Tag: Accountability

Why Wait To Be Told

What I Expect, What I Get, and the Lost Art of Just Doing Your Damn Job

The food and beverage industry just might be the only business on the planet where you can hire someone, train them, show them exactly what needs done, and somehow still end up wondering why the job isn’t getting done.

Maybe it’s like this everywhere. I don’t know. I can only speak from my own experience, and I’ve got plenty of that.

So if there’s even a remote chance that you’ll someday scroll past a restaurant job posting and think, Hey, I could do that, I sincerely hope this blog finds you first.

Because we’re going to talk about what I expect versus what I get. And, more importantly, what I think a normal day at work should actually look like.

SHOW UP READY TO WORK

When you walk into the building for your shift, I expect you to be ready to work. Wild concept, apparently.

That means ready to take care of whatever needs done within your job, not personal business, extended phone time, standing around bullshitting, or my personal favorite: finding tiny, meaningless things to do so you can look busy without actually accomplishing anything.

There is a huge difference between being at work and working.

Restaurant owners know the difference. Trust me. We see you wiping the same six-inch section of countertop for the fourth time.

FRONT OF HOUSE: LEARN YOUR BUSINESS

If you work FOH -Front of House- here’s the traditional career path:

Apply for the job. Interview for the job. Oversell yourself so you sound incredibly capable. Accept the job. Get trained. Hustle like crazy while everyone is watching.

Then, once you’re comfortable, see exactly how little you can get away with doing.

Perfect. Or, and stay with me here, you could actually learn the business you applied to work in. Before you ever clock in, learn the products you’re selling.

At my place, that means a shit ton of beer and some pretty damn good food.

Learn the beer. What style is it? Where is it from? What’s interesting about it? What’s the story behind the brewery or the can art? Customers love a good story. Check your product.

Restock what needs restocked. If something is low or out, write it on one of the whiteboards provided specifically for that purpose.

Know what soda brands we carry. Check the bag-in-boxes. Know how to change one. Walk through the areas where customers are going to sit and eat. Are the tables clean? Is there food on the floor? Did somebody spill something? Don’t step over it six times waiting for another human being to discover it.

Know how to use the POS. Know how to change a keg. Tapping a keg is incredibly simple unless you decide to turn it into an advanced science project.

Know where things are stocked. And please understand that napkins, condiments, coffee, salt, pepper, sugars, creamers, dressings and every other little thing a restaurant needs do not magically refill themselves overnight.

If you couldn’t restock something at the end of your previous shift, then when you walk in for the next one, get on it.

And if your attitude is: “Someone else will do it.” Then you are probably not the right fit for this business.

ONCE THE RUSH ENDS, YOUR JOB DOESN’T

Working in food and beverage is supposed to be fun. And a lot of the time, it is. There are also moments when you’re getting absolutely murdered, tickets are flying, customers are everywhere and you become convinced the rush will never end.

Every job has those moments. But eventually the dust settles. And when it does, guess what? There is still a job to do.

YOUR job. The absence of customers does not mean the beginning of recess.

AND NOW… THE BANE OF MY EXISTENCE: BOH

Back of House. The magical land capable of sending me spiraling into another dimension.

The process starts the same way.

Apply. Interview. Tell me how experienced you are. Tell me everything you can cook. Tell me how busy your last restaurant was. Tell me all the things your last job made you do, then don’t do it here.

Get hired. Get trained. Learn the menu. Get shown exactly how things are prepared.

Then have a complete meltdown the first time you’re required to actually cook during a rush. Fantastic.

But before any of that happens, let’s start with something simpler.

Get to work on time.

And in a restaurant, “on time” doesn’t mean flying through the door at the exact second your shift starts and then spending fifteen minutes getting yourself situated. 20 minutes early is on time!

Be ready. Know the menu. Know the portions. Know how dishes are supposed to look.

Most importantly, understand that the customer who orders something Tuesday should receive essentially the same dish as the customer who orders it Friday.

Consistency matters. Every plate. Every shift. Every time.

PREP ISN’T OPTIONAL

Prep might be the least glamorous and most important part of a restaurant kitchen. What needs done will vary from restaurant to restaurant.

At mine? There’s a list.

Appetizers need portioned and bagged every single day.

Chicken needs cooked, sliced and diced for the appropriate recipes. Pasta sauce needs made. Chili needs cooked. BBQ pulled pork needs cooked, pulled, portioned and stored. Beef needs cooked and sliced. Mac & cheese needs made. Coleslaw needs made, with backup.

Potato chippers need cooked and prepped. Dressings need portioned. Cheeses needs portioned and wrapped. Product in the walk-in needs unboxed, organized and stacked properly.

Stations need checked and completely stocked before service. Menu items need cooked according to the recipes and required temperatures.

Ranch needs made… which, based on the amount people consume, may actually be the single most important substance keeping American society together.

And then there’s cleaning. Sweep. Mop. Check the trash throughout the building. Take it to the dumpster. None of this is exciting. None of it makes you a celebrity chef.

But all of it is the job. The same job you saw advertised. The same job you applied for. The same job you sat across from me and said you were capable of doing. And the same job you’re being paid to perform.

“NOBODY TOLD ME”

This one absolutely kills me. “Nobody told me to do it.” Why should they have to?

If you’ve worked somewhere for a year, why does another adult need to tell you that the thing you’ve done hundreds of times needs done again today?

If the ranch gets made every day… MAKE THE DAMN RANCH.

If the station gets stocked every day… STOCK THE STATION.

If the trash is full… TAKE OUT THE TRASH.

If something is empty… REFILL IT.

If something is dirty… CLEAN IT.

You don’t need a meeting. You don’t need a memo. You don’t need someone standing over you providing turn-by-turn navigation like restaurant GPS.

Seeing what needs done and doing it is part of the job. That’s the piece people seem to miss.

CRITICISM ISN’T AN ATTACK

Here’s another disappearing skill: Being able to hear that you did something wrong without acting like you’ve just been personally betrayed.

Restaurant work requires correction. Food gets sent back. Mistakes happen. Someone is going to tell you that something wasn’t done correctly.

That’s not necessarily an attack. That’s information. Fix it. Learn from it. Get better.

I’ve made mistakes my entire career. I’ll make more tomorrow. The difference is what you do after somebody points one out.

You can get defensive. You can blame someone else. You can sulk for the rest of the shift.

Or you can say: “Got it.” And make sure it doesn’t happen again. One of those responses makes you better.

THE SECRET ISN’T REALLY A SECRET

The food and beverage industry comes with some great perks. It can be chaotic, hilarious, exhausting and ridiculously fun, sometimes all within the same fifteen minutes.

And succeeding in it isn’t complicated. Manage your time. Prioritize. Use some common sense. Have a sense of urgency when urgency is required.

Show up. Be ready. Learn your job. Pay attention. Have some pride in what you do. Hold yourself accountable. Accept criticism. Learn from failure. And when you see something that needs done…

DO IT.

I’ve watched far too many people fail at seemingly simple tasks, and I keep coming back to the same question: Why?

Nobody expects perfection. I certainly don’t. But I do expect effort. I expect awareness. I expect you to give a shit. Because somebody is always paying attention.

Your coworkers notice. Your managers notice. Your customers notice. And your owner definitely notices.

So make sure when the people paying attention see you, they’re thinking: “I’m glad that person works here.”

Not: “What the hell are you doing here?”

For Sale By Owner? Please, Just Hire a Damn Realtor

My wife and I have been house shopping for quite some time now.

Most people who know us know that we want to move out of our current neighborhood. So every day, like two emotionally unstable contestants on some horrible HGTV game show, we open the realtor app and search for the one.

The perfect house. The perfect property. The place where we walk through the front door, look at each other, and say, “Yep. This is it.”

Apparently, that house is being guarded by a magical wizard. Because finding it has become unbelievably difficult.

First, can we talk about the price of homes? Holy shit.

We make very good money, and I still find myself scrolling through listings wondering what the hell everyone else does for a living.

Four hundred thousand dollars. Four-fifty. Five hundred thousand.

And sometimes you click on the pictures expecting to see a beautiful, move-in-ready home only to discover that your $400,000 gets you a kitchen from 1987, three different kinds of flooring, a bathroom that needs an exorcism, and a deck that appears to have been constructed during the Reagan administration.

And it still needs renovations. Excuse me? You want half a million dollars and you want me to fix the place?

That’s adorable. But housing prices are an entirely different rant for another day. Because even when you finally find a house you like, now you have to survive the ridiculous logistics of actually buying it.

Our house is basically ready to list. Great! Except we can’t just casually throw it on the market because what happens if it sells immediately?

Congratulations! We’re homeless. So instead, we wait until we find a house we want to buy.

Then we find one. We get excited. We start talking about making an offer. But our house isn’t technically on the market yet.

So while we’re getting everything lined up, somebody else swoops in and buys the house we wanted.

Fantastic. Back to the realtor app. It’s a rat race where you’re simultaneously trying to sell a house, buy another house, coordinate financing, schedule inspections, make offers, negotiate contracts, and somehow avoid living in a Holiday Inn with all your belongings packed into a U-Haul.

And then… For Sale By Owner enters the chat.

Oh, good. Because apparently this process wasn’t complicated enough already.

Look, I understand the thought process. “Why should I pay a realtor when I can sell my house myself?”

Because the rest of us have jobs, Susan.

People work. They have businesses. Kids have sports. Families have schedules. People have appointments, obligations, and lives that don’t magically stop because somebody wants to walk through your house at 6:15 on a Tuesday evening.

Now the buyer has to contact the homeowner. The homeowner has to check their schedule.

The buyer checks theirs. Someone can’t do Tuesday. Someone suggests Wednesday. Wednesday doesn’t work.

“How about Thursday at 5:30?”

“Can you do 6:00?” “No, my kid has a game.”

Jesus Christ. Hire a damn realtor.

You know what happens when professionals are involved? I tell my realtor, “I’d like to see that house.”

And then, through some sort of sorcery apparently unavailable to the rest of civilization, a showing gets scheduled.

Beautiful. Efficient. Civilized.

And there’s another benefit nobody talks about enough: I don’t have to tour your house with you standing there.

Because that is weird. House hunting requires saying things you absolutely should not say in front of the person who currently owns the house.

“Why the hell would anyone put tile there?”

Meanwhile, the homeowner is standing six feet away thinking: I put that tile there. Wonderful. Now we’re all uncomfortable.

Or you’re walking through the kitchen whispering to your wife: “This countertop has GOT to go.” And somewhere behind you the homeowner is thinking:

We installed that last year. Perfect.

Nothing makes a real estate transaction smoother than accidentally insulting someone’s taste while standing in their living room.

That’s why having realtors involved works. The seller leaves. The buyer looks around freely. People can ask questions. People can criticize things. People can talk honestly about renovations without worrying that Karen is hiding behind the pantry door clutching her Live Laugh Love sign.

And here’s my biggest question for the For Sale By Owner crowd:

How much money are you really saving?

Because selling a house isn’t just sticking a sign in the yard and waiting for someone to show up carrying a briefcase full of money.

There’s pricing. Marketing. Showings. Negotiations. Contracts. Inspections. Appraisals. Deadlines. Contingencies. Financing. Closing.

And approximately 47 opportunities for something to go sideways. Sometimes paying a professional isn’t wasting money. Sometimes you’re paying someone because they know how to do something you don’t.

That’s literally why professions exist. I own a restaurant. People occasionally look at what we do and think running a restaurant can’t possibly be that complicated.

Buy food.

Cook food.

Sell food.

Easy!

Sure.

Come spend a Saturday night behind the scenes and we’ll revisit that theory around 8:15 when the printer hasn’t stopped screaming for forty minutes, somebody called off, table 8 wants to know where their wings are, and we’re somehow out of something we had seventeen cases of yesterday.

Every profession looks easy from the outside. Until you actually have to do it.

Real estate is no different. So maybe the next time something comes up in your profession and you find yourself wondering why people think they can do your job without any experience, remember that feeling.

Because somewhere out there, a realtor is probably thinking the exact same thing. Stop making this harder than it already is.

Price your house for what it’s actually worth. Hire a professional. Leave during the showing. And let me walk through your kitchen and quietly tell my wife how much I hate your backsplash without having to look you in the eyes afterward.

Everybody wins.

WHO WATCHES THE WATCHMEN?

When the people we trust become the people we fear

There are some stories you never get used to hearing. Over the years, we’ve all heard them.

The police officer who abuses the very people he swore to protect.

The teacher or coach who sexually assaults a student entrusted to their care.

The hidden cameras discovered in girls’ locker rooms, bathrooms, medical offices, or other places where people should be able to expect privacy.

And every single one of those stories has something in common:

These are places where we are supposed to feel safe.

These are people we are supposed to trust.

Parents send their children to school believing the adults in that building are there to educate, protect, and guide them. We trust police officers with our safety. We trust doctors and medical professionals with our privacy and our bodies.

That trust isn’t a privilege. It’s a responsibility.

And when someone abuses that responsibility, the damage goes far beyond the individual victim. It damages the trust everyone else has placed in that institution.

So I have to ask:

How the hell do these people get into these positions in the first place?

Are some of them simply that good at lying? Are they that good at manipulating background checks, coworkers, supervisors, friends, and families?

Or are there warning signs that people noticed but chose to ignore?

Because that’s where this conversation gets uncomfortable. A predator doesn’t always walk into a job wearing a neon sign that says I’m a predator.

Sometimes they’re charming. Sometimes they’re respected. Sometimes they’re the person everyone says is “such a great guy.” Sometimes they’ve been around for years.

And sometimes somebody had a bad feeling about them and didn’t say anything.

That’s where we have to do better.

No adult in a position of authority should EVER look at a child as an opportunity for sexual gratification. There is no excuse. There is no gray area. There is no “mistake.”

A child is a child. An adult is an adult.

And the adult is responsible for maintaining that boundary… every single time.

I also believe institutions have a responsibility to continuously evaluate the people they put in positions of authority.

A background check when someone is hired shouldn’t be the end of the conversation. People change. Circumstances change. Warning signs can appear years after someone gets the job.

And when those warning signs appear, someone needs to pay attention.

If your gut is telling you something isn’t right, don’t automatically dismiss it.

If coworkers are talking, listen. If students are reporting uncomfortable behavior, listen. If parents are raising concerns, listen.

If multiple people are independently saying the same thing about the same person, maybe, just maybe, it’s time to stop asking why everyone is complaining and start asking what they’re complaining about.

Because “we didn’t know” isn’t always good enough. Sometimes people didn’t know. And sometimes people didn’t want to know.

There’s a huge difference.

One bad person can destroy decades of trust in an institution. One corrupt officer can make an entire community question law enforcement.

One predator in a school can make parents question whether they can safely send their children to school.

One person abusing a position of authority can make thousands of people wonder:

“Who can I trust?”

That’s the part that bothers me the most.

Parents shouldn’t have to wonder whether the teacher, coach, officer, doctor, counselor, or administrator standing in front of their child is someone they need to protect their child from.

Children shouldn’t have to become experts at recognizing dangerous adults.

That’s our job. And when children speak up, we have an obligation to listen.

When victims speak up, we have an obligation to listen. When employees speak up, we have an obligation to investigate.

And when evidence proves someone abused a position of trust, there needs to be real accountability.

Not a quiet transfer. Not a slap on the wrist. Not “let’s keep this internal.” Not protecting the reputation of the institution while the victim is left carrying the consequences.

Protect the victim. Remove the predator. Follow the evidence. Enforce the law.

It’s really not that complicated.

And yes, I believe people who deliberately prey on children or abuse positions of authority deserve some of the harshest consequences the justice system can legally impose.

Because there are certain lines you don’t cross.

Hurting a child is one of them.

We can’t eliminate every bad person from every profession. But we can build better systems. We can conduct better screening. We can create environments where people aren’t afraid to report suspicious behavior.

We can stop dismissing uncomfortable complaints simply because the person being accused is popular, powerful, respected, or has been around forever.

And most importantly, we can stop confusing loyalty with silence.

Because protecting a person who is hurting others isn’t loyalty.

It’s complicity. Ignorance might be bliss. But when it comes to protecting children, ignorance isn’t an excuse.

Pay attention. Ask questions. Trust your instincts. Listen when people speak.

And if you see something wrong, say something.

Because the people who need protection the most should never have to wonder whether the people standing beside them are the ones they need protection from.

Our children deserve better.

And frankly?

So does everyone who has ever placed their trust in an institution that promised to keep them safe.

If you or anyone you know has been exposed to sexual assault or abuse you can call or text:

https://rainn.org

WHAT HAPPENED TO SOCIAL MEDIA?

The Bullshit We’ve All Agree To

There was a time when social media was actually… well, social.

Crazy concept, I know.

Back when Facebook first became a thing, people actually used it to keep up with people.

You’d open your feed and see pictures of your kids. Your family. Your friends. Somebody’s vacation. A birthday party. A night out. Maybe your buddy standing next to a fish he caught that was definitely much smaller than the fish he claimed it was.

It was fun.

If somebody moved away, you could still keep up with them. You could see their new house, their kids growing up, their vacations, their lives.

It was basically a giant digital family album where everybody got to peek into everybody else’s lives.

And then…We fucked it up.

Today, open Facebook and start scrolling.

Go ahead. I’ll wait.

Within the first hundred videos, you’re going to encounter approximately 47 people who have suddenly become experts in constitutional law, criminal procedure and police tactics because they watched a traffic stop on their phone.

You know the ones. There’s a police officer standing on the side of the road, dealing with somebody who just got pulled over, and some guy sitting in his basement is narrating the entire thing.

“You see right there? That’s an unlawful stop. Officer has no jurisdiction. He can’t do that. That’s a violation of your Fourth Amendment rights.”

Buddy… You have no fucking idea what you’re talking about.

But apparently you’ve watched enough YouTube videos to become the Supreme Court.

Then, just when you’ve recovered from that stupidity, along comes the cooking expert. And apparently we’re all chefs now.

“Today I’m going to show you how to make AMAZING barbecue ribs in the crock pot!”

No. No you’re not.

You’re going to put ribs in a crock pot, drown them in barbecue sauce, cook them until they’re the consistency of a rubber band and then tell everyone you’ve discovered the secret to authentic barbecue.

You have not.

Then come the fake doorbell-camera videos. Oh, for fuck’s sake!

Apparently every neighborhood in America now has a Ring camera recording elaborate Hollywood productions where somebody’s pretending to steal a package, confront a neighbor, get caught trespassing, rescue a puppy, fight an Amazon driver or discover a raccoon operating a forklift.

And somehow everyone is standing there with perfect lighting, perfect camera angles and crystal-clear audio.

Sure. Totally real.

Nothing suspicious about that whatsoever.

At some point, social media stopped being about sharing your life and became about manufacturing content.

And that’s the part I don’t understand. When did everybody decide they needed to become an entertainer?

What happened to going to work?

Seriously. Did I miss a memo?

Did somebody send out a mass email saying, “Hey everyone, good news! Nobody has to have a job anymore. Just film yourself arguing with strangers, make fake videos and explain traffic stops you don’t understand. Apparently there’s money in it.”

And the really crazy part is…

There actually is. People have figured out that attention can be monetized.

The more ridiculous the content, the more people watch. The more people watch, the more money you can make.

So now we’re incentivizing people to become progressively more ridiculous because apparently being normal doesn’t generate enough clicks.

And that’s how we got here. We didn’t just build a technology that connects people.

We built a machine that rewards bullshit.

And then there’s Marketplace. Sweet Jesus…

Facebook Marketplace used to be a place where you could actually find things people were selling.

Now you’ll find an item photographed with what appears to be a 100-year-old Polaroid camera with the lens covered in bacon grease.

“Excellent condition. $400 firm.” You can’t even tell what the fucking thing is.

Is that a lawn mower?

A washing machine?

A motorcycle?

A deceased relative?

Who knows.

And for every two legitimate items listed, there seem to be a hundred profiles of mysteriously single women who apparently live three miles away, are looking for a good man and somehow ended up posting their dating profile under USED FURNITURE.

I’m just trying to buy a fucking table. Leave me alone, Susan.

And here’s the part that really bothers me.

We were told technology was supposed to make our lives better.

Faster. Easier. More connected. And in some ways, it absolutely has.

But somewhere along the way, we traded away an enormous amount of our privacy for convenience.

Our phones know where we go.

Our apps know what we search for.

Our devices listen for commands.

Our televisions know what we watch.

Our cars know where we’ve been.

And every time we scroll, click, search, watch or pause on something, we’re feeding another little piece of ourselves into the machine.

And what do we do with all this incredible technology?

We scroll. And scroll. And scroll.

And somehow, after three hours of watching a guy explain why a police officer doesn’t know the law, a woman making crock-pot ribs and a fake video of a guy getting attacked by a raccoon…

we’re somehow dumber than when we started.

That’s progress, apparently. Maybe I’m just getting old.

Maybe I’m becoming that guy who remembers when people actually called each other instead of sending a thumbs-up emoji.

Maybe I’m just nostalgic for a time when people took pictures because they wanted to remember something, rather than because they wanted strangers to watch it.

I don’t know.

What I do know is that I rarely even use Facebook anymore.

I’ll still post for my business. I’ll share my blogs. I’ll keep up with people I actually care about.

But I don’t want to spend my evening watching manufactured bullshit designed by an algorithm to keep my thumb moving.

I don’t want to be angry. I don’t want to be manipulated.

And I sure as hell don’t need some guy named FreedomPatriot1776 explaining constitutional law to me from the passenger seat of his Ford F-150.

I just want to see what my friends are doing.

Show me your vacation. Show me your kids. Show me the ridiculous dinner you cooked.

Tell me about the concert you went to. Post a picture of the mountain you climbed. Tell me about something that actually happened.

Be fucking human.

Because somewhere along the way, social media stopped being about people sharing their lives… and became millions of people desperately trying to convince the rest of us that their fake little life is worth watching.

And honestly? I hate it here.

Place Your Orders, Pay Your Bills & Pray Somebody Loads the Truck

There is something happening in the food and beverage industry that I don’t think enough people are talking about.

The supply chain isn’t just struggling. In some places, accountability has damn near disappeared.

Now before somebody from a distribution company gets their feelings hurt, let me be clear: I understand the world we’re working in.

COVID changed the workforce. Inflation changed pricing. Labor shortages changed operations. Food shortages happened. Transportation became more difficult. Finding good employees became harder. Keeping good employees became even harder.

And small-business owners felt every bit of it.

We still do. I’ve owned and operated a restaurant through all of this. I understand that sometimes a product isn’t available. I understand that a truck can break down. I understand that somebody can call off. I understand that mistakes happen.

What I don’t understand is how the mistakes keep happening with seemingly no accountability.

The Distributor Missed. Guess Who Gets Blamed?

Here’s a scenario that happens far more often than it should.

We place an order. We order the ground beef. We order the specialty IPA. We order the wings. We order the produce.

We do our part. Then the truck arrives.

And guess what’s missing? The ground beef. Or the beer. Or half the damn order. $7800 worth of food. And only $3000 worth shows up!

Maybe it wasn’t loaded. Maybe it was out of stock. Maybe somebody entered the order incorrectly. Maybe the warehouse screwed it up. Maybe nobody knows what happened.

And honestly, sometimes we don’t even get a particularly useful explanation.

But here’s the problem:

The customer doesn’t care whose fault it was.

And I understand that. If you walk into my restaurant and I advertise a particular burger, beer, wing flavor or special and I don’t have it, you’re disappointed.

You should be. But here’s the part customers don’t always see:

It isn’t necessarily the restaurant that failed to provide it.

We ordered it. We paid for it. We were told it was coming.

And somebody simply didn’t put it on the truck. Yet I’m the person standing there apologizing. I’m the person explaining why we don’t have it.

I’m the person watching a customer walk out because we couldn’t provide what they wanted. And I’m the person who still has to pay the vendor bills.

Because Apparently the Money Always Gets Loaded

This is where my frustration really starts. If a small business doesn’t have a product to sell because a distributor failed to deliver it, does the distributor lose revenue?

Not at all!

They still expect payment. They still expect invoices paid on time. They still expect us to meet our obligations.

And don’t misunderstand me, I believe businesses should pay their bills. If you owe somebody money, you should pay them.

But there seems to be an incredibly convenient one-way expectation of accountability.

We are expected to be accountable for everything.

Our customers expect us to have the products. Our employees expect us to have the hours. Our landlords expect the rent.

The government expects the taxes. Our vendors expect payment. Our customers expect quality. And our distributors expect orders.

But who holds the distributor accountable when they consistently fail to provide the products we ordered?

Because apparently the answer is:

“Well, we’ll try to do better next week.”

Fantastic. I’ll just tell my customers that.

“Sorry about your dinner. The warehouse is working on it.” I’m sure that’ll go over beautifully.

The Revolving Door

And then there’s the staffing issue.

I understand it. The people working in these industries today aren’t necessarily responsible for creating the labor environment they’re working in.

But at some point, someone has to own the result.

A sales rep doesn’t call. A new rep shows up and doesn’t know the account.

A manager doesn’t return the call. An order doesn’t get entered correctly. A product becomes unavailable and nobody tells you until the truck arrives.

A new product launches and somehow the restaurant doesn’t know about it. A vendor stops by once every six weeks, if that, and asks if you need anything, and disappears again.

Meanwhile, there are customers asking us: “Why don’t you have this?”

Because we didn’t know it existed. Or because it wasn’t available. Or because nobody bothered to tell us. Or because we ordered it and someone didn’t load it.

And we’re the ones who look incompetent.

That’s the part that pisses me off.

Because I’ve spent a lifetime in the food and beverage business trying to do this correctly.

There are people in this industry who have spent decades learning products, building relationships, understanding restaurants and helping operators succeed. And when someone comes into the industry with zero ownership, zero communication and zero urgency, they don’t just make their company look bad.

They make the rest of us look bad.

Not Every Vendor Is the Problem

And here’s where I want to give credit where credit is due.

There are vendors and distributors who absolutely get it. You know the ones. The reps who actually call. The ones who stop in. The ones who know what you’re selling.

The ones who tell you about a new product before you hear about it from a customer.

The ones who say: “Hey, I noticed you’re selling a lot of this. We’ve got something new coming in that I think you’d like.”

Those people are valuable.

That’s what a vendor relationship is supposed to be.

It’s supposed to be a relationship. Not:“Here’s your invoice. See you next week.”

Your success should matter to the people selling you the products that make your business successful.

Because here’s a crazy concept: If I make money, I buy more from you.

If my restaurant grows, your sales grow. If I add products, your sales grow. If I open another location, your sales grow.

My success is literally part of your business model. So why wouldn’t you want me to succeed?

So What Do We Do About It?

Here’s the uncomfortable answer:

We vote with our wallets.

I’ve completely stopped ordering from some vendors. Call it a boycott if you want. I call it business.

If a company consistently can’t provide what I need, consistently can’t communicate, consistently makes mistakes and consistently expects me to absorb the consequences of those mistakes, eventually I have to make a decision.

It’s not personal. It’s business.

There are other companies willing to earn my money. And that’s really the only leverage a small business has.

We can’t force a giant distributor to care about our profit margin. We can’t force a warehouse employee to load our order correctly.

We can’t force a sales rep to return a phone call. We can’t force corporate executives to understand what happens on the other end of their supply chain.

But we can choose where we spend our money.

And maybe that’s where accountability begins.

The Customer Doesn’t See the Broken Chain

This might be the biggest problem of all.

The customer sees the restaurant. They don’t see the distributor. They don’t see the warehouse. They don’t see the order confirmation. They don’t see the missing pallet. They don’t see the email we sent. They don’t see the phone calls. They don’t see the employee who didn’t load the truck.

They see an empty shelf. They see “86’d.” They see “Sorry, we’re out.”

And they blame the establishment. Sometimes that’s fair. Sometimes it absolutely isn’t. Because the restaurant can only sell what it has. And we can only sell what somebody actually delivers.

You can’t cook what isn’t in the building.

The Food & Beverage Industry Deserves Better

I’m not asking for perfection. Mistakes happen. People screw up. Trucks break down. Products go out of stock. Employees call off.

That’s life. What I’m asking for is accountability and communication.

Tell me you screwed up. Tell me the product isn’t coming. Tell me before the truck gets here. Give me an alternative.

Have a backup plan. Know my business. Know what I sell. Know what I normally order.

And for God’s sake, if you know something isn’t going to be available, don’t make me find out from the delivery driver.

We’re all trying to survive the same post-COVID business environment.

Small businesses are fighting rising costs, labor shortages, inflation, regulations, insurance, taxes and customers who are already paying more for less.

We don’t need our vendors making the job harder than it already is.

Because when you consistently fail to deliver the products we’ve ordered, you’re not just inconveniencing us.

You’re costing us sales.

You’re disappointing our customers. You’re damaging our reputation. And you’re making us look like we don’t know what we’re doing.

Eventually, we have a choice. We find another vendor. So here’s the new business model:

Place your orders. Pay your bills. Hope somebody competent loads the truck.

And if they don’t? Well…

there’s always another vendor willing to take your money.

Maybe that’s the accountability we’ve been missing all along.

What the Actual Fuck Are We Insuring?

Can we talk about insurance for a minute?

Health insurance.
Vehicle insurance.
Homeowners insurance.

I know I’ve kicked this rock several times over the years, but I just cannot make any of this shit make sense. We are told insurance is necessary. In some cases, it’s legally required. We pay for it month after month, year after year, decade after decade. And when you actually need it? Well… that’s when the fun begins. You file a claim, and suddenly your rates go up. Maybe they decide you’re too expensive to insure. Maybe they drop you altogether. Maybe they find some tiny little exclusion buried somewhere in the policy that basically says, “Yeah, technically this isn’t covered.” So what exactly the hell have we been paying for?

Let’s talk about your house.

You buy homeowners insurance because, obviously, your home is probably the single largest investment you’ll ever make. You live on top of a hill. Flood insurance? Not exactly at the top of your priority list. Why would it be? You’re on a damn hill. Then something happens that nobody anticipated. Over the years, somebody alters drainage. Someone fills in an area that was never supposed to be filled. A drainage ditch disappears. A sewer or stormwater pipe gets blocked, clogged or overwhelmed. Then Mother Nature decides she’s had enough and dumps several days of absolutely biblical rain on the area. Water comes rushing through. And then raw sewage backs up into your home. You call your insurance company. And they tell you: “Sorry. That’s not covered.” Wait. What the actual fuck?!

I insured my house. I didn’t insure it against only the disasters that were convenient for you to insure. And this is where insurance starts feeling less like protection and more like a monthly subscription to the possibility of protection.

Health insurance isn’t much better.

We pay enormous amounts of money for health insurance because we’re told we need it. Then you actually need it and suddenly there are deductibles. Copays. Coinsurance. Out-of-network charges. Out-of-network denials. Prior authorizations. Coverage limits. Denied procedures. Denied medications. And that wonderful little phrase: “That’s not medically necessary.”

Apparently the people who have never met you, never examined you and aren’t the ones living in your body get to decide what is medically necessary. You can have insurance and still be terrified to get sick. How the hell did we decide that was normal?

And don’t forget the car. You have to insure your vehicle.

You pay every month. You drive responsibly. Then some idiot runs into you. You weren’t at fault. You did everything right. You call your insurance company. And somewhere down the road, you discover your rates have increased anyway. Because apparently getting hit by someone else’s stupidity is now a subscription upgrade. And heaven forbid you actually use your insurance a few times. Suddenly you’re a “risk.” Funny how that works.

Here’s the part that really bothers me.

Insurance companies aren’t charities. They’re businesses. Their job is to make money. I understand that. But somewhere along the way, we’ve created a system where ordinary people are required to participate in these systems while the companies providing them have every financial incentive to minimize what they pay out. We pay them to assume risk. They make money by managing that risk. And when the risk actually shows up? Suddenly everybody starts looking for the exit. That’s the part I have trouble swallowing.

So here’s my crazy idea.

What if we stopped giving so much of our money to insurance companies in the first place? What if people could put that money into their own accounts? Your money. Your savings. Your emergency fund. Your house account. Your medical account. Your vehicle account. Instead of sending thousands of dollars every year to corporations whose primary obligation is to their shareholders, maybe people could build their own financial safety net. Now, before somebody screams, “But what happens when your house burns down?!” That’s where catastrophic insurance could make sense. Maybe insurance should actually be insurance. Cover the catastrophic stuff that could financially destroy you. Not every little thing. Not a system so complicated that you need a lawyer to figure out whether you’re covered. And maybe government could regulate the hell out of the industry without trying to design every aspect of our lives.

Because here’s another problem: We have politicians making decisions about industries they often know absolutely nothing about. Then corporations lobby those politicians. Money changes hands. Rules get written. Companies adapt. Consumers pay. And somehow we’re all supposed to pretend this is the best system humanity could possibly come up with. Come on. We’re capable of landing robots on Mars. We can probably figure out a better way to pay for a fucking doctor’s visit.

I’m not saying I have the perfect answer.

I don’t. Maybe completely eliminating insurance companies isn’t realistic. Maybe some things absolutely require risk pooling. Maybe catastrophic insurance is the answer. Maybe healthcare needs an entirely different model. Maybe we need a combination of personal savings, catastrophic coverage and government regulation. I don’t know. But I do know this:

Something is fundamentally wrong when people spend thousands upon thousands of dollars protecting themselves from financial disaster and can still be financially destroyed when disaster actually happens. That’s not security. That’s anxiety with a monthly premium. And somewhere along the way, we accepted this as normal. Maybe that’s the part we should be questioning. Because I’m getting pretty damn tired of being told: “Don’t worry. You’re insured.”

Only to discover that the thing I’m worried about is the one thing my insurance doesn’t cover. So yeah… I’m ready to kick this rock again.

What do you think? Would you rather keep paying insurance companies for the promise of protection, or would you rather put more of that money into your own pocket and be responsible for protecting yourself? Maybe I’m completely nuts. But right now? “You’re covered… except for that” isn’t exactly making me feel covered.

When Technology Becomes the Problem It Was Supposed to Solve

I don’t hate technology, but I surely don’t love it either. There, I said it. Technology has changed the world. It has made communication easier, businesses more efficient, and life more convenient. But somewhere along the way, technology companies forgot one important thing:

If it isn’t broken, maybe stop fixing it.

My Harley-Davidson Street Glide is a perfect example. The bike came with Apple CarPlay. Plug in the phone, hit the road, enjoy music, navigation, and everything that makes riding better. Simple. It worked. Until I upgraded my Apple Iphone. Apple thought it was a good idea to change the chargers from USB-A to USB-C… And suddenly, the thing that worked perfectly became a troubleshooting project.

Now I’m standing in my garage with a brand-new phone, multiple USB cables, settings menus, software versions, and a motorcycle that apparently needs a technology translator just to talk to my phone. The funny part? My wife’s older phone plugs in and works immediately. My newer phone, the one that is supposed to be smarter, faster, and better, looks at my Harley like they are speaking two completely different languages.

And this isn’t just about motorcycles. It’s everywhere. A refrigerator that needs Wi-Fi. A thermostat that needs an app. A vehicle that requires a subscription to unlock features it already has installed. Prime example, the radio in my 2025 Jeep won’t work with the IPhone WiFi turned off… not Bluetooth! WiFi to make a car radio work properly!! Insert dumb idea right here!

We’ve reached a point where sometimes the “upgrade” creates a problem we never had before. Technology companies are in a never-ending race to be better, faster, smarter, and more connected. But maybe they need to remember something:

Better doesn’t have to mean more complicated. Sometimes better is simply something that works every time. Give me reliability over another feature I didn’t ask for. Give me something I can turn on, use, and enjoy without needing a computer science degree. Give me a radio in an eighty thousand dollar vehicle that works because you have an eighty thousand dollar car!

Because at the end of the day, I don’t want to spend my Sunday afternoon negotiating with a motorcycle, a phone, and a USB cable like I’m brokering a peace treaty between three stubborn countries. I just want to ride and hear my music.

And maybe that’s the biggest upgrade we actually need: Technology that remembers its job is to make our lives easier.

Why I Hate Technology

Before everyone starts telling me how technology has made life easier, hear me out.

I’m trying to enclose my back deck, so I jumped on Lowe’s website to order the materials. Everything seemed simple enough. I selected delivery, and the website proudly announced that if I completed my order before 2:00 PM, I qualified for same-day delivery.

Perfect.

I placed the order around 12:30 PM.

A few minutes later, the confirmation email arrived… and that’s when the fun began.

The shipping address was wrong.

Not my fault, either. My billing address and shipping address in my account are both correct. Somehow, Lowe’s system decided to take my correct street address and randomly attach the wrong city and state to it.

No big deal, right? Surely I can edit it online.

Nope.

After several failed attempts, I called the store. After fighting my way through the automated prompts, I finally reached someone in shipping. I explained the issue, and she assured me it would be corrected.

An hour later, I checked the tracking. Still wrong.

So I tried the online chat. No luck.

At this point, I called again.

This time I spoke slowly. I spelled everything. I repeated every detail. The representative read the address back to me perfectly.

Success… or so I thought.

A few minutes later I checked again.

Wrong. Again.

By now it’s pushing 6:00 PM, and the same-day delivery I was promised has come and gone. I have no idea if my order will show up, get delivered to the wrong place, or be canceled altogether. Only thing I do know, I was 100% charges for the delivery and materials.

And that’s when it hit me. This isn’t really about my lumber.

It’s about what we’ve become.

This is a Lowe’s store in my own town. The delivery drivers know these streets. They know the neighborhoods. They know where they’re going.

So why can’t someone simply load the truck, pick up the phone, call me, and say, “Hey Pete, just confirming your address before we head your way.”

Problem solved.

Instead, everyone is trapped inside a computer system that refuses to cooperate. The employees can’t override it. The website can’t fix it. The chat can’t understand it. The technology that was supposed to make everything easier has become the very thing preventing a simple solution.

We’ve become so dependent on technology that when it fails, people don’t know how to work around it anymore. And this is how stores waste money! Employees standing around doing nothing when technology fails the consumer.

Common sense has been replaced with computer prompts. Real conversations have been replaced with automated menus.

Problem-solving has been replaced with, “I’m sorry, the system won’t let me.”

Here’s the ironic part: the people I spoke with were trying to help. They weren’t the problem.

The problem was that the technology had all the control.

We’ve reached a point where good employees are made to look incompetent because they’re handcuffed by software. Great customer service gets buried under layers of automation. And when the computer makes a mistake, everyone just waits for the computer to fix… the mistake the computer created.

Technology is an incredible tool. But it’s a terrible boss. When computers replace common sense instead of supporting it, everybody loses.

So here I sit, waiting to see if my order ever arrives, wondering if somewhere inside a server there’s a computer convinced my house magically moved to another state.

Maybe tomorrow I’ll get my lumber.

Or maybe I’ll just get another email telling me everything is “on schedule.”

Because apparently that’s what progress looks like. Like running my own business, I often wonder if that one employee will step up and take care of all the problems!

Critics: The Loudest People Usually Aren’t the Ones Building Anything

Before we go any further, let me make one thing clear.

I’m not talking about the friend who tells you your idea has a flaw because they genuinely want to see you succeed. I’m not talking about the customer who offers honest feedback that helps a business improve. Those people are valuable.

I’m talking about a different breed entirely.

The critic who isn’t trying to help, they’re trying to hurt.

The one who waits in the shadows for someone to post, create, celebrate, or dream, just so they can swoop in with sarcasm, insults, or negativity. They don’t offer solutions. They don’t build anything themselves. They simply tear down what someone else had the courage to create.

Those are the critics this blog is about.

There comes a point in everyone’s life when you realize something important.

No matter what you do… Someone is going to criticize it.

Start a business? They’ll tell you why it’ll fail. The same people today who love my restaurant, told me 12 years ago it will never work in my location.

Lose weight? They’ll explain why you’re doing it wrong.

Write a blog? They’ll critique your grammar instead of your message.

Post a picture? They’ll tell you what they would’ve done differently.

Welcome to life.

Critics are everywhere. They’re critical of what you’re doing, what you’re saying, how you’re living, and sometimes even what you’re eating for lunch. If someone is actually out there chasing a goal, there’s always someone standing on the sidelines explaining how they should be running the race.

Here’s my opinion… Most of the loudest critics aren’t busy creating anything themselves.

It’s a lot easier to judge someone who’s climbing a mountain than it is to climb one yourself.

Today, the modern critic has evolved.

Years ago, if someone wanted to criticize you, they had to actually say it to your face. Today? They hide behind a keyboard, a blank profile picture, and a comment section. You’ll recognize them pretty quickly. Their profile has three pictures, twenty-seven cat memes, a political rant from six years ago, and somehow they have an expert opinion on absolutely everything.

These keyboard warriors aren’t nearly as intimidating as they think they are.

They’re fueled by one thing… Attention.

Reply to them, and you’ve just handed them exactly what they wanted.

Argue with them, and you’ve given them a purpose for the afternoon.

Defend yourself long enough, and suddenly you’re spending your day trying to convince a stranger that your life choices are valid.

That’s a losing game every single time.

Now, every once in a while, you’ll meet a real, flesh-and-blood critic. Someone who actually has a face, a name, and enough confidence to say something in person.

Those conversations can actually be worthwhile.

Listen. Ask questions. Debate respectfully. Sometimes you’ll even learn something.

Not all criticism is bad. Honest feedback can make us better.

But there’s a huge difference between someone offering constructive advice and someone simply looking for an argument.

If you’re running a business, especially in a small town, you already know this.

Social media is one of the greatest marketing tools ever created.

It’s also one of the greatest gathering places for critics.

For every customer cheering you on, there’s another person convinced they know how to run your business better than you do.

They’re critical of your menu. Your prices. Your promotions. Your employees. Your politics. Your grammar. Your logo. (Not my logo, my logo is badass!)

Sometimes it feels like they’re disappointed you opened your doors at all.

Here’s the funny part… Most of those people have never signed a payroll, balanced inventory, worked a fourteen-hour day, or laid awake at night wondering how to make sure their employees get paid.

It’s easy to coach from the bleachers. It’s much harder to play the game.

One of the greatest responses you can give a professional critic is… absolutely nothing.

Silence.

Nothing frustrates someone looking for attention more than not receiving it.

An ignored critic eventually has to find another stage.

So live your life. Start the business. Write the blog. Post the picture. Take the trip. Learn the skill. Make the mistake. Celebrate the win.

Every decision you make belongs to you, not to the anonymous spectator refreshing Facebook while waiting for their next argument.

At the end of the day, you have to live with your choices. They don’t.

So don’t let critics determine how you speak, what you post, or how you chase your goals.

The people busy building a life rarely have time to spend tearing someone else’s apart.

And if you happen to hear some noise coming from the comment section…

Smile.

It usually means you’re doing something worth noticing.

Ted Kaczynski

What villain actually had a good point?

When a Villain Identifies a Real Problem

Today’s prompt asked: What villain actually had a good point?

This may just be the prompt I’ve been waiting for.

Ted Kaczynski.

Before anyone misunderstands where I’m going with this, let me be clear. He chose terrorism. He murdered innocent people. Whatever message he believed he was sending was forever stained by the blood of those who never deserved to become part of it. His methods weren’t just wrong… they were evil.

That should never be forgotten.

But here’s where the conversation gets uncomfortable.

What if an evil man recognized a real problem that the rest of society wouldn’t fully understand until decades later?

Long before smartphones lived in our pockets, before social media dictated our attention, before algorithms decided what we read, watched, and believed, Kaczynski warned that technology would slowly become something we could no longer live without. He argued that we’d willingly trade privacy for convenience, independence for comfort, and genuine human connection for digital substitutes.

Whether he was entirely right is up for debate. But I’ll let you all be the judge of that.

What’s harder to debate is what we see today.

People panic when they lose their phones. Families sit at the same dinner table while staring at separate screens. Social media often influences our moods, our opinions, and sometimes even our sense of self-worth. Artificial intelligence is beginning to reshape careers, education, and creativity faster than many of us can adapt. Every year, we seem more connected digitally and, in many ways, more disconnected personally.

Technology has given us incredible advances. It has saved lives, connected families across continents, revolutionized medicine, and placed the world’s knowledge in our hands. I wouldn’t want to erase any of that.

But somewhere along the way, many of us stopped using technology as a tool and started allowing it to use us.

That’s the difference.

And maybe that’s the lesson we’ve overlooked.

Technology itself isn’t evil. A hammer can build a home or become a weapon. The internet can educate millions or spread lies in seconds. AI can help doctors detect diseases earlier or help scammers deceive thousands. The tool isn’t making the moral decision.

We are.

Every technology eventually reflects the best and worst of the people using it.

Take Flock license plate cameras as an example. Used properly, they can help investigators locate a stolen vehicle, identify suspects, or even find a kidnapped child. Used improperly, they can become a substitute for actual police work.

Consider the case of Chrisanna Elser. Her vehicle was detected by a license plate reader in the vicinity of a reported crime. Instead of treating that information as one investigative lead among many, it became the foundation for accusing the wrong person. She maintained her innocence and ultimately had to gather her own GPS data and other records to demonstrate she wasn’t responsible before the case against her unraveled.

https://www.cbsnews.com/amp/colorado/news/flock-cameras-lead-colorado-police-wrong-suspect/

The technology didn’t fail.

The people using it did.

That’s what makes this conversation so relevant today. We have a tendency to place blind faith in technology because it feels objective. Computers don’t have emotions. Algorithms don’t get tired. Cameras don’t forget.

But technology records information. Human beings assign meaning to it.

The moment we stop questioning the output and start treating it as unquestionable truth, we’ve crossed a dangerous line. Investigative technology should generate leads, not conclusions. It should support human judgment, not replace it.

That’s why I don’t think technology itself is humanity’s downfall.

Human beings have always been remarkably good at taking useful tools and finding ways to misuse them. Technology doesn’t create our character.

It magnifies it.

If we’re compassionate, technology amplifies compassion.

If we’re innovative, it amplifies innovation.

If we’re reckless, it amplifies recklessness.

If we’re authoritarian, it amplifies surveillance.

The lesson isn’t that Ted Kaczynski was someone to admire. He wasn’t.

The lesson is that even terrible people can occasionally identify a real danger. Recognizing that danger doesn’t honor the man, it challenges us to confront the issue in ways that are thoughtful, humane, and constructive rather than destructive.

Maybe the real question isn’t whether technology is evil.

Maybe it’s whether we’ve become so dependent on it that we’ve forgotten how to control it… and whether we’ve become so willing to trust it that we’ve stopped questioning the people who wield it.

https://web.cs.ucdavis.edu/~rogaway/classes/188/materials/Industrial%20Society%20and%20Its%20Future.pdf