I Tried to Fight the Stupid and Clueless Patricians at Lazy Dog for Workers’ Rights. I Lost. Part 1
This is the first in a 3-article series. It is about my time working at Lazy Dog in California, my little battles with them, what went on there, what I went through, what I fought for, and what I tried to change. At Lazy Dog, the patricians who rule that company do not care about cleanliness or about their employees. They have no consideration for how policies they pass or actions they take impact their employees. They have no clue what they are doing. THEY ARE STUPID AND CLUELESS. The stupid and clueless patricians sit high atop their throne and rule from their towers at 3337 Susan Street in Costa Mesa, CA. That is where Lazy Dog is headquartered at. Links to part 2 and articles 2 and 3 at bottom. To contact me, just highlight a random word and in the menu bar, click on the speech bubble with the lock icon. Private notes is the way to contact writers on Medium.
I never stopped being pissed off about it. I fought Lazy Dog for say in how our job is regulated and for say in our workplace. I lost. Oh did I lose. It was not much of a fight. I did not put up much of a fight. There was nothing more I could do. I could have done more. But I tried. I put in effort. I did something which is more than the nothing that the useless ‘do not think and do not do anything’ idiots whom I live amongst in this society do. The people who are the enemy and whom I hate are the stupid and clueless patricians who sit high atop their throne at Corporate. With their cushy office jobs. They are to blame for all of this and whom this article is directed at. The patricians as I call them because they are the people who run the company and rule over us plebeians who work at the restaurants. They have the power. I hate them. I gut-wrenchingly do. They are stupid, they do not think, and they do not care. Ever since I started working at Lazy Dog, I have always raged against them to myself. My name is Alex Salazar. I was a busboy at Lazy Dog in Montclair, CA for four and a half years. I worked there from December 2019 — May 26th, 2024. That was my last day working there. I was fired on May 31st, 2024. The one in Montclair opened up in December 2019. I opened that restaurant. I got fired because I threw away the metal-catching trash can lids. I was on what I called a slack-off strike against my boss and I was feeling rebellious, and I was fed up with those Goddamn lids. The third article explains why I got fired. Lazy Dog is a casual-dining, family restaurant. The theme of the restaurant, from its décor to its architecture, is mountain-y and is meant to evoke the wilderness. Think the Rocky Mountains, the country, ranches, cowboys, cozy cabins, log houses, flannels. Literally flannels. The uniforms at Lazy Dog are flannel shirts along with jeans. No black slacks. There are Lazy Dogs in 9 states; California, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Nevada, Pennsylvania, Texas, and Virginia. There are two issues that concern this article. The first is the bustub issue. The second is the shelf issue. This is not your traditional fight for workers’ rights for issues that you would normally expect. It is specific to the restaurant industry and it is specific to this one chain restaurant. In order to tell my story, my articles are accompanied by photos that you must see to understand what I am talking about. You will not get anything that I am talking about if you do not look at those photos. First up, the bustub issue. In January 2023, Corporate instituted a new rule banning us busboys from using bustubs to bus tables. They mandated we use serving trays to bus the dishes off the tables. [See serving tray photos]
That absolutely infuriated me. I was livid. I felt indignant. We are a full-service restaurant. We bus full tables of dishes. At Lazy Dog, we have 22 oz. glasses, water glasses, water jugs, kids’ cups, mugs, soup bowls, little ramekin bowls; small, medium, and large plates, medium and large bowls, blue rectangle plates, square plates, pie tins, the pot pie bowls, and cast iron skillets. We have tables full of these at once. [See tables photos]
When we are busy or slammed, we will have multiple tables backed up. 5, 6, 7, 8 tables backed up. And more tables will be getting up as we are cleaning the current tables that we have. We go out there with our bustub, knock out one table or a couple of tables depending on how many dishes a table has, drop off the bustub in the dishpit to hand off to another busboy to empty or in the black cart in the ice room, and then grab another bustub and go out there again. [See bustubs photos]
We cannot bus full tables of dishes on a serving tray. Look at the photos to understand what I am talking about. Look at those tables full of dishes. Look at those bustubs full of dishes. Look at me holding that serving tray. How do these stupid and clueless patricians who sit high atop their throne at Corporate expect us to bus all these tables with a serving tray?! I felt enraged because these patricians at Corporate who have their pretty cushy corporate jobs, who are at the top and not at the bottom like we are doing this job, who have no idea what it is like to work at the restaurants and what it is like to be a busboy because they don’t work at the restaurants and because they do not do our job, who are they to dictate what we need to do our job and how to do our job?! Without speaking to us and getting insight from us?! Our using bustubs was not always the case at Lazy Dog. We opened up in mid or late December 2019, I do not remember, three months before the pandemic hit and everything shut down. In those early months, we used serving trays to bus tables. I know shocking. My source of rage yet I used serving trays and thought nothing of it. It was standard. When I look back on it, I do not know how I used serving trays to bus tables. I don’t know how I did it. Of the little recollection of that brief 3-month time that I have before the pandemic hit, I do not remember having a lot of dishes on the tables for me to bus and having my serving trays be loaded with dishes as if it were impossible and difficult. I think it was because, because we were a new restaurant, the managers were by-the-book and strict, and were constantly on all the waiters and waitresses to make sure they pre-bussed their tables. At Lazy Dog, waiters and waitresses are required to prebus their tables so that all that is left are the glasses and maybe some silverware and a soup bowl or something small like that. That is the way it is supposed to be at Lazy Dog. Those are the rules of the restaurant. And I think that because we were new that that played into it. Everyone obeyed the rules. Everything was by-the-book. The managers were strict. But then time goes on and rules are not as enforced as they used to be. Then March hits and all the world goes on lockdown, and life as we knew it got completely turned upside down. The beginning of the unprecedented historic event. A world unlike anything we have ever experienced. We opened back up in May 2020 on that stupid looking-back-on-it total joke and total nonsense limited-capacity and 6-feet social distancing. Everything changed. It was difficult and unprecedented times. The restaurant industry was battered hard. There were labor shortages across the spectrum. It was the great resignation as they called it. The government was handing those relief checks to people. Unemployment checks were higher and unemployment was lenient when it came to requirements. Restaurants were in such a need of workers that they were even paying people to come work at restaurants and fast food restaurants by giving them signing bonuses I think they were called. These were also the tent days. When restaurants opened back up with outdoor dining in tents. That is how we opened up, and all old ways of doing things went out the window. That is when the bustubs came out, and my job changed forever. There was no going back. Fast forward to January 2023. Everything has gone back to normal. The strict rules of pandemic yore are over. Corporate wants us to go back to company policy which is to use serving trays to bus tables, and bustubs to bus parties. THAT WAS A HARD HELL NO! We may have used serving trays before the pandemic, but that was then. This is now. We discovered a better and more efficient way. I did not know any better back then. The pandemic was an unprecedented historic event. Unprecedented historic events change things. They change life, society, the culture, attitudes, politics, lifestyles, mindsets, everything. It changes the way people do things. You discover a better way to do things. And then you look back on the way things were done before and there is no going back to that. Screw that. The first thing I could think of was to naturally contact HR. What else am I going to do? It is a job problem. That is whom you contact. At Lazy Dog, the two women at HR are Lupita Salvador and Shelley Reed. I honestly do not remember if I spoke to both of them. I did speak to Shelley Reed. I spoke to her on the phone at work one day. The basic principle that I was going off about to her was that they do not do my job. They do not know what it is like to be a busboy because they are not at the bottom like we are working at the restaurants. They are not on the ground in the restaurants. They are at the top, sitting high atop their throne at Corporate in their cushy corporate jobs. Looking at us from above. With a perspective of a patrician at the top. With their in-theory thinking and ideas of how the restaurants should be run and what is best for the employees. Running the restaurants from above without any on-the-ground knowledge of working in the restaurants and without getting insight from us of what we think. I don’t remember how I put it exactly to her. She told me to talk to Angelos Panagopoulos who is the district manager for that area. The one thing that I will always remember because it is seared into my mind, and it is seared into my mind because it was the nerve of her to say this to me, and the total ignorance of her to say this to me, was for me to “hear what he has to say” or “listen to what he has to say”, however she said it, over Angelos Panagopoulos talking to me. He was there frequently overseeing the restaurant because our first manager had gotten fired. I do not remember how the conversation went. I think she was telling me to sit down with him and have him explain to me the new policy and that is why she said for me to hear what he has to say. I thought to myself, no you dumb bitch. I do not have to hear what he has to say because he does not do my job. He does not know what I need to do my job. I begrudgingly agreed because it was the next step in the chain of order of dealing with workplace disputes. What the hell else was I going to do? I sat down with him and advocated for us busboys. I explained to him my position and why banning the bustubs is wrong. My ‘who the hell do you people think you are’ stance. He fed me a lot of full-of-it poppycock that only a subservient pawn and tool to the stupid and clueless patricians at Corporate can spew out. What I do remember that he said to me when he defended the policy and why they banned bustubs was that their banning of the bustubs was due to the bottoms of the bustubs being dirty. When we put them on the chairs or the booths, the bottoms are dirty and using serving trays is clean. When busboys take the bustubs to the back to empty, they are taken to the dishpit where it is dirty and they do not get washed. Something like that. I do not remember exactly what he said. I thought to myself, okay, well, when we bus tables with the serving trays, the serving trays are taken to the back as well for us to empty the trays. The serving trays are dirty too like the bustubs. We set them on the dish table just as we do when we set the bustubs down on the dish table. I did not say that to him at the time because I was dumbfounded by his stupid statement. I just replied back that we rinse the bustubs before we come back out on the floor. He said something about the bustubs being dirty because there are dishes in there. I said that is why we rinse them if they are dirty and then we come out. The serving trays get dirty too. After this pointless conversation with this pawn and this tool for Corporate was over, he said he would relay what I said to him to Corporate, sharing my concerns about the banning of the bustubs to them in possibly getting them to reconsider the ban. I already knew it was futile and a failure from the start because 1 — their decision was already a done deal, and 2 — they are not going to listen to some stupid busboy. I am at the bottom. They do not listen to us. Angelos Panagopoulos is not one of us. He is not going to relay what I said, in the way that I said it, to Corporate. He is going to put it in some generic, washed-down, simplified, non-urgent expressing, non-firsthand experience. He is not going to put it in the emotional, passionate plea from someone who busses tables and whom this impacts. He is not going to put it the right way to fully express the issue and the impact that it has on us. When you are not the person whom something affects and when you do not care about something and when you do not believe in something and when you do not know about something because you do not have that firsthand experience of what it is like, you are not going to put up a fight. You are not going to put up the fight for that issue or that cause. I asked for permission to use the bustubs in the meantime while Corporate makes their final decision. He said yes so I got to continue to use the bustubs. The hammer officially came down on Friday, February 17th, 2023. I walked into work and I was immediately told by Noel, I think it was, that Corporate said that we can’t use the bustubs. And so it began. Not knowing what the hell else to do in following the chain of order of dealing with workplace disputes, in my case it was first call HR, then speak to district manager Angelos Panagopoulos, now that all of that was done because Corporate made their final decision, I immediately went into fight mode. For me that means activism. I am an activist. I am naturally an activist. It is in my nature. It is in my blood. It is in my DNA. I decided to go on strike. I left the building and I went to my car, and I started looking up employment lawyers. I wanted to find out, if I go on strike, can I be fired. I wanted to know if I had any protections. I pretty much already knew that I did not. I am not protected by a union and I was not authorized to go on strike but I wanted to find out if I had any kind of protections whatsoever. If there were some miniscule protection. If there were something that I had never heard of. Something. There was nothing. I was told across the board that California is an at-will state so I can be fired for whatever reason if protected by the bounds of the law, and that because I am not in a union, I cannot just go on strike because I want to. I already knew this but I thought that maybe, just maybe, there might be something. One of the places that I called was the California Labor Federation. I do not remember if I spoke to anyone that day. I know I left voicemails to I think two people. I went back inside and grabbed a piece of paper, and I wrote I am going on strike and that I am not quitting. I do not remember what I said, but I said something about the California Labor Federation. It was a ploy to make it look like I had representation from them. Like I had protection from them. They do not do that. That is not a thing. I was just desperate and I wanted to make it seem like I had protection. I did not. I am just a stupid busboy. I gave my letter to our new general manager whom I had only known for like two weeks. I grabbed a bustub and a serving tray, and I walked out. I devised a plan. I was going to protest outside the restaurant for about 5, 7, 8, 9 months until I got media attention by the local news; ABC7, KTLA, Fox11, NBC4, and KCAL News. Those are the local news stations that cover The Inland Empire which is Riverside County and San Bernardino County, Orange County, Los Angeles County, and Ventura County. I went to a sign printing shop across the street, US Printing. I do not remember why I went there because I did not have anything ready for them to make for me. I had gone there before to have signs made for me. As I said, I am an activist. I think I went there to ask about having a sign made with a cheaper material or a smaller sign than what I had had made in the past. The woman helping me offered to give me a piece of scrap board that was thrown away because I think it was cut wrong. I took it, and then the next day I went to Hobby Lobby (Hobby Lobby is such an incredible store) and I bought a science fair project board and some markers. I cut the ends of the science fair board and used the main part. I wrote my sign on banner paper for the scrap board that was given to me, and I taped it on there. The science fair project board, I just wrote directly on there. The next day was showtime. On Sunday, February 19th, 2023, I went out there and I protested. [The main photo] I put on my uniform and I went on the sidewalk that is lined with a railing that is in front of the restaurant that directly faces the street. The street that it faces is near the on-ramps for The 10 East and The 10 West, and traffic is stopped by a traffic light. It is a prime location to be seen. Lanes of traffic stopped by a red light. That railing-lined sidewalk directly facing the street. That is a great spot to protest against Lazy Dog Montclair and get attention from the public just driving by. I set up my bustub, the serving tray, my two signs, and got to it. I walked into this knowing that it was doomed from the start because I knew that I was not going to go through with it. There are two reasons that I will not divulge of why I did not go through with it. They are private and personal. I was so enraged. I wanted to do something. I did it. I did go out there and protest. I just did not do it for months like I wanted. I was out there for I think four hours. I had the season and the weather going against me. It was winter so it gets dark by 5, and it was really windy that day. I had to hold down my signs. Mind you, I was holding two signs. One long one on top of the bustub. I struggled to keep them down. My bustub and my serving tray were being blown away. At one point, I had to put my foot in the bustub to keep it from blowing away. I do not remember exactly but I think I even had to bring down my sign from on top of the bustub at one point because the wind was too strong. I had to use a lot of force in my hands just to hold down signs when you should not have to. It was not a good protest. I do not regret it though. I got a cool photo out of it and I gained a reputation amongst my coworkers. They saw me differently after that. A couple of them said what I did was iconic. There were a lot of people that saw me that day. I only noticed one person taking a photo of me and that was because he deliberately stopped his car in front of me and took a photo of me. He then gave me a thumbs up before he drove off. Who knows if other people in their cars took photos of me. My only hope with that day is that someone in one of those cars saw me and that he was inspired by me or will be inspired by me. It could be anyone. It could be a little kid who saw me and didn’t understand what was going on, and he asked his parents why that man is out there, and they read my sign and explained it to him. And of course he still does not get it, but he will always remember seeing me out there. And when he does grow up and get it, what he will take from that moment is seeing someone out there fighting for something as stupid as bustubs and a job. That what is stupid and miniscule to someone else, is serious and matters to someone, and that is why you have to fight for it. And I will have inspired him to do the same for a future issue that he will face when he grows up, either directly or indirectly. It could be for a workers’ rights issue or it could be for something totally unrelated to work but my having been out there and his seeing me will have given him the inspiration to protest for an issue. I will have told him that yes, you can go out there and fight for something. You have to look stupid to fight for something. You have to be willing to put yourself out there, in front of the public. Cause a scene. Take to the streets. Draw attention to yourself. Make a fool of yourself. The stupid are just too stupid to think, realize anything, and do anything about anything. That is what makes them the common people. The general public. The smart are smart enough to realize an issue and are willing to look stupid to fight for something. The smart are stupid enough to put themselves out there and embarrass themselves in front of people to fight for something because you do look stupid when you are out there protesting. But we activists are the ones who change the world. We push unknown issues onto the public. We let them know about something and get them to care if activists stick to it and keep pushing it year after year after year. It is our job to get them on board. We push issues to the forefront of society and we cement those issues in mainstream society and make them widespread mainstream issues. THAT IS WHAT AN ACTIVIST DOES AND WHAT ACTIVISM IS! When I say we activists, I mean we REAL ACTIVISTS. Not these retarded 21st-century meaningless and misdirected disruptors who block traffic or throw soup on paintings which has nothing to do with the issue they are fighting for or their cause, and in which their target is not the reason or the cause of the problem and has no power to change it. True activism died with the rise of the social media and smart phone age. Anyways, that is what I hope so that it will not have been for nothing. Something has to come out of it. I do not believe that it could have been for nothing. Either during the protest or on my way home, I just decided to play the system and get a reasonable accommodation to use a bustub. I lied and said that I needed a reasonable accommodation because being required to move slowly and balance carrying dishes due to having to use a serving tray caused me neck and back pain because a serving tray is unstable and there is no support. I had my doctor sign the letter, gave it to that stupid woman Shelley Reed at HR, and I was back at work a month later. That saga had ended. It never really began to begin with and it never became anything. That was the first fight for workers’ rights that I took on Lazy Dog over. The second fight came that same year in December. Enter the shelf issue.
https://medium.com/@alexsalazar6748/what-finally-did-me-in-0a28bb123401
