Ask a stupid question ...

And get laughed at by your waitress.

"are your hot wings hot? I don't like hot things."

And then they ordered them and complained.
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Just too tired to post.

Still fighting off my stupid cold; and the last couple of days at work have had some gems. Eventually I'll have the energy to write them up. For now .... zzzzzzz.

Four days off, and actually sort of missing it.

By "it" I mean my money.

No, all joking aside, I do sort of miss work. I forget until I'm off for a few days just how much I enjoy the social aspect of it. Wow, that's weird to write, considering how hermity and anti-social I used to be.

Well, that's not what I planned.

When I went to bed last night, I was fine. I'd been sneezing a lot, and my throat was sore, but I thought it was because I forgot to take my allergy medicine. When I woke up this morning ... okay, this afternoon, whatever! ... I knew I had a cold. Fuck!

But, it's a Saturday, and the dreaded Valentine's Day, so I didn't even attempt to call anyone. If they weren't already there, they requested it off. So I swallowed some DayQuil and got ready to go. I dragged myself through a shower and into clothes. I put on a pink cami under a black button-up shirt, and my girliest heart-shaped sparkly necklace--it's Valentine's Day, and I have boobs, so of course I'm supposed to be all mushy about this day. I came in with my hair up, my apron on, looking cute and ready to go--except for my scratchy voice.

And I walked into a madhouse. Not because it was really all THAT busy--the place wasn't full, we weren't on a wait--but there was a ridiculous number of employees there. All four managers, the district manager, four hosts, two bartenders, three or four prep people, four or five cooks, and I don't even know how many servers. It made my head spin just walking through the kitchen. My DayQuil hadn't kicked in yet, and I was just NOT feeling up to it--even though I only had a three table section. But I was resigned.

I checked my section, and then started asking people if they would want to pick up either of my shifts tomorrow. Then the clouds parted and the sun shone down on me because someone asked "are you working tonight?" I said yeah, and she said she wasn't ... and offered to work for me! So instead of tripping over coworkers and waiting on old people and families (because younger couples don't come to my restaurant this night of the year, generally), I got to come home and drink OJ and rest. Very nice.

Perhaps the definition of irony.

At my restaurant, about 99% of the employees are coupled up. We've got a lot of married people, a lot of long-term relationship people, and some college kids who are serial dating. Naturally, all sorts of people tried to get Saturday night off, seeing as it's the big V Day (gag me). I've worked Saturday nights since starting here, so even though I'm not looking forward to it, I was resigned to being there.

So imagine my surprise when I looked at the schedule .... and I was off that night. Seriously? Me? Arguably the most single person in the place, with the least dating prospects, and I get the night off without even requesting it? Hilarious!

I took pity on a coworker and took her shift, though.

My name is Robot Waitress.

Tonight's shift wasn't bad at all; I was in a sort of abstracted mood, and I'm sure my coworkers thought something was up because I wasn't constantly slinging sarcasm at them, but really I was just feeling quiet. And my tips reflected that. I did my job, and I kept up on refills and made sure everything went out right and on time, etc. But I just wasn't in to the chit-chat tonight, so I didn't try to talk to my customers about anything. Usually I'll try to find something--a piece of jewelry to comment on, a fact about something I overheard them talking about, etc. But tonight? Nah.

Other than the guy who was all "How YOU doin?", sparking a (brief) conversation about Friends. They were my best tip of the night, unsurprisingly.

Ruining it for everyone.

Goddamn corporate monkeys. They've decided to transfer our most popular manager to another store. Everybody is pissed, including the manager.

A lot of the fun is going to go out of this place Friday.
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More of the dumb.

It's a Monday night. The place is maybe three-quarters full, and there's no one in the lobby but the host and me. This snooty looking woman throws the door open, stomps across the empty lobby and into the host's personal space and demands "is there a wait?"

Stupid people amuse me. :)
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I've made it six months.

Six months of serving being my only job. And for the most part, I've been alright. But the last few weeks ... the last few weeks, I remember why I quit doing this full time in the first place.

It's not the dealing with stupid and/or obnoxious people--all my jobs have involved that. And I'm not too shabby at dealing with them most of the time. But the combination of dealing with stupid people and having my ability to pay my bills depend on those people? That right there is a deadly combination.

My plan was to stick with this serving thing for a couple of years while I finish school--you can't beat it for flexible hours. But I don't know if I'm going to make it.

I hate it even more...

When the aforementioned people laugh and joke with me and leave less than ten percent. On seven people with a ninety dollar tab.

I'll remember them and their "Dr pepper, no ice" next time.
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I hate it ...

When a table recognizes me, in fact says I serve them all the time, and I have no recall of them. It makes me feel like an asshole.
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I didn't go in to work cranky.

But then I got there and we had nine servers on, so I had a three table section. And there were a whole two tables sat in the place, yet the general manager was stomping around stressing out about stupid things. Yeah, the table employees eat lunch at had a lot of glasses on it--O M G! And of course, she was the closing manager, and I was a closer.

Then I was reminded of a mandatory ass-crack-of-dawn meeting on Saturday, which of course just fucks up my plans royally. Then we were all told we're not required to use specific, corporate-provided note pads--that say "SMILE!" at the top and then have little pre-numbered boxes for each guest. What if we wanted to use our own notepads? "Then go open your own restaurant." was the response. That was when I dropped my apron on the kitchen floor and walked out.

Okay, not really, but I was so goddamn aggravated I wanted to.

For a while after that I continued to be irritated, mostly because the GM was flipping out about nothing. If I hear her say "hospitality" one more time, I might stab her in the eye with a line thermometer! It's her freaking buzzword of the month or something--"I see empty drinks all over the place, and it just makes me wonder if we're giving the right kind of hospitality!" "I see people standing around talking and there's a dirty table, and it really just makes me made because I want hospitality to come first!" "Really focus on the hospitality!" "The difference between a server and a food runner is hospitality!" The difference between my foot up your ass or walking normally is hospitality! So shut up!

Her obsession with drinks is really starting to piss me off. Everything from "that's the wrong kind of glass for lemonade!" to "HEAPING FULL OF ICE GUYS!" to "are you getting refills for table X?" I get it--drinks are important. But empty glasses are going to happen sometimes. Sometimes people don't want more soda! When they're near the end of their meal, I'll ask before I spend the energy and resources to get them a refill. But she flips out, and I'm starting to dread the days I work with her.

By the end of the night, though, she'd calmed down and things were going smoothly. It wasn't a terribly profitable night, what with starting with a three table section and it not being that busy, but I've had worse.

Ways To Annoy Your Server

Order water. Then, when your friend orders hot tea, say "Oh! You know what? That sounds so good. I'll have hot tea!". And then laugh mockingly.

(Other than that it was an unremarkable day. :)

I'd like water with two lemons, unsqueezed, on the side, with no ice, and a straw.

So in my entry below, someone commented that he/she doesn't understand why certain requests annoy servers. I figure most people reading here will probably be servers, but I thought I'd post this for those who aren't. As far as the ranch, lemons, etc. goes, we know you're not asking specifically to annoy us. And it's more about the individual person's attitude that anything.

For example, I wasn't annoyed with the people yesterday who ordered water with four limes and water with four lemons--I was just commenting that karma was already kicking me in the ass by giving me customers who were going to have a low check. Generally, water orders make us groan because it means the total bill will be less, and therefore our tip probably will be too. Of course there are exceptions sometimes.

However, when I ask someone if they would like an iced tea or something else to drink, and they respond "NO! I don't drink! I just want WATER!", I know they're going to be a pain. Likewise with people who start shaking their head as soon as I start offering a drink, and who sort of smirk at me and cut me off with "just water". And specifying "I'd like water, with two lemons, with a straw, with little ice" gives us the impression of a picky person who's going to make our job harder. I know I'm probably in for an order full of modifications, and all I can do after I input it is hope that the kitchen gets it all right, because of course I'm going to suffer if they forget to slice the sandwich diagonally.

Timing also plays a role. For example, if somebody orders a side of ranch when they order their meal, that's absolutely fine. If they ask for it when I deliver their food, okay. However, if when I come back with that ranch they ask me for another one, and then when I come back with that they ask me for more lemons, and then when I come back with lemons they ask me for more ranch ... then I start to get pissed off. I once had a table of four require eighteen trips to their table--and they all arrived and ordered at once, and didn't have dessert--for a five dollar tip (5%, in thise case). That's about ten more trips than the average table would require. People like this often will ask for sides of things, one at a time ... and then not even touch them.

One thing that I think annoys everyone, everywhere, is the dreaded hot tea. There are a couple of reasons for this; one is that past experience has taught me that hot tea drinkers generally linger for a long time and leave exceedingly average tips. But mostly, it's because it's a super pain in the ass to set up. The setup for my restaurant is to put a lemon, spoon, packet of honey, and tea bag on a small plate surrounding a small metal pot of water, and also to take a coffee mug full of hot water. It doesn't sound that complicated; but consider the following:
1) If I'm being a good waitress, I have to list all the flavors of tea we have--seven--and 99% of people ask me to repeat them at least once.
2) The side plates are on the expo line, across from the drink station, and I have to dodge the expo guy and anybody else walking through the kitchen to retrieve it.
3) The spoon and honey are right next to each other, but the honey packets are always sticky and stuck together.
4) The lemons are in the same general area, but usually require waiting in line to get the tongs to retrieve one.
5) The tea bags are several feet down, stored on top of the soda fountain--so not only do I have to wait for people to get done pouring sodas, half the time I can't reach the particular flavor of tea bag because I'm short. And sometimes the boxes fall behind the soda fountain, so then I have to retrieve the box, or go to the back, find the step ladder, climb up, get the right flavor out of the new box, and go back.
6) To get the hot water, I usually have to pour it out of the little hot water spigots on the coffee machines--which are very slow. Sometimes we'll have a pot of hot water sitting on a burner, it just depends on if anybody else has had tea that day.
If I'm unlucky, all of this can take five minutes, but even without any glitches it takes three times as long as pouring a fountain drink. And if people want milk or cream for their coffee, I have to go harass the bartender for it. Plus, even if it's a table of only two, I now have to use a drink tray, because there's no safe way to carry a regular glass, a hot coffee cup, and a plate with a hot metal kettle on it.

What it really boils down to is peoples' attitudes about requesting these things. Anyone who's been serving long enough can predict their tip with fair accuracy based on the way their customers speak to them, and their body language. Not everyone who has some french fries with their six buckets of ranch is a bad tipper, but if the same person doesn't make eye contact with us when asking for things, it's a bad sign.

Restaurant karma.

I've had several people talk about the idea of restaurant karma, which is basically if you get a bunch of fuckstick customers one day, another day you'll have the world's best people--basically, everything evens out.

Well... it seems to me there's a more immediate kind of restaurant karma, which bitch-slaps me all the time. This morning, I was waiting around for my first table when I saw two familiar little old ladies shuffling in. I asked the hostess not to put them in my section, because I know they order two waters, two $6 lunch combos, two hot fudge sundaes, and spend two hours taking up a booth. And then the lady who pays cash always leaves the tip, always $2, and always stuck to the table with the sticky, sugary dressing she uses a ton of always gets all over the table.

As I watched her skip me in the rotation and seat a friend of mine, I knew I'd been naughty.

A minute later, I get a two top, an old couple. The kind that talk verrrrrry slowly. I offer them an iced tea, fully expecting two waters with lemon. Not quite.
The woman says, "You know what? I'd like a glass of ice water. With about four limes! That just sounds SO good!"
Me: *mental facepalm*
Then the man says, "And I'll have water with about three lemons!"
Me: *mental facepalm, harder*

I get another two top about five minutes later. "I'll have a water with lime." "And I'll have a water with lemon!" *mental faceplantagainsthardsurface*

Later in the day, I have a lady order hot tea. This annoys me. So I don't run through the list of herbal teas we have--bitch can have regular old hot tea and like it! Her husband orders a diet soda. My very next table? A diet soda and a hot tea.

And then the rest of the day in general just sucked. I wasn't expecting much, seeing as it was Super Bowl Sunday. So I wasn't as disappointed as I could've been. But I was pretty annoyed when I had a couple of people from Mexico flat-out stiff me (and I don't mean Hispanic, I mean from Mexico, hardly any English; so I know it's just a cultural thing). And I was aggravated at the table of surly-looking people who wouldn't speak up and didn't correct me when I repeated their order to them and it was wrong because I couldn't hear .... or because they were stupid, I highly doubt she said "well" and my brain heard "medium rare"!

The Douchebag of the Day award, though, goes to the sort of scruffy looking guy in his twenties who plunked himself down in one of my booths that can hold six people. He ordered water. Nothing else. Said he was just going to "hang out and watch the game". I controlled my temper and told him if we needed the booth he'd have to move, as we only have three large ones. If he hadn't been one of only three tables in the whole place, I'd've told him to get the fuck out.

So he sits there until the middle of the fourth quarter, then slips out without leaving so much as a quarter. Now, all I did was bring him a glass of water, and once ask if he wanted more. I just think it's really inconsiderate to go to a place of business, take advantage of them paying for broadcast right, use their heat, electricity, restroom, and water, and not even acknowledge that has any value. Maybe I'm wrong.

All in all, I made about $90 for a straight-through double closing shift. Epic fail.