Pissing off everybody.

Seemed like every time I turned around Friday night, I was angering one coworker or another.

The first was Idiot Expo. I had an order that was missing two things, which both came from the cook's side--and during the rush they will totally ignore the waitresses, so I had to get him to ask. He wasn't answering when I called his name, and I got frustrated and yelled "Hey!" really sharply. I should have apologized, but by the time my irritation wore off I kind of forgot. I just get so sick of fixing his errors--he's incapable of paying attention to extra plate mods, or sides of ranch. This one was missing vegetables and .. I forget what else, but something rather significant.

The second was Bitter Divorced Man. I had a four table section; due to some prior stupidity on Brainless II's part another server had one of my tables. Then another two were taken up by a bunch of women out for a birthday. That left me with one table, and the customers there finished and left while I was still trying to get orders out of the noisy, constantly-moving birthday group. Brainless II was standing there, so I asked her to give me just a minute before she sat that table. That's all I asked for, a minute.

I don't know if she went to BDM and told him what I said, or if he asked why the table was empty. But it was less than a minute later, and Brainless II hadn't even gone back up front yet, when I heard him say, "I've got people waiting for tables! Seat it and I'll get someone else to take it, we just can't have empty tables!" I was sweeping by to pick up more margaritas, so I told him "No, I'm not giving up any more of my tables. I'll take care of it."

When I turned around with my tray of drinks, he was glaring at me, clenching his jaw. "Sorry," I said, "but Anna has 20 and the fifteen top is taking up two of them and being a massive pain in my ass. I'm fine though." Still grinding his teeth, he repeated he'd get someone else to take it, but we just couldn't have empty tables. I told him I was fine, I'd take care of it, and that I had asked for a minute, not fifteen. I took the table, and the next one when Anna's people left, and everything was fine. Still, it was about an hour before he stopped being pissed at me.

The third person I pissed off was Pot Smoking Manager, which I didn't know could be done. I was actually not even really involved in what pissed him off, he just thought I was. He had cut to the two closers, plus one extra. Well, apparently that extra person didn't want to stay. So she and the other closer, Rachel, decided she'd only take tables if we were busy--if that was okay with me. I wasn't privy to this, just to the girl asking me if I minded. Well, I don't go around assuming people are making decisions like that without talking to the manager--at least whent he manager just cut. There have been plenty of times we've phased somebody out after a while when CL or Lapdog have forgotten they're still on, or whatever.

Anyway, another part of the confusion was that I'd never seen a new, three-section floor chart. So I thought we were just rotating tables. It was all a big mess, and when PSM figured out that the extra girl wasn't taking tables, he got pissed. First he ripped her a new one. Then he came over to me and started saying not to make those kinds of decisions without him--I told him I didn't, that I wouldn't have done that. He said something about "it's hard to believe people will do that with GM" blah blah. I chose not to mention we would, because he probably would have thought I was just trying to placate him.

He was perfectly calm with me, which I think means he likes me and not the other two. Because he freaking shredded Rachel. She was sitting down for a minute, and he told her "First, go find something to do. Second, go find something to do. Third, go find something to do. And don't cut people without talking to me, I need to make those decisions." He then continued on to threaten to take her shifts when he takes over the schedule, and various other very Lapdog-like things. Twenty minutes later he started apologizing, but it was tense for a while there.

The next person I pissed off was a friend of mine. She tried to get out of there without properly doing her sidework or cleaning up the floors in her section, which were just trashed. I asked her to fill the crackers, because they were half-empty; she filled it until they were spilling all over the place. When I gave her the benefit of the doubt and said she'd "forgotten" to do her floors, she got really pissed. She claimed she'd done them, and then started shoving things around, practically throwing chairs, and basically having a hissy-fit. The thing is, she's a closer and ought to know better.

Lastly, I really pissed off one of the cooks. Our last table came in at about 11:35. Rachel took them, and I kept cleaning up the kitchen. At 12:01 their food came up; I expedited and ran it, only to find that Rachel had totally forgotten to ring in an order of nachos. She rushed to the back and called for it .... only to be told by the remaining cook that he "couldn't" make them because two minutes after closing he'd already tossed/put away everything!

I know we all want to get the hell out of that place, but that seems a little ridiculous to me considering we still had tables in the place. Rachel just headed back to the dining room to tell her table they were shit out of luck--and that didn't seem right to me, so I went back to the manager's office. I didn't ask him to force the cook to do anything--I just said Rachel might need help, and this was the situation, and that she was talking to the guest now. I thought good old Pot Smoking Manager would just offer them dessert or something, but he went on the line and made the nachos himself--apparently all that had to be done was to fry up some chips.

Damn, the cook was pissed! I heard him and Rachel yelling at each other as I came back from locking the front door, and he spent the rest of his clean-up time slamming shit around and muttering. I don't think he realized I'm the one who squealed; and I sort of felt bad about it, but come on! It's not like it was a well steak, it was chips and cheese!

I think I'd have to make a concerted effort to aggravate people to beat that night's record....