The disciplinary action facing myself and two of my work friends has been formally dropped. Thank heavens for that. The General Manager who was calling for it has now left to be replaced by a new guy, who felt that it wasn’t necessary given that we are fully aware of the severity of the incident, and it would also be a rather crappy start to our working relationships.

With a new manager comes more change. My good friend and former Operations Manager has now moved on to bigger better things leaving my department with a somewhat fragmented managerial structure. Officially, we have no bar or restaurant managers or supervisors. This could pose some kind of problems from ordering napkins to getting our collective shit together when all hell is descending upon us. It does so frequently.

As of writing this, no formal title has been handed to me. I am still a food and beverage assistant. This will not do.

In addition to all the plate carrying, drink pouring, table laying, crap clearing and general monkeying around that all the other food and beverage assistants do, I order all the liquor, I collate it in the cellars, I manager the stock requisitioning to the internal sales outlets, I oversee the monthly stock take with our auditors, I put together the cleaning rotors and job schedules, I do Duty Management shifts, which includes wedding show-rounds, guided tours, personnel coordination, dealing with many an unhappy chappy, waking up in the middle of the night when the night porter can’t find his keys and all the other as-yet-not-happened-to-me crisis management of fire, power failure, rioting and Godzilla attacks.

All in all, minimum wage doesn’t cut it anymore. Finding time to do all that on top of being a barman/waiter is not very easy. After all, at least one person needs to be on the shop floor at all times, and between 15:00 and 17:00 there is only one person. After that then you don’t have time to sneeze, let alone slip upstairs to do some admin.

Right now I’m going for Bar Supervisor. Bar Manager would be hot, but it’s a little out of my reach. There are lots and lots of numbers to look at and I don’t have the foggiest about any of them, although that’s nothing a few courses wouldn’t sort out. My personal license application is still in the mix – taking it’s sweet time but still in the mix, and that is an invaluable aid to my cause.

This is all a far cry from me handing in my notice only to be talked out of it with the promise of better days on the horizon. I sense they are coming but they need to come faster, because with the Christmas calendar looming it is going to be absolute chaos in the hotel without a definitive chain of command. General manger to F&B assistant is not much of a chain.