To think my (ex)manager was too harsh?

[cocunut]

Sorry for the long post, don't want to drip feed. Tonight I got sent home from my minimum wage hospitality job. I recently started working evenings and weekends to get some extra money (no kids of my own but I'm an early years teacher for context as to why I'm on here).

I've not worked in hospitality for a few years but started this job a few weeks ago and have really enjoyed it so far. All my colleagues are lovely, studenty types, and I thought the managers were lovely too until tonight.

I basically f**ked up big time with a hygiene breach. My colleague messed up an order for a table and the kitchen were getting food out as quickly as they could. I wasn't sure exactly what each table had ordered as they weren't in my section but long story short I took the wrong food to the wrong table. No biggie, I thought, and the customers hadn't touched the food as it had been down for about 10 seconds, when I realised it was the wrong order. I quickly picked the food back up and ran it to the next table over. Thought nothing of it.

My manager basically pulled me aside and told me what I'd done was unacceptable and I should've taken the food back to the kitchen and got them to remake the dishes (again, as my colleague had messed them up already). Another manager came and said the same thing, at this point I'm feeling quite ganged up on and said "Okay, I'm really sorry. I've apologised to everyone, Bollocking accepted, can I just get back to my tables now."

At this point I'm told to "just clock out". I'm honestly gutted as I'm still on probation and it was a genuine error of judgement with the food. I was just stood there trying not to burst into tears as I clocked out. I said "see you next week" to which I got no response and I'm about 90% certain they won't have me back.

Did I seriously fuck up that badly, or was my manager just being harsh?

I think you are getting a really hard time OP. They should have given you training if they can’t accept any mistakes. You apologized and they got heavy again when you were upset.

In your shoes I wouldn’t want to return.

Oh dear. This is your inexperience shining through once again. HR will have insisted the GM and only the GM to call, because they don't train shift managers to handle this nonsense in case they say something they shouldn't. They are trying to let you go gently as "availability" so that they don't have to document your misconduct, both because it's more paperwork and because they are trying to be nice to you so that it isn't on your record; push them though and they will absolutely put it as gross misconduct. Just let it go now and decide to be polite to future managers, or you'll end up getting sacked again.

You’re missing the point entirely.

You weren’t sacked for the mistake.

You were sacked for your rude and dismissive attitude.

Two totally separate things.

The more you post the more ridiculous you sound

It's not whether I think it's a swear word or not. It just is, by definition. It's also totally NSFW in many places - apparently including where you were just sacked from.

The fact that you don't know bollocking is a swear word is your ignorance, and nothing to do with whether my life is "sheltered" or not - which it isn't.

Don't believe me? Look it up. Or try saying it to the children in your other job and see whether the school think it's not swearing.

Please reconsider PGCE, I don't think it's a good fit (and training teachers is part of my job).

Also thinking no wonder there aren't enough hospitality staff. Does sound like manager power trips and mountains of mole hills to me.

I doubt that this will affect your career, OP. As another poster said, just leave it off your CV.
As for the all the posters affecting outrage over your use of the word "bollocking", there's an active thread right now with multiple posters advising the OP to tell her colleague to fuck off and one telling her call him a cunt to his face. So, you know not to take AIBU too seriously.

I am not surprised you were sacked.

I'd like to make a suggestion about this sort of situation in future. I hope this isn't seen as patronising. I have ASD children (now grown up) and one of my children used to drive me batty when I was telling them off and they'd be looking totally impassive without a flicker of remorse. It made me keep telling them off to try to get a reaction. It was only later that I realised the impassive face was just a part of ASD. (It has stood him in good stead in medicine as he can hear the most appalling things without a flicker.) I wonder if you might have a similarly impassive face and the first manager perhaps felt you didn't appreciate the seriousness of the breach. (My son also had a habit of checking his watch even in the midst of a serious telling off which also used to drive me batty - he honestly as a child didn't realise this was rude.) My suggestions are to try to get some expression of regret on your face, give every appearance of listening raptly and be abject in any apologies in future. Managers want to be reassured that you really did listen and get what they are trying to tell you.

Also, I work for a very large organisation. My secretary was one fired (nothing to do with me) and out the door the same day. We were a bit flabbergasted to hear that she'd been rehired a few years later in a different office. Maybe your HR is a bit more joined up than ours. But honestly people leave, memories fade, stuff gets archived and so on.