Stop Treating Your Employees Like Sh!t
If you've ever hidden in the walk-in for thirty seconds just to get your shit together, this book is for you.
Stop Treating Your Employees Like SH!T is a leadership book for the people actually doing the work - running shifts, putting out fires, developing managers, dealing with call-offs, controlling labor, surviving lunch rushes, and somehow being expected to keep an entire crew motivated through all of it.
After two decades in quick-service restaurants, Kayla Henson has learned one thing: most leadership problems aren't really people problems. They're leadership problems.
This isn't corporate leadership advice written from a conference room.
It's about what happens when the headset is beeping, somebody called off, the drive-thru is wrapped around the building, labor is blown, your best employee is ready to quit - and you are still expected to lead.
Inside, Kayla tackles the stuff restaurant leaders actually deal with:
- Managing your friends after you get promoted over them
- Why your best crew member quit six months ago and never told you
- Recognizing burnout before your whole crew walks mid-rush
- Fair scheduling, clopens, and cutting hours without wrecking trust
- Training a new hire when there is no slow time to train in
- Handling a meltdown mid-lunch rush - theirs or yours
- The back office paperwork that quietly gets good managers sued
- Write-ups, documentation, and firing someone the right way
- What to do the day somebody tells you something serious
- Delivery apps, mobile orders, and the tablet that will not stop beeping
Plus a glossary of every term nobody bothered to explain: from build-to to clopen to why the ice cream machine is, and always will be, down.
There are lessons. There are mistakes. And there are probably a few things somebody in corporate would prefer you didn't say out loud.
Whether you're a shift leader trying to figure this management thing out, a GM who's exhausted from carrying the whole restaurant, or a seasoned leader who knows we can do better -
This book is your reminder that you can run a damn good operation without treating people like sh!t.
Let's build better managers. And laugh while we're doing it.


