You may want to read parts 1 & 2 for background.
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Our next meeting was just a few days later and Kathy had told all the employees that they needed to be available for a meeting on Saturday after the restaurant closed. By then the papers would be signed and the business and building would be mine and she would officially begin her new role as manager.
I showed up at 8:30 and all the people were sitting around waiting as the last customer was just leaving. Remember this is a very small town and after 8pm the town was pretty much empty and asleep. There were a few surprised looks on some of the faces as I came in through the door. One of the other waitresses started to tell me "sorry, we're closed" but then Kathy stopped her and introduced me as the new owner of the business.
After some quick introductions and the usual business pep talk kind of stuff I pretty much told everyone that I hoped their jobs would be better than in the past and that they would give me a 100% effort to make the business profitable, and since I believed in profit sharing if they worked hard they would all make more money. At that statement the waitress who had started to tell me I couldn't come in leaned over and made a remark to the dishwasher and laughed.
Too bad for her, but I heard enough of what she'd said to know that it was about Kathy fucking the boss. Since this person had a bad work ethic, and was usually talking or texting when I had been a customer, now was the best time for her to be fired. She was shocked and after quite a bit of complaining she finally grabbed her things and left. To my surprise after she stormed out the door everyone else applauded and thanked me.
With that we spent a bit more time discussing how the management of the business would run, and what was expected from everyone. I outlined some plans to clean up and paint the building and there were several suggestions of people who would be great workers to take the place of the recently fired waitress.
I asked Kathy if there was anything else she wanted to tell the staff. I had decided that telling the staff of our agreement would be up to her. If she wanted to make it public, or keep it private, it would be her decision.