Sunday, August 30, 2009

Dear lazy slobs,

Those Wet Ones moist towelettes do actually cost money. They don't rain from the sky. So now that you're done eating, why don't you slide your ass out of your booth and walk the twenty feet to the bathroom and just wash your fucking hands!
Sent via BlackBerry from T-Mobile

Saturday, August 29, 2009

I'm sorry, I forgot to alter the laws of physics for you.

I had a table of five last night. They were a little abrupt, and one of the ladies kept giving me a weird look, but there was nothing obviously off about them. One of the guys was drinking coffee, and when their food came he asked for a refill. Tony, my coworker who delivered the food relayed the message, and I started a pot of coffee and told him it would be ready soon.

Then I took a couple of plates to a neighboring table, and was asking their little girls if they wanted anything else, and heard "Excuse me! Miss!" quite loudly from my table of five. I politely gestured it would be just a moment and continued what I was doing. Then I went to my table. The snotty woman who had summoned me asked for something (I can't even remember what now); and the guy with the coffee says, "And my coffee? Whatever happened to that."

"It should be just about done, I'll bring it out as soon as it is." I made eye contact and smiled at him, the essence of politeness.
"Oh, it takes that long, HUH?" he sneered at me.
"Sorry, we don't have an industrial coffee maker, just a regular one. Can I bring you anything else when I come back?"

As I headed to the kitchen, Tony came out with the coffee pot for the jerk, having overheard. Which of course makes me look like a liar, but whatever. The jerk got his coffee, and everything seemed fine. Then I got a $3 tip on a $45 ticket.

It made me think of a scene from "My Cousin Vinny" where he's questioning a witness about how long it takes to cook grits: "Are we to believe that boiling water soaks into a grit faster in your kitchen than in any other place on the face of the earth? Or perhaps the laws of physics cease to exist on your stove! Were they magic grits?"

Of course, coffee should brew instantly in a restaurant, right?

Friday, August 28, 2009

The server's book.

Every server has one; without it, most of us would be lost. Along with a practiced smile and an ability to tolerate utter assholes, it's a server's best friend. Sometimes it's a simple "guest check" pad jammed in a pocket. Other times it's a fancy affair with pockets for notepads and pen holders. Sometimes the type of book is designated by the restaurant.

At my first restaurant, I just carried a pad of guest checks in my apron pocket. The cardstock-like paper was sturdy enough to tolerate the abuse; the sheets were perforated to tear but only barely, so my orders didn't fall off. I'd ring in an order and then staple the ticket to the back so when the customer was ready to pay I could dispose of the whole thing.

When I started working at corporate restaurants, I had to adapt to the use of a black credit card presenter for my book. I tried my familiar notepad-in-the-pocket thing; but the notepads provided (and in more than one case, mandatory) were long enough to protrude out of the pocket, were made of flimsy paper, and were very poorly put together. After my first one fell apart because the rubber cement-like "binding" at the top came off, I gave in to the black book. It was also handy to hold my bank, something I didn't have to do at my first place.

I bailed on the corporate restaurants for about four years, and in fact got out of serving entirely for one glorious year. When I started again, I snagged a black check presenter for my book like everybody else. Some people had stickers on theirs, but they got gross and dirty and left a sticky residue, so I didn't want to bother with it.

Eventually, though, I got annoyed with the fact that my book only had one pocket, and was lacking one on the left side. The managers kept saying they were going to order ones with two pockets, but in the meantime someone told me to just take some tape and paper and make one. Of course, that looked terrible to have table wrapped around the book for no visible reason, so I decided to disguise it by decorating my book.

My first book was covered with pictures of a-ha's Analogue album covers and lyrics. Once crumbs had worked their way into the tape, and water had gotten in and made the ink run, I tossed it out and made a new cover--this one of my favorite LOLCats. Well, all except one, because those managers had a stick up their ass:
The LOLCat book was great because people would want to read the captions and talk about it. But when I started decorating my book, I actually expected to be told that wasn't "spec" and I couldn't do that. When I transferred to my current store, I still had the LOLCat book, and was surprised they didn't tell me not to use it--nobody there even has stickers except one server with a radio station bumper sticker on hers.

Sadly, my LOLCat book had an unfortunate incident with some Fat Tire and was totally ruined. Also ruined was an adorable "thank you" note from a little girl named Bree (she liked the stuff I recommended for her), which I had taped into the inside of my book.

That was in January, and I just hadn't gotten around to decorating a new book yet. This was partially because I was too cheap to buy an ink cartridge, and partially because I couldn't think of anything to put on it that didn't seem immature. My first instinct was to plaster it with pictures of Morten Harket, but I'm a little old for that sort of adolescent behavior at this point.

Using a plain, unmarked book was driving me crazy. Because it looked and felt like every other book, sometimes I'd leave it on a counter and then have to flip through a dozen books to find it again. It would get mixed up with other server's books. This is especially problematic when I have cash in there. So tonight I made up a 10X7.5 collage, printed it out, and "laminated" it on to my book with packing tape. I'll be able to identify my book at a glance, as will my coworkers; and it might even assist me in striking up conversation with customers if they recognize anything.

It's also one of the few things that can appear unique about me at work--we're required to have our hair back, not permitted to wear certain kinds of jewelry, have to wear head-to-toe black, have to wear a nametag and one piece of promotional crap--it short, the cookie-cutter look. They're always telling us to make personal connections, get to know our guests, have personality, etc., but the fatal flow with that plan is this: when we all look identical and interchangeable, customers don't perceive us as individuals. I'm forever being mixed up with servers who look nothing like me except for being fat, because most of the time customers don't retain anything but a vague impression of their server.

So in addition to making my book identifyable to myself, hopefully it will jog some customers into realizing that yes, I am an actual person with actual interests and life outside of the restaurant. A lot will remain oblivious, of course; but some are bound to say "Hey, I love House too!" or ask me if I even know what album that woman's face is from (yes, yes I do).

What's your serving book like? Is it strictly functional, or something unique to you? Is it bare minimum functionality, or does it have bells and whistles?

Wednesday, August 26, 2009

Guest post: The Ultimate Threat

This week's guest post comes from K at The Eternal Carry-Out Girl. Check out her blog!

Dear Petulant Customers,

“I’m never coming back.”

“Well, you just lost my business forever.”

“We won’t be visiting here again.”

In your minds, this is the ultimate threat. It supposedly means loss of revenue to the restaurant, loss of a tip to the server, and, hopefully, loss of employment to the offending employee. However, I thought you should know that, at best, this threat is an ineffectual scare tactic that only gets under the skin of the uninitiated. To the more experienced, your threats mean absolutely nothing.

Would you like to know why?

First: we only ever hear “I’m not coming back” or one of its variations during a temper tantrum. You want something comped, or you weren’t seated where you wanted to sit, or the server forgot something, or you’re just having a bad day and you want to take it out on someone. In other words, you’re an entitlement junkie or just a bitch, you act like a child, and therefore nobody in possession of a spine is ever going to take you seriously.

Second: people who are truly upset almost never make a scene the way you do. If they say anything, it will be quietly to a manager. Most simply finish their meals and leave, the poor or absent tip the only clue to their displeasure.

Third: the people who leave quietly, they truly never come back. You, on the other hand, almost always do. And you almost always find something new to bitch about the next time you’re in. In a pinch, you’ll bitch about what happened the last time you were here. We’re not going to take an empty threat seriously.

We had one of you lovely people come into The Restaurant last night. A beady-eyed woman carrying some shitty hardback novel, who ignored my friendly greeting and instead immediately asked “Do you have any booths?”

We have four booths. We only have four booths. They are immediately visible from the door. All were quite clearly full. No, we don’t have any fucking booths.

“I’m sorry, no, they’re all full. Would you like a table?” I asked her, gesturing at the completely empty table section.

“Ugh, I hate those tables. I really want a booth.” She looked at me as if she expected me to perhaps draw back an invisible curtain revealing the fifth booth that we maliciously hide from customers. Or perhaps she wanted me to tell one of the groups to leave so she could plop her solo ass down for an hour or two at a table that seats four.

“Well, I’m sorry,” I was desperately hiding my exasperation by now. “I don’t have any booths. I could give you the table in the far corner, it’s like a booth.” It also seats three people, but never mind.

“I hate having random strangers sit next to me,” she snapped, and then sat herself at the counter. With her back to me, I just rolled my eyes, got her a water, and went to find the counter waitress so I could warn her of the incoming blowhard.

Shortly after I had seated this bitch, one of the booths left. As our busboy for the evening–a fellow I’ll call The Comedian–passed by her to clean it off, she stopped him and declared, “I’m going to sit there.”

Now, as the name implies, The Comedian is quite the jokester, and he’s also probably my favorite of all our new staff. He’s fun to work with and he does his job well. But like most comedians, sometimes he doesn’t know where to draw the line. His reply to Crazy Lady’s declaration? “They’d rather you didn’t,” said with a big, stupid grin.

Unsurprisingly, she didn’t quite get the joke. And the first words that came out of her mouth were, of course, “Fine, then I’m never coming back here again.”

Astonished, The Comedian tried to placate her, telling her that it was only a joke and of course she could move to the booth. Alas, a joke is never funny if you have to explain it. He walked back into the kitchen, eyes wide and much of the color drained from his face. “I am so fired,” he moaned. I bet that’s what Crazy Lady thought, too, especially after she bitched to the manager for about ten minutes. A victory for the Petulant Customer, right?

No, wrong. One, while the joke was inappropriate (we sure thought it was funny, though), Crazy Lady blew it way out of proportion and was therefore not taken seriously. Two, this woman has threatened never to come back multiple times, and yet she always does. Three, The Comedian is one of our best bussers and The Restaurant’s resident clown. In other words, a valuable employee.

What happened to him? Oh, he was taken aside and told not to joke with the customers anymore. He might lose some hours for a little while; we’ll see what happens. But he’s not going to be fired. You see, we like him. And we don’t like you, Petulant Customers. We would all be much happier if you actually made good on your threats and never graced us with your presence again.

Sincerely,

K.


If you'd like to be my next guest blogger, please drop me a line at slightlycranky at hotmail.com -- be it a new post or one from your archives, I'd love to share it!

Advice to customers: Tired old jokes.

Interacting with the public every day means servers are exposed to an endless array of people telling the same tired jokes. I can't even bring myself to fake a laugh at them anymore most of the time.

For example, there are a lot of answers to "Can I bring you anything else?" that aren't funny:
"A million dollars!"
"A winning lottery ticket."
"Some fifties and hundreds."
"A hot blonde/rich doctor/cabana boy/a different spouse/better behaved children/any other human being."

Likewise, it's not amusing when we offer you an appetizer/drink and you say "If it's free!" If it's 7:30 and I tell you happy hour ended at 6, it's not cute to say "Oh, well it's not six yet right! (wink wink)" That's not going to get you anything cheaper.

When we deliver the ticket, you really just look like an asshole when you say things like, "Oh, we don't want that!" You also sound like an insensitive bitch when you joke about "Don't mess up his order, he's tipping you!"

If you order the double-caramel-chocolate-fudge-almond-flourless-death-by-sugar cake with extra ice cream, don't ask me to "remove the calories" for you. You just sound like an insecure idiot.

And then there are the people who just don't give up on trying to make you laugh at their stupid jokes. Yesterday, I had a table of four regulars. Every time they come in, one of the old men orders a "diet water". I just smiled and said okay and got everyone else's drink orders. Apparently his wife wasn't happy with that, because she had to comment on, "She didn't even blink! Ha ha ha!" Well of course I didn't, he's ordered "diet water" from me once a month for the last year.

When I came back with the waters, he smiled at me and asked if it was diet. Grr. I said I sucked all the calories out personally, and his wife once again said something stupid. Then, when she ordered, she purposely mispronouned "tilapia" as "tie-lap-aye-uh"--and then commented on "nothing gets to you!" with a big laugh. Ha. Hahahaha. HA.

People also like to joke about the authenticity of their money--because counterfeiting and credit card fraud are hilarious:

"Oh good, it went through. I just picked that card up in the parking lot!"
"I printed that $20 this afternoon! Looks real, right?"
"Don't take that card, it's not his. Ha ha ha."

The one exception? Yesterday, I had a table full of state troopers. One gave me three shiny dollar coins as a tip, and when I commented on how cool they looked he said, "We just printed them!" His buddy says, "You print money, we minted those." That shit was funny.


Now, every server I know enjoys some clever repartee with their customers. But if your quip involves your server delivering the impossible, you getting something free, or joking about if you're paying with real money/going to tip, I can almost guarantee it is not clever.

Fellow servers, what are some of the other thoroughly eye-stabbingly "amusing" lines you hear every day?

Some people's dumb fucking children.

I didn't hear this story until today, but apparently last week my coworker Rachel had some dumb fucking hillbilly boys at a patio table who decided to treat two of my friends like dirt. For their opening act, they asked Rachel if she works nights at a well-known trashy strip club in the area.

Later, another server who isn't "white" took food to them. As she's setting down a plate, as she's about to say "medium well sirloin" or whatever, one of these jackasses says, "Do you even speak English?" and then to his friend "I bet she doesn't even speak English."

If I'd heard about it when it happened, I don't think I'd've been able to stop myself from doing something to make sure they knew how much they suck for treating my friends that way.

Monday, August 24, 2009

Thanks for kicking my ass.

This night totally exhausted me. The first two hours dragged like crazy--I had three tables. After first cuts it continued to be less than exciting. When we cut to closers it still would've been fine if it weren't for a number of converging circumstances.

The first is who I was closing with--Perpetua. Despite supposedly being a server most of her life, and despite being a nosy, bossy bitch, she can't really handle more than four tables without panicking. So when she got to five tables, she started freaking and the manager asked me to get the next one even though I already had five as well, including one outside.

By the end of the night, I'd had one table on the south side of the restaurant, three on the patio (west side), four on the north side, and one in the bar. Most of them overlapped at least a little. And that still would've been fine if it weren't for three tables:

The "Oh THERE you are!" bitches: Three people who said something snotty every time I stopped by. "I was just about to give up on you" or "We thought you forgot us" or "We're bitches who think the whole world revolves around us and don't care that we can see you running laps around the entire fucking restaurant or that we just watched the table next door take up five minutes of your time." I had apologized and politely explained to them we were busier than we expected. And in any case, it's not like I was abandoning them. I was literally making circles around the restaurant, picking things up in the kitchen, and then making another lap. They didn't care. They sucked.

(Which is too bad, because we got off a really good start--one of them ordered hot chocolate, and then asked me if I'd ever been to the Alps because I had my hair in two long pigtail Heidi braids. I laughed and said "No, but I can yodel." They didn't believe me, even after I explained about calling our goats in from the back field as kid. So I yodeled for them, sort of (I wasn't going to do it properly and have to explain it to everybody in the restaurant). Of course, I can't really properly yodel, not like this guy. But I can do a decent yo-yo-de-lay-little-lonely-goatherd. Anyway.)

The "we hate half your staff" people: They've been coming in for several years, and have tried to get several waitresses and at least one manager fired. I can't even remember why, it was something really stupid. They're always sorta grumpy, and they always ask stupid questions, and they always take forever to order (while not letting you leave the table) and get irritated about anything they can.

The "we love one person" people: They think one of my coworkers in the greatest thing since sliced bread, but apparently think I'm only too. They insist on sitting on the opposite side of the restaurant from anybody else, which of course means going way out of your way for anything involving them. They ordered soups, and after that it took them another twenty minutes to order (I checked the ticket time). Three different times I went back to get their order, and each time they'd start bickering with each other and playing that "what are you getting/no what are you getting" game. Eventually they'd let me leave, and I'd run laps trying to catch up.

The last time I went to get their order, one mother/daughter set ordered. The other one were a huge pain though.
Mother: "Tell her what we want."
13 year old daughter: "*rude noise*"
"Tell her!"
"Why can't you!"
"Because I don't know what we want."
"*strange whining noise*"
"I don't know what you want, tell her, I don't want to go home with somebody who's unhappy."
"You tell her!"
Me, in my head: "HURRY THE FUCK UP YOU STUPID BITCHES I HAVE SIX OTHER GODDAMN TABLES WAITING ON ME!"
Mother: "Why can't you?"
Daughter: "NO!"
"What do we want?"
"What we just finished talking about!"
"Well have the chips and dip."
"WAIT WAIT NO AND--"
"That will be fine."
At this point the daughter starts screeching for hot wing, and the mother keeps telling me just the dip. I just walked away--I was about to punch somebody.
After they finally finished being a pain in my ass an hour later, the mother who wasn't fighting with her daughter staretd telling me how she waitressed for most of her life, and I needed to wear wrist braces so I don't get nodules on my wrists from the weight of the tray. She left me a dollar.

So basically I had two whining time-wasting tables preventing me from getting to the rest of my tables, who then got pissed. Plus the stress and the running around in laps, from the hot kitchen to the cool dining room to the hot outside patio and back, made me nauseous and started to give me a migraine.

At least we had Pot Smoking Manager, who's laid-back and doesn't flip out.

Sunday, August 23, 2009

Why do they do this to us?

All the servers at my restaurant are gagging for more shifts--with school starting and books to be bought, or school supplies for kids, or lawyers for custody battles and divorces, etc. etc., everybody wants to work more. We have a hostess/server who's on the brink of quitting because they're only giving her one serving shift a week. Any given shift, there are at least two people trying to pick it up. We're also heading in to fall, so the patio will be closed soon (THANK GOD), which means they'll be schedule one less server every shift--that's 14 shifts being cut out in the next month or so. AND we'll be going back to winter hours, when we close an hour earlier every night, so closers are taking an income hit there.

So what do my genius managers decide to go? Promote another hostess and hire two more servers. Are you fucking kidding me? What the hell goes through their minds when they make these decisions?

They already took one of my shifts for Brainless a couple of months ago; if they take any more there's going to be serious issues.

Saturday, August 22, 2009

Bookends.

When I got to work tonight, I was just so terribly thrilled to see that I was on the fucking patio again. I resigned myself to a less than stellar night and busied myself running food and such.

My first table was a family ... a family with seven freaking children, ranging from 18 months to about 16 years old. The parents ordered full meals, as did the two oldest children; the rest of the kids ordered off the kid's menu. And they had coupons for five free kid's meals. And three free desserts. I was sure I wasn't getting crap.

Meanwhile, I had a four top that included a woman who used to work there. I had checked for new tables before filling the ice bin, and then ran some food. As I was carrying the food out I saw I had a new table, so I dropped the plates and went out. All seemed well; the older woman ordered her husband a beer, and he came back right as I was ringing in their drinks. But when I got back to the kitchen, I found out that the husband had gone inside and tracked down the manager. "GM, do we need to move inside? Apparently that's the only place you provided good service! We haven't seen a single waitress! Blahblahblah." So she bought their first round of drinks. Now, I know those people were not there that long. Stupid lying bastards.

The next table I got was a single guy who always looks drunk, slams down three beers, and is generally just creepy.

I had two other tables in my section; but one was occupied by a bunch of regular barflies who'd been there since 3:30. They didn't leave until 8:30. The other table got pulled twice to be put into a big top with a table from the neighboring section.

The family left me $13 on their originally $63 ticket; the drunk left me $2; and the people who complained were just as sweet as pie to me, and left me $15. So that ended up being a nice start after all. The rest of my tables were most unremarkable, until my very last one ... who complained about me. GM was walking by and asked them how things were, and they told her the food was good, but all the things they needed from me took a while and in their opinion "she needs a little help." I wanted to tell them to take their opinions and fuck themselves, because I have no idea what they were talking about. The woman's wine took a while, because the bartender broke the corkscrew, but I explained that and apologized. The only other thing they asked me for was A1. It was quite odd.

The best table of the night was a group of eight college boys. They had a ninth seat, but said they weren't sure if he was coming. "But we're not waiting for him," one tells me. "Fuck him!" I laughed and said I'd tell him they said that.

Immediately, they all start telling me to give him a hard time, saying they'd tip me extra if I got him really good. They were fun. Unfortunately, the ninth guy never showed up. As I was handing out their checks, I said, "I'm sad he didn't show up, I was going to ask him why his bikini wax took so long."

I got the extra tip anyway.

Wednesday, August 19, 2009

Guest post: I can and will complain about tonight.

This week's guest post comes from RA at Love, Your Waitress. Check out her blog for the full article!

To put it simply, tonight sucked. It was one of the worst shifts I have ever had the misfortune of working in my year and a half at the restaurant. We were slow. My tips were insanely bad. Gah. Here we go, table by table:

.....

•Parents, their 20-something daughter, and her boyfriend. I knew how it was going to go when the girl tried to say, "He and I will just share a Mountain Dew." We aren't supposed to let adults share drinks, but I didn't find this out for sure until tonight. The girl also said, WHILE I WAS STILL THERE, "See, Dad? We're actually trying to be cheap by sharing!" Oh. My. Goodness. They ordered one large cheese pizza, then the mom asked, "So...we get the second one half off, right?" I told them yes. They decided on a large two topping pizza. Obviously they were too dense to read the fine print, which would have told them it is 50% off the cheapest pizza, not the second one you order. Idiots. They were also very concerned about the price of our salad bar. I guess they assumed with their two dollar single trip salad bar, they should just get as many plates of salad as they could carry in one trip...The two that got salad bar each came back with two very tall plates of salad. I knew they were cheap. I don't know why I even bothered trying. They were my only table at the time, so they received perfect service. The mom looked very confused when I brought them the bill, but something tells me that she probably couldn't do the simple math to figure out it was 50% off the cheaper pizza. What did I get for all of this? One dollar on a $42 check. Wadded up and left under a sweaty glass, none the less. It was all I could do to keep from running outside after them to kick their asses back to the trailer park.


If you'd like to be my next guest blogger, please drop me a line at slightlycranky at hotmail.com -- be it a new post or one from your archives, I'd love to share it!

Tuesday, August 18, 2009

God, what a boring night!

I didn't have any fun customers; all I had were old couples. Didn't have a table bigger than two all night. Didn't make shit, of course.

The only thing that's even remotely interesting about this night is the lady who sent two steaks back, saying they were so tough she couldn't even cut them. I think she just has no strength in her hands, as I sliced in to both of them in the back and they were fine. The second one the manager was dealing with her and she kept pointing at "white stuff" in the steak and saying it was sooooo salty. But she wouldn't let us get her anything else. Even Lapdog manager said "She's just a bitch."

And that was the most exciting thing to happen tonight. Well, that and the cooks mooning each other, but I wouldn't call that exciting so much as disturbing. Next thing you know they'll have a penis showing game.

Monday, August 17, 2009

Customers who didn't suck.

I mentioned in my previous post that I had a large table of teenagers. Even though they were kids, and were so noisy I could barely get their order, they were actually a lot of fun.

Pot Smoking Manager, for some reason, decided to give them three appetizers on the house. When they were delivered, the kids were ecstatic. One of the guys was trying to be a show-off and asked me, "Where's your manager? I want to give her a kiss! It's my birthday!"

I put my hand on his shoulder and said, "You can absolutely give my manager a kiss! Let me get John right out here."

Advice to customers: Speak up! (sometimes)

If you go to a casual dining restaurant late in the evening, when you're one of only three tables there, and your appetizer hasn't shown up after ten minutes, speak the fuck up.

Now, I do mean after ten real minutes, not five "I'll exaggerate and be a bitch" minutes. This is especially important if you've decided to bark your order at a drink runner with no notepad, rather than wait thirty more seconds for your freaking waitress.

Here's the story:

Tonight, I have to admit that Brainless really helped me out. I had a table of twenty damn teenagers on the patio--six meals and five drinks between them, but at least they were amusing. I was sat another table at 12 as I was headed out to the patio with their six split tickets. I stopped and got the new table's drink order and then went back to the kitchen with some of the kids' cash. As I was counting it out, the hostess came back with the rest of their tickets--they were all in a hurry. Since I knew it would take a minute to sort it out, I asked the hostess, Jen, to run my new table's drinks to them.

I then took the various change up front to the waiting teenagers, and was about to go take the table 12's order when Jen came up and handed me a notepad with their order on it. As she was setting down their drinks, they'd started snapping their order at her. She hadn't written down their steak temperatures, so I stopped by to get those. They acted a little odd and short with me, but they'd seemed grumpy since they came in so I didn't think anything about it.

I got a couple of other tables, and just kept circulating around. I made eye contact with both people at table 12 several times as I walked by, smiled, etc. They didn't say anything to me, just kept talking to each other. A few minutes later, I had just dropped off an appetizer at one of my other tables when I saw Brainless at table 12, and I could tell that the woman was throwing a fit. All I caught was something about "we never would have". Oh Christ.

Turns out, they'd ordered an appetizer. After Brainless talked to them, Jen came rushing over to find out what was wrong, and that's when I found out that she had written down their order after they gave it to her--I thought she'd gotten a pad and gone back, since it was written down. Well, she'd forgotten the appetizer, so it never got ordered; also apparently they'd been waiting for a refill for their soda for entirely too long (possible; I was busy with five tables on three different sides of the restaurant. The people were wicked pissed. Apparently they said several very nasty things about me to Brainless, and from the hideous look on the woman's face that didn't surprise me. I got the manager, who chatted with them; but I didn't want to deal with them the rest of the meal, so I asked Brainless if she'd finish them since they apparently liked her.

She took them, and they left her $10, so that worked out great. The entire time, though, they kept glaring at me. The entire time I was taking care of my other tables, they glared. To the point of shifting in their booth to lean against the wall and glare at me. The one time I did walk directly by their table, they averted their eyes like pansies.

Now, obviously there were several screw-ups here. Jen should have gotten a notepad or told them to wait for me; I should have reviewed the whole order with the customers. But Jen's also a server, so I trusted her. Obviously the fact that their appetizer got forgotten is not the customers' fault, but they could have said something instead of waiting until they got their food and then blowing their freaking top. Had they just politely asked me how long on their mozzarella sticks, I could have corrected the problem and apologized and averted a whole uncomfortable situation for everyone.

So the moral of the story is this: one, don't insist on giving your order to someone who's not your server! Two, if something is honestly taking a long time, politely ask--the worst that can happen is we tell you the kitchen is busy and it's on the way.

Anyway, I guess Brainless and I are even now--I had to take one of her tables on Friday because she was standing at the host station talking and never greeted them. They'd gone to the bar and asked for drinks, and then stopped me on the way by, because she was just completely ignoring her entire section. They were perfectly pleasant but didn't tip me; these people were rude and angry and left her $10. Guess it balances out!

Saturday, August 15, 2009

Thursday, August 13, 2009

Guest post: Chefs Versus Customers Revisited

My site's first guest post comes from Hellraiser at Chef's Kitchen Rant. Check out the blog, or another guest post from Chef's Kitchen Rant at So You Want To Be A Banquet Manager. This post makes me wish I worked with actual chefs, who care, instead of asshat fry cooks who laugh when servers get screwed!

Chefs Versus Customers Revisited



If you're easily offended, exit now, this is not going to be pretty.

Well, it happened again. Another waitress in tears due to a table of prize fucktards.

It's Saturday night, we have a well booked restaurant, a wedding for 90, an understaffed establishment and we're ready to fucking rock and roll! One of our tables is a 16 pax, no problem, I find big tables easier to deal with most of the time as usually they are all family, friends or celebrating a common theme. All of which makes the event about them and what they are there for, rather than out to have a dining experience or to critique the restaurant.

It takes the pressure off us in the kitchen, as usually they can wait a little longer, on the understanding that we are not a club, RSL or a fucking dining hall. We are a restaurant, we cater for little parties of people, 2, 4, 6 no problem. If you all want to dine at the same time you need to book a fucking function room, accept one of the function menus and then we call the shots as to when you will receive your courses. That is simply the way it is done, if you don't like it, go somewhere else that can accommodate your needs, that's business.

If you really want to come to our establishment to dine from the 'a la carte' menu, then you are going to have to accept that your large group experience is NOT going to be an intimate journey of fine wines, Michelin star food and exquisite service. We are not set up that way and we cannot change the entire restaurant to suit the needs of 16 people out of the 160 or so that we will cater for this evening, so...

SIT DOWN, SHUT UP, AND PLAY BY THE FUCKING RULES!

This particular table turned out to be a bunch of geriatric old fucks, poncing it up as if they were Lords and Ladies, with their cheap nasty perfumes, pink rinses and plastic fucking earrings! Criticising everything they could and generally making themselves difficult and awkward for all the staff. They sat there for an hour, pissing around before they ordered, then placed the order and starting moaning about the length of wait they had after 20 minutes.

What the fuck?


We are an 'a la carte' restaurant. What does Lord Fuckhead, in all his royal wisdom understand this to be? Just calm the fuck down. They are not paying $500 dollars a head, we're lucky to get $30 out of these fucks. We do not have food sitting in bain maries waiting for their order, so that we can 'chop and slop' their meal to the table. Even if we did, the reaction we got from the great food that we did serve, would have been insignificant to the reaction they would have with 'chop and slop' style.

Rude, arrogant, ignorant fucks!

The situation seems to be in control however, our specialist on the floor, who has the ability to pacify such groups has moved in to take control. Fine, job done, eat up, pay up and fuck off, thank you :)

The last meals go out and I'm soon heading out for a ciggy, only to find waitress pacifier in tears! She might not be the perfect waitress, but intelligent and certainly not one to be fucked with, and the arrogance of our 16 pax has created this!

I am so fucking pissed off. It makes my blood boil. Read my previous post for a more in depth look at why I'm so angry.

http://chefskitchenrant.blogspot.com/2009/05/chefs-versus-customers.html

So, now we are a staff member down. Is this group of fucking arseholes happy now? That they've upset someone to the point of tears, should we bring her out to show them what they've done? Will they go home tonight thinking that they had a great night because they fucked with someones emotions? FUUUUCK, I'm FUCKING RAGING! But yet, somehow, somewhere, there is still something in all hospitality professionals that keeps us from returning the arrogance. Why is this? Well, just maybe, it is because we have a passion for excellence and a drive to ensure every customer has an enjoyable experience, it's why we do the job, and it's what we were taught to do. And maybe, it's because we are simply better people.


One of these days though, I'll be caught off guard and I'm going to throw the fuckers out myself!


If you'd like to be my next guest blogger, please drop me a line at slightlycranky at hotmail.com -- be it a new post or one from your archives, I'd love to share it!

Missing from blogroll?

One thing I hate about blogger is that whenever I fiddle with the layout, all my widgets get wiped--even if I only did a preview. I eventually figured out that's what happened to my blogroll, because I'd accidentally previewed this with a new layout rather than my other blogs.

I think I've got it mostly rebuilt--but if I missed you somehow, please leave me a comment!

Old stupidity.

Waiter Extraordinaire commented that somebody asked him what a baked potato was, and it reminded me of something from ages ago.

At the first restaurant I worked at, we had mashed potatoes and baked. People were forever asking if the mashed potatoes were "real". Well, they were real potato, but they were fake in that they were made from dehydrated tater pellets (nasty). One day, this dumb woman asked me the dreaded question ....

"Are your mashed potatoes real?"
I made a face and admitted that no, they weren't.
Without the slightest bit of sarcasm, or any hint she was kidding, she says, "Okay. Are your baked potatoes real?"

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Wednesday, August 12, 2009

Charming.

I stopped at work to give my coworkers baked goods, and our creepy regular is here. He's currently telling everyone how he ate so much that when he coughs he's yakking up bits of his dinner.
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Moronic questions and the end of the work week.

Had another Einstein ask me what the difference is between wings and boneless wings. Also had a woman today said "Instead of the french fries, can she get the, what are they? (looks frantically at daughter) The potatoes? The what, mashed potatoes? Is that .... what?" "Yes, we can do mashed potatoes instead of fries." "Is that what they are? Mashed? Mashed potatoes? Are you sure?"

Oh. Em. Eff. Gee.

My very first table of the night was too very old, cranky bitches who informed me they were going to share a particular steak. That particular steak doesn't say on the menu what size it is; so I politely told them it's only a four ounce steak and asked if they still wanted to share. They immediately started huffing and puffing and acting all offended and as if I was being just incredibly rude. They ordered one each and ate every last damn bite, while giving me the evil eye the whole time.

Then there was the woman who asked me for "water in a kids cup for my son." Thanks for specifying that--I was going to give your 18 month old his water in a wine glass.

I'm also apparently back on Lapdog Manager's shit list. I'd been on it for a month, because I was late two days in a row. He'd finally started talking to me again, acknowledging my presence and being friendly .... and then he got all pissed off again tonight. Why? Because I was supposed to be a second cut, and I swapped with a first cut. We wrote it on the chart, but he wasn't even out on the floor at the time, and we didn't verbally tell him. So even though it was written in purple ink, on the chart he himself wrote the sidework on, that wasn't good enough, and he went back to ignoring me.

btw, the reason I call him Lapdog is because he's just so damned high-strung. The littlest things set him off. He's also incredibly moody. And there's this House clip where he whines "Because I'm a very high-strung little lapdog!" It just fits him.

Other than that, it was an unremarkable night. A friend of mine had an interview; I really hope she gets hired, she needs the job.

Monday, August 10, 2009

"Cheap" and "easy" are not synonyms.

"All five of us are going to be real easy and just have water with extra lemon!"
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Possibly the most baffling walk-out ever.

One of my last tables tonight was a family of five--the parents and three kids. They seemed nice enough; I got their drink order and came back, but they said they weren't ready to order. So I took care of my other two tables and came back again. They still weren't ready. Again, I wandered around doing other things, came back. They still weren't ready! The dad thrust the littlest boy's Sprite at me and asked "Can we get a root beer?" Then he sort of turned it and looked at it and said "yeah, I don't know" before giving it to me. I think he was implying I screwed up, but I repeated the drink order so I know I didn't.

Well, right after that a couple two tables down who apparently thought they were in a kissing booth instead of a restaurant finally came up for air. When I asked if they wanted dessert, the guy started reading all dramatically, and the woman kept giggling and kissing his cheek and rubbing his neck and stuff. It took five minutes to get them to just tell me which damn dessert they wanted. I went to the kitchen, and rang in their dessert, and attended to one of my other tables. Then I talked to the manager for a couple of minutes before I headed back to my table to see if they'd made up their damn minds.

As I walked up, I saw the woman turn around and say something to the hostess. The hostess (Pothead Teenage Mom), watching me walk right at the table, steps in front of me to tell me they want to talk to me. Thank you, genius! I approached the table with a smile and asked, "Did you find something that sounds good?"

The man cuts me off and asks if I brought that root beer. I immediately apologized and and said I'd be right back (even though in the back of mind I was thinking Do you see it in my hands, moron?). The man stopped me by saying something in the most sarcastic, hateful tone I've heard in a long time: "You know, the little bit of tea I had was just great." I blinked at him, and he continued, "But you all don't seem very on the ball, so we're really not comfortable eating here. We're leaving." And he they all start piling out of the booth toward me.

I could have done the whole "concerned employee" thing. I didn't. I said, "Uh. Okay, have a good night." and walked away. The manager was sitting at the employee table, so I went and told him, "I don't know if you want to go talk to those assholes who are leaving, but apparently they're not comfortable eating here because we're not 'on the ball'."

Everyone at the table had the same response: Huh? Yeah, the manager was eating; but we still had a host, there were still several servers working, the bartender was still there. I forgot their replacement soda, yeah--but that's hardly reason to be so nasty. At least the last people I had walk out I could kinda sorta understand. But to accuse a whole restaurant staff of not "being on the ball" when the customers were the ones who couldn't decide what they wanted for twenty minutes? Ridiculous.

ETA: I forgot to say that they table sitting next to them even thought they were ridiculous! And also said they were glad they left because their children were very loud and hyper.

Saturday, August 8, 2009

Aw hell.

I really don't want to close. But I picked it up because I don't have it in me to leave my friend alone with both Brainless and Pothead Teenage Mom.
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I sincerely apologize for being human.

Was just taking a look over my keyword results, and somebody reached my blog when they searched for "gross when waitress sneezes in front of you".

She probably inhaled and exhaled too, how disgusting.

Are you full of piss and vinegar?

So I'm thinking I'll steal an idea from others. Guest posting, hurrah! I'll post one a week for as long as I have submissions. If you're interested, email me at slightlycranky at hotmail.com! I tried to post a comment invite to everyone on my blogroll; if I missed you, it's an oversight, not a snub! Also, if you're not on my blog roll, you're still welcome.

Are you cranky? Do you hate the asshats you have the schlepp food to every day? Or maybe you usually don't mind it, but one day somebody just pissed you off. Maybe you prefer to keep your blog more civilized and don't want to casually throw around the swear words .... but sometimes you just want to write something hateful and vitriolic. Maybe you want more blog traffic. Or maybe you actually have a good story to share. You know, whatever. This cranky blogger wants to feature your stories.

A record-setting night.

And not in a good way. I got stiffed on three different tickets. Two were on the same table, but they paid separately.

I was feeling great when I got to work; but as soon as I walked in, the bad juju hit me. It was just one of those nights. My first table was fine; a regular and a friend of hers. My second table, though .... I wasn't thrilled to see them. I don't want to seem classist/racist/ageist/whatever; but they fit in to a certain subset of the population that doesn't tip well. I could tell from their appearance; and as soon they opened their mouths I could tell from the way they spoke. I didn't treat them any differently, other than I didn't try to upsell them--the chances of me getting a tip were low, so why increase the amount I'd have to claim? Of course, they ordered drinks and two appetizers anyway.

The woman sounded very final when she ordered the appetizers; so I asked if they were having dinner as well. She said they were just ordering appetizers, but still had a death-grip on her menu. So I just kept wandering by, making eye contact and waiting. At one point the table next to them ordered; they were in between the table that just ordered and the host stand. So I turned and was heading to hand the hostess back the menus. I was exactly level with my table when the woman snaps, "We're ready to ORDER!"

I set the menus down and turned with a frozen smile and took their order. Their food came out quickly, I kept their drinks refilled, they seemed perfectly pleasant. But my first instinct was right: $2 on a $45 tab.

The next couple of tables were 10% tippers; so were most of my tables tonight, actually. Bitches. But the absolute best was a couple and their daughter, who was at least 20. She had an attitude to begin with--wouldn't make eye contact, didn't say please, etc. The parents weren't much better. The mother ordered a soda; the father was in the middle of ordering a bloody mary with stupid modifications when the mother cut him off and said "make that an iced tea". She looked so annoyed I wasn't sure if she meant her drink or his, so I had to clarify, so she looked at me like I was stupid.

I came back with their drinks, and started to take their order. The girl tells me "I'll have the kids size chicken fingers and french onion soup." We have two sizes on the menu--the adult menu that someone her age should have been ordering from--so I politely asked if she meant the smaller meal. She insisted no, the kids meal. I made my apologetic face and said the kids' menu is only for (you know) kids, under 12. Oh god. The mother and daughter both looked like they had just sucked dog shit through a straw. Immediately, they start insisting they got it last time, they always get it, blah blah blah. I said I'd check with the manager, but that technically the corporate office says we're not supposed to let adults order off the children's menu.

"WE COME HERE ALL THE TIME AND NOBODY EVER SAYS THAT." the girl informs me in the bitchiest tone ever. Now, I've been there a year and didn't recognize these people, so obviously that's not true.

Then her mother makes an ugly noise in the back of her throat. "What if she were a gastric bypass surgery patient and that was all she could eat!"

I just love it when people pull that hypothetical bullshit on me. "What if this excuse for my shitty behavior was true? Then what would you do! It's not true, but what if it was?" It had already been a bad night; every customer that walked in the place was acting like they were on the rag, somebody pissed in the managers' Cheerios, and I just was not in a mood for this shit. I opened my mouth and was a split second away from saying, "If she'd had gastic bypass, she wouldn't be ordering a bunch of greasy fried food that would be shooting out her ass end in thirty minutes!"

I bested myself and said something conciliatory. The rest of their meal was fine; I let the bitch have her kids meal, I kept their sodas full, we even chatted a bit about ... well, something, I don't remember what. The daughter paid for her own meal, and the mother paid for the rest; I wasn't really surprised to see that both the rotten bitches stiffed me.

It was just attitudes like that all night long.

"MISS! Is our appetizer coming or WHAT!" (six minutes on wings, OMG)

"Is our food coming?" (sniped at me as I walked by with my hands full of food) "Yep, just making sure it's cooked!" (you know, since you ordered two medium well ribeyes and we have a jam-packed restaurant with a line going out the door because it's Friday night bitch!)

"You don't have sweet tea? How long were you going to keep THAT information under wraps?" (Oh, I'm sorry, somebody must have forgotten to put out the "No sweet tea" warning signs.)

"I'm sorry ma'am, that back page is our lunch menu, which is only available until three. (circling this information printed on the menu with my finger)" "Can't I get it now?" (It's 9:30 at night. What do you think.)

"Well just how big is your seven ounce steak!" (Seven ounces, you fucking idiot. See, steaks are done by weight, where the hell have you been the last forty years of your life.)

"Don't I get any cheese with this?" (How about actually looking at your plate before you put your bitch hat on.)

And it wasn't just me. Everybody in the place had this sort of night. By the end of the rush (at 9, late for us), everyone was pissed off and slamming shit around and wanting to strangle somebody. I had my easiest, nicest table of the night then; low-maintenance, didn't ask for much, ate slowly and didn't rush me; didn't even want drink refills. Stiffed me.

I could understand peoples' attitudes if I'd messed up, if I'd done something wrong. When I fuck up, I admit it. But the only mistake I made all night was forgetting a guy wanted cheese on his fries--and they left me 20%! I was there until 11:40 and left with $65 on $600 in sales. Didn't even eat at work.

I really hope tonight is better, but I'm not hopeful. This weekend is the annual art show at the park; the shuttle bus picks up and drops off people in the parking lot adjacent to ours. If last night is indicative of the sort of people who flock to this show, this might be my last update. They don't allow computers in padded cells.

Friday, August 7, 2009

"Your computer or network may be sending automated queries. To protect our users, we can't process your request right now"

Just testing out if I can still post with this ridiculous message popping up all over the place, since I can't even view my own damn blog!

Thursday, August 6, 2009

Sunday, August 2, 2009

What a crummy weekend.

Between Friday, Saturday, and Sunday I only made $210. I should've easily cleared $300, but due to a combination of slow business and fucking douchehound customers ($4 on $66? Really? Fuck you.), alas, it wasn't to be.

Today was pretty boring; I didn't even have any nutjobs to write about. Lame.

Things that have been in my bra this week (other than the obvious).

  • Ranch dressing--thank you, helpful customers, for stacking all those ramekins up so they'd slide off the plate on the way to the kitchen!
  • A ton of water that sloshed out of a glass on the way to the kitchen.
  • Salsa. Oh, the splatter.
  • Bleu cheese (vomit).
  • A cherry tomato--I'm pretty sure the cook was aiming at somebody else and I walked in the way. He better have been aiming at somebody else.
  • Half a mozzarella stick. That can happen when you eat while dashing in to the kitchen.
  • Strawberry milkshake--see above.
  • The magnetic back of my nametag.
  • An earring back.
  • An earring.
  • A sugar packet--I was pulling a basket of sugar packets off a high shelf and caused an avalance.
  • A pen that started out clipped to my polo collar.
  • Ice cubes--my friend scored a cleavage basket. With an entire scoop of ice she threw at me. I may have been holding the neck of my shirt out, daring her. Who knows.
Between the aerosolized grease, the running around in the heat, and the fact that my chest has apparently become a lint trap, it's no wonder I feel like I need to shower in bleach when I get home.

Saturday, August 1, 2009

Did you really just ask me that?

"What's the difference between your chicken wings and your boneless chicken wings?"

One is diamond-encrusted. Dumbass.