Thought Bubbles by Ruthie

In the world of hospitality, the Whatsapp manager is taking over. 

It has taken a steady uptake in the use of Whatsapp and a steady decline in the art of face-to-face verbal communication to breed a new type of manager. The Whatsapp Manager. Resting on their ‘message sent’ laurels, the Whatsapp manager sits back, relaxes and assumes that everyone has read, understood and will remember the content of their written notes. The Whatsapp manager’s techniques overlap with those of passive aggressive housemates. Just like a passive aggressive housemate who sends a photo of a dirty dish with a snarky remark in a group chat, rather than waiting until you are home to confront the issue, the Whatsapp manager sends a photo of a dirty shelf in the pub, with a snarky remark, rather than waiting until you are at work. They creep into your dms at any time that suits them, as though their work-related concern is worthy of tipping your work-life balance and piercing the realm of your personal bubble. And unlike a work email, you cannot simply log out. The demands, requests, moans and important notices may not be sent on a day the Whatsapp team member is working, leaving them in a dilemma. Should they keep up to date and read messages on a regular basis? Or should they leave the ever-expanding group chat until the day they work, risk they have missed an important notice, and then scroll through scores of messages before starting a shift? 

Resting on their two-tick laurels, the Whatsapp Manager is satisfied that a message has been noted by their staff and therefore doesn’t feel the need to verbally repeat anything from the message in real life. Quite the opposite, the Whatsapp group chat is sometimes the predominant form of communication between staff paid more for their supervisory responsibilities, and those paid minimum wage to be supervised. The Whatsapp Manager will get annoyed if something is not done correctly, even if they have not actually told staff in person, or reminded them on the day, of what should be done. They fail to realise that any agency staff they have in their venue, or new staff for that matter, will not have access to the virtual oracle of information. Those team members will not benefit from the pearls of wisdom accessed through the green speech bubble with a mobile phone icon. And if you don’t have Whatsapp? Well you’ll just never quite be included in ‘the team’. Sorry. 

The Whatsapp Manager is a great lover of technology. Their crafted rota will be sent through an app, perhaps also on Whatsapp (although in some cases, magnifying glasses are required to decipher slightly blurred photos of a spreadsheet). Gone are the days when a piece of paper and pen suffice for ‘clocking in’ to your shift, the Whatsapp Manager now insists on you using an app, with access to your location and soul, to inform them when you are in the same building as them. Once you are on your shift, you may have the delight of speaking to the elusive Whatsapp Manager face-to-face. They are unlikely to do a staff briefing (this phenomenon is seemingly creeping its way into the archives of hospitality management techniques), but they might randomly tell you to do something when you’re already busy. If you need your manager’s attention on shift and can’t find them, you better light the flares on Whatsapp. Here, however, is the paradox of a Whatsapp Manager. They do not necessarily want you on your phone during your shift, but the main form of communication they foster amongst staff during the shift is…Whatsapp.

The Whatsapp manager is the epitome of a manager whose communication blurs personal and professional, whose approach and style is very laissez-faire and complains but not fixes, and whose sense of authority and entitlement does not come from a place of earned respect. Whilst in some ways, they make good use of the beauty and usefulness of modern technologies and instant messaging, they do not balance this with the beauty of old-fashioned talking. Somewhere on the planet, and in the radio waves of the planet, there is a happy medium between the two. The Whatsapp Manager could share some information and general messages in the virtual world, and repeat these – and other important messages – in the real world. They could use instant messaging as a small planet in the universe of work-related communication, rather than being the sun that everything orbits around. So if you are a Whatsapp Manager, maybe it’s time to rethink your two-ticks strategy. And if you have a Whatsapp Manager and are feeling risky, give this article a cheeky drop in the group chat.

(Written after a cafe I worked in shared a blurry photo of an architect’s colour-coded drawing of the staff basement area to inform staff that some of the basement was closed for a few weeks. There wasn’t even a key for the colour coded areas.)