The Heart-Shaped Gap
As an hourly manager at Wendy’s in Maumelle, I usually worked the closing shift. I had a night crew that were more mine than the other managers, simply because I worked with them more often. There was one night in particular that I had other managers present with me, and in hindsight, I am grateful for that. I was the manager in charge. I took over the shift at 4 pm. By 5, I realized that one of my closers hadn’t shown up for his shift. For a typical night, I would schedule two closers. My second closer was scheduled to clock in at 8 pm, but was already present in the crew room. So, I asked him if he would clock in and work in the other closer’s place. I called the missing employee a couple of times and left one voicemail asking if he realized that he was due in at 5 and not 8 that night. I didn’t hear back from him. Between 5 and 8, I could only assume that the missing employee was going to no call, no show for his shift. I had gotten busy on the service line and was stuck running a position myself because another employee that wasn’t a closer had called in sick. Because of this, I hadn’t been able to take the time to try to call in another employee to cover the closing portion of the shift from 10pm to 2 am.
Running short-handed while the lobby was open wasn’t comfortable, but for food safety reasons, it was impossible after 10pm. You need a minimum of 3 employees to safely serve food at low volume--one to handle the raw meat, one to make the sandwiches, and one to handle the money. One employee cannot double up on any of those positions without the possibility of cross-contamination. However, I wasn’t terribly worried, because I knew that we were having a cleanliness inspection soon and that two other managers intended to come in at some point throughout the night to work off-line, out of a service position, on detail cleaning projects. If I needed help bad enough, one of them would be able to step in and help out.
At 8:30, the missing employee came sauntering in. He didn’t have his hat or name tag on. His pants were sagging and his shirt was untucked. He was on the phone in a rather consumed conversation and went straight to the crew area without acknowledging anyone else. By about 8:45, he deemed himself ready to come on-line and into a position. Because we had been short-handed for the better part of four hours, we were running behind on our pre-close duties. Volume was dying down and we were needing to do a store-wide trash run. Pre-close dishes were needing to be washed, and the truck had come during our rush. Without an employee available to check-in and put away the items while the drivers were there, they had left large stacks of boxes in our backroom, the walk-in fridge, and walk-in freezer. Not only did these items need to be put away because that’s our responsibility on the receiving shift, but they were also in the way of our accessing other products. We had begrudgingly been working around them for over an hour.
When the missing employee reported to me, I asked him if he realized that he was late and he responded that he had been waiting on someone to return to the house to be with the kids he was watching, saying the person was supposed to be home in time for him to make it in at eight, but for whatever reason hadn’t. I informed him that he was actually scheduled to be in at 5, but thankfully the other closer was able to cover for him, especially since another employee had also called in. I explained to him that we had some catching up to do because we had been unable to have a person off-line any during the dinner rush.
By this time, the early closer and two other employees had walked up to listen in on the conversation. I directed everyone on how to chip in on catching the store up. One employee was to wipe all the tables in the lobby, clean the trays, restock the condiments in the front counter area, then start sweeping and mopping in preparation for the lobby's closing. Another employee was running the drive thru speaker and, between orders, was to stock the drive thru area and remove all the excess condiments from the sandwich station, cleaning and stocking it along the way. The early closer was to work on dishes between orders while running the grill position. The late closer was to do a trash run and then start on the truck order. The early closer and I were going to help with truck order between service orders and our other duties. The exact words I used were that we would try to “meet in the middle” on the truck order.
The late closer got upset with me. He went to the back of the store, so I didn’t realize this at first. I thought he went to get the big, roll-around trashcan and trash bags to start the trash run. After a few minutes, I saw him round the corner by the grill, saying to me, “Man, why I gotta be the one to do the trash run?”
I admit that this instantly irritated me. I couldn't believe he had the audacity to stroll in late and unprepared, and then to question the manager-in-charge about the tasks that had been given to him. I managed to control my tone while I reiterated that we were behind schedule on pre-close duties and that I had given us each tasks to help catch-up. He retorted with, “why can’t I run grill and wash dishes then?”
I said, “just because I asked you to do the trash run and I already told Austin to do the dishes. Austin already clocked in early to help us out because you were late. I don’t think it is fair to ask him to do the majority of the truck order, too. I figured you could stay off-line doing the trash run and putting away the truck until the other employees leave at 10. Then you can take over the grill and Austin will run the sandwich station.”
He said, “That’s messed up. I mean, Imma do it, but I think you’re putting all the work on me because you don’t like me and he’s your little friend.”
He said this as he was walking out the door leading to the lobby. I didn’t follow him because I had an order in drive thru and I was running the sandwich station while I had employees off-line catching up the store. I was furious with him, though. About that time, the other two managers showed up and were getting situated for their cleaning tasks. The first time the orders cleared, I had the other managers follow me outside so I could smoke a cigarette, tell them why the store was in such disarray, and tell them about the late employee’s attitude with me concerning the division of duties. By the time I made it to the part about the conflict with the late employee, the early closer stepped outside to smoke a cigarette, too. No sooner had he heard what we were discussing, chimed-in that he didn’t understand why the late employee was upset, then the late employee burst through the back door yelling!
“Y’all out here having a pow-wow meeting talking about me behind my back, say it to my face!”
The early closer said, “Man, your tripping! You were late, just do what she asked you to do. We’re gonna help you with the truck order.”
“You need to shut up talking to me! Y’all a bunch of racists!”
The early closer said, “That’s bullshit man!”
The other managers and I could barely get anything more than shocked sounds out of our throats before the late closer lunged towards the early closer. I didn’t even think. I just stepped in between them, facing the late closer, and put my hands up to stop him. He rammed into my hands with full-force and I anchored my feet to resist him. He took this as me pushing him and the next thing I knew, I was in a holly bush. He was 6 foot, 5 inches and 350 pounds. I was 5 foot, 5 inches and 135 pounds at the time. When he pushed me, I folded in half and flew into the bushes, landing with neither my feet on the ground, nor my head above the branches.
Here is where I completely lost my composure. I saw red. I came out of the bushes screeching and swinging. The early closer had pushed the late closer in my defense. The managers had pulled the late closer away from the early closer by the time I was out of the bush. With their backs facing me, the managers stood between the late closer and me, but I didn’t care. I used the managers’ shoulders to launch myself upward, gaining the height I needed to punch over the top of their heads and connect with the late closer’s face. All the while I was screeching things along the lines of “I’m not scared of you! You wanna f*n push me!” Among other explicit things, I’m sure, but it’s hard to recall intense moments like that in great detail.
I got in two or three punches before the late closer broke free from the managers and grabbed me by my throat, squeezing tightly. I teetered on the edge of the sidewalk, my heels hanging off the curb of the drive thru lane, my tip-toes and his grip on my throat the only things keeping me balanced. One manager ducked under the late closer’s arm, hooking me by the waist, and drug me around the building while the other manager pushed the late closer toward to the building.
The event resulted in the late closer being fired, one the other managers taking over my shift so I could go home, and me receiving a stern, chastising from my general manager the next day. Although he was understanding that the late employee was out of line to begin with. As a manager, I was expected to be the bigger person in any given scenario. When I attacked him back, I had been wrong, and a little crazy considering that he could’ve seriously broken me. Composure is often times easier to speculate about in hypothetical scenarios than it is to maintain in the moment. I won’t lie and say that I have evolved from that level of indignant hot-headedness; I will say that I have to be pushed pretty far to lose my composure--not that other people’s poor actions are any sort of justification for my own.
The general manager found the headset I had been wearing at the time in a heart-shaped gap in the dense bush's branches the following morning. He showed it to me during that stern chatisizing I got. It took over a year for that heart-shaped gap to grow to the top of the holly bush so the reminder could be trimmed away.
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