The Owner Demanded A Bigger Bakery Order, And Then Threatened To Fire The Supervisor Who Placed It
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Have you ever been in a situation where you made a very well-thought-out and informed decision at work, but your boss told you to do something completely different? If you knew your boss’s idea was a bad idea, would you do it anyway, or would you push back?
In this story, a bakery supervisor was in this situation, and she tried to push back. When that seemed futile, she eventually gave in.
The boss learned the hard way that she was wrong, but she still blamed the supervisor!
That was the beginning of the end.
Let’s read all about it.
Absentee boss wants me to increase the daily order against my suggestion? You got it.
I used to work at an upscale-ish cafe. I was a supervisor and in charge of the bakery section (there was also a kitchen and a coffee bar).
Now Mother’s Day was our biggest day of the year by a huge margin. Like it would be close to triple our daily sales for a regular Sunday.
Most mid-grade holidays would also be busy. And after every big holiday sales day, the sales the next day would be around 50-60% of normal, so I would order about two thirds of my regular order for that Monday.
The owner was pretty hands-off.
Now our owner was somewhat absentee from our store.
She owned five locations, four of which were in the same city. Ours was the outlier, in a smaller location about two hours away.
She spent almost all of her time at the four locations and maybe visited us once a month.
This month, she just happened to come on the day after Mother’s Day.
The owner made what seems like a bad decision.
I can add that of all the employees, only the assistant manager liked the owner. Even the manager couldn’t stand her.
She saw that my bakery case was somewhat low and asked why.
I explained that the day after holidays was always slower and I ordered less because I didn’t want to waste money.
She told me never to do that again. She in fact told me to double my normal order.
OP sounds like an amazing employee.
Now I had been in this job for four years by this point and I knew that bakery section inside and out.
Also at this point, only the manager and one of the cooks had been there longer than me.
Even the manager told me that things were always better when I was there.
I always stayed late to cover call-ins, often came in on my day off if they needed me. I even once drove a catering delivery 90 minutes each way to satisfy a loyal customer.
OP tried to explain to the manager why doubling the order wasn’t a good idea.
I told the owner that today was a special circumstance and that doubling the order would lead to a lot of food waste and recommended that we not do it.
With my regular daily orders, we usually ran out only near the end of the day, barring unforeseen circumstances (like someone coming in and doing a big pastry order without notice).
This was from a lot of trial and error over the years and I changed my order up whenever things looked like they were changing.
The owner refused to change her mind.
But she insisted, even after the manager also told her that our regular order was fine.
I tried again to tell and she just told me to do it.
My manager also said it by that point. So I did it. I doubled my regular order.
After about two weeks, she emailed me and asked why we were throwing out so many pastries every day.
The answer is pretty obvious.
I told her that she told me to double my order.
At that point, my boss says, she wanted to fire me.
My boss convinced her that she needed me to help run the store (which she probably did). So I wasn’t fired, but I lost my position as bakery lead. I was still a supervisor who mostly worked the bakery section, but I no longer ordered product. Still the same wage, but I was switched from mostly mornings to mostly nights.
While I did miss my morning regulars, I also enjoyed making the same money for less responsibility.
But then there was a lot of change.
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About six months later, the manager quit to go back to school and the place went downhill fast.
As I said, everyone working there hated the owner (except the asst. manager, who had quit about a month before this for a new job).
As soon as this happened, I started looking for a new job even though I hated changing jobs. So did a number of others.
It’s another example of employees not quitting jobs, but bad bosses.
Everyone was loyal to the manager, nobody to the owner.
I took a supervisor job at a nearby restaurant and never looked back.
I’m told by some coworkers who are still there that it became difficult to get through the day without me and the manager there and we lost lots of sales for over a year before they started picking up again.
It’s crazy that the owner wanted to fire OP for simply doing what she was told.
Let’s see how Reddit responded.
This person was confused, but she’s talking about the owner.
Another person has a theory.
This person shares what she has learned.
I assume this person means “bad orders,” not “bag orders.”
The worst part of this story is that the owner didn’t even take responsibility for her bad decision. Instead, she wanted to fire the supervisor who tried to talk her out of making that decision in the first place. Being demoted with the same salary isn’t all bad, though.
A good owner would listen to the employees. A bad owner can easily destroy the business.
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