Number One Headache

When anyone asks me what the biggest problem a restaurant owner experiences, my response comes quickly, the staff. Since most restaurant employees view working at a restaurant as not a "real job" they don't take their responsibility very seriously (see "I Gotta Go Home" below). So on any given day someone is calling out sick or worse yet not showing up at all, giving notice, going away on vacation with 90% of the rest of the staff, giving a customer a hard time, losing it in the "weeds" (when the restaurant is obscenely busy), giving management a hard time, stealing product, giving stuff away to friends, continual coming in late, dressing like a slob, or as explained earlier, wanting to go home early, only to mention a few. I have so many stories about staff that I would need a book in itself just to share them all, but one that comes to mind is a cook I hired in a small restaurant I owned at the onset of my restaurant career. The kitchen was so small that I was the chef and I had one assistant on the stove for saute. Keep in mind that this was an extremely busy restaurant and it was a Saturday night. This particular cook had been working with me for about 3 weeks and he seemed to sweat a lot during the rush. We were right in the middle of a Saturday rush when he asked if he could go outside and have a smoke. I was astonished that he would ask this in the thick of things but not wanting to piss him off I told him to make it quick. More than a few minutes past and I go out to check to see what's keeping him. Both him and his car are gone......this guy just dropped everything and bolted leaving me to wipe up the mess. Needless to say, I improvised, which is something an experienced restaurant will often do, and took my dishwasher and quickly, really quickly, gave him the basics of doing some cooking tasks and we were able to make it through the night without one complaint. To cap off the whole event, about two weeks later this slug comes in for his pay!!!