Flaming assholes.

I swear to god there must be a freaking convention of fuck-faces in town, because we've been over-run all damn weekend. My section was full of jackasses Thursday night; Bulldog was just the worst of them. Friday was full of fun people too, although I can't really remember them specifically -- just lots of bad attitudes and less than 10% tips. One especially nice one was $3 on $57. Oh, and $4 on $78. Fuck you people.

Tonight it started all over again. The whole night sucked. Everyone was running around like crazy, shit was going wrong, customers were being dicks. I particularly enjoyed waiting on a coworker from my old restaurant, who left me $3 on $55. Bitch. Now I remember why I didn't like her back then.

Then there was the table of two who told me their appetizer tasted "weird" and when I asked how just told me it "didn't taste like the avocado dip we've had before." Uh, maybe that's because we don't have an avocado dip, we have a spinach dip. Dumbasses. Then they ordered a couple more beers, and when I delivered them (maybe four minutes later), the man heaved a big sigh and said, "Fine, I guess we'll take them, we just told your manager we didn't want them!" Well excuse the hell out of me for bringing what you ordered! I hadn't even had a chance to talk to PSM as he'd been snagged by another tables of complainers in the fifteen seconds since he left my table. PSM took the appetizer and the beers off their ticket; I didn't even look at what they tipped me, just jammed the cash in my pocket because I was pretty sure it'd just piss me off.

My most douchebaggy customers were also my first -- a big table. They weren't too high maintenance, but when they did need something, they were just plain rude. It started when the first woman showed up and told the hosts, "We'll have 10 for a birthday party. I'm going to go sit at our table." and proceeded to walk into the bar area and plop herself down at a random table. Right. When the time came to order dinner, a mullet-bearing older woman informed me she'd have the grilled cheese off the children's menu, and I wasn't to charge her for her soda because "it's included." The same woman made a lovely joke when someone ordered guacamole -- "ya'll know where gwack-ah-mole-ay comes from right? a cow's butt!" Charming.

That sort of crap continued throughout the meal. As some of them finished, I was talking to the impatient beer people; I then turned around to greet a new table, and yet another bitchy woman at the big table yelled, "HEY! Wait a minute!" Then she reached out like she was going to grab me. At that I was already standing at the other table, looking over my shoulder, but she didn't take the hint. "Can we get our tickets!"
"Sure, just a minute." I then turned back to my new table, who were all staring at the other woman in shock. That table was really cool, actually. Thank goodness for that.

I brought the ten of them their four separate tickets, and told each individual ticket-taker that I would be their cashier. Imagine my surprise when I returned to the table and found two of them with credit cards at the ready, and two of them gone. Grilled cheese bitch and "can we get our tickets" bitch had both planted themselves in the middle of the lobby and were thrusting money at the rather confused hosts. They told them they needed to pay their server, and Ticket Bitch's husband said, "Well, I'm not walking back to our table!" and sat down on the bench to freaking pout. Seriously? You're like 80, not 5!

Again, I didn't even look at my tip from any of them, I knew I'd just want to chase them outside with a steak knife.

But the Flaming Asshole Of The Day Award goes to someone not even in my section. A table of two was seated in the new girl's section -- it was her first shift working her own section, and she did pretty well! But she couldn't do anything about the wait in the lobby, the wait for their food, or the fact that the cooks sent out an improperly cooked steak. She's a nice girl, who has served before, and according to PSM she handled everything correctly.

But she still got a two dollar tip on a $40 tab. Shitty, but what pushes it over the edge is the little asterisk by the tip, and a note at the bottom of the ticket: "*AND YOU'RE LUCKY TO EVEN GET THAT."

Flaming asshole.

30 Day Song Challenge - day 3

A song that makes me happy. Yes, I do listen to things other than a-ha, but this song always makes me smile! I don't really know why, but it always gives me this peaceful, uplifted feeling.

You are not an Indian.

One of the newer servers drives me up a wall. She seems perfectly nice, but I just can't get past the way she dresses. Or rather, the way she accessorizes. She always wears the same pair of rainbow striped plastic hoop earrings, which aren't my thing but whatever. But she also has pheasant-like feathers woven into her hair, wears carved bead necklaces, braids her hair in side braids, and wears these headbands across her forehead. Every time I look at her, I want to shake her and scream, "You are not an Indian!"


I think what irritates me the most, though, is how she keeps very tanned to go along with this look. If you're going to try to pass your tan off as a native skintone, you shouldn't wear goggles in the tanning bed.

30 Day Song Challenge - day 2

Today is supposed to be "your least favorite song." There are a lot of those, since I think 90% of the music out there is garbage! But here's one that I can't stand to listen to even five seconds of.

30 Day Song Challenge - day 1

The Restaurant Manager is doing it, and I like to jam my musical choices down everybody's throats. So Here we go!

Day 01 - your favorite song

Day 02 - your least favorite song

Day 03 - a song that makes you happy

Day 04 - a song that makes you sad

Day 05 - a song that reminds you of someone

Day 06 - a song that reminds you of somewhere

Day 07 - a song that reminds you of a certain event

Day 08 - a song that you know all the words to

Day 09 - a song that you can dance to

Day 10 - a song that makes you fall asleep

Day 11 - a song from your favorite band

Day 12 - a song from a band you hate

Day 13 - a song that is a guilty pleasure

Day 14 - a song that no one would expect you to love

Day 15 - a song that describes you

Day 16 - a song that you used to love but now hate

Day 17 - a song that you hear often on the radio

Day 18 - a song that you wish you heard on the radio

Day 19 - a song from your favorite album

Day 20 - a song that you listen to when you’re angry

Day 21 - a song that you listen to when you’re happy

Day 22 - a song that you listen to when you’re sad

Day 23 - a song that you want to play at your wedding

Day 24 - a song that you want to play at your funeral

Day 25 - a song that makes you laugh

Day 26 - a song that you can play on an instrument

Day 27 - a song that you wish you could play

Day 28 - a song that makes you feel guilty

Day 29 - a song from your childhood

Day 30 - your favorite song at this time last year

And right away, a problem. My favorite song? Gah! That changes every three minutes!

A tale of two "dogs".

My tables last night were all full of the crazy. Just bad attitudes and weird requests at every table, and topped off, naturally, with bad tips. But one bulldog-faced bitch of a woman stands heads and swinging jowls above the rest.

At first, I thought I was just getting another table of cranky old people (who had apparently sprung a mass break-out from the home). He was a scrawny quiet old man who I think was blind in one eye, and she looked like the lovechild of Jabba the Hut and a bulldog. In glasses and a flowery shirt. This mental image wasn't helped by her barking voice and general rudeness, either.

They ordered two glasses of wine; someone else delivered them while I was taking an order. As I turned around with a stack of menus in my hand, Bulldog snarled at me, "I need another wine! This glass is dirty!" I picked up the offending glass, not seeing where it was dirty, and assured her I'd get her a new glass right away. "It's dirty!" she repeated, and again I said I'd get her another glass.

When I came back, she didn't even give me a chance to ask if they were ready to order before beginning to do so. She ordered for her husband (riblets) and acted offended when I asked him directly which type of sauce he wanted. Then she jabbed a square, garishly painted nail at a picture in the menu and grunted "I'll have that."

My server intuition niggled at me; I just had a feeling she was going to send it back. So I repeated her order very carefully to check that she wanted the steak and garlic shrimp, which she confirmed. She then said she wanted her steak cooked medium, and asked if she could get onion rings. When I said it was a dollar to substitute onion rings, she got all huffy and sourly informed me she'd choke down the vegetables. I was already ready to tell her to choke on her vegetables at that point.

Five minutes later, I'm again just barely leaving another table when she hollers at me, "can we get another glass of wine!" Her glass was empty; her husband's was half-full; and since she had used singular words, I foolishly assumed she actually meant another glass. Of course, when I took it to them the husband asked, quite bitchily, "what happened to mine?" I apologized and said I misunderstood, and would be right back. "Well! I said can we get another glass!" was Bulldog's huffed response. Whatever.

Well, we were absolutely slammed, and the bartenders were buried, so it took a couple of minutes for said wine to be poured. Not more than five -- and remember, he still had wine left! -- but that wasn't acceptable. As I watched one bartender pour the wine, I saw another contending with a familiar bulldog-faced bitch who had wandered to bar to personally bitch at the bartenders! You'd think the fact that she had to shove her way through a full lobby, and then through a layer of people all the way around the bar, might have clued her in as to the fact they hey, cuntbag, we're busy! But noooo. I don't know exactly what she said to the Lawyer and Chrissy, but they were both really offended.

Two minutes later, as I was entering an order for a five top, I saw Pixy standing at my table, being berated by Bulldog. Then she came back -- surprise! -- carrying the beautifully prepared steak and shrimp.

"Alright, what's the bitch's problem?"
"I didn't even get to set this down or anything before she started yelling! 'What's that, I didn't order that, I don't want that!'"
"Oh for Christ's sake. What did she say she ordered?"
"Plain grilled shrimp, an appetizer of onion rings, and a salad with Italian."
I literally stood there and stared for five seconds before I started laughing. Then I took the plate back to the kitchen. "Rehab, we're up a steak because this crazy bitch said she didn't order it." I ordered the new, completely different order and then went to tell Lapdog -- making sure to tell him that I repeated her order and she was just crazy. He said he'd take her salad out when it was ready, so I got a refill for another crazy table and then stopped and braved the dog.

"We'll have your dinner ready shortly, ma'am." I said with my best smile, but absolutely without apologizing. "How are your riblets, sir?"
He just nodded at me with his mouth full, then spit out a little square bone. Classy. Bulldog, however, naturally had something to say. "Tell your chef that those aren't riblets!"
Oh jesus, here we go. I smiled the best I could. "They aren't?"
"We're from Nebraska and we know meat! Those are featherbones!"
"Oh. Would you like something else?"
"We know meat! We're from Nebraska! Those aren't riblets!"
"Well, they're what we call riblets." I said as cheerfully as I could. "Would you like something else?"
"He wanted something he didn't have to chew around! He has false teeth!" She continued. Lapdog walked up with the salad, so she re-directed her energy to him. "We're from Nebraska! Those aren't riblets!"
I walked away at that point, but heard him say "well, we've called them riblets for 15 years."

Next time I saw Lapdog in the kitchen, I grinned at him and he laughed and said "she's a real ray of sunshine, isn't she!" Then he said he'd deliver her food himself, which I was very grateful for. I was also not entirely surprised when a few minutes later he came stomped back to the kitchen, carrying the grilled shrimp and looking pissed.

"She decide she wants chicken now?" I joked.
"Apparently I need to re-train my staff," he snapped, "because she wanted cold shrimp and sauce."
"What?"
"Yeah, that's what she said, that I need to retrain my staff." He was really irritated, but I knew it was at Bulldog -- he doesn't like it when people say things like that. All I could do at that point was laugh. Lapdog took her a plate of shrimp on ice, like shrimp cocktail, and a side of cocktail sauce, and apparently Bulldog deemed that acceptable -- although I later overheard her bitching more, saying, "who serves shrimp on ice!"

When I offered them dessert, she snapped that they'd "had enough here." She looked over the ticket carefully, grumbling to her husband the whole time and looking even more sour. I'm sure she thought her food would be on the house because of all her griping, but for once Lapdog didn't buy everything just to shut the customer up!

I wasn't surprised to get no tip off the bitch. Actually, they left five cents less than the total bill, and if they hadn't already been out the door when I got to the table I would have stopped them and demanded they pay their five cents, the bitches.

Postal.

That's how I'm about to go. These people are fucking ridiculous.

Newest creepy regular.

Every restaurant I've worked at has had at least one regular that makes everybody's skin crawl. Ours used to be a brain-damaged bicycle-riding guy who would stay after close, follow employees into the kitchen, talk non-stop about inappropriate things, etc. He stopped coming in after one of my friends quit/was forced out, because everybody else avoided him or interrupted him. And thank god, because he was so fucking loud. I do not miss him.

But, a couple of weeks ago, we got a new guy. And he's actually kinda scary. The very first thing he told Courtney was, "I just got out of jail after ten years." Fabulous. He tried to talk to me, asking why we remodeled. I wasn't very polite and just said, "because corporate told us to." It's not that I'm prejudiced against people who had done jail time -- at that point I hadn't even heard he was a convict yet. He's just creepy. He carries a backpack everywhere, wears a big bulky trench coat has greasy hair and beady eyes that are always staring at all of us who work there, and he eavesdrops on our conversations at the staff table. He just gives off an aura of wrong.

Nobody's asked New Creepy Regular why he was in jail, because we pretty much try not to talk to him. But we all suspect it was some sort of sexual abuse from his general demeanor and creepiness.

Trying to catch up!

I'll get to all my comments shortly now that I'm feeling a little better, but I wanted to get a post up first!

As supportive as a cupless jock strap.

Most of my Thursday shift was a big blur. I was sick, and I'd gone in to work out of a sense of stubbornness, and also because I thought they'd hear how horrible my voice was, or see how pale and sweaty I was, and send me home. Because they really have been better about that lately. It took a customer writing to corporate saying they were disgusted that such a sick person was working, but they've been better!

But, HotPants sucks, so I ended up staying. I could talk normally in very short bursts, so I could really only tend to one table at a time before having to go to the kitchen and cough up a lung. But I was managing. Oh, I fucked up a couple of times. Once I forgot to mark a burger to go -- would actually would not have been a problem, had my idiot coworker who dropped it off bothered to take it back to the kitchen and box it up when my customer told her it was to go. Instead, she said, "Okay!", dropped the plate on the table, and walked away. Thanks much. That table was fine, though; I apologized and got them a new burger, and got a $7 tip on a $30 bill.

The other table I fucked up on was even cooler about it. They had ordered their two kids' food first, and theirs about ten minutes later. Well, I kept seeing their table number filled in on my screen and registered that as "order in." It took me about twenty minutes to realize I'd hadn't ordered their salads! So I rang them in right away, scurried out, apologized and told them it was my fault, got them soups on the house, and got HotPants. I was cleaning a nearby table and heard the woman tell him, "We were very impressed that our waitress told us it was her mistake and didn't try to blame anyone else. We really appreciate her honesty." Thank you!

I think I made one other little mistake, but basically I held it together pretty well considering how shitty I felt. I asked a friend if I had a fever, and when she touched my forehead she jerked her hand away and said she could feel my head throbbing! I was really miserable late that night, I nearly called my mother to have her take me to the ER. I don't know how high my fever was, just that I was in pajamas, wrapped in a down comforter, with my heater up to 75, and I was shivering so hard my teeth were chattering. I also had such a bad headache I couldn't see at times. Yeeeeeehaw!

Anyway. What really pissed me off during my shift involved a table that didn't even have any problems I knew about. They were a table of four; they weren't terribly friendly, but didn't seem upset or cranky. They sat down and ordered during the middle of our rush; two of them had soups first, one of them ordered two meals, and another ordered well done fajitas. Their food did take a while, but it didn't seem like an extreme wait to me considering the circumstances. I kept walking by, making eye contact, smiling. They continued talking amongst themselves; their drinks were never empty; they seemed content.

Another server delivered their food while I was apologizing to the burger table and ringing that order in. When I went out to the four-top and asked how dinner was, nobody made eye contact. The one man at the table said "Fine" very shortly and stuck a credit card in my face. I made a little joke about "no dessert, huh" trying to feel them out, and he just snapped "No!" and jammed more of those well-done fajitas into his mouth.

Well, last week we all got a lecture about going to the managers whenever anything was wrong, so that's what I did. I stopped at the computer first and checked their ticket time; 36 minutes since I'd entered their order. A little long, but with soups and well-done fajitas? Not worth getting riled up about.

The fun part came with trying to get HotPants to take care of this shit. He was helping cook, so I had to holler across the window at him in my scratchy, sick voice. It took a good three minutes to explain I thought they were upset about the wait, and I already had their credit card. He asked if they had just gotten their food, and I said yes. At which point he swung into action told me to wait a few minutes and walked away! Fuck! I gathered up a couple of things, waiting for him to come back.

"I already have his card," I reminded him. He blinked at me and then walked around the cooks and toward the dining room. Thank god. Then he stood and looked at my table's ticket on the computer, then looked over at them. Then he asked if I'd offered them dessert.

"No," I said as calmly as possible, "I wanted you to talk to them first."

"Okay," he said ... and walked back into the kitchen. I was ready to fucking scream. The guy who had given me his card was looking around, obviously getting more pissed.

I followed Hotpants back in to the kitchen again. "Do you want me to just run his card?"

"No." he stopped and stood there, staring at nothing, then went back into the dining room. He finally headed toward my table, and I started to relax ... until he glanced at them as he walked right by. Then he turned around, walked by without talking to them again, and came back to where I was standing, starting to totally freak.

"Did you take them boxes? They're not eating at all."

"No! They'd just gotten their food and were eating!"

"Okay." he pulled their ticket up on the computer again, stared at it, closed it, and went back to the table. This time he stopped, but didn't really talk to the guy, because he was only there about ten seconds I think he just asked if they wanted boxes, then came back and said, "He's not a very nice guy, is he."

I wanted to snap and scream that of course he wasn't, and he was getting meaner because I'd had his credit card for more than five minutes now while HotPants was dicking around. I think I managed something a little more diplomatic. So HotPants fiddled with their check, printed it out, and started to walk away.

"Wait! I already have their card!"

He took it and tucked it in the book and started walking away. I called him back again, got the ticket closed, and let him take it to them. Again, he didn't really talk to them, just delivered it and walked away unconcerned. I watched them leave, knowing before I even picked up the checkbook that a) I'd been stiffed and b) they'd taken their receipt with the corporate survey and the regional manager's direct number on it. Yep.

I wrote a brief note of the events and have it tucked into my serving book; if I get hauled into the office on a customer complaint about this, you can bet I'll be telling them exactly how unhelpful HotPants was. I am not going to go down in flames because my table was unhappy when I don't even know why! I'm only guessing it was the wait, maybe they found something in their food, or maybe they heard one of my coworkers say something offensive, or maybe they could tell I was sick. Who the hell knows? That was HotPants' job to find out, and he didn't even bother.

Blech.

Well, I got my internet working again. I also got a cold or something. Fuckity fuck fuck fuck.

My favorite V-Day bitch.

Pretty much sums up the whole night.
(My house Internet is out and god only knows when it'll get fixed. I can do limited stuff from my phone, but won't be able to answer comments yet. Bloody Comcast.)

As always, I see stupid people.

I honestly do not know where these people come from. They blow my mind with their retarditude.

The first one to make me roll my eyes on Thursday night was the woman who asked if the steak on our diet menu is small.
"No, it's actually a seven ounce sirloin," I informed her.
"Oh, well, if it's under (so many) calories it must be really small!"
"It's seven ounces, it's a very good size." I repeated.
"Well, what about that one?" she pointed to a picture on the flyer of diet menu items. I blinked. It was the same steak. Christ on a pogo stick. I didn't even know how to answer without saying snotty, so it took me a moment to decide to act stupid too.
"Oh, let me see." I peered at the menu with my best dumb-blonde expression. "Oh, yes, that's the (insert same damn steak name), so it's going to be the seven ounce steak."
"Well, how big is that? It must be small."
At this point her husband said in exasperation, "It's seven ounces."
The woman was peering at the table next to them, so I took advantage of it. "They're having the seven ounce sirloin, so that's the same size as the (diet steak)."
"But they have a baked potato!" she snapped.
"Right," I sighed. "It's the same size steak, not the same item."
She ended up ordering the regular seven ounce sirloin, with a baked potato, and not finishing it.

The next table wouldn't even give me their drink order, saying they needed a few minutes. They stopped the next passing server to snap that they were ready to order. Ten minutes later, the woman comes stomping across the restaurant to ask me how long their dinner is going to be because they have to be in the next town in 25 minutes. This was the middle of the dinner rush, with a full lobby.

Then there was the guy who, when I brought him the check, asked for a pen. I gave him one; he then opened the book, looked at the ticket, and asked, "Where do I sign?" I politely told him that he hadn't given me his credit card yet. "Oh, okay. So ... where do I sign?" Again, I tried to explain I couldn't give him a credit card slip until he gave me the fucking card. He then opened his wallet and gave me ..... cash.

Even more fun tonight: my work wife had a table ask her ... "do you have napkins here?"

Earth to village ....

We've found your idiots. Seriously, where the fuck did these people tonight come from?

Sorry, Shirley.

We all know how bloody fucking obnoxious kids are with their Shirley Temples. The grenadine is sticky, the cherries are a pain to fish out, and the little bastards suck them down like liquid crack most of the time. And I absolutely hate dealing with those damn cherries.

See, our little pans of cherries are fucking disgusting. The pans are never covered -- because they get opened so much the saran wrap just falls in and gets all gross and sticky, leading to people fishing it out with their fingers. There are always a couple of spoons in the bottom, because my coworkers are morons who can't figure out to use the long-handled tea spoons for this shit and instead use regular spoons which fall in. Then people reach in to retrieve them with their bare fingers, or reach in for cherries with their bare fingers. People pull them out of the cooler and leave them open on the counter; they marry the pans together; basically it's a fucking germ factory. I don't give anyone cherries unless the specifically ask for them because they're so gross.

Except.

After years of dealing with kids and their Shirley Temples (or cherry Cokes, equally irritating), I've started getting a bit of passive revenge.

I don't hate little kids, so when I get a kid who wants a refill every two minutes, I do something fairly benign: I just increase the amount of cherry flavor (grenadine, not cherry juice) with every refill. Eventually, they quit drinking so damn fast! They probably eventually vomit too, but that's not my problem.

But when giggling groups of snotty little teenagers come in and start mainlining Shirley Temples, I'm a little more evil. They get the ever-increasing amounts of grenadine, but they also get several cherries. And with each glass they get a generous helping of the bacteria-infested, skin-cell harboring, random-kitchen-dust-collecting juice.

Am I going to hell?

A new curseword!

From Fat Heffalump, who got it somewhere else:


Douchecanoe.

Hahahahahaa!

Also, I told a friend of mine who used to work with my about my blog. Kinda feels like I handed her my diary. Hi, L!

Another worthless Wednesday.

I've got to quit picking up these Wednesday shifts. Either it's insanely busy with screaming children everywhere (and I make no money) or it's very slow (and I make no money). My tables were all perfectly pleasant tonight -- all seven of them. They were also all 10% or less tippers. It's been that way all week. I love how people punish me for the cold. Why did I turn the thermostat outside down to -11?

Oh wait. I didn't. Don't screw me because of the weather, you fucksticks.

Retards in the house.

(Okay, so the reason my blog archive disappeared .... I got freaked out because someone in my town was reading, and I convinced myself it was someone I knew. Everything is saved and backed up; I'm thinking about whether to re-upload it or not. I may do some serious editing first. We'll see. For now, enjoy a new story.)

I had some really smart people in my section last night. The first one was this snotty, skanky bitch at a table of five. My first clue she was a moron was when I asked her what she wanted to drink and she stared at me as if I were asking her a complex algebra equation. The kicker was when she ordered the southwestern burger.

"Would you like your burger medium or well done?" I asked.
"It's a burger?"

*facepalm*

The second genius was eating with her grandmother, mother, and two sisters. She was probably mid-twenties. I was walking by and overheard grandma pointing at her neck and saying something like, "the parathyroid is under your thyroid."

Genius said, "Your thyroid is in your neck? I thought it was in your leg!"

Oh lord.

Not to worry ...

I have everything backed up. Stay tuned.

What would Hotpants do?

I have no idea why, but HotPants decided today to put signs up around the kitchen that said nothing but "WWHD".

One of the cooks answered with one word: "sheep".