Honestly, I already know that I probably am the AH and I just don’t care anymore. I (34f) have been working in restaurants for almost a decade now. I’m currently a bartender who works with four other bartenders on a daily basis B(42m), E(24f), N(25m), and L(21f). L just turned 21 when she started training. I helped to train her and passed on as much knowledge and tips as I could. I asked her questions like why she didn’t like doing certain things or about how we can increase her speed and I did my best to be kind, patient, and respectful. I know I probably wasn’t always especially since this is her first bartending and serving job. However it’s been months now. She still is extremely slow. When we are at the upstairs bar she still uses the elevator to bring up food (the elevator is extremely slow!) she is slow to make drinks, and it can take almost 15 minutes just for her to cut garnishes, let alone get soups and salads for the tables upstairs.
Last night was my breaking point. When I got to work, L had been there for two hours and didn’t light the bar candles. Her excuse was she couldn’t find them. They were on a shelf at the bar. She also didn’t restock glasses for the night. I did that while she was gossiping with another co worker and L has the audacity to yell at me to get more glasses while I am doing just that. She never cleans the counters or chairs like we are supposed to, unless I am doing that. And last night when I told her to go break E because it had slowed down, she was down there an hour helping E make drinks without even telling me before E went her break. I know this because I saw E come to the upstairs bar thinking she was on her break only for me to get swamped upstairs 45 minutes later with no help. I told L I needed her back upstairs and she never came. No one communicated with me that L was down there because a manager asks her to help and tha manager even agrees that someone should have told me and he had no idea she had been down there that long.
L yelled in my ear last night about not cleaning the drains and that I did nothing to close the upstairs bar except count the drawer. I counted the drawer, put away about half the garnishes, restocked some mixes and took out the trash. I was also the bartender that prepped our bar with extra garnishes and extra beer for tonight (valentines day) rush. the bartenders are supposed to work as a team and it seems all L does is want to keep score (maybe I do too because she doesn’t seem to want to do the job). She is the kind of person that can handle only two customers while I am handling 10 (and yes that did happen last night because of her slow pace to the point her two complained about how cold their food was).
I am far from perfect and I admit I need to work on my communication with L, but am I the AH if I tell her I’m done being nice and I don’t think she deserves any other cash tips that were given directly to me?
NTA and be sure management knows. She’s probably picking at your behavior to deflect from her own.
I would go to the manager with the list of responsibilities L isn’t completing and ask not to be put at a bar as her co-worker until she is willing to do the actual job.