We all know one, and they all suck...

If you’ve worked as a server, or in any other kind of job that is often a temporary or second job, then you know this person – the Upward and Onward

The Upward and Onward comes in a variety of types, but can be separated into two major groups.
Group 1: Everybody loves me and offers me jobs.
This variety of UO is the best thing that ever happened to his customers. They all invariably love him or her. And amazingly, this variety of UO is always, and I mean always, being offered internships, partnerships, CEO-ships, you name it. And yet…the UO never seems to accept the job of a lifetime he or she is offered almost nightly. Additionally, this UO always makes a minimum of double the tips of anybody else and always makes a point of finding out tip totals at the end of the shift. I imagine he or she must carry around a wad of money to use as pretend tips.

Group 2: I know better, I am better, and I should be running this place.
This type of UO is actually too good for the job he or she is doing. He or she is slumming and makes sure everyone knows it. Annoyingly, this UO not only purports to do all aspects of the job better than anyone who has ever done it, but also could have the restaurant humming along much more efficiently if the management just listened to this person. I have actually lived through a UO of this type who thought the restaurant would never make it because the chef, who had run huge big-named restaurants and just opened his own, really didn’t know what he was doing in the kitchen and refused to listen to the advice the UO gave him daily.

There are of course variations and combinations of these to types of UOs. I think these people are in all types of jobs, but seem to land disproportionately in the world of restaurants.

But no matter where one finds them, they suck.