Going Down A Bomb

Let Me Explicate This British Saying

Since it's the polar opposite of the South Canadian expression 'It bombed'.  'Going down a bomb' means to be surpassingly well-received to kudos all around; 'It bombed' is to be a miserable failure, akin to 'Melania's box office, which is more like the Luftwaffe's attack on The Allotment Of Eden in the Second Unpleasantness NOT FORESHADOWING MUCH rather than a single piece of ordnance.  Art!

     This is the Burger King at Gunwharf Quay shopping centre in Portsmouth, the site of much of today's Intro, which deals with 'Entitled People' from 'Ripe's Youtube channel.  I had a sly feeling the tale was set in Portsmouth, which was confirmed by a Commenter, who recognised the event and date and named the exact fast-food joint.  Art!

Dateline September 2016

     Unusually, this Reddit yarn identified the location, brand name and mention of another BK in Portsmouth: Fareham.  Very unusual, but since the event took place 10 years ago, the narrator is hugely unlikely to still be in post, nor are any of the other cast members.

Setting The Mise En Scene

Our narrator, 'Lucky', for so he named himself, was fulfilling a management role at the BK already named, even though he wasn't actually a manager.  He had a union contract that gave him a lot more clout than any mere staff member or even another manager, meaning he was Hard To Kill.  SORRY!  Fire, hard to fire.  Art!

      Lucky had frequently butted heads with his Area Manager, whom I shall dub 'Kontra-Kamikaze Karen', hereafter KKK*.  An AM, for your information, has overall responsibility for - you may be ahead of me here - a geographical area and the restaurants within it.  KKK dealt with 21 stores, one of which was her base location.  She had rashly, and without any apparent upper management pushback, fire 82 of the 115 managers in these 20 stores.  

     Aha, I see why she got away with this.  At an average salary of £40,000 p.a. she saved £3.28 million off the budget.  No wonder no pushback!  Art?

     

     Also to be found with KKK was her slavishly loyal minion, Kevin, whom she would regularly hurl beneath the bus because - he enjoyed it?  Definitely Muttley to her Dick Dastardly.  Perhaps she had KomProMat on him.

     ANYWAY thanks to all those managers being fired, there were precious few staff remaining who could do the relevant paperwork to keep the restaurants running, you know, like ordering food.  KKK refused to do any admin for any joint bar her own using the phrase "It'll get there when it gets there", which it didn't as none of the ordering had been done.  Art!

     All 20 BKs close for the day as they have no food, and people go to BK to - once again, you may be ahead of me here - buy food.  DAve The Anodyne, hereafter DATA and KKK's boss, calls Lucky to see what on earth is going on.  He's the Regional Manager, you see, responsible for the whole of Hampshire, not merely Portsmouth.  Lucky explains, to DATA's goggling incomprehension, and the BKs remain closed all day as no food arrived until the next morning.

     Lucky, who is not shy about expressing an opinion, informs DATA that a drunken monkey off it's box on cocaine could do a better job than Karen.

Further Dastardly Deeds

The management trainees that KKK put forward for Lucky to train were, without exception, execrable, chosen only for their ability to lick her shoes to a high shine, meaning that he flunked them out in short order.  Muttley then turned up, whining that Lucky wasn't co-operating with the training program and whom they put forward.  Lucky's riposte is that he has contractual discretion and that if he's going to be training managers, he wants promotion to be one.  Muttley rings KKK and then promises, pinkie swear - actually, no, we don't do that in Perfidious Albion, it would have been 'On My Mother's Grave' - that promotion would come.  Art!

Kev The Were-Mutt

     Two months later there was no promotion, so Lucky takes this up as a grievance with HR, who review matters and come down hard on Muttley.  He is suspended for two weeks without pay and gets a written warning; going straight to this level of disciplinary means one more offence and he gets sacked.  Not that namby-pamby South Canadian 'Let go', SACKED!  Lucky is taken off manager training duties and given a £2,500 bonus.  Justice is served and would you like a side of onion rings with it?  Art!

Don't mind if I do

     At this point we'd normally stop and end the Intro, except I've built up a metaphorical head of steam and feel like making the whole of this blog about our explosive tale.  I shall carry on.

The Black Swan Event

Lucky is informed by the daytime Manager of Gunwharf BK that he's got a better job with better pay elsewhere and is leaving right now in mid-afternoon, thanks ta-ra.  Ooops.  He calls KKK to inform, who throws a right paddy at this and turns up at the restaurant 20 minutes later to see why this has happened.  Her first face-to-face encounter with Lucky ensues, where he tells - not asks, tells - her that if she's going to be anywhere but the office she needs flat shoes, a badge, apron and hair in a ponytail.  This goes down as well as collecting for Oliver Cromwell on the streets of Dublin.  Art!

Collecting for Oliver Dublin on the streets of Cromwell.  I think.

     Then the shopping centre security chap arrives, asking for Lucky.  Not the restaurant manager, please note: Lucky.  He informs that a 1,100 pound Teuton bomb SEE I TOLD YOU FORESHADOWING has been uncovered by a dredger in Portsmouth Harbour and the entire shopping centre is being evacuated, by order of the police.  The staff go into a shut-down routine -

     To which KKK objects violently.  I shall quote Lucky's recollection of their dialogue.

Lucky: Are you saying you are willing to sit here potentially less than 30 feet from a live explosive that has a blast radius of at least 50?

KKK: Well I'm obviously not but it will be your jobs to stay here nevertheless.

Lucky: Okay she's an idiot ignore her.

     Conrad would like to point out that the blast radius of a 1,100 lb bomb is of the order of at least 300 feet, not 50.  Art!

     The Royal Navy's specialist diving unit recovered the bomb, which was towed over two miles away at sea in order to be detonated without risk to life.  50 feet radius my hairy white hindquarters!

     MEANWHILE KKK locks BK's kitchen door, as this is how the staff get ingress and egress, and one presumes she carries the key as an Area Manager might need ingress, too.

     Security chap returns with a police officer, who hops the counter - one imagines 'vaults' is more apt - into the kitchen and confronts KKK, who still refuses to unlock the door.

     Unbeknownst to her, Lucky had been slyly texting DATA all the while about what was going on.  DATA, normally as vehement, assertive and abrasive as a lettuce sandwich, calls her and absolutely tears into her.  I shall append what Lucky later put down as his rancorous diatribe.

"HAVE YOU HAD A STROKE OR SOMETHING!  LET THE STAFF OUT AND GET OUT OF THERE. YOU'RE SUSPENDED FOR TWO MONTHS NO PAY AND IF YOU OFFER ANYTHING BUT FULL ACCOUNTABILITY FOR YOUR <SWEAR> TODAY THEN I WILL FIRE YOU.  JUST BECAUSE I GAVE YOU SOME POWER YOU DON'T HAVE A REASON TO DO WHAT YOU HAVE DONE THESE LAST FOUR MONTHS.  I AM NOT DEALING WITH A UNION DRIVE IN STORES BECAUSE YOU WERE WILLING TO GET THEM BLOWN UP.  WE'RE NOT IN AMERICA WHERE RULES CAN BE FAST AND LOOSE SO STOP LARPING LIKE WE ARE AND DO AS YOU ARE TOLD."

     'LARPING' means a hobby that Darling Daughter partakes in 'Live Action Role Playing', just so we're clear.

     KKK unlocked the door and the staff who weren't able to hop the counter fled.

The Denoument

KKK was banned from the shopping centre for three months, meaning she couldn't go back to Gunwharf BK, thus hampering her job.  She was further suspended from work for two months without pay, meaning about £10,000 cut from her salary.  She got a written warning - same proviso as Muttley - had to undertake empathy and management courses and was sentenced in court to 90 days community service, which in the UK means menial grunt work like painting fences, clearing waste ground of junk and weeding.

     Like a stick of rock, badness ran through her; she messed up again and was fired.

Gunwharf Quays; Verboten for KKK

     I hope you appreciate a British tale of torrid trauma, identified in place and time.  CYA!

*  Yes, I KNOW.