u/WTH-is-Happening_

I work in hospitality management and my shifts are often listed as “CLS” (close), but there’s never an actual out time attached to it. Recently, senior management told us there was a hard out at 12:30 AM for certain events, so that’s the timeline I operated on all night.

The event sheet said the event ended at 11:45 PM, so I started doing last call procedures accordingly. Then at around 11:15 PM, I got informed the client paid to extend the event later, which was the first time I heard about it. We managed it fine because we had staff staying later anyway, but it got me thinking:

What happens if staff have obligations outside work based on the communicated timeline?

For context, I’ve also had tension at work over taking my two 15-minute breaks at the same times every day for the past year, despite it being something agreed to in my contract because of obligations outside work.

What’s frustrating is I’ve shown up through some pretty brutal personal situations, including literally working a full busy-season shift the same day I became homeless, but I still feel like one sick call or one disagreement gets remembered more than months of reliability.

I genuinely like where I work, but I’m starting to feel like hospitality culture expects your entire life to orbit around the job.

People who work management, restaurants, clubs, bars, hotels, etc:
Is this normal? Am I being unrealistic for wanting more predictability and clearer expectations?