To make the point that he is not the asshole that his Glengarry Glenn Ross-ish email made him sound like ("you bunch of fucking children"), restaurant owner 
Nov 20, 2009 04:31 PM
19,347
Enter your username and password.
New York, 8:07 PM
Tue Feb 9
57 posts in the last 24 hours
To make the point that he is not the asshole that his Glengarry Glenn Ross-ish email made him sound like ("you bunch of fucking children"), restaurant owner Vadim Ponorovsky called to scream at us.
After we posted the email tirade that Vadim sent the waitstaff at Paradou (for failing to collect enough customer email addresses), he has been complaining loudly to New York food blogs like Grub Street and Eater and to weekend editor Foster Kamer at his dayjob at Blackbook. His main complaint to us was that he's now at the receiving end of the kind of vitriol that it sounds like he dishes out regularly to his employees. And while he regrets calling his staff "fucking lazy motherfuckers," he stands by the rest of his email as entirely within his rights as a boss. Let's take a look at some of that:
Youre probably sitting there saying "How dare he speak to me like this. How dare he not have respect for me". Youre right there also. I have absolutely no respect for any of you. Why? Because every fucking day, all of you continue to show that you have absolutely no respect for me or Alex. So if you dont respect us enough to do the little that we ask you to do, then GET THE FUCK OUT YOU FUCKING LAZY DISRESPECTFUL ASSHOLES!!!!!
Anyway, in the snippet of my phone call with Vadim that you can listen to above, he argues that it wasn't fair that we didn't call him up before posting his email and first listen to him explain what a great boss he is. It doesn't include the part of our half-hour chat where he compared us to Hitler and warned Ravi Somaiya, one of our new night editors, "to keep an eye over his shoulder." Add: Just for the record, Ravi did email him asking for comment and never heard back.
That said, even if Vadim's a nightmare to work for, it's no reason for folks to call up the restaurant making death threats (his wife answers the phone, apparently).
We offered to post verbatim whatever Vadim writes up. He said he'll work on it over the weekend.
Update, 7:45pm Vadim emails and, as promised, here it is in its entirety:
Send an email to Gabriel Snyder, the author of this post, at gabriel@gawker.com.
Original material is licensed under a Creative Commons License permitting non-commercial sharing with attribution.
Start a new discussion