprenticeship" in which you didn't get paid.

A clever scam on their part, and one which is widely used these days in a variety of casual jobs. While we were slightly disgruntled at the fact that we wouldn't be able to get pissed for another two weeks, we decided to go ahead.

I'm not going to go into the specifics of how waiters order meals at the Spur from the chefs, but suffice it to say it is the most ridiculous, convoluted system ever, which involves calls like "Coming on!" and "Coming off!"

I spent my time sitting at a table learning the various ordering calls, but Dylan was taken straight away and put in charge of an entire section for a whole night.

The managers (there is never only one - anywhere up to four managers at any given time) were impressed with his efforts and offered him a permanent job the very next day.

When I came in the next day they spent all their time telling me how brilliant he was and how well he coped and how if I wanted a permanent job it was going to be very difficult for me to match up to his waitering genius.

I pointed out to a manager that I hadn't been given the chance to prove myself in such a manner, and that if they gave me a section I was sure I would do at least as well as he did. Instead the manager told me to go and buy some bread.

This is where the story takes a bizarre turn for the worse.

I asked the manager where I should go to purchase bread. He rolled his eyes in exasperation and wearily pointed out that there was a shop up the road. I asked him what kind of bread he wanted and he stared at me in disbelief, until I explained to him that there are three types of bread as far as I know - white, brown and wholewheat.

Summoning up all his resources he conceded my point and told me to get two loaves of sliced white bread. He gave me the money and off I went.

I found the shop alright and they had white bread, but it wasn't sliced and they didn't have a slicer. So I went back down the road, found the manager and told him the news. His face turned red but he managed to refrain from hitting me and told me to go back and get sliced brown bread.

So back I went to discover they didn't have any brown bread and with not a little trepidation I went back to impart the news, which needless to say didn't go down well.

By now the guy was upset and told me to go find another shop which had sliced bread - white or brown - and to come back right quick.

So this time I went down the road and found another store which had only sliced brown bread, so I bought two loaves and went happily back, only to discover that the manager I had been dealing with had disappeared and one of the others was now in charge.

He took one look at the brown bread and started screaming at me, telling me they didn't serve brown bread in the restaurant and that I should have just got white bread and sliced it up myself.

It was futile pointing out that the other manager had instructed me to get sliced brown bread, because by this time he wasn't listening, preferring to call me stupid, incompetent, lacking in initiative and so on and so on.

He then grabbed the bread from me and told me he would do it himself, and instructed me to go and clean the tomato sauce bottles.

Off I went, but had hardly taken a few steps before I realised that I had no idea where the tomato sauce bottles were, so I about-turned and went back to ask him.


He stood there, trembling with rage, and asked me why I didn't know where they were. I explained that I had been on the job for an hour and a half and had plenty else on my plate to deal with, and that besides - I was asking him now.

He asked me if I thought I was being clever and I replied in the negative. Clearly deciding that he had a village idiot on his hands he told me to go and look behind the Salad Valley.

Off I went and there were about five bottles of tomato sauce there, but they were all full of tomato sauce. So back I went and asked him if he meant I should clean the outside of the bottles or what?

By this stage the manager almost smiled - his rage for the day was all used up - and he told me quietly, with just a hint of murder in his voice, that I was to empty the sauce out of the bottles, clean them and pour it back in.

Naturally I burst out laughing and asked him: "No - seriously - how do you want me to clean them?", and then he started screaming as the dam walls of his years of pent-up anger at his own failings as a human being burst, and yelled that if I didn't do as he said I could forget about ever coming back.

So shaking my head in wonderment at it all I went and poured the tomato sauce out, cleaned the inside of the bottles and poured it back in, by which time another manager had decided that it was time I started doing some goddamn work and told me to go and get an order of a mushroom burger for some fat pig in the corner.

I had just got the order and was carrying it through the restaurant, when the first manager reappeared and tole me that once I had delivered the order I could go home.

Delighted (it had been an understandably tough morning) I asked when I should come back, and he told me never, ever.

He told me that I was a useless incompetent and that to boot I had an attitude problem, and when he was done I dropped the dripping burger on his nice red carpet, told him to go fuck himself, and left - screaming at the top of my lungs about the bastards who ran the restaurant, for all the diners to hear.

The manager chased me outside, yelling at me to come and clean up the mess, but I flipped him the bird and never looked back.

So what? - you ask. Well - since that day I have always taken special notice of Spur managers, and to a man they are the same. When you come in as a guest they are polite, discreet, helpful and sometimes even charming, and nobody fawns over a disgruntled customer more than them.

But every so often I will catch snippets of their conversation with their staff and believe me when I tell you that the facade they wear is a false one.

They have no respect for the people who slave for them and since I have observed this phenomenon at more than a couple of Spurs I have to assume that it is a certain type of person who decides to be a Spur manager.

My suggestion to them? "Manager" is a relative term, assholes, and doesn't make you some Big Player in the greater world of corporate restaurant management - the reason you took the job was because you were too worthless and lacking in ambition to do anything else.

So sort out your own feelings of inadequacy, get over the fact that your uncle fiddled with you as a child and start realising that just because you hold a higher station in your job than those who work under you, they are no less of a human being than you.

That is, of course, if you define yourself as human.

All Smoked Out,
Luke Tagg