One More Week

I bet you're anxiously awaiting to hear why I had to go in yesterday at 2 pm. It was cold, raining, and minimums have been over for almost a week so what possible reason could there be to have me in three hours before schedule? I am not sure. Neither does the Sous-Chef who took one look at me when I walked in and said: "what are you doing here? You're not supposed to start till 5!"

I patiently explained that Chef sent me a message telling me to come in to work for 2 pm, and promptly produced said message on my cell phone. Her answer: "I will talk to him. There's nothing for you to do here, it's dead. Go home, come back at five." Would you have been angry? The fact that I live 7 kms away should have no bearing on the fact that I was made rearrange my day and go in early only to turn around and walk home. So what if I didn't have to drive 45 minutes to get here? It doesn't mean my time is not valuable. I left fuming. Came home and composed a polite, to the point email and promptly sent it to the executive Chef. The email ended with " I understand the challenge you face with labour costs but I ask for a little more notice when being called off work." Two minutes later my cell phone rang but I was in no mood to discuss the issue so I turned my phone off. Three hours later I purposely delayed leaving the house for my five o'clock shift. I had stuff to do and since I was sent home earlier because my services weren't needed I assumed the world would not be coming to an end if I was half an hour late for work.

When I did turn my phone back on and checked my email, there was an apology from the Executive Chef. He also called me at the end of the night to see how work was. He's never done that before. I heard he told the Sous I was pissed off. I was. I almost ended the email with "since it's the end of the season and my services are no longer needed I would be happy to relinquish my remaining shifts effective immediately. See you next year". I decided against it. He's lucky.