2 years after the Father's Day Flood (written 6/17/2020- posted late)
I want to tell you how the Father's Day Flood effected me. I haven't really said a whole lot about it because of my nature as a human being. When I decided to shift my mindset from "manager" to "leader" my whole way of being changed. Leaders aren't whiners, leaders aren't dumbasses, leaders suck it up and get shit done.
At the time of the flood, I was on a medical leave from work. I had had an accident prior to this that caused a head injury. I'm still not exactly sure what's causing my pain. It's present every day with moderate to severe levels of pain. I still do not have any clear diagnosis of injury but we are inching closer. (I have suffered from moderate to severe pain every day for this many days.) I was managing 3 Burger King locations that were being effected by the flood, but mainly the Houghton location was right in the center of the shit storm.
I received a call early in the morning from the General Manager of the store. She was calling to let me know it was raining really hard and there was water coming into the parking lot. I advised her politely to call MY supervisor. She said she had tried calling him and there was no answer. She told me she had moved her car and the water in the parking lot was almost up to her knees! This didn't make sense to me. This Burger King was situated on the side of a big valley, how in the hell was there that much water in the lot?! I told her I would call my supervisor and call her right back. I didn't know what to do. None of this made sense.
When he answered the phone, he was irritated with me and half asleep. I excused the tone as it was around 6am on Sunday, I'd be cranky too. He basically told me to handle it. I tried to remind him that I was on a doctor's ordered medical leave because of my head injury. In a condescending tone he said, "well, can't you just answer your phone and figure this out?" He asked me to keep him posted if there was anything urgent but that there wasn't anything he was going to do.
Now, while I was talking to him GM was calling me back to let me know she had to move her car again. She had to park UP THE HILL from the restaurant because the water at the end of our lot was too deep for her car. Still, none of this made sense. She informed me that she wasn't going back into the restaurant until the water level had lowered and I agreed because neither of us were sure what was going on and I didn't want her to be in danger just to get some dumb Burger King opened. Shortly after that, the police came and evacuated the area because of a flash flood that had happened and created a sink hole right in the parking area of the restaurant. The GM and I made a plan for her to go home because she lived an hour away and I didn't want her waiting around for nothing. When I called my boss back to let him know the area was evacuated, he told me to keep him informed of what was happening that day. I tried again to remind him that I was not supposed to be working, not even on my phone or computer. I had suffered a brain injury and when this happens it's important to avoid these things. He didn't seem to care. I was definetly bothering him with my calls.
At the time of the flood, I was on a medical leave from work. I had had an accident prior to this that caused a head injury. I'm still not exactly sure what's causing my pain. It's present every day with moderate to severe levels of pain. I still do not have any clear diagnosis of injury but we are inching closer. (I have suffered from moderate to severe pain every day for this many days.) I was managing 3 Burger King locations that were being effected by the flood, but mainly the Houghton location was right in the center of the shit storm.
I received a call early in the morning from the General Manager of the store. She was calling to let me know it was raining really hard and there was water coming into the parking lot. I advised her politely to call MY supervisor. She said she had tried calling him and there was no answer. She told me she had moved her car and the water in the parking lot was almost up to her knees! This didn't make sense to me. This Burger King was situated on the side of a big valley, how in the hell was there that much water in the lot?! I told her I would call my supervisor and call her right back. I didn't know what to do. None of this made sense.
When he answered the phone, he was irritated with me and half asleep. I excused the tone as it was around 6am on Sunday, I'd be cranky too. He basically told me to handle it. I tried to remind him that I was on a doctor's ordered medical leave because of my head injury. In a condescending tone he said, "well, can't you just answer your phone and figure this out?" He asked me to keep him posted if there was anything urgent but that there wasn't anything he was going to do.
Now, while I was talking to him GM was calling me back to let me know she had to move her car again. She had to park UP THE HILL from the restaurant because the water at the end of our lot was too deep for her car. Still, none of this made sense. She informed me that she wasn't going back into the restaurant until the water level had lowered and I agreed because neither of us were sure what was going on and I didn't want her to be in danger just to get some dumb Burger King opened. Shortly after that, the police came and evacuated the area because of a flash flood that had happened and created a sink hole right in the parking area of the restaurant. The GM and I made a plan for her to go home because she lived an hour away and I didn't want her waiting around for nothing. When I called my boss back to let him know the area was evacuated, he told me to keep him informed of what was happening that day. I tried again to remind him that I was not supposed to be working, not even on my phone or computer. I had suffered a brain injury and when this happens it's important to avoid these things. He didn't seem to care. I was definetly bothering him with my calls.
I've attached pictured of the property in case you aren't aware of what happened that morning. There was 7 or so inches of rain that fell in a very brief amount of time. Although Houghton Burger King is situated on the side of a deep valley, there was a drain culvert (designed for the snow melt run-off) under our parking lot. The culvert was not designed for a massive flash-flood and failed and thousands of gallons of water ran through the parking lot, the ground underneath the blacktop failed, it was a hot mess! The whole town was devastated because of the flood as well as the many little towns along the canal. It was horrific! There was millions of dollars in damage to our little community and I think every person could tell you a different way the storm is still impacting their lives.
On the morning of June 18, I had a scheduled follow-up appointment with my doctor. I was facing the challenge of relocating around $8000 worth of food inventory, relocating around 20 employees that suddenly lost thier income, and assesing damages to a $1.5 million property without any ability to drive. I asked my doctor to please lift some of my restrictions so that I could "handle" this. None of my superiors seemed to be concerned. I will never forget the look on her face, she thought it was a bad idea. I finally convinced her to put me on a "light duty" restriction. Neither of us knew what I could and couldn't do under that note, but I said I would figure it out and that everything would be fine.
I went between varying levels of hiding my pain symptoms to my employees and talking about them openly. I wanted them to know I wasn't intentionally being such a shitty leader. For the next 7 months, I worked as hard as I could to take care of my people. I could no longer help them with service for too long. It fired up my sypmtoms even more and I'd be in bed for a day recovering. I mostly walked around looking at things and sitting in the dining room on my laptop. I was drowning. I worked outside of my home 2 or 3 days a week. It took me twice as long to get out daily communications in the morning so most days I'd skip it. Reading hurts my head, so I tried to avoid a lot of that too. (Who likes an uneducated leader?) I was having panic attacks while driving, falling asleep alot behind the wheel. I'd find myself blacking out for long stretches of road. I was sharing all of this with my supervisor as well as pain symptoms, and yet they still pushed me forward. I can't remember when the threats starting coming in that my restauarant's metrics numbers were slipping and if I didn't change that, I'd be replaced. I felt awful all the time. I needed to find out what was causing all this head pain, without all these people depending on me all the time! I kept telling my supervisor and he'd ask me to hang on a bit longer. I feel manipulated and taken advantage of. Eventually, they hired someone to do my job so that I could take time off to recover, and this is exactly the last time I received a paycheck.
I was given another note to be on a medical leave from work, and sent on a medical leave in February. There was a few moments of relief, but I had some remorse as well. I could finally focus on figuring out what was wrong with my head without the stress of 6 fast food restaurants 24/7.
My life drastically changed course that day, destination unknown. It was a blessing in disguse for now. I'm thankful to be out of the fast food business. The pandemic has created a war zone for the service industry and I'm sorry to my friends that are in the thick of it. I can't imagine the stress. I struggle with pain, but I've learned a lot about me. I've struggled with my choices on the day of the flood because if I had cared less about others, things may be different today. But I'm not sorry for caring about my people and I'm not sorry for caring about my community. I am sorry they fucked with me and I'm sorry I ever supported that man and his business.
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