How much should you tolerate when it comes to making money? This weekend I had the opportunity to finally set my boundaries when it comes to this.
As I am a poor student, longing to go back to New Zealand in exactly 65 days, I need to scrip and save to keep the wolves from the door and should definitely make some money. Therefore, I signed up for any random gastronomy job in Salzburg. As I have some years of experience in this field I thought I had seen it all but it took a turn for the worst.
I had to work in a congress center from noon till ten in the evening, all good for me, no problem. However, the moment I stepped in to this building I felt you could cut the atmosphere with a knife. I got this lovely first impression of what I thought was the manager, when his first words to me were 'Didn't you listen to me, I just explained you that!'. And, as you may expect, it didn't stay with this one amazing friendly sentence. We had to set the tables for about 900 people and this other, I think, manager just couldn't help reminding us that if we didn't work harder we would not get a break. This went on and on all day. I have never experienced something like this in the 24 years I have been on this planet. I wont go into further detail, let me just say, I have been treated better.
The point I want to make is that I think people that sign up for a, maybe stress full, job like this should be able to work under pressure. Of course everything has to be perfect although if you are not able to threat your employees with respect I believe you have chosen the wrong career. If I should gain any knowledge out of this day then I can only say that these two gentlemen gave me the perfect example of how you should NOT treat the people that work for you. This will only give you a bad reputation and negative worth of mouth in the end. And believe me, I have spread the word.
