Actually, I don't think I will.

A couple of weeks ago I was calling out bingo numbers for late night; we had a pretty decent crowd, but it wasn't as fun as usual because I didn't have a mic and had to just yell the entire time. Still, it was working out okay.

The entire point of this stuff is to keep people there, hopefully ordering drinks and appetizers and desserts. So we take breaks in between rounds, and basically it's a leisurely thing. I try to keep track of when people go out to smoke or whatever and wait for them to get back.

This particular night, Helmet Hair and her husband Balding Mullet Man were going out to smoke. I politely told them I'd wait for them to come back, so they could take their time. They ignored me, of course. A few minutes later, a group of guys at the bar who were playing also went out to smoke. Then HH and BMM came back in, and immediately started glaring at me. Hey, it's not my fault that they're out past their bedtime. We don't do this just for her personal entertainment, you know.

Five minutes pass, and the bar guys haven't come back in yet. It's been about fifteen minutes since we ended the last round, and I'd said 10-15 minutes before the next. At this point, HH decided to speak to me--by hollering over a couple of tables at me. "Isn't it time? What are you waiting for?"

"Just waiting on some other players to come back in, they were smoking too." I was as polite as I could be even though I wanted to ignore her.

"Well!" She huffed. "You need to tell them to go when it's time so we don't have to wait!"

I stared at her for a moment. "I'm sure they'll be back soon," I said, and deliberately turned to talk to someone else. Sure enough, the guys sauntered back in about a minute later. I waited an extra couple of minutes before I started, just to piss off Helmet Hair. I also, again, took satisfaction in her not winning a single round. Petty, yes, but she's such a bitch!

The next week, CL told me that we were going to start bingo a half an hour later from now on, and said she heard people were getting restless and she'd talked to them. I laughed, because I knew she was talking about Helmet Hair, and sure enough I saw her explaining it to the witch.

Helmet Hair didn't win anything that week, either.

Check this shit out!

Apparently enough people try to Google my blog for this to come up ...

Since I haven't shilled in a while ....

(This isn't sponsored. I honestly use and love these sites!)

Srsly, ya'll, you should check out Swagbucks. Since joining in November I've gotten $100 in restaurant.com gift certificates and $45 in Amazon gift cards. Mostly free! (I did join the Columbia House DVD Club, but I'd wanted to do that anyway.)

The easiest way to get Swagbucks free is to use their search engine toolbar, and to refer other people. They've got all sorts of stuff--if I were patient enough, I could get a Nintendo Wii for free. I'm just not that patient!



Also, MySurvey.com has gotten me lots of free products and several free hardback copies of my favorite authors' new releases (via Barnes & Noble giftcards). They recently re-did their rewards system, too; I just cashed in 1100 points (totally free) for $10 on Amazon.



I'm hoarding Amazon gift cards from both sources; when I have enough, I'm buying myself a new iPod! C'mon, help me out with it.

Also, if you have a blog and would like to try sponsored posts, I recommend Blogsvertise and Social Spark (I made $80 last month there).

Shut up and cook.

“I need a southwestern roll-up on the fly please, no pico!” I called over my shoulder, as I rung said item in.
“What happened to the one I made you?” was fired back at me by Alex, the mid cook.
“It had pico on it, I need it with no pico.”
“No it didn't.” Alex snarled at me.
“Yes, it did, can you please start another one?”
“It didn't have pico in it.” He stood there, looking at me.
“It did, would you like me to dig it out of the trash to show you?”
“Whatever, you can if you want to.” He finally started making it at this point.

Every day, I and every other server in the places goes through this kind of thing at least once.
Now I know the cooks have a rough job, in a cramped alley with sizzling fryers and grills radiating heat all over them, managers interfering helping, servers yelling, etc. But seriously, do they think we just make this shit up to irritate them? I'm just relaying what some bitchy-ass customer wants, why do they have to argue with me?

The attitude just gets tiring. Mostly in comes out in the form of interrogating servers when we need something fixed or changed. The ticket says no fries, sub veggie. I asked Mario for vegetables and get “for what?” in return. I tell him table 22, and he says it doesn't say sub veggie. I tell him it does, and the first three plates to the table already went out, can I please get vegetables.

Instead of just believing me, he has to page through screens of orders until he finds it. Then he'll start getting them ready. In the time he spent arguing with me, it would've been done already! Then there's John and the steaks, I ring one in medium and it goes to the table well and instead of just throwing one on the grill and moving along, he goes off on a goddamn tirade about how it was medium when he put it up, it sat in the window forever, maybe if the servers would run their fucking food the steaks wouldn't end up overcooked, blah blah blah. Could be true in the right circumstance—oh wait, except in this circumstance the steak sat there because he was fucking around instead of putting together the accompanying burger!

The bottom line is that I don't give a flying rat's ass why the mistake was made—I just need it fixed. I'm asking because my customer is waiting, not just to jerk someone around. I don't understand what's so difficult about this concept.

It's that time again.

That time known as "end of the semester". I'm working five days a week, I have a nine page paper to write, a French composition, two shorter writings to turn in, two article reviews to write, four finals to study for, work five days a week, getting ready for a weekend trip to California after finals, and a brief one day excursion to New York next week. Basically, I am about to get my ass handed to me big time. I have plenty of stories to write up, and I'm keeping notes, but I don't know that I'll be able to manage more than one or two a week for the next few weeks. Thanks for sticking around, I'll try to keep up at least maintenance levels of bitching!

Your server does actually have ears.

The other day I had a table of three that just rubbed me the wrong way. It was a man and his parents; he seemed perfectly polite and friendly, but his mother spoke to me like I was an idiot and his father wouldn't make eye contact. I did my best to engage them but they didn't seem to want to talk.

When I brought their food out, the son asked for a Coke. "Is Pepsi okay?" I asked out of habit, and he confirmed it was. As I stepped away from the table, I heard his mother say acidly, "What a stupid question! It says Pepsi right on our glasses, why would she even ask that? How stupid!"

I was just turning to give her the evil eye when the table next to them flagged me down, so I had to let it go. I just love it when people do things like that--I do actually have ears, and they do actually pick up sound vibrations when you're not speaking directly to me.

The dad was at least rude to my face. As I dropped off their check, I saw that they had the flyer for our latest charity drive on the table. I picked it up and asked if our hostess had explained it to them. He heaved a huge sigh and then told me, "No, but we can read."

Alrighty then. Sorry to have insulted your intelligence by doing my job.

No, you shove it up YOUR fucking ass!

Last Friday was a shitty night for me. I came in at five, and at eight I had $6.07 in my pocket. I actually kept a list of how my tips increased for the next hour or two because I was so aggravated. And then I lost said list. But I think I hit twenty bucks at around ten. It was just a combination of a bad section, shit tippers, and campers; I ended up doing respectably by the time we closed at one in the freaking morning.

However, I could have lost my job that night. One of my friends, Katie, was in the section next to mine, and when I got there she had a table at two at a table in my section. It was an average-looking couple and I didn't think much about it until I happened to be in the kitchen when their food came up.

Katie came rushing up. "There's no sour cream on his baked potato, right?"
"Nope."
"Are you sure?" She seemed really stressed.
"Yeah, I'm sure."
"Okay. He's an ass, he said if there was any on his potato he would pick it up and fucking throw it me."
"What a jerk!" I agreed. But people say stupid shit like that all the time, there was no reason to think he was anything but your average Flaming Asshole. I was kinda busy taking care of my own table of douches--my single table of two drunk husbands and their sober, unamused wives who would tip me a combined $6.70 on their $97 ticket.

Katie was running around like crazy over the next half an hour or so, but Flaming Asshole didn't seem to be giving her much trouble. At one point, she was frantically searching for a manager to remove something from the jerk's tab, a salad substitution that they hadn't gotten. The Flaming Asshole wanted his tab, so I suggested she move the salad to a third guest and print out the ticket for only guests one and two. I had a niggling sort of feeling, like a mini premonition, and said something like "just have Bitter Divorced Man take it off before you run their card."

Ten minutes later, Katie is in the kitchen shaking and in tears. She couldn't even talk, and was so shocked and frustrated she couldn't tell anyone what would help or anything. She just kept going through the motions taking care of her tables. It's probably a good thing, because if she'd told me what happened before The Flaming Asshole left I think I'd've been fired.

It turns out that Katie was so flustered and so busy that she accidentally swiped Flaming Asshole's credit card for the full amount, including the salad substitution. She didn't notice until Flaming Asshole summoned her to the table to quiz her about the difference in prices. She of course apologized and said if he would give her just a minute she'd get it fixed. The amount of difference was a dollar, one solitary, even dollar.

Flaming Asshole's response: "You can shove it up your fucking ass!"

What kind of degenerate, uncouth, rude man says something like that to a sweet, bubbly twenty year old waitress? What sort of motherfucking bass-ackwards hillbilly son-of-a-bitch screams at a total stranger like that? Over a goddamn DOLLAR? I wish to god I'd been standing at the next table to overhear this, because I would not have been able to control myself. I might have gotten fired for it, but I would have gotten in that fucker's face about it.

Unfortunately, he was gone before I got the story. Katie is looking for another job and quitting as soon as she finds one--not so much because of what the guy said to her, but because she felt like Bitter Divorced Man didn't handle it right. I don't know exactly what he said or did, but she felt like he basically said she deserved it. I think that's more a matter of perception than truth, knowing him, but Katie is just furious and hurt and done with this place.

I can't say I really blame her. If someone had talked to me like that when I'd first started serving, I'd have reacted the same way.

Servers vs. dentists at "Tips"

TipsforTips has a great video up--imagine if people treated a dentist the way they treat us!

Napkin panic!

Around Christmas time, we had just a delightful group of people coming in every Tuesday. Yes, that is sarcasm. Last Monday, the Bastard Conductor was back with a date, but they left at about 12:15 so I wasn't too pissed.

Tuesday night, we got a call saying that our favorite group headed by BC would be coming in at 10:15 and there would be 15 of them. I immediately told Dallas that I could not take them--I have class in the morning, I couldn't be hanging around until all hours waiting on them. So Dallas then told Anna she wouldn't close for her, which actually made everybody happy in the long run.

10:15 came and went with no sign of the dreaded party. 10:30, 10:45, 11 .... We were all thinking we'd dodged the bullet, that maybe they'd decided they didn't want to deal with the noise and chaos of trivia night. You know where this is going, right? Yeah, the motherfuckers rolled in at 11:30. They sat themselves, surprise surprise, and almost immediately started being rude. BC approached the bartender and demanded to know who was waiting on them, because "we're so thirsty!" As Anna attempted to take their drink order, they kept moving and yelling back and forth to each other between the two tables they're commandeered. She was ready to start breathing fire before they ever finished ordering their $1 beers.

Then, while she was in the kitchen pouring all the waters they wanted along with their beers, I heard one of them bitching about where she went, he was hungry! For a while, while they were waiting for their appetizers (the cheapest ones on special, of course), they were only moderately obnoxious, screeching back and forth about set design for their show or something. When their food came, Anna asked if they needed anything else. Of course, they did. Ranch and napkins and more water and more marinara and more ranch, and another order of this and more ketchup.

Thirty seconds after she walked in to the kitchen, one of these jerks stood up by his table and loudly announced, "WE NEED NAPKINS!" As if one of us lowly workers should be standing by, waiting for the opportunity to fetch His Highness whatever he might desire. I heard him, but I was two sections away cleaning the floors. When nobody came rushing to hand him napkins while licking his boots, he went to the bar.

Cali Girl, being smiley and polite, asked what he needed. He demanded napkins: "She said she would get us some, but we still don't have any!" Cali told him she'd run out, but would go the kitchen to get some after she finished making this drink. Napkin Jackass turned back to his table, where another one of them said "We still don't have napkins!"

"Well, I thought she was going to get us some! All she had to do was reach down and get them, she said she was, but I guess not!" he said this as loudly as possible; if I were Cali, I'd've turned around and stared him down. Especially when the asshole then tried to lean over the bar to get the napkins she'd just told him weren't there! Anna came out of the back, napkins in hand, as he was contorting himself over the bar. Less than a minute had elapsed since she went to the back in the first place!

I had to leave shortly after; that was at 12:30. We closed at 12, so for the last half an hour I'd been gradually turning down the music and the lights. One half of the restaurant was dark, and the music was off, when I left; Anna later told me the jerks didn't leave until after 1a.m.

And lucky me, if they come in this week it's totally my turn to take them.

We will now break for sanity.

Well, sort of, anyway.

I've decided to scale back my hours a bit—I was getting waaaaay more than “slightly” cranky. The way people pronounce words was starting to annoy me—I think that's a good sign I was working too much. Not to mention, with these new late night hours, I was working more hours for the same amount of money—and I was working so many hours I couldn't even pick up a first cut shift to make some extra cash. So I emailed Lapdog and asked to be taken off two of my closing shifts. He didn't deign to respond to me, but he did take me off one of them next week. So that's a little bit of progress.

I'm really thinking of trying to get an hourly job, and cutting my serving shifts back to a minimum. Of course, I think that all the time and end up not doing it. But with this semester almost over, it would be a good time to switch to an hourly evening job and daytime serving shifts for the summer, or a mix of evening shifts. We'll see how it goes, I looked (half-assedly) for a second job last summer too and it never worked out.

The kind of repeat customer we DON'T want.

Jesus Christ, Helmet Hair came in again! She was with her daughter and her son-in-law again, too. And once again, she charged through the door and past the hostess—I was up there talking to her at that point, and the bitch took one step inside the door, turned on her heel, and went to plop her ass down wherever she wanted.

I refused to wait on them—or acknowledge them at all, despite Helmet giving me nasty looks periodically. One of the two other servers took the bitch, because she recognized her as a frequent day time customer. She later told me that the woman always finds something to complain about—her potatoes are too cold, her drink is too warm, the sun is too bright, etc.

Her table won trivia, too, which irritated me. I'm hoping they lose every single round of bingo again this week. I might have to facilitate that, she's getting on my nerves so much.

Lost opportunities.

This past Saturday, we lost two employees in the one day. The first was Idiot Expo—see how unhappy I'm not? What was funny about it was the fact that he'd been posting all sorts of crap on his Facebook page for a couple of weeks—including the gem that getting so few hours was “gayer than aid's” [sic]--and had in fact announced that he'd gotten a new job and our restaurant could fuck off. Almost everyone at work was a friend on his on there, and CL has someone spying for her—but even if she didn't, he doesn't have his stuff set to private so she could see it all anyway! She told me she saw it while she was relating the story to me of how he came in faking an apologetic attitude when he quit on the spot. (I double-checked my privacy settings that night, even though I try not to say anything that would get me in trouble anyway.)

The second employee we lost was more …. well, lost. Alice started working there a couple of months ago, and at first she was great. Very on top of things, good with customers, etc. Then something happened and she just sort of … broke. It started when her ex was supposed to come in one night—she was a nervous wreck, and then when he didn't show up she ended up hysterically sobbing in the dining room until I managed to pull her in to the bathroom. After that, she just seemed to be having one crisis after another and was always breaking down at work and having to be sent home. She set her apartment on fire, she was sick, her kids weren't where they were supposed to be, her cat “attacked her hand” and she called off because of it, then she had cat scratch fever. Yeah, there is such a thing as cat scratch disease, but after the last month or so we'd be more likely to believe she caught the clapp from Ted Nugent.

When Alice came in on Saturday, she seemed fine. A little quiet, but not in tears or anything. We weren't on a wait, but we were starting to fill up, when I heard CL ask, “Has anyone greeted 22? Where's Alice?” I thought at first that CL was just panicking over nothing, as she sometimes does. But then nobody could find Alice. Her other three tables started stopping other servers asking for things, and we just could not find her. She wasn't in the bathroom, out back, or anywhere else in the restaurant. CL went to see if maybe she was hiding out smoking behind the neighboring building, or out in the parking lot. Not there. Nobody knew what she drives, so we weren't sure if her car was still there. She didn't say anything to anybody, nobody saw her get her purse, nobody saw her leave. She just vanished.

At the end of the night, by process of elimination, we were able to see that her car was gone as well as her purse. Nobody's heard from her since. So we don't know why she left; nor why she wasted an opportunity like that! After all, if you're going to quit on the spot and walk out on your shift, why wouldn't you go out in a blaze of glory? Every server dreams at some point of throwing their apron on the floor and unleashing years of pent-up rage at the incompetents they work for and the assholes they serve. Why would you pass that up?

So, tell me ...

Visit my FB fan page to tell me ..... do you karaoke?

Last night might have been the most humiliating experience of my life. I don't know why I did it. I had stopped at work because I wondered how the karaoke clusterfuck actually worked in a restaurant as opposed to a bar. After having a little dinner and a margarita, and watching some of my coworkers and a bunch of other people sing, I went and signed up.

I did it mostly because I was afraid to--and so it was a challenge to myself. I sang my favorite song, although the fact that the karaoke thing had the wrong goddamn lyrics--printing out for everyone to read--really sort of threw me. Also the fact that I couldn't hear myself at all. But mostly that the lyrics were horribly, terribly wrong! I felt bad for the people who had to listen to me. But, now I've done it--of my own free will, rather than last time when I was literally lifted on to the stage--and alone. I'm not proud, though. I'm still mildly horrified at myself!

A summer story.

This is the story of the the only dine-and-dash I've had (at least for the full bill). It was either last summer or the one before—actually, I think it must have been the one before, which was prior to this blog's existence, or I'm sure I'd've written about it that night.

Anyway, this woman sat out on the patio early in the evening. She said she was waiting for her husband, but would have a margarita while she waited. Half an hour later she was still waiting. She said she was too hungry to wait, and ordered an appetizer and a second margarita. It's not unheard of; sometimes people just don't show up. I had other tables, inside and out, and she just hung around for another half an hour, picking at what she said was her half of the appetizer and sipping her drink. Finally she said he wasn't coming, and asked for a box and the check. As I was heading out of the kitchen and to the patio a few minutes later, I saw her going in to the bathroom. Again, not anything to raise alarm bells. I just put the box and the check on the table to wait.

Fifteen minutes later, still waiting. I thought maybe she was smoking, or on the phone, or something. After half an hour, I gave up and told Lapdog. Surprisingly, he didn't give me any shit, just comped it off. I was quite surprised at the time; I just didn't get that vibe from her. I'm guessing it wasn't planned, but the door our carside staff uses is right next to the bathroom. She probably just saw an opportunity to slip out and took it. Then again, maybe she was just a scammer and I fell for it.

Mood music.

I'm writing up several entries to post over the next couple of days. In the meantime, have a disturbing yet hilarious video.

As helmet-y as ever.

One of our late night things now is bingo. Yes, bingo. I guess we're just beginning for Helmet Hair-types in come in with this kind of stuff.

She and her husband came in for bingo this week; I'm the bingo bitch, so I had the misfortune of having to even acknowledge her existence. A few minutes after she came in, I saw her flagging down CL. For a good five minutes CL was trapped there, listening to Helmet's bitching. I knew right away it was about me--I could just tell from the look on her face. When I heard her shriek something about "sat there for twenty minutes!" I considered it verified.

Once CL finally got away, I asked her. I figured it I approached her about it, she'd be less likely to go off on me later, after all. She didn't even seem irritated, kept telling me it was fine, so I guess Helmet caught her on a good day.

Basically, the woman told her I was short with her and that as soon as they said they weren't ordering food my entire demeanor changed. Well, yeah! It changed from ready to take order to gathering menus and moving along to the next table! But I made very sure to smile as I took their wasted menus, and I made sure their drinks were filled most of the time. I had other tables to take care of, after all, all of whom were being demanding.

But apparently, I was rude and inattentive and sarcasm and basically the sheer incarnation of evil. Helmet also said that her son-in-law sat down and waited for twenty minutes before he finally got up and asked the bartender for a beer. Because, you know, all servers just vanish for long stretches of time when they have four or five tables to take care of! I made constant laps around the damn bar area that night--the first time I saw him I approached the table and saw he had a beer in his hand already. So most likely I was talking an order within sight of the bitch and he just decided to go see the bartender himself--probably in the hopes I wouldn't charge him for that beer!

So yeah, five minutes of bitching because she didn't think they got adequate service on their $8 tab. Helmet Hair and her husband went out for a cigarette between bingo rounds, and because I'm a considerate person I stopped her before she tripped over something that fell in her way. She completely ignored me, stepped over it, and went outside.

After that, I wanted to surreptitiously look at their cards to see if there was a number they had in common--so I could remove that number from the final prize round (worth a lot of cash, actually). But I didn't. Instead, I took great, if petty, satisfaction from the fact that she and her husband didn't win a single round of bingo that night. I like to think it's because the universe realizes that they suck.

Of course I don't know what I'm talking about!

Poor L. She finally gets some of her shifts back--although still not in the bar--and she just gets bitch after bitch!

On Tuesday, her very first table seemed normal enough. Then when she brought out their food, the woman snatched her potato up in her hand and sniffed it. Then she dropped it back on to the plate with a splat and told L. that she'd "need a new potato. This one is old."

So L. gets her a new potato; when she comes back, the husband has shoved his plate off to the side. He then bitched at her about how there were dark spots on his fried fish, and he didn't understand why we were cooking fried fish on a flat grill. Huh? L. very politely told assured him that they were not cooked on a grill and were in fact fried. His response was "I'm going to need to speak to your manager, who'll obviously be better informed than you."

L. got Lapdog, who again told the guy the fish isn't cooked on a grill, but the guy still wouldn't listen and demanded new fish. And the wife's steak was conveniently overcooked at that point, too. So Lapdog, now cranky, goes back to the kitchen and supervises the cooks. Sure enough, the fish pieces come out of the fryer with the same dark spots they other do.

Lapdog took their food out, explained how he watched the fish cook and he doesn't understand why they had darker spots on them. He also had a new steak--and yet another baked potato!--for the wife. Honestly, I don't understand what the big fucking mystery is! Items like french fries and mozzarella sticks are less dense than oil, so as the bubbles right the food gets bumped around. The pieces of fish are thick, heavy, and dense--so they rest on the bottom of the fryer basket. Since they have a layer of very thick batter on them, that batter gets a little crispy-fried from resting against the metal of the basket. Apparently nobody else, including Lapdog and the cooks, couldn't think of this, and so the customer never got an answer and probably thought that Lapdog was lying to them, too.

They grumbled through the rest of their meal, especially when they discovered that Lapdog hadn't bought all their food because of their "problems". When they were finished, the husband went out to the car and the wife asked to speak to someone higher up than Lapdog.

CL was there that day, so she spent about ten minutes listening to this woman bitch about how Lapdog was so rude, how things just don't seem to run right when CL isn't there (huh?), and basically continued talking about how Lapdog was just so horrible and unpleasant. I heard a bit of the conversation between the table and Lapdog as I was walking by, and he was his usual obsequious boot-licking self. Nothing for the woman to complain about.

Much like a table a couple of weeks ago, who said very similar things about Lapdog. That particular group sent somebody outside on their cell phone to call our corporate office about him and his "rudeness"! That thought makes me laugh--let's see how he feels being at the mercy of psycho bitches who are complaining just because they're breathing!

Helmet-haired bitches and trivia still blows.

Tuesday night, I thought I might stand a chance of making some decent money, because Pot Smoking Manager was kind enough to give me the bar area for my section. I had a total of six tables--which was more than the rest of the people still on--but I still didn't make jack shit. One couple stayed the entire time and left me three bucks on a $43 ticket. Thanks a lot, fuckers. Then a couple of barely-drinking-age guys sat the entire time, they at last gave me five. A couple of teenagers came in and had two drinks and shared a sundae, and I didn't even both to look if they left a tip because I was sure I'd just be pissed off. Another couple of guys came in and stayed until midnight--keeping me there till close even though I was supposed to be off early that night--for three bucks. There was one family who left me $10, so they at least didn't suck.

The biggest offenders of the night, though, were Helmet Hair and her lanky-haired friend. I was in the kitchen when Monty came up and jammed a towel at me, saying, "You're going that way right?"

"What way?"

"Their table is dirty."

"Whose table is dirty?" I was ready to start shaking him at this point. I eventually decoded the message that a couple of bitches had sat themselves at table 12, and were complaining it was dirty. I knew they were going to be trouble immediately, and when I saw Helmet Hair I decided to make them feel like assholes--politely, of course--because I recognized her. At about sixty years old, she has very bleached hair she teases in to a big lacquered dome all the way around her head. She's the kind of woman with grotesquely long fake nails, polished beige a couple of weeks ago, who wears big ugly rings on every finger. I don't even know what color her eyes were because they were so heavily surrounded by black makeup; I vaguely remember her outfit was loud and obnoxious.

With my biggest smile on my face, I approached the table. Helmet Hair pointed without a word at the obvious chunks on the table. "I'm so sorry your table is dirty! I don't know why the hostess would have set you here, we put the salt shaker out so everyone knows it's dirty!"

Helmet Hair admitted they had sat themselves, that they'd told the hostess they were here for trivia and were going to the bar.

"Oh," I said as I wiped crumbs away, "okay. I guess she thought you meant the bar itself! What can I get you to drink? One iced tea with lots of ice, lemon, and a straw? And a diet coke? Okay, I'll be right back with menus." I said all this as sweet as honey, but inside my head I was muttering about what a couple of bitches they were. They confirmed this when I returned with their drinks and Helmet Hair informed me they weren't eating, they were "just" going to take up a six-person booth while they tried to win money. Fuckers.

The lanky-haired one had about eleven diet coke refills (I'm not exaggerating), but other than that she was fairly inoffensive. Her husband showed up at some point and ordered a beer from the bar, telling the bartender he'd add it to the table's tab. Of course, he said nothing to me, so I had to ask Cali Girl if he'd paid her or not. He had another one later; that was the extent of their ticket.

Trivia started, and was slightly less loud and obnoxious than last week--the guy didn't crank the volume up quite so loud this time, which was nice. He still thinks he needs to yell into his microphone, though. We also had a restaurant team, although of course we couldn't win; we totally would have though, we kicked ass.

Slightly after this started, Helmet Head handed me a coupon for a free sundae. Right away, I noticed that the expiration date had been blacked out. Right, because that isn't suspicious. Also, the very first damn thing it says is "valid with purchase of entree". I politely pointed that out. She played the "Oh, really? So I can't use it? I have to buy an entree? I can't just get dessert?" as if staring at me hard enough would make me change my mind.

Now, if they'd been having a couple of bar drinks, or even some damn chips and salsa, or maybe if they hadn't been presumptive hags from the start, I might have let it slide. This is why you should be polite to your server, people. Of course, she later flagged down somebody else, who had no business taking her fucking coupon but did anyway.

The three of them sat for the entire damn length of trivia, almost three hours by the time they left. He had another beer; diet coke women continued to suck those down; Helmet Hair occasionally threw out things like "I'm going to NEED a LOT more ICE." Really, bitch? Are you going to die if you don't get some fucking ice? Is the a need like you need oxygen, or a need like you need three cans of Aquanet to stick your hair in place? Yeah, that's what I thought. I don't think "need" means what you think it means.

Needless to say, I was completely unsurprised when Helmet Hair stiffed me. The other two deigned to leave me a fucking dollar--probably pissed I charged them for both beers!

Although the entire trivia set-up wasn't as loud as last week, it still put me on edge. I felt like I do when my friends convince me to go to crowded bars--a slight flutter of no-reason panic, a tension all over my body, a general nervousness. I don't know why, it's completely stupid. I don't think it's the noise, because I'm fine at concerts. It wasn't crowded. I'm really not sure why, but it made for an uncomfortable night. I'm going to give it a few more weeks, but I don't know if I'm going to be able to hang with this. Especially since its driven away our regular Tuesday night people without really bringing in replacements.

I did get a laugh at one point though, when between trivia questions they played this:

Dodged another corporate bullet.

I nearly picked up a shift on one of my days off this week, since I had requested Easter off (unnecessarily, as it turned out). Thank god I changed my mind! The president and vice-president of the company showed up for a surprise visit—at 10 at night. They showed up on one of the nights that we don't have any specific “late night fun” planned, and a night when CL was working.

She did have about half an hour of warning, as one of the other stores called, so of course she started flipping out and having people scrub stuff. She was also able to bribe employees with free food to hang around and pretend they wanted to be there, which is good, since the big guys were there to see how late night was going. If they'd come in on a Sunday or Monday, it would have been great—we've actually had a decent showing. Not sure why those two nights have worked out when the rest haven't, really. A random group of semi-regulars showed up too, which I imagine made CL just weak with relief.

I wasn't there, like I said, but one of my friends reported that the big guys weren't impressed with the kitchen—apparently they complained about fingerprints on the stainless steel, and said the floors weren't clean enough. You know, in a working kitchen while we were open. I guess they also asked CL some upsetting questions about her boss, which she told someone while crying in the kitchen. I'm not sure what that was about, but I'm sure CL is terrified that her boss will get fired and replaced with someone who doesn't think she's splendiferous.

I'm getting less and less thrilled with closing, with the late hours and sporadic business and my general annoyance with my job. The idea of random late-night visits from ignorant corporate bigwigs just makes me even more excited.

Poor staffing decisions.

Because of this late-night stuff, CL has been training a lot of extra people in the bar. I guess she things we're going to have an explosion of bar guests who all want mixed drinks or something. It's kind of hilarious, actually. She's trained Anna, who doesn't really have an interest in doing it; another server who doesn't actually want any bar shifts and only did it because she's been there so long she felt she had to; and one of the laziest servers we have, who tried to give away tables and leave early every goddamn shift.

L still hasn't gotten her bar shifts back, despite being told she would, and despite us only have two night closing bartenders—who are both pissed they're working until midnight and one so often. L was one of our best bartenders, but apparently CL still has a grudge.

And now, CL has decided to train Wide-eyes for the bar. She's another one who's lazy as can be, tries to skip out on her sidework at every opportunity, and acts like she should be treated special because she has a kid. You know, like most of my coworkers do.

When I first heard about it, it was because one of the other bartenders was wicked pissed. She came up to me, really angry. “Wide-eyes is going to a be a bartender! She said she told CL she'd work Wednesday nights. I've worked Wednesday nights for two years! If they take my shift for that bitch I'm quitting, this is bullshit!”

I thought Wide-eyes had to be assuming things, that she couldn't really be on the bar list. Nobody can stand this chick, everyone complains about her constantly, she screws up non-stop and costs the restaurant money. So I asked Lapdog.

“Is it true that Wide-eyes is going to be a bartender?”

Lapdog's hands fell to his side; his posture got a bit more rigid. For a long second he didn't say anything, then slowly and without looking at me said, “Yeah, that was CL's decision.” I would love to hear exactly what he thinks about it!

Trivia night: now a total waste of time.

Previously, for late night, we were doing trivia ourselves. The first week CL read the questions, and the next two weeks I did it. I actually really liked reading the questions; I was looking forward to actually writing some of them. CL decided it wasn't obnoxious enough, I guess, because she hired a professional DJ company.

The first night was this week, and I was not fucking thrilled. To start with, they erected their setup at two of my tables, shrinking my section. Their setup plugs in to the television, which is nice; and then they have two giant speakers, one of which was pointed directly at another of my tables—so I was down three tables, because nobody wanted to sit three feet from this screaming speaker. The guy reading the questions yelled in to his microphone, making people jump every time he started talking; in between his over-enthused speaking they blasted top 40 songs.

Don't get me wrong, it would be a great plan for a real bar. For our little restaurant, it's total overkill. The people who were there seemed to be having fun, which I guess is what's important even if it did give me a screaming headache and even though I couldn't hear my customers to get orders. Still, I wasn't cranky, I figured it'd get better with time, I'd adjust to the noise.

When I got really pissed was when a table of regulars left, one of the three tables I got at all. These five guys come in once a week or so, are super low-maintenance, and tip about 30%. And boy, were they pissed off. They didn't like the noise; they didn't like the music; they didn't like the dimmer than usual lighting. What really set them off, though, was our drink specials.

I actually would really like to get some feedback on this. When you go to a bar that has two-for-one drink specials, how does that work? Does the bartender give you both drinks at once, you have one and your friend has one? Or are they both for you, and they won't serve the second one until the first is done? If you all could leave comments, I'd appreciate it, because I don't know how these things work normally.

All I know is that CL said people can't share the special. So if you and I want to drink at the same time, we both have to order a drink under our own 2-for-1. It doesn't seem unreasonable to me—the drinks are the same prices as always, they're not increased to account for the free one. So I don't see what the big deal is, but these guys were pissed. Especially one of them, whose bald scalp was turning red with anger. “Oh, so they want us to get drunk and drive? That's just great!”

I don't get paid enough to deal with the fallout from corporate idiocy, so I fetched Lapdog. He spent a few minutes talking to them, Red Scalp bitching most of that time, and then the people who would've tipped me hugely got up and left. Because corporate has flat-out stated that they're willing to sacrifice regular customers to chase this “late night” crowd.

It would have been fine if we'd still been doing trivia like we were before—a round of ten questions, then ten or twenty minutes for people to keep talking, to eat, to order more drinks. Instead we now have this non-stop onslaught of hip-hop music and a screaming DJ. Our regular Tuesday night Jehovahs are going to stop coming in, eliminating our steady Tuesday business almost entirely.

I'm considering giving up my Tuesday night closes, honestly. I was there until 12:40 at night, and I think I made sixty bucks. Not okay.

New hights of pickiness.

I've written before about the joy that is waiting on Shrimp Guy and his son; and I didn't have to deal with them for several months, which was great! Then I had to wait on them on Tuesday, and discovered they've found yet another stupid thing to be nit-picky about.

To recap, this is what the usually order:

Shrimp Guy now always orders the southwestern salad. No sour cream, no southwestern ranch, no salsa; extra guacamole, extra pico de gallo, sub extra honey mustard. Maybe a side of plain unseasoned broccoli--after he tastes his son's to make sure it's okay, or something. Oh, and a Pepsi with light ice, but not until he gets his meal.

His son gets the mini burgers with a side of shredded lettuce (not leaf lettuce, shredded), three tomatoes, raw red onion, and mustard. His fries have to have no salt, pepper, or other seasoning, and be cooked fresh; his broccoli has to be plain. He gets an iced tea with no lemon and an extra glass of ice.

I was already pissed when they sat down; I had a three table section, they've major campers, and one of my other tables was sat with this freaking annoying couple who comes in to watch entire basketball games. Get a TV, folks. Anyway.

I took their drinks--Shrimp Guy can just fucking deal with having his soda before his meal--and went to get their order. To my surprise, the son didn't order broccoli. I thought maybe he'd forgotten, so I asked about it.

He promptly began complaining about how they've been eating here for two years and never knew the broccoli was microwaved, and that ruins the vitamins, so there's no point in eating it, and he just can't believe nobody ever told him before that our broccoli is microwaved, and it was such a waste.

I just sort of stared at him. I thought about pointing out that they're idiots--any cooking destroys nutrients, and flavonoids (which is what the much-referenced microwaved-broccoli study was about) are water-soluble, which means that any cooking involving water will damage them. It doesn't make them worthless. But whatever.

I thought we steamed things and just zapped them to warm them up, so I checked with the cook; when I explained why I was asking he offered to boil a couple of servings of broccoli for them instead. Same cook who freaked out at me for my modifications, actually!

So they got their non-microwaved broccoli, and I took sort of petty pleasure in knowing that more nutrients probably leached out into the water that way than by microwaving them.