Bastards, and I told 'em so!

Yeah, I'm still employed! It's not as awesome as it sounds, but it's pretty amusing.

At about ten last night, I had one table and so did my fellow closer, Ann. My table was three people about my age, who were a bit goofy but seemed fun. They were sitting in the corner table, by the door, so when a coworker (Jay) came in with her husband and son she saw them, and apparently they were friends, so they sat down next to my table to wait for their to go order.

It'd been a slow night--except for a little rush when we first cut to closers, so we were a bit behind on our closing stuff. The fact that we had a coworker there didn't help, as we were all about the chatting. Finally at about 10:40, twenty minutes to close, we started to get motivated and bust out our work.

Aaaaand that's when the phone rang. Ann and I were in the back, cleaning up the kitchen, when the bartender came up to us with a sick look on her face. Someone had just called and said they had fifteen people and would be there in about ten minutes. All our heads swiveled to the clock, which read 10:42. That's when the swearing started. We couldn't finish putting things away, because if the group actually showed up, we couldn't turn them away. We could get a table ready, but if they didn't make it by 11 we'd just be taking it apart again. We were pissed.

Anybody who's worked in a restaurant can probably imagine it--"what sort of asshole does that! They even asked when we closed!" "I'm locking the door at 10:59, if they roll up at 11 I'm not letting them in!" "This is BULLSHIT!" We told the cooks and the manager, and then we went out front to anxiously watch and hope they didn't show. Both our tables were still hanging around; my table of Jay and her friends had spread across a few tables and were having a good time, and my coworker was sympathetic when we told her about the phone call.

The next fifteen minutes, we jumped any time we saw headlights coming our way. I stationed myself by the door so I could lock it the instant the clock clicked over to 10:59. A couple of cars approached but turned into the next parking lot, and with vast relief I locked the door. Ann was talking to Jay when I walked by; she asked if I locked the door and I saw "Yep, fuck 'em!" I was three tables away when I heard them all laughed and Jay say, "It was them, they called!"

I wheeled around. The three original customers were laughing; there was one guy (who was kinda cute, actually) who was bent over in half laughing. Jay repeated that they were the ones who called and without even thinking about it I yelled "YOU BASTARDS!"

They were all stunned for a second; Ann looked like she swallowed her tongue. Then Jay and her friends started laughing and one of them said something like "that was a good one!" I was so freaking irritated! "You guys suck! Bastards! I can't believe you!" They continued laughing at us.

That was about when I remembered that we still had another table, and they had probably just heard me call other customers bastards. Oops. Laughing despite being seriously annoyed, I went over to the bar to explain to the bartender (Aubrey) why, exactly, I'd just called my customers bastards. Then I decided I was going to pass the humor along, dammit. I trotted to the office with Aubrey following me.

Pot Smoking Manager was on that night; I sidled in to the office, fiddling with my card and not making eye contact. "Um, I need you to talk to my customers."
"What's up?" he wasn't really paying attention.
"Well, they're pretty upset."
"What happened."
"Uhh ... well, I sort of lost my temper." Out of the corner of my eye I could see Aubrey trying not to lose it. "I called them a bunch of bastards."
PSM laughed. "You did not!"
I cringed dramatically. "Yeah, I did. They're pretty mad."
"Is it the people who called?"
"No, they didn't show. It's people at 64 who've been there for a while. Can you please go talk to them?"

He totally bought it! He was getting up to go talk to them, and I was going to let him--I knew the guys would play along, and it was going to be great! Unfortunately, Aubrey started busting up laughing, so the joke was off.

It was still oddly theraputic to call customers bastards. And probably still inappropriate, even though they were friends of a friend.

In regards to ....

In the homecoming post, Suzanne posted the following comment:

Okay, I'm going to go completely out on a limb here, and being anonymous, I gonna really not hold back. What the heck, call me a coward, I'll get over it.
To give you an idea of how often I eat out, here are some facts. I have never gone out for dinner with my parents in my life. I have been married 17 years to my hubby, and having 4 kids has seriously affected our finances, in that we go out for fast food maybe once every couple of months, and for a 'nicer' meal, like Swiss Chalet, once or twice a year.
I have to tell you that my jaw is dropping when I read your and other blogs like this. I thought you all were paid minimum wage, which as far as I know here in Canada is getting close to a very respectable $10per hour. I know that the polite thing is to tip, and we do, generally not more than 15 %, but here's my point. I thought that getting a tip was exactly what the word sounds like, an extra little something something for a job well done. From what I read here, it is tantamount to giving your waitress the finger, if you don't tip at least that regardless of service or quality of food. We work hard for our money, AS DO YOU, but is it really the case that when you don't tip (enough) you are really the lowest scum out there?
Suzanne

I wanted to address this fully, hence the post. First, being anonymous doesn't make you a coward--that only applies to the asshat who likes to anonymously troll my blog every few weeks! Nothing wrong with it otherwise.

I did a quick search, and it seems that servers in Canada do get minimum wage. In that case, a tip is absolutely an extra. If I got minimum wage for my job, I wouldn't bitch nearly as much as I do! Of course, if I got minimum wage I'd find some other minimum wage job instead--serving is worth it because of the potential to make more, and also because you get the cash in hand, now, and taxes are taken out of the wage you do get.

In my state, that's $4 an hour. It used to be $2.13; it still is in most states. I went years without getting a physical paycheck that was for more than $2 total. I think California is the only state where servers receive a true minimum wage. Everywhere else, servers get the shaft, and tips really do make up the vast bulk of our income. It's a sort of social contract; customers get lower food costs in exchange for the inconvenience of tipping. If that were eliminated, the price of menu items would go up. I wrote a blog post about it last year, but it's pretty long so I'll just summarize it.

At my particular restaurant, increasing server wage to minimum would cost the restaurant an extra $300 per day, a 42% increase. There are two ways to compensate for that: cut portion sizes, or raise prices. Either way is less hard goods for your dollar amount, and most likely the cost would just be tacked on to menu prices (as it was when the increase to $4 happened). If server wage were increased to minimum wage, a four person tab of $77 now would become $109--whereas with a 15% tip it's only $88.50.

Essentially, with the current system in the U.S., customers are paying for the foodstuffs, the cook's labor, and the operating costs such as electricity. When they don't tip, they're getting service labor for free--it's not included in the base cost of their food, after all. Furthermore, servers get taxed on the imaginary percentage they "should" be getting. A lot of people think that servers either get a fuckton of tips they don't claim on a good day, or on a bad day that they'll just claim what they get and that's that.

(This is about to get long, but I'm trying to be thorough.)

While I'm sure there are a few places that still happens, they're very few. Owners and managers of private restaurants have to make certain that their staff is claiming a certain percentage of the restaurant's total sales (I think it's 8%?) or risk getting audited. That may not sound like much, but if you factor in a bar, to go service, the regular dining area, and at some places banquet halls where. Bartenders may or may not get tips depending on the situation; to-go servers may or may not; banquet halls may have a self-service line and not have to pay a gratuity. There are a lot of sales with often only the dining area workers getting tips they have to claim. So even if the restaurant doesn't have a computer system that regulates what servers claim, the people in charge will monitor it.

If they have a computer system, as corporate restaurants do, it's even worse. Say I have $500 in sales. If it was all in cash, the system is going to require me to claim at least $50 in tips. If I got less, I can have a manager approve it--but again, they have to watch the overall percentage. I couldn't get away with consistently claiming less as it would trigger alarms in the computer system and I'd be questioned. So sometimes, because of that, I have to claim more than I made.

If that $500 was all on credit cards, it's even worse. At the end of the night, I go through each credit slip and enter the tip into the computer before running my checkout. When I clock out, the computer again wants me to claim 10% of that $500 even if every sale was on a credit card and the system knows I only have $40. Again, I can get the manager swipe, and it's less of an audit danger there as there's documentation .... but for a lot of reasons, sometimes I won't get that manager approval. Maybe I'm in a hurry and the GM is on the phone with her sister and ignoring her job or Lapdog is pissed off and not answering when he's spoken to.

The worst case scenario, though, is when every last sale is a credit card, and every last tip is on a credit card. If I get all my tips on credit cards, and they add up to $86, there is no way to claim less--even if I had to tip out $20. Or maybe I got $80 in credit cards and $6 in cash, then had to tip out $20--I still have to claim at least the $80. And then whoever I give those tips to has to claim them, and so the goverment basically gets to tax that cash twice.

Imagine this situation. I have three or four tables or two, and maybe I make $20 off of them in credit card tips. Then a table of twenty comes in an takes up my entire section for the rest of the evening. Their bill comes to $250, and despite them having a great experience, the old granny who pays doesn't leave a tip--and our system doesn't even have auto-gratuity capability.

My checkout slip reads $350 in sales, and when I check out I have to claim the $20 in credit tips. The manager saw me throwing things and/or crying in the kitchen, so he knows I got stiffed by the big party and swipes his card so I don't have to claim the extra $25 (minimum) I should have gotten from them. However, I still have to tip the bartender who made me twenty drinks during the course of the evening, and sometimes I have to tip a bus kid or two, too. So I get taxed on $20, and I only take home maybe $14 for six hours of work, plus I'm pissed off, plus the bartender and bus kids are pissed too because they got shorted.

Yes, it's an extreme example, but this has happened to me. In that case, those twenty people got my time, effort, and service for free, and they cost me money. Because I have to pay taxes on that $6 I had to claim, but also had to tip out. The same thing applies if it's a table of two who don't leave me 10% of a $20 bill. Is it a lot of money? No, but it adds up, and I don't go to work to pay to serve people their goddamn fried chicken! And certainly there are days when I make well above the 10% the computer requires me to pay ... but if the extra is on credit cards, I'm still claiming it. And if I don't, it's really only compensating for times when I lost out because of situations like the above.

So are people who don't tip the lowest scum on the face of the earth? No. They rank about pedophiles, rapists, and murders. But they are low-grade thieves, I think. And if your server provides good service, and if you're in a place with the social contract regarding tipping and low food cost, then not tipping at all is a huge finger to your server.

As far as not tipping "enough" ... well, that's subjective. If I get 10% off a couple of people who were low maintenance and polite, then I'm not thrilled but I'm not pissed. If somebody runs me like I'm doing a goddamn Jane Fonda workout video and then leaves me ten percent or less? I start having thoughts of stabbing.

On the other hand, if I screw up majorly, like I did with the steak guys, I expect nothing. If I'm mediocre and I know it (clap your hands), I don't get cranky about a mediocre tip. But if you're nice to my face and telling me what a great job I did, and if everything was perfect with your meal, and you tip my 5%? I'm going to remember you, and not fondly.

Similarly, if something is wrong with your food that is completely out of my control--say, a steak with a large vein of gristle through the center--and I fix it promptly and with an apology, and then you stiff me or short me? You will be remembered. Especially if because of that "error" you got your food for free! Now you've cost the restaurant money, you've gotten free food and labor, and you've cost your server some money too. Unless the server caused the error or was a bitch about it, there is no earthly reason to punish them! Why should I pay taxes on money I didn't get because a cow in Wisconsin grew connective tissue in an inopportune place?

Also, please keep in mind that blogs like this naturally highlight the best and the worst--there's a hell of a lot of in-between. Probably 50% of my customers don't tip me "enough" since the economy went tits-up, but unless it's under 10% or they were jerks, I'm probably not going to mention it here other than as part of an overview.

This may be a lot more info than you were looking for, especially since you're in a place where servers do get that minimum wage; but I'm wordy.

Fuck me, I hate homecoming.

I didn't like all that crap when I was in high school, and I really hate it now. Since I work at a thoroughly average-priced restaurant, we had swarms of high schoolers in last night. Luckily, we also had a decent number of non-teenagers or I might've killed someone.

My section last night was less than ideal. It has two booths, two two-seaters, and one round high bar table. I don't mind it, exactly, because I've always preferred to have several small tables rather than big ones. The problem is that everybody in the universe thinks they need to sit in a fucking booth, so if there's not a wait people will demand to be sat elsewhere.

Last night we had wait for quite a while, so I didn't get screwed in that department. I did get screwed, however, in terms of customers. During the entire freaking dinner rush, I had nothing but old people and teenagers. The teenagers were a big group of them, and it was a total clusterfuck.

My round table was one of four in a line; the other three belonged to Brainless. It just so happened we had a table of nine come in and request to sit on the patio and be waited on by her at the same time we had a table of "8, or maybe 15" teenagers in ugly dresses and rented tuxes show up. There was nowhere else to put them except at that line of high tables, but there was a problem: 1, 2, and 4 were open, but 3 had two guys sitting there drinking beer instead of moving three feet over to the bar.

So tables 1 and 2 were pulled together (as much as round tables can be), and a bunch of the little jerks sat there. The rest sat at table 4, after the manager said that after the drinkers left we'd have them move. I'd no sooner gotten their drink orders than the beer-drinking realized they were surrounded by shrieking teens and hurriedly left. I pretended not to see and went in to the kitchen to pour my drinks--I did not want to be part of that particular shuffle.

When I came back out, the manager had gotten them all consolidated to one table, and of course most of them had moved. I managed to get most of the drinks to the right people unaided, but I wasn't really concerned about it--I'm not going to bust my ass trying to impress a bunch of idiot high schoolers.

They decided not to wait for the last couple of people before ordering, so I went through the long process of trying to talk over them to get orders. I have a system for dealing with teenagers: instead of going around the table in order, I take orders in groups according to the tickets they want their bill split in to, and I get a name to go with that group of orders. It's too difficult to ring things in on guests 1-howevermany and then try to match up seats at the end when they're constantly moving, after all.

It's especially difficult when they've all moved around and their all too stupid to recognize their own food order when it comes out. Seriously, how difficult is it to remember that you ordered pasta? That was really fun. Then there's the billions of drink refills; and the fact that they're annoying the shit out of all the regular people around them. I was also annoyed by their late-comers, who didn't order anything--the dude was fine, but the girl was a twiggy little thing with a giant shiny multi-colored septum piercing hanging out of her tiny nose, and she was either incredibly stupid or incredibly stoned. She couldn't seem to understand what I was asking when I tried to determine if they were ordering anything--and every time I walked by she looked at me like I was dog shit. I wanted to grab that fucking nose ring and rip it out by the time they left.

As far as teenagers go, I've had to deal with worse. I didn't display any irritation, I got them all their refills in a timely mannager (although they ranked lower than the rest of my tables), I talked to them a little, complimented a couple of girls on their dresses, etc. When it was time to pay, I had four separate tickets that I handed out. Naturally, they all gave me their wads of cash and different times. Only two wanted change; the first one to hand me money said she didn't need change--"It's only like a dollar." I ground my teeth. The next two didn't want change--43 cents. The last one did, and when I plunked his $2.56 down on the table they were all starting to get up and fidget with purses and such. There was not a dime on the table, and I was tired of being polite. I very loudly said "Just so you all know, gratuity is not included in those totals." Then I turned around, leaving them all staring at each other in confusion--especially the one I heard ask "what's gratuity?"

Eight crumbled up dollar bills showed up on the table after that. With the "keep the change" crap, I got $10 on a $120 check. Of course, that's $10 more than I was expecting, so I was just glad to see the back of them--and that they were my only group of homecoming jerks. I was also very grateful that both managers were too busy helping other servers who were flipping out to really notice what I was doing--otherwise they probably would've made me give my other four table to Perpetua, who was on the other side of my station. As it was, I was able to keep rotating my other four tables while taking care of the kids, so it could've been worse for sure.

Of course, 95% of those other tables were old people who tipped 12% max, so I only walked with $80; but it could've been much worse.

Disparate subjects.

We had two interesting conversations at work last night, involving the same core people. The first was our favorite Disney movies. The second one started from a chance remark about "backdoor" something or another.

I love my coworkers.

Just another thing to be pissed about.

I've mentioned before how my genius managers hired more people when nobody was getting enough shifts to begin with. Then the regional manager informed them they had to cut 100 weekly labor hours just from front of house. So now, we have too many servers, the patio is closed so they were scheduling one less per shift anyway, and they had to cut out another person every single shift.

So how did they approach this? Did they tell the hostess who just finished training that she'll have to wait for shifts? Or maybe tell the girl who refuses to work more than twice a week (and has for at least a year) to shove off? Maybe schedule the new, weaker servers a little less and keep the experienced ones on more often, since we're running a short floor anyway?

Oh, no. Of course not. I think their decision making process involved a spinning wheel and some darts. Other than I overheard Lapdog telling three or four of my coworkers that he tried to not cut their hours, because they have kids. If I hadn't been so busy, I probably would've shot my mouth off and gotten in to trouble with my coworkers, because it pissed me off. Other people decided to spawn, so I get screwed out of my shifts?

It's not like I want children to starve, of course, and I'm sorry for all of my coworkers who have kids and are struggling. But not having children doesn't make me less worthy of survival, goddammit.

I missed the flyer for the trash convention.

I wanted to just scream last night. I did a closing shift for a mere $50, mostly because of the shitty customers I had.

The first set was four middle-aged biker trash people. I say biker trash because of their attitudes. I've seen them a couple of times before, and they're always rude, demanding, and cheap. One of the guys flatly refuses to speak at a normal volume, and then gets pissed off when I ask him to repeat things. Those fuckers were worth $3 on $50.

Then I had teenagers; then old folks; then some woman with her two grandsons, both under age five. By eight at night, I'd made a whole ten dollars. That was when the trash really came in. I had two little wanna-be hood rat teenagers, who "tipped" 76 cents. Then I had another table of "thugs". Now, I have nothing against people who come from urban areas and follow those trends. But when idiot white kids in Whiteville, Mid-West USA roll in with their jeans around their knees, their caps on sideways, and multiple chains sporting pendants? When they speak just like I do except for occasionally throwing in something like "playa" while sneering at everyone? They can go shove their bling up their collective asses.

Still, the far and away winner of the unofficial trash competition was there in the middle of the night. It was a couple; the man seemed average, nothing particularly hickish or anything else about him. The woman with him, though, just emanated trash. She was wearing a huge flannel shirt, half unbuttoned over a stained t-shirt; her hair was greasy; she ordered "one o dem drinks". The entire time they were there, she was slumped over in the booth--her left elbow might as well have been glued to the seat. Even while she was shoveling food into her maw with her right hand, she was leaning on her left arm, practically horizontal.

When really just set me over the edge, though was after they finished eating. When I went to ask if they wanted dessert, Slumpy was still slumping, with her legs sprawled out in to the aisle .... and she was vigorously digging at her teeth with her fork. I'm not talking a quick scrape on the tooth after taking a bite. The rest of their dishes were piled up, but she had that fork gripped in her fist and was just going to town on her gums as if it were a toothpick. She continued doing that while speaking to me. I could vomit.

Bitches of the day.

One of my first tables was a big pain in the ass. All three of them thought they needed to tell me they wanted separate tickets--as if I couldn't comprehend it the first time. Every time I passed by the table, they wanted something else. They were loud, and sort of commanding, and generally just not a pleasure to wait on. When I asked if they wanted dessert they started making all sorts of noise about how full they were, so I dropped the ticket off and said I'd take it when they were ready.

When I came back, they'd decided to have dessert. Then they sat there with their tickets for another half an hour, and then I saw them wandering across the foyer to the host stand. Any idiot could see there's not a cash register there, but plenty of idiots just can't comprehend the words "I'll be your cashier when you're ready". I rush over to explain it to them; one hollers to the other one across the foyer, they get granny and her walker wedged back into a corner, and they give me three separate modes of payment. One was cash, two were cards. One card went through fine; the other was declined twice.

I fucking hate telling people their card was declined--most of them act like it's my fault. I grit my teeth and head back over. The lady whose card was declined is babbling, so I hold out the credit card book to grandma--to takes the card and leaves me with the book in my hand. The other woman then turns to me and says, "Did it work?"

"No, I'm sorry. I tried it twice."
"Oh, I didn't think it would work. It's a new card and I haven't activated it yet. Try this one."

I wanted to scream. Why the fuck did she waste my time like that? Who the hell hands a card they know won't work to somebody, and then just sits there? GAH!

When I came back after running a card that was, you know, real, the woman was signing grandma's form, and saying "I don't think this is right." Well no shit, you dumb bitch, why are you signing a credit card slip when yours didn't go through?

They were mostly just annoying though. The real bitch was the haggard-looking old woman and her son/much younger husband. They looked familiar, but I couldn't place them. When they ordered, the woman informed me that she wanted a house salad, no bacon, no cheese, extra ranch, and only iceberg lettuce. I politely told her that we have a mix of greens, and both of them immediately got huffy. "Well, they always give us just iceberg, and we come in all the time."

So I passed the order along to the cooks, who then had to pick all the offensive colored lettuce out of the salad mix for these finnicky fuckers. They had ordered an appetizer as well; they got their app, and then I took their salads out. As I put the salads down, the woman says, "Oh, I forgot to tell you" and then said something really garbled that it took me about ten seconds to unscramble as "make sure we don't get our food until we finish all of this". Fuck. Naturally, they'd ordered an appetizer that takes eight minutes (minimum), plus the special salads, and then food that takes about eight minutes too.

The way our system works, we can mark appetizers and salads as "first out", which delays pushing the main order through to the cooks until the appetizer is cleared, or four minutes--whichever comes first. So at this point, their food was about half done.

"I can tell the kitchen," I said very politely, "but your food is probably already started, so I--"

"WELL THAT'S JUST RIDICULOUS. They shouldn't even start your food until you've eaten your salad!" She yelled/grumbled something else at me, and I just said I'd do what I could. I remembered them at that point; managers have bought their meals more than once because they threw such a goddamn fit about getting their meal when they haven't finished every last bite of their food.

I'm sure their dinners were a little dry from sitting under the heatlamp while they finished licking the ranch dressing off their places; but I really just didn't care.

Thanks for the well-wishes.

I appreciate everyone's "get well" wishes this week. I should've posted this yesterday before my rant about the bitch, but I'm not always on top of things. :)

Bitch of the night.

Well, bitches, technically.

When I got to work, it was pretty much what I expected. I had a crummy section of two booths and three two-seater tables. The booths were both sat, and I was there about a half an hour before I got a table. Meanwhile, Lapdog manager was there, and he was about to cross the line over into cranky.

My first table of two was an older couple, nice enough, nothing unusual. My second table was two women about my age. After I brought their drinks, they told me they hadn't even looked at the menu. After about ten minutes of gabbing they finally picked up their menus. Another ten minutes after that, they said they knew what they wanted--and then saw the flyer for our special and needed another five minutes. Finally, the ordered, making comments about the cost--"we didn't really budget for this" and "I've already spending ten dollars, I might as well spend the extra to get a salad!" They seemed pleasant enough, and were fairly low maintenance after that.

Still, I wasn't entirely surprised when one of them claimed her baked potato was moldy. She made a quiet but sizeable fuss about it, saying she was about to vomit, it was fuzzy and gross, blah blah blah. It was a spot, like potatoes get, and that was all. Of course, Lapdog wasn't going to argue with her, so he bought her dinner.

The two women then ordered desserts; their total came to a whopping $23.57, and they paid with a gift card that had $25 on it. They then sat there for another hour yapping, and left after the dinner rush was over and while I was in the kitchen.

They were there for more than two hours, and left me $1.43--what was left on their gift card. Fucking bitches. If you can't afford to go out to eat, don't fucking go out! Don't order more than you can afford, make up an issue to get it paid for, and then leave your waitress next to nothing. Fucking hell, is it really that hard to think like a decent human being?

Back on Lapdog's shit list.

He is such a passive-aggressive fuck. This is the one who was less than sympathetic to my family situation last week, btw. I've been sick this week, so I gave away my Monday and Tuesday shifts. They were covered; the restaurant was in no way affected. He was the manager on duty when I called on Monday, out of politeness, to tell them I wouldn't be in but somebody else was. I could tell from his tone of voice he thought I was faking or something. I sort of hope he's there tomorrow so I can show him my healing marks where I scraped off a bunch of my skin falling off my bike due to dizzyness.

Anyway, imagine my surprise when he posted next week's schedule, and all he did was copy this week's schedule over to next week--after my shifts had been transferred--meaning he screwed me out of two fucking closing shifts. When I sent a very polite email about it, he basically told me to fuck off.

I'm really sort of angry. I cannot pay my bills on four shifts a week. I couldn't pay them on five, after they took away my sixth shift and gave it to Brainless. If we're at such a "critical time", why the fuck did you hire two new servers and promote a host? Why do you do this to us? At this rate, I'm going to have to try to find a Monday-Wednesday job in addition to this one.

And tomorrow, Friday, one of the busiest most worthwhile shifts of the week? The bastard has me scheduled at 5:30. So I'll go in, have the crappiest section, have that be section totally full, and be walking in circles helping other people with their tables for the first hour. Fucking lovely.

Well, it's not swine flu!

So that's a big relief. What's not a big relief is that the doctor basically shrugged it off and said I just have a sinus infection. I really don't think that's right; I know what sinus infections feel like. But I'll take the pills and see if they help.

I guess this is what I get for working with the public.

There's a fairly good chance I have swine flu. A coworker who's been very dizzy the last few days as well went the the doctor today, and she's got it. I worked with her on Sunday. Son of a bitch. I'm going to the doctor tomorrow, and if I do have it, that means I have to stay home for about a week. That's just what I needed.

Three down, two to go--wait, nevermind.

Five closes in a row is fun.

Dammit. Make that three closes, followed by a night off due to falling off my bike and screwing up my wrist, followed by another close assuming I can carry anything tomorrow. Fuck.

Everything is relative.

I was less than pleased when I got to work today and saw I had a three table section, but I was in a good mood and didn't let it get to me. I had two six-seater booths (30 and 31) and one four-seater (10). My several tables at the 4-seater were unremarkable; so was my first table at 30.

My first table at 31 was a mother and four children. The woman looked sorta snotty the whole time, but they ordered without incident--other than one girl who was about 12 and kept making weird noises, like she was disgusted, or like she was in pain, or like something was stupid. I don't know what that was about.

So they get their food, and the mother says "Can I have some cheese sauce?" Well, the meal she ordered had a sort of cheese sauce on it, so I asked what kind she was after. She looks at me like I'm stupid and says "Uh, for my broccoli" in the snottiest tone possible. I got it for her and went about my business. Later, I came back and they said they didn't want dessert. There were two plates pushed to the inside of the table, so I stacked them up and took them to the kitchen. I came back with their ticket, and the rib plate from the person sitting at the other end of the table had been set on the outside middle of the table. See dorky diagram.

While explaining that I'd take the ticket when ready, I picked up the rib plate and went along. After checking on one of my other tables, I went back to see if the woman I'm now calling Bitch was ready to pay. As soon as I approached the table, she drew her teeth back and snarled, "Can we get those fries back, he wasn't done, and you didn't ask." I apologized, although not too sincerely, and got him fresh fries. In print it doesn't seem like much, but she really was just hateful and rude--to the point that I wasn't expecting a tip. I got 10%, which is gravy considering I was expecting zero, but I just don't understand why people have to be so nasty. Not to mention, if Fry Guy was still eating (and I don't even know which plate he was supposedly still eating off of, but I think it was the rib plate), why was the plate shoved to the middle edge of the table, and why didn't they say anything when I reached for it?

But, you know, whatever. I still didn't let it get to me. While finishing up with that table, I got sat a three top at 30, and it was a regular we somewhat affectionately refer to as The Shrimp Guy (TSG). He's super picky, and he's sort of cranky we no longer carry a sauce we had three years ago--he used to order nothing but shrimp in that sauce. He had his brother and son with him, and they're all very cranky. While getting their sodas (TSG wanted three inches of ice), I saw three people come wandering down the ramp in to the bar area .... and seat themselves at 31, which had been cleared but not wiped down.

Why they decided to walk past two hostesses and plop their asses down, I don't know. I decided to make them feel like assholes, so I went to their table to say hi and then said "Oh, the hostess didn't give you menus?"

The guy on the right said they didn't have a hostess, they were so abused, blah blah. I extracted a drink order from them and returned with it, because TSG still wasn't ready to order. There were two guys and a woman at the table, and the two guys would not stop talking long enough to order. I love people who act like I'm imposing on them by trying to get their order. They were that way the entire time. Plus the one guy just thought he was hilarious; when I told them we had a temporary chip shortage, he started in about "oh, what do permanent chips look like?" Har, har, har. They were just obnoxious because trying to take care of them took so freaking long.

Meanwhile, TSG finally decided to order. The son orders mini cheeseburgers "with fresh fries! Make sure they're fresh! I hate it when they double-dip the fries to warm them up!" Okay, that's fine; but I have never in four years seen our cooks do that. Then he orders a broccoli cheese soup first--"but make sure you ladel it from the bottom of the container, I like my soup to be thicker!" Okay, fine. TSG's brother orders the same thing. TSG then starts. He wants salmon, plain, not cooked on the regular grill but cooked on the flat top, and cooked so it's just a little bit crispy but not hard to chew since he doesn't have many teeth; he wants Heinz 57 "just over on the side" since we don't have the sauce he likes and he's just heartbroken; he wants plain broccoli; he then argues with himself and his son about if he wants rice or a baked potato, maybe he wants both, is that too much food, oh you don't have butter you only have margarine blend I don't want that I'll just have rice and let me reiterate my entire order for you twice and then my son can do the same.

After they get their soup, TSG's son tells me they're going to want some shredded lettuce and mustard with their mini burgers. I pass it along to expo. They get their food, and he tells me he wants tomato as well. Okay, that's fine. When I bring the tomatoes, they tell me everything's great! After the son and brother finish, TSG finally tells me his salmon is "too fishy". His son proceeds to elaborate on what that means; his brother eats a piece and says it's great. TSG starts talking about the mini burger he took from his son. Then he says he'll want dessert later, but not right now. There was something else, too, but I've forgotten what it was.

After all that, I was rather irritated ... until I saw a giant horde of teenagers swarming in, and being sat in the section next to mine. Suddenly, my night didn't look so bad.

I have the best readers.

Thank you for all your well wishes, everyone. My aunt is okay, but it was really a close call. I don't want to go in to too much detail, but it started with a miscarriage and went drastically downhill from there.

I appreciate everyone caring, you guys are the best.

Manager reactions.

Thirty seconds after I walked in the door to work last night, I got a call that one of my family members was in the hospital and it was serious. I started to cry immediately and literally ran through the kitchen to tell the manager I had to leave. I don't know how coherant I was, and I was out the door again less than a minute later. The next couple of hours were very stressful and confusing; eventually, it ended up that I had to stay home while everyone else went to see her (on the other side of the state). Once they got on the road, I went back to work--I'd run out of there in a total panic, and I knew my coworkers were worried.

When I got there, I told the manager what was going on (I won't go in to the details here, but it was a really close call. Like died on the table sort of stuff. I hate the fact that I'm not with my family right now.). And then I told him that if he really needed me there I could pull myself together. I was supposed to close, and I could have managed it if I had to. His response was to stare at me for several seconds and then tell me "I guess we've got it covered" before staring at me some more. His face clearly said he thought I should stay, but he didn't want to say it because he knew it would be insensitive.

I fucking hate that sort of passive-aggressive shit. If you need me to be there, just fucking tell me. Don't try that subtle guilt trip shit on me. Even more infuriating is the fact that this was the middle of the dinner rush, and the place wasn't even half full. I clearly was not needed. So I didn't stay. Which means I'll probably be on his shit list for another month or so, but whatever.

Quite curious.

Our carside server answered the phone last night, and was asked who was managing. Our GM and Pot Smoking Manager have very similar names, like John/Joan, so when she said it was John, the customer on the other end asked, "John, not Joan?"

My coworker said yes, it was John, and the GM wasn't working that night. The customer's response? "Thank god, I can't stand that bitch."

Thanks, bitches!

I know it was my fault your steak tasted "funny". It was also my fault you didn't tell me that until you were ready to leave, even when I asked how it was. Since those two things were obviously my fault, I appreciate the $3 on your $40 (without the steak, which we bought) bill.
Sent via BlackBerry from T-Mobile

Cool customers, and "As The Fryer Boils" recap.

Last night, right after the manager had finalyl cut to closers, the hostess approached me. "Do you want another table?"

I hesitated for a moment, thinking; I'd just taken an order, and had two other tables, so another table really wouldn't hinder me. But I was confused by her asking until she added, "They asked for you."

I couldn't see them from where I was, and I was totally confused--at this particular location, nobody's asked for me who isn't related/a friend. Well, I guess that's not true; there are some people who have me on their list of servers they ask for. But it was too late at night for any of the above.

I told her I'd take them, and took some plates to the kitchen; when I came back, I recognized them right away. I'd waited on them at closing time about a month ago, and we'd talked for a long time. Somehow we'd gotten on to the topic of health care, and fat people being treated badly by the public and doctors, and I'd written down the URL for Shapely Prose.

Them coming in slowed me down for sure--two of my other tables left and one cashed out, so with a regular table I'd've divided my time between sidework and caring for them. With these people I chatted with them until they got their dinner, and then again when they were about halfway through. I even pulled up a chair at one point to tell them about my favorite restaurant. When they left at 11:10, I hadn't even touched my sidework. I didn't leave the restaurant until ten minutes after close ... but that was okay. It was a nice cap to the evening.


On to less happy topics ....


There's been a fuckton of drama the last couple of weeks. I've put off writing about it because I wanted to see how it would all shake out first.

The first thing apparently started a long time ago, but I knew nothing about it. Apparently, there was a rumor circulating that one of the managers, Eric, was sleeping with one of the servers, Lisa. I hadn't heard it, and I would have laughed if I had--she actually sleeping with somebody else rather inappropriate, but it's nobody in the restaurant.

Well, somehow Eric got wind of this, and totally over-reacted. Instead of going to the GM, he went right to human resources at corporate before he went on vacation, I assume in an ass-covering move. So HR called the GM (who knew nothing about this), and she had to do an investigation in to it. In the course of this, someone mentioned being offended by Lisa by something completely different--a running joke between Lisa and her best friend about them being lesbians. "Let me ask my girlfriend" sort of stuff, nothing obscene.

So in addition to all the scandal of Eric and Lisa supposedly hooking up, Lisa and her friend got written up for sexual harassment by creating a hostile workplace. So they were both pissy and upset, wondering who'd squealed on them. And a lot of people find it upsetting that straight people can joke about their sex lives, and our gay server can talk about his sex life, but these two got written up.

Of course, all of that got garbled up in the rumor mill. What ended up being spread around was that Eric and Lisa were sleeping together, and corporate was doing an investigation. Word at the host stand was that Eric was on a forced leave and wasn't allowed to be in the restaurant, and he and the GM were both in fear for their jobs. And then people who hadn't even noticed the lesbian flirtation suddenly thought Lisa and her friend really were dating. So in the course of one day Lisa went from few people knowing anything about her personal life, to being a lesbian who was nevertheless screwing a manager twice her age who has a girlfriend.

Cripes.

And then, the same day all this went down, there was a catfight between a bartender and a server. They haven't gotten along for the last two years, but it was mostly restricted to bitching about each other to other people. Something set the bartender, Gina, off that night, though, and she went nucking futz. She followed the server, Laura, back in to the kitchen, yelling at her and screaming. Laura yelled back, Gina yelled again, Laura turned to walk away .... and Gina threw her glass of soda at her. Caught in the crossfire was Luke, who got splashed by the soda bomb.

Later, Laura asked Gina for some change. Gina got change for her, but then threw it down the bar and called her cunt--in front of customers. Luckily they were all regulars, or it could've been a very bad scene indeed. As it was, people gossiped about it for a couple of days and then it seemed to pass.

Until the GM told everyone that Gina had been suspended--which is code for fired as soon as the next payroll checks come in. Apparently, when the GM looked in to all of this, Luke filed a complaint about being splashed with soda (seriously?), and then Gina lied about everything and swore that none of it happened. Why she'd lie when plenty of people saw it, I don't know. So now, somebody who worked there for almost ten years has been fired, and Laura, who's generally a bitch to everybody, still has her job.

Ready for part three?

For a month or more, the GM has been on a rampage and seriously freaking out. She's been telling everyone she hates her job, she has her resume on Monster, she's fucking sick of this place, etc. This, of course, soured everybody's mood (and I suspect is why Eric went over her head with the rumor thing). Then somebody pointed out to her the effect it was having, and she reined herself in a bit.

But last night, she started flipping the fuck out. We really were not even that busy, but something set her off. At one point, our bartender (Lacy), was trying to help out and GM totally freaked and started yelling about "why doesn't anybody think I can do my job tonight!" Ridiculous. Lacy nearly quit on the spot.

Later, things seemed to have settled down. I went to the back of the kitchen for something, and saw GM in the office, and Lapdog Manager in the doorway, and they were both looking at someone in between them I couldn't see. I scanned the front of the house and saw that Lacy was the only one missing. She came out a while later, looking thoroughly annoyed.

At the end of the night, she told me that GM had dragged her to the office, with Lapdog as a witness, to tell her what she did was inappropriate. Lacy told her she was only trying to be helpful and didn't think it was fair she was in trouble. And then GM said something totally ridiculous: "Well, I've just had a problem with you ever since I was crying in the office after my purse was stolen!" I think that was in February; but apparently, Lacy didn't "console" her enough! And she's been holding a grudge since then.

If I wanted this much drama, I'd go watch Days of Our Lives.

Guest Post: The Granny Food Thief Strikes Again

The week's guest post comes from So You Want To Be A Banquet Manager. The Banquet Manager was kind enough to feature me as a guest blogger last week; he's totally where I stole the whole guest blog thing from!


The Granny Food Thief Strikes Again

Something happened the other day that reminded me of this old lady, I'll call her the "Granny Food Thief".

When I worked at another hotel (no names please - I'm incognito as they say), there was this sweet little old lady that would constantly crash the cocktail hours for the business events. We had many groups that, after their day-long meeting, would have a 1 hour farewell cocktail hour. They would then network with their fellow associates and anyone else that was invited. To prevent gate crashers, they would even have a separate registration table where the attendees would need to submit their business card to be allowed to enter. Guess what this sweet little old granny would do?

See apparently had an unlimited supply of "official-looking" business cards of various professions that she would hand out to the reg-desk and then be allowed in. She'd work the room - but instead of networking with the other people - she was "food-working" with a pair of tongs and the plastic bag she kept in her oversized pocketbook.

In went some bacon-wrapped scallops, mini beef wellington and even tuna tartar. They I saw her grab a handfull of bev-naps from the bar and wrap 3 pieces of cheesecake and shove them in her thief-bag. I was waiting for her to ask "Where's the "cheesy-poofs". Did she have a colostomy bag hiding under her coat to poor the fruit punch into? Probably...

Anyway, what was I supposed to do, throw her out. My soft side got the best of me and I allowed her to continue raiding the buffet until she was so weighed-down she had to go or she would explode. Just another day in the life of a banquet manager.

I need a REAL job!


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!

Three shifts, nobody interesting.

Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday were so ridiculously boring. Made all of $110 between the three shifts, and two of them were closing shifts! I didn't have any customers that were evil, or any that were particularly cool ... in short, just nothing to report. Rather frustrating.