It's been fun CEC

[munchjr]

Hey gang remember me?? The reason why I haven't been around much is that I had to make an important decision in my life. For the past 4 months I have been working 2 jobs...1 at CEC and the other someplace (not resturant) else. I didn't want to just leave CEC until I made sure that I was going to like my new job. However a number of things happened with me and CEC over the past month and I just couldn't do what they wanted me to do for them anylonger. They sent me to a store over 1 hour from my house after they had figured out I was working someplace else..and they done a number of other things that I just got tired of fighting with them about. This past weekend was my last day with CEC after 12.5 years. In the end I came to think what everybody else is saying about CEC these of days...CEC just doesn't care about anything anylonger. It was a fun time at CEC and it was my only job I had ever had, but I couldnt deal with it anymore. Between the 50 hr weeks and the bad benefits and the way the guest had been acting I hated going to work

I do have more time on my hands now so I will be able to post more often here now. I do still get the news from the company so I will be able to post about what is going on still (until they take that away from me) but with my many contacts in the company I am still well informed.

I just wanted to let you all know what has been going on and any "inside" info you get from me now won't be as quick as it use to be

MJ

[Shiney Happy Jenn]

Wow....did'nt see this coming!

Holy crud..i am SO sorry to hear this Munchjr. I feel for you man...

Well now you know "the truth" about CECE.

It took you 12 years to get where you are now, and it's sad that the Company does'nt seem to give a damn about "longevity". I guess most companies today don't.....but it used to be a big deal and employees were well rewarded on many levels for sticking around. Now the thinking seems to be to get rid of the old timers and replace them with new hires..thus meaning they can pay less for a body to fill the leftover space. Remember kids...it's all about $$$$ with CECE. Smurf everything else!

It seems to me that over the past year CEC has chased off or driven away most of the true 'Magic Makers". Everyone from the old crew in the Entertainment Dept. to Mr. Magic himself, Mark Flores ( never saw that coming either!). WHAT is to become of this concept, a concept based on ENTERTAINMENT and MAGIC MAKING when they no longer have any such people working for them?

I feel another rant coming on but will surpress myself.

I'm sorry to hear the news Munchie.....now is the time to reflect and look in a new direction.

I look forward to your views of why you grew tired of CECE. I can guess at many of them, having been "forced out" myself back in 03'. I do sincerely hope you put your talents to good use now in your new job!

Best of luck to you!

[Rapid T Rabbit]

Gee, I'm sorry to hear that Jr. but I wish you the best of luck!

You've been with CEC 12 years, and I was with my franchise spot for 9 years. Jenn, I didn't know that you were forced to leave the same year I lost out too. I was never in any position of authority or management in U-NJ, I was just happy that they let me stick with Chuck all the time. Yet even as I was told not to come back anymore almost 3 years ago, I somehow felt that maybe it was for the best and I would not have enjoyed continuing to be there once the corporation took control. And I was right, most of the other longtime cast members there were forced to quit too.

I don't know what it is anymore, why it is that the almighty dollar reigns supreme, even when the pursuit of it by companies or individuals has destructive effects, especially on others.

Is there any magic anymore? Does it only rest on the fans now to keep it going?

[PuroMax]

It's true, the gear has shifted in the company. Everyone in the field is pissy about it because they see it as certain things "can't be done" anymore. That's not true if you don't want it to be. The company wants more in the way of productivity, which means your job becomes harder. That's it, when things get hard, people quit. Sometimes people just can't fathom having to do one task after another. When I say things like "Run this food, and when the window clears I need you to bus some tables, and when you're finished with that the beverage bar will need help. Don't forget to check on the window." I get ridiculous looks, and I just say "What? You're getting paid for it!" And this same person could have worked during a period of time where all they had to worry about was the pizza window. Since that's not the case anymore, yes, people are going to quit and new people need to be brought in who don't have the pre-conceptions of what the job includes. Of course, I'm not directing any of this at munch, I know different situations have different motives. Now that things are this way, when I do interviews I look for people who have a strong sense of competition who want to be able to more than everybody else.

When you don't see magic at your local CEC it's one of two things
a. Bad management or,
b. An unwilling cast. By that I mean, if they're not happy they don't want anyone else to be... "If you're not pissing off a guest, you're pissing off someone who will!"

I've said before that the company won't focus on magic because it's not their position. Everything that makes magic is unique to what's inside the walls of that store. It's all about going "above and beyond". Your job has certain expectations, and people who do only what they have to to get by are the ones that lack the magic. They don't try because it's too hard, because they don't have to. You can blame everything around you and make a stink until it's the company's fault for expecting too much from you. Fact is, the right person can do it.

In conclusion. The company is changing, and people are the ones being obsoleted.

[Shiney Happy Jenn]

Good post PuroMax.

I have to say one thing:

I think the big issue i have is the fact that , up here at least, it's the "non-Magic makers" who seem to be the ones who get to keep there jobs!! Anyone with any enthusiasim, or who has creative Magic Making ideas, is usually driven away or malleted down after a few months. You would think it would be the other ay around.....but no, not up here in the Northeast!

I know many who could care less about CEC and what it stands for who have been able to avoid termination. I also know loads of Ex-Employees who has terrific attitudes about there job, and were totally into the Magic Making who were booted out eventually by others will! Why is this so? Why does the one who could care less ( and this person is a manager!) get to stay on for 10+ years with a horrible attitude towards there job while someone else who loves Chuck E. is thrown out on their a** in a few months, or years?

I suppose one way to look at this is to realize that the negative attitude person does their job ( grudgingly) and does'nt "rock the boat". They are a "yes" person. The Magic Maker type tends not to bow to every whim of the Company so this can be used as the excuse to be let go. In my mind, if someone loves there job and it SHOWS then why not keep them if they are not harming anything and actually enhancing the Guest Expereince? Why is it that the people with a "who cares really..i just want my paycheck" attitude get to stay on? Maybe it's because they are in a management position ( harder to replace...)??

Don't know. It's a puzzle that has perplexed me since i began with the Company ( offiically) in 1999. By 2003 i knew too much and was booted, but that is alright as like Richard said above it was for the best in the end. I'm glad i'm out...as i don't think i would want to be a part of it today.

Richard. it was January 6th 2003 i was forced on a "leave of absence". Yeah, a week or so after the CEC Holiday Party we had for Christmas at the store. Great X-mas present that one was.....

Karma took care of things though.....:evil

[cec080]

Hope all goes well with your new job Munch jr. wow i did'nt expect to hear that you were leaving as well.. Boy what is cec trying to do. i mean did'nt this kind of attitude force them into bankruptcy before??? i thought guest service was number 1 but i guess not. what i noticed lately is that when you email guest relations or call them they take complements as bad remarks and send it to the dm's as if you had a huge complaint instead of complementing them at how hard people work at stuff. i mean come on cec is still unique and by no means is it easy to fix everything to spec and have it look like a location that just opened up a week ago and everything is suppost to look like the book.. by the way is there really a book about the way cec is suppost to be.. to this day i have'nt seen it. In a way i'm glad i left cec ent. I know i can find better out there but still it will be a place that is dear to me. :D :D

[munchjr]

Thanks for the thoughts gang...I agree the company is changing, but then again they are not. They have always said "Focus on the guest...Wow them" They are still doing that at least where I worked. I don't see the problem with doing more with less...in these times all companys are trying to do this and I for one don't blame them.

I can say this now...The one thing about this company I can't stand is this: GMs are there to be fired. What I mean by that is this...CEC wants 10-12% (maybe 14-15% in low volume stores) labor cost, they want a clean store..in the day they want a kidcheck person..a cashier...a PM person...a cleaning person...and a kitchen person. I ask you all this when school is not out how is said GM going to do all these things and still run labor???? It can't be done not when you have a low volume store making less than $150-200 for AM sales. At that point in time if all that is done than the PM manager would have to make up for the hrs that were used and still be abel to provide great service and have a person in each area plus do CEC every hr...trust me folks it can't be done.

So now said GM has a clean store, but gets yelled at due to her p &l being so bad....said GM then gets p & l better but then the store gets dirty. Then GM gets the boot. I was a GM for a bit in CEC (never one full time cause of this fact)and I hated this aspect of it...and before it gets asked no I didnt get the boot from the GM postion....just something I didnt agree with. I saw tghis happen to countless good gms in the company and this was the main reason I never wanted the GM postion

[PuroMax]

Jenn,
You're right in that the company is afraid of manager turnover. Training is expensive, and I believe DMs even get some kind of incentive based on manager turnover, which gives them more reason to keep bad managers, even if they know a person is worthless. The other reason people with the wrong attitude keep their jobs is because magic doesn't show up on the bottom line. If we break it down to the core, this is a restaurant, and furthermore, a business, and like I said, it's EASIER to balance a P&L if you omit going "Above and beyond" for your guests. I'm sure a lot of GMs have the mentality of "The kids are gonna make them come back anyway". What you end up with in that situation is parents who don't WANT to be there at all... they HAVE to be there. That's great for business, but terrible for people who have to run said establishment. If you think about it, managers who are all about their numbers will HATE making magic. They're just going to watch things like token value go down, ticket per token go up, and a higher merch cost... for many that's too high a price for making people happy, especially when those could have been dollars on the bonus, and it's a damn shame. It's very rare to find a person that's fit for CEC. Too often providing an unparalled experience is a necessary evil, or not even necessary at all. So shame on all the people who run dirty stores with shambled costumes that turn in beefed up inventory counts and have games down for weeks on end just to put a few bucks more in the bank, or to hide the fact that you just suck at your job to the point where you have to lie just to get yelled at instead of fired. Just like cast members who don't want to mop the floors, they're just the WRONG people.

Which brings me to munchjr, sounds like quite a rough hand of cards there. I've never been a GM so my answer is not the most educated, BUT... If you're only doing $200 lunches, you're probably not selling your first pizza until 11:30 or so. Even then you're making what? 4-5 pizzas an hour? What's that kitchen person doing in all the dead time? Seems to me that you've got your maintenance cleaning person right there, especially if you bring them in around 8:00, bang out all the rollout (just put the 2nd and 3rd stage in the walk in until it's time for them to start proofing) and then hit the cleaning plan (trash, restrooms) that way your cashier can do the sandwich prep (they're cutting vegetables anyway, no?) Don't forget to count your manager as a person, they can stand at kidcheck until the guests are expected, and then your kidcheck person can start around 11, and in downtime be able to take care of a lot of front of house maintenance cleaning. PM's are budgeted for what? 15 hours a week? Some days are busier than others, and you don't need a PM guy every day. Also, the tech requires management as well. Maybe there's a lucky strike and it gets busy, the tech will always hide in the office modifying a coinmech or doing par levels when they should really be on the floor managing their games. Is it hard, yes. Is it impossible, no. Is it unrealistic, slightly. It's just a matter of the truth in that at CEC we don't have the margin of error that a place like Home Depot or Wal-Mart does where people can just sit on the clock for hours at a time and there's nothing for them to do. Sometimes people correlate avg. wage with labor cost. Well, if you're paying 3 people $9.00 an hour instead of paying 5 people $6, which is cheaper? Running a store is truly a matter of having the RIGHT people... which are the HARDEST people to find. My job is HARD = I don't want to do it. Munchjr, I'm not being unsupportive of your decision or looking down on your perspective of things. You have first-hand experience, and I'm speaking from a theoretical standpoint, and from my own experiences things that happen on paper are a lot different from things that happen in person....

[munchjr]

You would think that would work....but the problem is CEC wants one person in each area...no if and or buts.

[VegaNova]

MunchJr - Sad to hear you leaving, but you need to do what's best for you at the end of the day! From what I've been reading here on the board and working in the retail industry, CEC seems to be doing just about what everyone is doing. Unfortunately since they're supposed to be a cut above the rest (making magic) this process doesn't always work just as it should. Which is part of the reason I have never really even considered becoming involved with CEC as an employee.

As far as finding the 'right' employees who are willing to do bust ass for $6 an hour... that's a task I wouldn't want. And my guess is that the turnaround in cast members is quite frequent because of this. This wage is rediculously low, especially in most markets. You can't survive on this (especially out where I'm at). $6 an hour gets you employees who don't care about they're job, and frustrated managers who have to deal with them.

This is just my guess here... as I said, I've never worked for CEC but I can't imagine that they're all the much different than any other service job.

-VegaNova

PS - And for MunchJr... you've been an invaluable help to this board in the past and you're always welcome here. :D

[sungun12]

ok, i have to put my 2 cents in here:

it is possible to run good labor (i.e. under 12%), have a clean store, have a good tech who does not just sit in the tech room, have all of those positions that you mentioned (openers, ass. tech, maintenance person, etc...), MAKE MAGIC and STILL have a very, above profit guide, profitable store. i know this because i do this every month. actually, all 8 of our stores do this every month.

Last month, all of us were above guide. A lot. (Oh yea but who was first?? That would be me...) every week our DM sends us a labor sheet showing how much we did, what our labor was and ranks us from 1-8. i ran a 10.2 in labor and i was in 4th!! and i was mad!! i guess maybe we just have a really awesome DM. he's been there FOREVER and has seen it all, what works and what doesnt work. he NEVER yells at us. most of us were 'raised' by him - molded into the managers and GM's that we are today. We were raised that you just care. period. you always just do your best. nothing less is acceptable. if he comes in and maybe you know, one area isnt quite as clean as it should be, or i have a training issue here or there - he will just say....'why is that like that? you know thats not good. it has to be perfect. you want it to be perfect right? you want to be the best again next month? well then youre gonna have to fix it arent you?' every time he comes in he finds something. but then he'll never have to mention that thing again because i make sure from then on its taken care of.

as far as how to get everything done to keep labor low, its all about 2 things: training and productivity. i dont have a maintenace person. but i do get the same things done every week using my cash, kitchen & kid check opener. cash and kitchen come in at 7, have an exact list of what gets done and at what time...ok like today it was: rollout, coffee area, walls, floors in that area, maketable, etc.... cash same thing. kid check comes at 8 and does the things out front, stays at kid check when the first guest comes in and then has a list up there (cleaning things that can be taken to kid check...)

i also have me, 2 mgrs and an O.C. when we overlap, which is inevitable, one of us is in position. like last thursday, me and the O.C. opened and i was the kitchen person. that means, i did rollout, did the oven, the walls by it, the floors, the breakroom, the cut table, the dish area, the salad bar sink area and cotton candy machine area. and i was done by 10:15 (according to the list you need to be done by 11 but im just hardcore like that). so yes it is possible if you use your brain and expect more out of people. on wed, fri and sat i have a gameroom opener who has cleaning tasks and then trains with my tech. i switch that off every day now so each person (which is pretty much everyone) who knows gameroom can get some one-on-one time with the tech. pretty much every cm in my store knows every position. its constantly training. second theres not a pizza in the oven for the showroom person to server - their butt is out in the gameroom learning from the g/r person.

as far as the avg. hourly wage, mine is $6.15 and i havent lost a cm in over 3 months. i dont have call off issues, people coming in late cause they just know it doesnt happen. a few tried doing that at the beginning and we tracked it. a few offenses and they were gone so they learned real quick that wouldnt be tolerated. and that problem never rose again.

the thing is, you can pay teenagers who have never had a job before, who are good kids, were raised right with values just above min. wage. thats the market here. you cant pay your daylight people that. theyre out of school, they have bills, sometimes kids and rent and such. they need to live. to find good people there, you do need to pay them more. thats how you will keep them. but then thats how i keep them. that and i know how to keep them happy. #1 reason? my managers are happy. they like being #1. they love trying to be the best. most of my cm know how to read a p&l because i get them involved. i show them what #s are good and how to fix the bad ones. I TEACH CONSTANTLY. sometimes they dont even know it. being involved and seeing where they make a difference and their role on the team is what keeps people. not money. that is a proven fact.

wow, so thats my rant. i love my job and i always have and i pretty much guarantee that i always will. theres nothing better than working your tail off to be the best and the feeling you get when you are....

[munchjr]

Not to disagree (and after this we will stop this topic because it does depend on who your RVP and DM are) but at least with us I was told flat out 3 times by the RVP that managers do NOT run postions and if I had my managers run a postion (remember I was acting GM for several looooooong periods of time) that I had too many of them and that they would be taken away from the store and placed where they could do their job manage. Again this isn't the reason why I left just the reason I never became GM. Also to make one thing clear and people on this board that I do talk to know this....Me not becoming a GM never did stop me from going higher up the food chain..I was higher than a GM at one point,but the timefrom home was too much and I went back to being "just" a manager to spend more time at home

[sungun12]

well, my store is set up about perfect. there are days we overlap, like tomorrow its me and the O.C - im the cash person. why have 2 of us 'manage' at the same time?? why not save labor??? by being at cash, im saving myself 8 hours. and i get to watch my oc run a shift, and train her and make her better. seems like a perfect set up for me