Hi, I'm Tommy...Like the gun

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Sticks and Stones

So this is another night where I wanted to write, but I'm not really up for it.  My feelings got hurt at work, and I just kind of wanted to pout about it, come home, relax and go to bed.  But as I was laying in bed, I thought that I would hate myself if I didn't get out what happened.  So here it goes.  And no, nobody shit themselves tonight.  At least none that I'm aware of.

Today was national foursquare day, and it was a great chance for restaurants and bars to lasso in a lot of foursquare users.  Some places ran specials, some were just promoting themselves to the users, and some were doing both.  It's sort of new idea, to have a social media holiday.  As far as I'm concerned, I think it's pretty cool.  From a restaurant's point of view, today was a milestone.  I mean, if you remembered where you were for your first social media holiday, that's pretty cool.  I've been working at CK's for about 2 1/2 years, and I've also been handling a lot of our social media for about 8 or 9 months.  I do it for free.  I do it because I like my workplace.  I do it because it's actually fun for me.  I do it because I learn new things all the time.  I do it because of all the kick ass people I meet.  I do it because CK's needs it.  I do it because I can.  I do it because, if I'm doing it well, my tips go up.  And so do my coworkers tips.  We may not be doubling our income as servers and bartenders, but we are getting a bigger customer base.  We've definitely seen a lot of new faces in our restaurant.  And I've started to notice a few of those faces are coming back on a regular basis.  And that's our bread and butter.  REGULARS.  They keep us in business.  They're why we're still in business, and every other bar/restaurant in Ahwatukee can't hold a candle to us and are forced to close their doors.  We pride ourselves on seeing the same faces just about every time you walk in.  If you spend some time at CK's you'll understand what I'm talking about.  You can't miss it.

So back to the foursquare day.  I didn't tell my boss about foursquare day until the day it was going on.  She's got too much stuff going on, and I rarely see her.  But when I got to work tonight, it was the first thing I mentioned to her.  I told her a quick synopsis of what it was, because she's not real big into the workings of social media, she mostly wants results.  And I asked her if it was alright if I ran a special for anyone who checked in on foursquare that night.  Nothing too fancy, just $5 off your meal of $25 or more.  But it was something that foursquare users would like to see and use.  Just check in and get $5 off?  That's pretty easy!  She liked the idea, and I tweeted about it, and changed the tweetvite accordingly.  I thought, cool, this is could be kinda big, or it could just be another Friday night at work.

I put a note up in back so that everyone could see what was going on for the night.  I informed the hostess of the event, so that she wasn't caught off guard by any phone calls or questions from patrons.  Then I went around and started telling all of the servers and bartenders the same thing.  Some of them reacted to me telling them about the event like it was a normal occurrence, i.e. out of the soup of the day or something.  Some of them looked at me with blank stares because they don't know what I'm talking about, much less have a facebook account.  And then it happened.  The last person that I told got to me.  I said, "Hey, if any of your tables show you that they've checked in on foursquare, they're getting a discount tonight."  She immediately responded, "What?  Foursquare's so stupid, why are we doing this?".  I snapped back in shock and said, "Screw you", and walked away hurt.  In that 2 seconds it took her to utter her feelings on foursquare, all of my efforts and work that I've put in to CK's seemed to have meant absolutely nothing.  I know it's not true, but it's how I felt.  I was so mad at her.  I couldn't even look her in the eye for the rest of the night.  And I didn't speak to her for the rest of the night either.  It was like someone stepped on a new toy I had received for Christmas.  It was a punch to the gut.  The worst part is, I didn't even want an apology.  Because I know she doesn't understand all that I'm doing.  Half of me wants to tweet from our twitter account and tell people to come in, but don't sit in her section.  The other half of me will brush it off and move on.  It was just one of those tiny little things that I let get to me.  And it may have been a meaningless comment to her, but it was a deep cut for me.

The interesting part about tonight is that I've realized that I may be alienating myself from my coworkers.  I feel like they don't understand what I'm doing, or even why I'm doing it.  I wish I could hear some of the conversations about me, and sometimes I don't.  But I've definitely made myself out to be the resident geek.  And there's a line in the sand apparently.  Some don't care about it, and some just stay on their side.  No one's offered to get involved or help out.  I'm taking my own path and not looking back.  Maybe some of them think I'm doing it suck up to the boss.  Fact is, I don't care what they think.  I'm doing it anyway.  And I'm going to keep doing it, and have fun with it.  And no one can tell me I'm doing it wrong.