Read on Twitter
In case anyone is wondering what it's like to manage a restaurant in the middle of a pandemic, let's talk about just my experience yesterday. Buckle up, all four of you who will read this, it's going to get a little long. 1/16
In person dining is closed because a server tested positive for the virus and all other exposed staff had to be excluded from the building and tested. I feel guilty because, despite our best efforts, staff and customers have still been exposed and someone has gotten sick. 2/16
I feel even more guilty because I'm running someone else's small business, I'm in charge of someone else's dreams. And we're losing money. Badly. Hemorrhaging. It's a bloodbath. Not to mention, I've laid off almost my full staff twice now. 3/16
People who may or may not qualify for unemployment, who have children or care for their parents, who have bills to pay and lives to live. I had to tell them we're cutting hours, laying them off. That there's no money to pay them. This feels like my fault. 4/16
So yesterday, I'm working by myself in the FOH with just kitchen staff to make to go and delivery orders. For 6 hours, I read a book, do a crossword puzzle, watch soccer, and freeze by the open door where we hand off orders. We get about two orders an hour. 5/16
Then it's dinner time and we're suddenly flooded. This is great, we've doubled our sales. I answer the phone and this man is IRATE. He calls me every name in the book and I'm busy accepting and handing out orders, so it's difficult to even understand *why* he's so angry. 6/16
In between threats and name-calling, I begin to understand the problem: he has received a text about an order from our restaurant that he did not place. I ask him for more information, he continues to read/yell me the text. I'm still handing orders out at the door. 7/16
I finally get a long enough pause to explain that I accept orders through an online merchant that pre-authorizes payment, I have no way to tell if something is fraud. I may be able to do something if he can tell me the amount or a name. Really, he needs to call his bank. 8/16
Accuses me of taking his money. THEN, he explains that he willingly gave his card information to a young lady and she keeps using it. He did it to himself. More name calling. I tell him I'm not inclined to help people who speak to me that way and he needs to call his bank. 9/16
Meanwhile, someone has yelled at me about their food not being ready because it's cold outside (but he doesn't know what name is on the order), another impatient guest has tried to take two orders that are not his, and I have to call another guest to ask about an allergy. 10/16
There's more, but you get it. We get through it, because that's what this whole year has been – getting through it. I can go home as soon as I send out a partial schedule (remember, still waiting on test results), mail a gift card purchased over the phone, and clean up. 11/16
When I get home, I go to my room without speaking to my housemate and sit in my chair. The lamp is too far away to turn on from there so I sit in the dark. For an hour. Doing absolutely nothing. I do this fairly regularly. I don't even doom scroll. I just...sit. 12/16
And I get to do this all over again next week – balance business concerns with human concerns. Weigh the owners' needs against my employees' needs. Respond to customers who complain that it's cold, that their food isn't ready, that their favorite menu item still isn't back. 13/16
In the middle of a pandemic, people *still* don't understand how a restaurant works. Some of them still don't seem to understand that we're also people – we're afraid of getting sick, we're just trying to feed our families. 14/16
I'm sorry I don't have onion rings, but I just laid off 75% of my staff and I'm kind of worried about whether they'll have any food for Christmas. But yes, I'll nod politely while you yell at me. This doesn't even cover the constant battle over masks, 15/16
the mad scramble to figure out what to do when someone got sick, the constant brainstorming about ways to cut costs and increase sales, the grant applications, the unemployment audits. The struggle just trying to still be open, let alone satisfy everyone. And I'm tired, y'all. 
