I was employee of the month for July, which is exciting, I suppose. That isn’t to say I’m ungrateful or anything, but I didn’t even know until almost halfway through the month when my manager approached me and said “Hey, you’re employee of the month! I need your picture for our praise board.”
In the back of the restaurant is a board with nothing but compliments. Generally these are from customer surveys, from people who not only bothered to respond to the link on their receipts but also bothered to ask their server or cashier their names for the sole purpose of giving them a shout-out in the “additional comments” section, but it’s also used by managers who notice particularly “above and beyond” behavior and decide to write about it to the world. I’m actually not sure why customers can’t see it (maybe because it would set their expectations too high), but the point is that it exists, and right in the middle is a slot for a picture of whoever is that month’s top employee as decided by the managers.
It’s not that I’m against my picture being taken -- I’m against selfies, sure, but that’s a subject for another blog -- I just don’t pose for the camera when it’s out. The one time I did have my picture taken was for my birthday, but one of our chefs was having their work anniversary at the same time, which meant the managers couldn’t use that as a solo picture.
In addition to a prominent placement on this board is a gift card. But that had its own set of problems. For example, only the general manager could approve giving a card, he was on vacation that month, and nobody wanted to bother him by calling about a work-related matter. But even when the card was finally given to me, I still didn’t have my picture up. Managers just kept forgetting.
On one of my final shifts of the month, I decided to do something about it. I printed out an image of a similarly-named cartoon character and threw it on the board. On my next shift after that, it was gone.
I never got my picture taken.
-F
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