A Devastating Storm
Hurricane Katrina was going to make landfall that day, and the owner of the restaurant I was managing at the time got super angry when I said I wasn’t coming in.
He wouldn’t accept my reasoning and kept bargaining with me. “Okay,” he said, “you can go in for four hours, and I can get [another manager] to come to relieve you.” Umm, no.
He finally agreed to let me take time off as long as I hid my key somewhere so that a substitute could come to pick it up. I, of course, accepted this deal.
After the storm hit and devastated New Orleans, the owner called me up because he wanted me to return to town immediately. He needed people to open the restaurant for him.
Now, the roof had just blown completely off of my house and there was no way I could live in it until it was fixed. I asked my boss where he expected me to live while I was working for him if I returned right away.
He said to just get a hotel as if he was paying me enough to afford such a thing. I also think hotels in the area were pretty well full at that time…