Well that's one way to get revenge!

[customersruinmylife]

I don’t agree entirely with what happened here, but I do understand why she did it. This story was told to me by a co-worker about one of her friends.

Co-worker’s friend works in a rival pub down the street from ours. She is one of the managers. She was stunned to come into work on Friday night and be told that she and one other person were the only ones working. The two of them had a hellish night. They were constantly busy and were shouted at and abused by many customers who got impatient waiting to be served.

When they eventually closed at 11pm, they had a massive cleandown to do. The pub looked like a bomb had hit it. They were there until 5am cleaning and sorting everything out, until she finally lost patience through exhaustion and decided that it was time for them to go home to bed.

The next day, she gets up for work. When she arrives, the owner is there, and he is angry. He is upset that she missed off some jobs the night before, he berates her in front of the staff, and announces he is suspending her pending investigation. She is absolutely stunned and leaves the place in tears.

She worked that hellish shift, she had about two hours sleep, and she suddenly decided that she would rather be dead than go back in there. She decides enough is enough and that it is time to quit.

Did I mention that she held the pubs alcohol licence?

Yep. The current owner couldn’t get his own liquor licence because he has a criminal record, so she decided she was going to go out with a bang. She contacted the appropriate people, and informed them that she no longer worked at the pub, and would like to revoke her licence. They then contacted the pub and informed them that unless they had someone else working for them that held a liquor licence that they were to cease trading alcohol immediately.

They didn’t have anyone else, and they were forced to close. And they are still closed. They lost a full Saturday/Sunday trade because of it, and apparently the owner is calling around, begging for someone with an alcohol licence to come work for him. No luck at the minute.

Like I said, I don’t entirely agree with what she did, purely because there will be innocent workers who will lose hours over this. However, I think this guy is going to learn a very valuable lesson on how to treat people.

[Pojodan]

Well, I'd say that, for spite or not, her liquor license should go away, anyway, if she's quitting the position. I sure as pudding wouldn't be charitable to someplace that treated me the way she' describing it.

My question would be wether or not she communicated with the owner when she got into work that 2 people would not be enough, or if she remained silent.

If she'd tried to get help and was refused, then yes, I'd be all for her leaving them high and dry.

[XCashier]

Two people on a Friday night shift at a pub is not even close to enough. She went through hell, did the best she could and got publicly reamed out for it. I don't blame her a bit for what she did. A person can only put up with so much.

Yes, it sucks for the other employees, but the owner deserves what he got. Perhaps she could open her own business with her liquor license, hire the other employees and do better business than he did? Revenge would be very sweet indeed.

[Polenicus]

No, I think she did exactly the right thing.

If she held the pub's liquor license, then she's not just an employee, she's a partner. Because if the pub did something to get that license revoked, it's on HER head, not the owner's. If he treats someone he vitally needs just to do his day to day business that crappily, then he doesn't treat his employees any better, and should be out of business. The other employees might have a hard time in the short term, but they will be better off in the long run.

Besides, if the owner is that rock stupid, I can't see him remaining in business for long.

[HappyFun Ball]

That would be the way I would do it the whole "If I'm going down, I'm taking you with me".

[Kristev]

Never cheese off the person who has the power you do not have.

[Redbeard]

It definitely sucks for the other employees, but yeah, I don't blame her for doing things that way at all.
Me, I would have interrupted the reaming with "You do remember that *I* hold your liquor license? Maybe you might want to consider that the next time you understaff and decide to blame ME for it"

[Raveni]

When I was at Grocery Store, I was the only manager with a Food Safety license. Boss never was able to pass the damn thing, and District Manager never wanted to pay for me to renew my license, so I let it expire.

I didn't call them, but after I put my notice in, I let the health department know during one of their random inspections that we didn't have a current license. A grocery store with no fresh meat or produce is pretty pitiful, so they transferred people around like crazy to get someone with a license there.

[bhskittykatt]

Perhaps she could open her own business with her liquor license, hire the other employees and do better business than he did? Revenge would be very sweet indeed.

I second that notion!

Yeah, it sucks for the employees, but it sounds like the owner deserved it.

[Pixilated]

If he treats a partner this way, I can only imagine how he treats lowly employees. I'm betting that while the employees may not be thrilled over the sudden closure, they're also smirking while they watch Mr. Boss-Without-A-Liquor-Licence scrambling frantically to get his pub open again.

Just out of curiosity ... has he contacted your friend yet ... ?

[Android Kaeli]

I also may not agree with what she did but I also can't blame her for doing it either. If she was treated like that because she had no help and had no way to get everything done, then she did what she had to do.

[mikoyan29]

It doesn't sound like he was a good owner if he was going to leave her like that.

[Shalom]

I have to agree with Polenicus here; I don't think she did anything wrong. On the contrary, once she decided to quit, I don't see how she could have done anything differently. If the license is in her name, then ultimately she's legally responsible for whatever goes on in the premises. Once she's no longer employed by the said premises, and can't control what happens there, she has to pull her license or risk losing it.

It's like when I resigned from the Pharmacy Named After Two Streets In Downtown Manhattan, where I was the pharmacy manager, to go work for the Chain of Verylarge Stores. First thing I did was send a certified letter to the Board of Pharmacy informing them that I was no longer the Supervising Pharmacist as of this date. It's really the PNATSIDM's job to inform them of the change of SP, but I wasn't going to wait for them to do it. If they fail to appoint an SP and let the Board know who that is, it's their problem, not mine. I wasn't going to let my name stay on the store's license if I didn't work there anymore.

(It's a slightly different situation in pharmacy, because in my case the law states specifically that the SP must work a majority of the hours that the specified location is open, whereas I can't speak to UK law as to whether the license holder must work at the licensed premises or can be an absentee partner. But even if it's not legally mandated, it's still a very bad idea to leave your license active at a place you quit from.)

[Marmalady]

I would have done exactly the same as she did.
I agree, it's hard on the other employees, but it's the owners fault for treating her the way he did, his behaviour that has landed them all in the clarts.

[RealUnimportant]

If I was one of the employees that couldn't work because of this boss's stupidity, I'd expect to get paid regardless - the pub can still open, it just can't serve alcohol. As such, if he's decided not to open the doors then that's not my problem; I'm rostered, pay me!