A few months ago, the manager at my job was Amy, with Pissant Pete and a relative rookie named Aster as assistants and Dan (Amy’s husband, the manager at another location) pitching in from time to time.

Then Amy quit.

Her terrier mix had bitten and fractured her finger (bad dog), and she was trying to run the line as usual with that finger in a splint. She was in pain, on top of the usual stress, and there’s about a 60% chance that Marty the district manager gave her shit about being slower than usual. I didn’t see it, but giving subordinate managers shit is a large part of Marty’s management style.

Dan took over – I guess he had some really solid assistants at his place – and Marty started teaching Pete and Aster Restaurant Management 201.

Then Aster transferred to another location.

I never heard an explanation, just a brief upswell of scorn about her frequent smoke breaks and general work ethic. She had been working closely with Marty, though, and Marty’s teaching style is about as smarmy and abrasive as his management style.

Then Dan put in his notice.

I never heard an explanation for this one, either, but Marty does like to talk shit about people, too; there’s about a 70% chance that he badmouthed Amy for quitting, in front of her husband.

This left Pissant Pete, who was already at “Peter principle” level as an assistant, along with occasional loaner managers from other stores. Marty was here full time, as Amy’s de facto replacement, and trying to bring in new recruits and/or train up a shift manager or two.

Then Pete quit.

Marty was acutely unhappy. He’d had a busy month.

Then two of the shift managers quit, along with a few of the rank-and-file line workers.

Then a few of the new trainee managers washed out and/or had their fill of Marty.

At the moment, the management consists of three trainees, one of whom no-showed today. The two remaining shift managers have been let known, smarmily and abrasively, that they won’t be promoted any time soon, and a couple of new shift managers are being intermittently and haphazardly trained.

Marty is here six days a week, and his frustration is starting to show a bit; I guess seagull management is less fun when you can’t fly away afterward.

And there’s about an 80% chance he’ll be here a few months from now, too. If he tries to leave his current lead trainee to go it alone before she’s fully trained, he’ll be back as soon as she fails. And he hasn’t shown much ability to fully train people…