This past Wednesday we geared up and ran the menu tasting. As usual Chef and I then visited with the service staff to discuss changes and amendments to their menu notes. We have 15 servers. When we got to the conference room we were shocked to see 35 people in there! There were bussers, food runners, stockers, people I've never met, and people I thought didn't even work here anymore. Needless to say, the servers didn't really get to taste all the food because it had to be shared with twice as many people.
I was told that all those people were invited (though nobody could alert me or Chef in advance). While trying to field questions I realized that the majority of those people did not even bother to read the menu notes. I got the nagging suspicion that this menu tasting on my fucking day off was a waste of time. To prove this we've been asking very basic questions to our staff during pre-service line up. THEY ALL KEEP BOTCHING THE EASIEST QUESTIONS ABOUT THE MENU! Even our senior FOH staff members, who we need to set the example, obviously did not even bother to read the menu. One question, "Name two vegetarian items on the lunch menu." Even though there are 4 vegetarian options, the server could not even name one. Another question, "Name one item on the lunch menu." They couldn't answer it. This was the trend all weekend when quizzing our FOH staff.
Needless to say I'm really really fucking annoyed by this. We have a standard that myself, Chef, and a couple others have worked really hard to maintain. Yet our senior FOH staff members just don't care. One of them told me yesterday, "It is unfair to put us on the spot during line up, and doing so makes the staff upset and therefore makes for a poor service."
Our dining room manager is "short on staff" so that person who said that still has her job. My frustration is beyond the point of ever doing another menu tasting ever again.
What is even more fucked up is that our dining room manager invited those who couldn't make it to the tasting for another one tomorrow. They think it is "unfair" that they couldn't attend the last one. I was recently told that I "don't feel anything anymore." I'm beginning to believe it.
