Reopening Musings

It's only ten days in. Ten. I feel like a convoy of trucks have repeatedly hit me on a Texas highway. Reopening day was nearly total chaos, thankfully I have a great crew and we were able to persevere through all the madness. And as each successive day came by, we got a little better at handling the chaos as it got more and more chaotic. Although I continued to stress the new coronavirus protocols, we service industry people are finding it harder and harder to force our guests to follow them. It's a mix of the indestructibility of youth, the politicisation of mask wearing, and alcohol that makes our jobs that much more difficult. And now we are approaching another expansion of the social distancing rules, I can't see this getting any easier. 
And I fear another shut down, since the virus numbers are beginning to rise throughout the country again. That 'second wave' might be happening long before the fall sets in. We have a long way to go. Hopefully a vaccine will be found sooner rather than later.
Jumping right into the summer season did not help at all! 
And it's been hard for me to get back into the swing of things. With all the added problems/conditions at the bar, the coronavirus protocols, the dinner and breakfast service, having to fill in on all the missing shifts I can't seem to staff, we are getting back to our weekly meetings and routines. The workload has been tremendous and I've been working twelve hour days all this time. 
And then there's the problem of finding help. Thankfully all of my staff came back but with the new dinner service, we need a lot more help. I've been interviewing but finding people that can pass a drug test, have adequate experience, are willing to stop collecting their unemployment, and actually show up for interviews has been seriously difficult. And I'm uneasy about hiring people I know, that almost always turns into an issue.
Time to suit up and get back into the fray.  

Back In Business (Soon)

I had my third manager's meeting at the Claridge on Wednesday. After weeks of speculation and waiting, we finally got the go ahead to reopen the VÜE Rooftop Lounge, albeit in a slightly altered state. Since the governor's executive order prohibits us for now from allowing guests in the bar itself, or in the Twenties Bistro down on the sixth floor, we are going to combine them and have dining on the rooftop decks, weather permitting. It will be a challenge, since our bar kitchen is rather small so we'll have to utilise the kitchen in the Twenties for the dinners, and there are issues of staffing and logistics to overcome but I'm confident with the help of our executive chef Craig Johnson, and my friend Lance LaBarre, who's also our banquet manager, we'll be able to get it all sorted out before reopening day. We have a good week to get it all together, which is no time at all but plenty of time for service industry folk, I've personally created magical events with far less time and little preparation. I have confidence that with a lot of espresso and a few nips of vodka here and there, we'll pull it all together by the fifteenth of June. 
It's not going to be easy, though. The pandemic is still raging, the George Floyd protests are still raging, now globally, the rioting and looting hasn't totally stopped, people are still out of work, people are still scared of getting sick, no one is traveling, the health protocols are going to be a necessary issue, we are now in June, losing three months of momentum going into the summer season, none of this is going to work in our favour. My strategy is to going to be to try to walk that fine line between shameless promotion and just under the radar, if there is such a place. Although I am very politically motivated, when it comes to the livelihood of my staff and the experience of my guests, I don't want to turn the reopening into a political statement to be used by various factions, it seems everything nowadays gets polarised and divisive. Here's hoping for the best possible outcome. 
I'll say this, it will be nice to have purpose again. I've felt unmoored these last few months, as all of us have, and I'm itching to replace the tedium of these seemingly endless repetitive days with the tedium of putting out little service industry fires every five minutes, throwing in a Karen here and there for shits and giggles.
Looks like I won't have a day off for a few weeks, I better enjoy these last days of 'freedom'.