To make sure their businesses are open during the big freeze, some bosses in Atlanta are not leaving things to chance. They are picking up their workers and delivering them to the job. It ensures safety. And attendance.
Some other businesses have asked only those employees with four-wheel drive vehicles come in. Others had workers stay over night on site or at a nearby hotel.
Or the boss just came in alone. Someone’s gotta do it.
It’s been a mixed bag over the past few days as to how commerce across the metro area has functioned.
Bobby Patel, proprietor of Express Foods, a Roswell convenience store, was running the show himself Tuesday. His three employees were still stuck at home, so it was just him.
“If I didn’t come in, it wouldn’t be open,” said Patel. “You sometimes have to do it yourself.”
Bobby Shellenberger, owner of The Grove, a neighborhood restaurant-bar north of Decatur, shuttled some of his staffers in to work, performed every dirty job in the business himself, then drove a couple of his staff home late Monday after the college football national championship game was over.
“You have to set the example,” he said Tuesday, as he delivered food to a nursing home. Just as Monday was a big day at The Grove, Tuesday was promising to be the same as customers unable to get to work ventured in to grab a pint of beer and stave off cabin fever.
“I like these kind of days,” Shellenberger said. Being open when others aren’t builds camaraderie, both among workers and with customers.
Tuesday afternoon, Nimesh Bhagat was back at the counter of Happy Times Package on Lavista Road. That morning he was finally able to shovel off his driveway and drive in. A day earlier, his employer played chauffeur when he had been stuck at home.
“My boss man came and got me,” Bhagat had said Monday as he awaited customers stocking up for the football game. Asked how long he expected to stay, Bhagat smiled, “I’m here until the boss comes and gets me.”
At the Crestwood Suites motel in Marietta, manager Lisa Freeman was busy, just as she had been ever since Sunday.
“No one’s been able to make it,” she said. “I’m manning everything.”
But she hasn’t been completely alone. A few employees stayed over at the motel Sunday night as the storm rolled in, thinking they’d leave Monday.
“They’re still helping out,” Freeman said.
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