Unemployment - First Timer

Today I’m making a change. I’m walking away from my General Manager position—a position that has taken over my life these past seven months. I have worked 70-hour work weeks, six days a week, on and off for eight months. A cellphone glued to my hand even on my days off, constantly checking emails, calls, schedule requests, or text messages from employees. Even during family days, 3,000 miles away for a girl's weekend trip, my parents coming to visit for a few days, etc. Managing over 70 employees, four managers, vendors, partnerships, events, and so on.

How did the life take over happen you may ask?

I was offered a position as a Sales and Event Marketing Manager. Within a month our CEO, CFO, and Floor Manager were all let go. Leaving a few empty spots needing to be filled ASAP. Our VP quickly took over for our CEO, Executive Chef for the CFO, and I took over for the Floor Manager. And all three of us taking on a new role while still managing our original role. A few months pass, our Executive Chef and General Manager would be going on paternity leave in late November, and we had an arrival of a new CEO in October. We then hired an HR Manager to assist with all those needs along with CFO duties, and a General Manager for the Huntington Beach location. The new CEO had a big meeting the first week he arrived on all the changes he wanted/needed to make. One being my title as Sales and Event Marketing Manager would go away, we would no longer have an Executive Chef title, we needed to move a minimum of two managers from the Huntington Beach Location to the Los Angles Location, etc. This did not settle in right with the entire management team. And as we were quickly heading into the holiday season, we all had to work together to make sure we brought in the sales expected from us.

January comes around in time for the General Manager to come back from paternity leave. Unfortunately, he only came back for a week before he was fired, leaving a big gap in the now Los Angeles location due to open in April. We only had a Bar Manager already assigned to the new location, and now needed a General Manager and Assistant Manager to help open and operate the restaurant. I was asked to transfer to the Los Angeles location as the General Manager the week after the firing. I would then take on the lead to hire all new employees, including the Assistant Manager, manage all vendor relationship, and secure a strong partnership with the new mall we would be in.

Fast Forward to end of March, we have hired over 70 employees, an Assistant Manager, and five Managers were then transferred to Los Angeles. Vendors relationship have been formed and we are ready to OPEN!! April 16 is the actual opening date, and we couldn't be more excited. However, we were never given a budget for marketing the new restaurant, we never had a grand opening event, never invited Elite Social Media, or famous influencers, etc. to help push our brand. The mall couldn't help much either as we did not have a social media presence or a website. We pushed these first two months to get everyone and anyone in the door. I started booking networking events, partnering up with other stores at the mall, talking to all guests who dine with us, did whatever needed to get done to make sure we had sales each and every day.

By the third month, we were noticing our sales were not what was projected for us. The foot traffic at the mall was busy, but the restaurant itself was not. Our rent was high, but we were in the heart of Los Angeles. We received help from some of our vendors to help cut cost and some of our staff started working in different positions to help with labor cost. Everyone started to doing there part in house to get the numbers where they needed to be. However, this was not enough for our CEO. He wanted MORE, and by more I mean, completely cut labor cost, change the menus, created a happy hour everyday of the week, not just specific days, and he delayed us getting the NFL Network due to cost. But thankfully, we were able to find it in the budget. And so on. The issues were starting to come up daily, frustrations and the unknown started to appear.

On a Tuesday in August, I'm heading to our normal 8 AM Corporate Manager meeting in Huntington Beach (these happen monthly) where our CEO and VP go over our P&L for the previous month, what is the coming month projections, marketing, social media, and PR ideas, event approvals, staffing and development, etc. On this particular day, I knew something was going to be said. The management staff was getting tired of the same conversation over and over again, with no assistances from our CEO or VP. However, on this day, I could not stay quiet. Someone had to speak up and say what we were all thinking. Our CEO was taking this company to the ground, and I was done sitting back, listening, and not taking action.

Two weeks later, I gave my notice! August 31 was my last day!