Card Fees

Mine Host's mobile phone rings.  His number is a state secret, thus the caller is likely quite important.

The caller is actually some cute salesgirl for some life insurance company connected to American Express.

The cute voiced girl blunders onward with the sales pitch.

She misses the verbal clue from Mine Host that he is not happy with the call, but is prepared to listen.

She drones on, Mine Host tunes out.  Eventually she gets to the part where Mine Host has to verbally agree to her charging money to his American Express card.

He says "No".

Mine Host calculates that she has taken up Seven minutes of his time.

He informs her that he will divert to a competitor's card the next several thousand dollars that his customers wish to put onto their American Express card.

Waste Seven minutes of Mine Host's time, have several thousand dollars diverted to Visa or Mastercard.

Something for American Express to think about.

Just Dessert

The Wayside Tavern makes most desserts from scratch.
The standard of our dessert is a matter of quite some pride in the kitchen brigade

Showbusiness

A little kitchen theatre. Actually a routine part of cooking.  Quite spectacular to watch.  Sometimes far more flashy than it looks, sometimes not so much.

 

 

So continues life under the long tall Chef's hat.

Long night, early morning

The current slower economy means there are only Five chefs working at the Wayside Tavern.  However there is still plenty of work to be done.
After the kitchen has finished serving up the restaurant orderd for the night, and the washing up is done, the work is not over.

 

Everyone is tired.
Any kitchenhands have wearily knocked off.
The waiters are closing down for the night.
The last stragglers of diners are in tete a tete over the remnants of their wine.
The front office is reconciling their shift and ready to go home.

But the chefs are straight into the work of preparing for the following morning's breakfast.

Breakfast starts early, nothing like being prepared, no nasty surprises first up.

 

So continues life under the long white Chef's hat.



On the Shelf



Segment of the top shelf in the Wayside Tavern's bar.

A most serious accusation has been levelled at the Wayside Tavern.

Specifically, of stocking only the cheapest and roughest whiskies.

Judge for yourself.

Pictured above is a segment of the single malt section of the top shelf in the private bar.

There are plenty more, but this is a fair guide to the range and variety of styles regularly stocked.

Market Forced

Two large supermarket chains (gee, wonder which two that would be?) have branches in town.

On the recent Queen's Birthday public holiday, and all other public holidays, especially the Easter/Anzac Day week, the staff at each of the large supermarkets keenly anticipated the big money they'd get for working public holidays.

It was not to be.

Regular staff a each of these two large supermarket chains (gee, wonder which two that would be?) were miffed to discover they were not rostered on to work on any public holiday.

The work (shelf stacking, etc) was all done by juniors.  Schoolkids who (of course) aren't at school on public holidays.
The public holiday rate for juniors is a whole lot less than that which must be paid to adults.

The supermarkets shafted their regular staff, but saved thousands of dollars.


So continues life for ordinary workers in a nation with prohibitive penalty rates.

Republicans

We must be republicans.  The Queen's Birthday public holiday is today.  We are all at work.

Actually not all.  Public holiday pay rates are so high that half the services of the Wayside Tavern are closed.  Mostly only salaried staff are at work.
Any regular staff who are required are the best performers.

Marginal staff are rostered off.

The wage (yes, singular) for Australia is fixed centrally, by a one-size-fits-all commission.  The Orwellian named "Fair Work" Commission.

Were it not for the ill-considered decisions of this commission of underachievers, everybody would have a full week's work.  As it is, most staff will have a light pay week, missing one day of work (& thus one day of pay).

Message to the underachieving inferior intellects on the Fair Work Commission:
Who benefits from the current arrangement?
Staff who lose a day's pay?
Salaries who have to work harder?
Customers who discover the services they want are today priced into closure and not available?