Loss of Confidence

A former boss of mine explained to me once, after he threatened to fire me and I asked him, "Well, let me ask you a question. If you fire me and hire someone else, isn't it true that they could even more easily make the same mistake that I just did?"

 

He said yes, "But when someone screws up too much, you have a loss of confidence in them. You can't depend that they won't screw up again."

 

I witnessed this phenomenon this morning.

 

The Back Story

We are fortunate in my building to have an in-house cafe. They serve lunch and breakfast and the line cook is always a riot. Although everyone on the staff up here calls it the "Loser Cafe", they still go there at lunch. Everyone knows and loves the staff, including me.

 

The Cafe Manager is always looking for more catering business. But lately, we have been ordering breakfast from outside vendors, such as my favorite bakery. The major reason we have done this is because of Cafe's lack of good presentation. Their breakfast food often looks very slapped together and very cheap.

 

The Cafe's serving pieces look like they are left over from something else but have been deemed passable for the occasion. I've seen the bottoms of dispoable trays reused ad nauseam, scratched up, clear plastic serving trays, chipped ceramics. And when I say chipped ceramics, I'm not referring to some dressy serving piece whose chips just add to the charm. I'm referring to some plain Jane, white, no-frills heavy ceramicware whose chips just make them look dumpy.

 

We've asked and asked for better serving pieces so that we can order from the cafe more often. But it is the company's facilities department who must pay for those items, not the Cafe themselves. So far, Facilities has been unwilling. I'm not surprised; I worked in a Facilities department once and they truly don't grasp that, outside of building things and maintaining things, you also have to spend some money occasionally to impress people so they'll do business with you. Yes, you do have to give them perks; you do need to feed them gourmet food, and you do need the overall presentation, not just the room, to look nice and pulled-together.You get what you pay for...

 

...Which is why the admins in the Sales department have urged Cafe Manager to charge a little bit more so he can offer a higher end product in an effort to get our people to be more willing to order food from the Cafe. We'd much rather use the Cafe. Cafe Manager takes care of setup, he knows where the glasses are, where the plates are, etc. I can't count how many times Cafe Manager has saved my ass because I either forgot to order the food or didn't get here early enough to get glasses and plates out and whatnot.

 

However, since the Cafe Manager started here about a year and a half ago or so, his performance has steadily declined. In the beginning, he'd come and arrange everything just so. He'd bring flowers, use crates covered in linens to provide different heights for the different items; a nice landscape on which to present his food, which he took great pride in. Upon taking over the kitchen, he immediately upgraded the available catering options for hot meals. His hot meals with chafing dishes and the whole nine yards are less expensive than ordered-out cold lunches.

 

Buuuuut then he started messing up orders; missing some and screwing up others. We forgave him though; it was a busy time.

 

As time wore on though, the cheap presentation continued. Nothing changed, even though we gave the Cafe input that it didn't look good enough to present to prospects. We ordered from the Cafe less and less often.

 

And then there was this morning.

 

Supervisor is the most gracious person I know. She has great perspective. She won't eviscerate someone by going to their boss unless she really thinks it's necessary. Right now, since Adminzilla drank herself into unemployment, Supervisor is supporting Napoleon as well as her usual people. So that's why Supervisor was organizing Napoleon's meeting this morning...his breakfast meeting...in order to introduce a new SVP to the staff.

 

She ordered breakfast from the Cafe downstairs. A week ago. Cafe Manager confirmed via email. Then she revised the order last night to include some additional items. Cafe Manager confirmed via email. The food should have arrived this morning at 8am.

 

8am came.     8am went.      No food.

 

I got here at 8:25 and saw Supervisor sort of pacing and looking worried, not her usual MO. Come to find out, she was livid because Cafe Manager had completely forgotten about her order.

 

And now Napoleon was bound to be pissed.

 

I asked her if she was going to file a complaint; of course, she was. I like Cafe Manager and all, and it's not personal, but ummm this is a serious problem. That could've been me waiting anxiously for food that wasn't going to show up. Supervisor won't order from him again; and neither will I.

 

For one, we don't want to order from him, because we have lost confidence.

 

For two, he just might not be there any longer.