Friday, September 16, 2011

He couldn't possibly be drunk!

A couple of my favorite customers were in with a group of their friends the other night, but I wasn't taking tables so couldn't wait on them. Instead, they got stuck with Eager Beaver – who they think is an arrogant cock, but who they usually have fun with anyway. I went over to say hello and one of them asked me for a refill because Beaver was ignoring them. I figured he was busy and didn't think too much of it – he likes to take on more tables than he can handle.

“Thank you. He's walked right by us a bunch of times and never even came back to get her order,” she gestured at her friend. “He's acting really weird.”
After asking if her friend still wanted to order (no), I asked how he was acting weird. They told me he was saying things that didn't make sense, slurring his words, and squinting at them. They also said they'd seen him trip a couple of time.

The wheels in my head started turning. Beaver is always desperate to get off work and start pounding down the beers, and he'd been working a straight-through double shift. When I went to fetch another thing for his customers, I made sure to get close enough to him to sniff … and I'm pretty sure I smelled booze on his breath. I didn't want to accuse him of anything, but when I went back to his table I asked if they wanted to talk to the manager. I knew it wouldn't do much, since CL was the manager on duty, but I fetched her when they asked.

Her response? “Oh, he's been here all day, he couldn't be drunk!” She also threw a couple of dessert coupons at them. And that was the end of that. Can you even imagine the shit that would rain down on me if a customer accused me of being drunk?

4 comments:

SkippyMom said...

Is CL on crack. Does she not have any idea how easy it would be to drink through TWO shifts in a restaurant?

I saw it so many times.

Good luck with EB.

Anonymous said...

I worked with a guy that was drunk every shift and no one knew but the servers. He worked all different shifts and even doubles. He didn't get fired until he made a table sit and wait for like 10 minutes with no drinks and then he dumped them all in the floor in front of the table and I think he said something to piss the guy off at the table. I never got the full story and I was the only other server on the floor. The got someone else to come on earlier to take his place but he had put in the order and couldn't remember what they got or where he wrote it down. The table went nuts and got in the managers face and told the manager the guy was drunk. That's how he finally got fired.
What's best is we didn't serve any type of alcohol, and the guy live in a tent, in a field next to the restaurant, but was still always late to work.

Anonymous said...

When I worked at Chili's I saw too many coworkers come in drunk/hungover/stoned/high/etc. and suffer no consequences. It's disgusting to see coworkers get away with that when everyone else is supposed to follow what I like to call "common sense" rules.

navymom said...

Where I work, we serve no alcohol, however some of the other servers do work drunk and/or hungover. I have seen a server go out to her car for a "smoke" and come back in reeking of booze.