The fate of my waitressing job.

CL just put out next week's schedule, and for the third week in a row, she gave me no shifts. This amuses me, because it's obvious she just wants me to leave. But she doesn't want to fire me because she really has no grounds. My availability is limited, but I have the required three shifts per week I'm available. I haven't screwed anything up or had complaints. I haven't had conflicts with coworkers. And this is at an-will state, so she doesn't really have to have a reason, but I think she's hesitant to fire me without an actual reason because I've been there so long and 99% of my coworkers like me, although I can't stand most of their asses, and god knows most of the regular customers love me. So I'm curious how long she'll drag it out.

That said, I'm incredibly glad she hasn't scheduled me. I fucking hate that place. After the calm, happy call center, the restaurant is hell to the n-th degree. At my full-time job, I sit and answer the phone. And sometimes it's nerve-wracking, because there's no break between the calls sometimes and it gets a little overwhelming. Sometimes it's frustrating, because the 163-year-old man on the other end of the line doesn't understand "press the power button on your receiver". And sometimes I get pissed off, when a customer calls in saying that another agent promised them the world and I have to tell them there's no record of that and they can't get whatever they were promised.

But you know what? When that happens, I have a support system. When somebody is getting no signal from their satellite dish, and my normal steps don't fix it, I send them to the tech department and I don't have to think about it anymore. I get paid either way. When somebody is angry because they were told they didn't have to pay their entire bill to get their services restored, I apologize and explain our iron-clad business policies to them. I have a list of options for them, and if none suit them, and they're really angry, well, that's what supervisors are for. I get paid either way. I don't have to worry I'll have spent the last hour doing everything I can to please someone and end up with nothing for it. I don't have to be afraid I'll tell a customer no, I'm not able to do that, only to have a manager come along behind me and do that! If it's slow, I can do things between calls, like sudoku, reading, writing to-do lists, talking to the people next to me. I'm not required to look busy every moment of every shift. And they pay me a hell of a lot more than $4 per hour!

That's not to say that serving is all bad, and I do miss some of my coworkers and even some of the customers. And I know that a lot of my frustrations were due to the specific restaurant I was at. But fucking hell, I was just burnt out! And I didn't even realize the extent of my misery until I had something to compare it to.

So .... why am I not telling CL to stuff it up her Grand Canyon of a twat and running like hell? Well, I'm not quite back on my feet yet. Still scraping for money to cover some things, like gas to get to the new job. And while having no shifts is obviously not helping that, I like feeling like I have an option to get more money. I could pick up a shift or two if I really wanted to. But once I get to the point where I'm caught up on bills and maybe even have a little extra saved? The restaurant business can go fuck itself.

And what I'll regret most when that day comes is losing this blog!

People are CRAZY: FBI edition.

I was concerned that my call center job wouldn't provide as much fodder for amusement. And, well, it kind of doesn't. I mean, there's just a special kind of crazy you get when dealing with peoples' food. And when dealing with people who deal with peoples' food. But rest assured, there be crazy fucker ev'rywhere.

So far, my favorite calls this week were .....

1) A hearing-impaired gentleman who talked kind of like Special Ed. And yes, I know I'm going to hell for enjoying that link so much. I was on the phone with Ed for about half an hour, and when I hung up all I could do was laugh. He called about an account in somebody else's name, but he was an authorized user on it. He asked how many receivers were on the account, and when I told him, he erupted into a tirade about sending a technician out because he wasn't going to be responsible. He started telling me how he and his brother got "jumped" by some of the other tenants and he had broken ribs. Then he was asking "what if they smash up those boxes and throw them in my entryway! Then what!" Then he asked if he'd get something if he got everyone in his complex to sign up with our company on their own. Somewhere in there, he claimed that his landlady was 1) in the loony bin, 2) in jail, and 3) sold the place.

With all that, it took a long time to figure out just what in the fuck was going on. Turns out his landlady had two accounts with us, but had the wiring run to five apartments per account. Which is totally illegal, by the way. I don't know how she got the technicians to set it up like that. Anyway, Ed said he had been paying this bill - with the charges for receivers in other apartments. So he wanted the other receivers turned off. Now, that would be simple enough .... except for the fact that we have a specific department that deals with situations like this, and somehow they already knew about it. The notes on both the accounts were very confusing, I don't know if Ed or Ed's Landlady had let the cat out of the back. But once those guys are involved? I can't do anything. Which is what I told Ed. Multiple times. Unfortunately, Ed had other ideas.

See, Ed thought his landlady had been collecting the monthly bill from everyone in the apartment complex, and pocketing the nine extra payments. Which, hey -- maybe she was, I don't know. What I do know is that I have no authority to send the local police out to Ed's building. Nor do I have the authority to send the friggin' FBI to investigate. Yes, Ed actually asked me to do that. And did not understand why I couldn't.

The next day, I had an interesting gentleman can in with a remote problem. The problem? He wanted two remotes to control television ..... one for when his hands were dirty, and one for when they were clean. Um, okay. So for the next 45 minutes, I attempted to walk him through the steps to program a second remote to his box. Should've been ten minutes tops, even with the new remote I ended up sending out. So where did the other 35 minutes go? Oh, into him periodically dropped the phone and screaming at his dogs, for one thing, and telling me over and over he had two German Shepherds and one was seven months old and I should never have to two dogs. And then there were the chunks of time where he was bitching about how he bought a house with a VA loan and now it's surrounded by drug dealers who are circling his house and the area is so terrible ..... and how the Mafia was going to kill him and he needed the FBI to come out.

Honestly, I was hoping for a hat trick. Unfortunately, on day three, nobody mentioned any government agencies. To me, at least .... someone else had a crazy guy screaming he was going to report us to the state attorney general because he didn't want to pay his $132 bill.

A plateful of vomit.

I only worked one shift week before last, and I nearly walked out at the beginning of it. I'm just fucking sick to death of CL's bullshit!

I had arrived early to eat before my shift, and had already seen that CL was on one of her bloody stress kicks. Now, after my little breakdown last month, I have more sympathy for her anxiety issues. But that only extends so far, because this has been going on for fucking year and the bitch needs to go to the doctor and get a Valium pump or something.

Because I had seen her already freaking out and stomping around with smoke coming out from underneath her straw-like hair, I made extra certain that I finished my meal and was visibly working at absolute instant that clock hit 4:30. She was standing by the bar, talking to Junior and gesticulating wildly. I walked by her, in to the kitchen, and picked up some food bound for the bar. As I left the kitchen, though, something seemed to lodge in my throat. I tried to swallow past it, I tried to breathe, and I just couldn't. All that happened was I started to gag. Luckily Cali Girl was right there by the bar and I shoved the food off on her, choking and unable to speak. Then I rushed to the bathroom, clutching my mouth, running directly by CL and Junior.

Once in the bathroom I was able to clear whatever the fuck was in my throat, although not without time, coughing, and a little bit of puking. Another employee came in and saw me struggling to breathe, with my eyes watering like crazy, but I assured her I was okay, washed my hands, and walked back out on to the floor ... and right into the pissed-off path of CL. She proceeded to bitch me out -- in the dining room -- about the fact that I was in the bathroom when I "just clocked in" and how I had gotten sat and I should have gotten someone to watch my tables.

"I'm sorry, I was choking."

"Then ASK SOMEONE TO WATCH YOUR SECTION!" she screeched, pointing at the table I had been sat.
"I couldn't talk! Ask Cali Girl if you want, I was almost throwing up!"

Bitch didn't care. She continued to bitch at me about it. The table I got sat, by the way, were two regular customers who would have been totally fine had they been sitting there the entire five minutes I had been in the bathroom. They were not in the least upset. The only one bothered was CL. I was so fucking infuriated, my hands went to the back of my apron to untie it, and I don't know how in god's name I managed not to drop my apron at her feet and walk the fuck out.

Next time, I'll just go ahead and puke on somebody's food so I'm not "in the bathroom when you just clocked in!"

New and exciting adventures.

So let's see, what's happened in the last month since I quit regularly posting .... had a mental breakdown, failed to be able to pay most of my bills, holidays, got a boyfriend, oh yeah, and embarked on an exciting adventure known as Not Waitressing. Or more accurately, Not Waitressing Full Time. Have no fear -- for the time being, I'm still a bitch for tips. Last night I had a fun shift, got stiffed on a $30 check -- although I expected that one because they were super fun people until it turned out I'd ordered the wrong variety of garlic steak for the bitch, and then they just turned fucking nasty. What I didn't expect was the people next to them, who ran up an $86 for the five of them, and left me $5. Fucking dicks. Oh well. Now that I have a 40 hour a week, hourly paying job, I'm much more able to blow off shit like that.

What's not so easy to blow off is how motherfucking stressful that place is! The call center is mellow. The most stressful day I've had there isn't a tenth as stressful as an average, smooth shift at the restaurant. The constant running around, the chaos of the kitchen, the never knowing what's going to happen in terms of business levels and money ... I knew that place made me miserable, but I didn't realize quite how miserable until I had something to compare it to. Now just having to go there makes me want to throw up. But, gots to pay the billz, riiiite?

My hourly job still involves the public, though, and as always .... they're idiots. I'm doing telephone customer service for a cable company, which is great because I can keep my voice in check even while rolling my eyes and making faces at the dumb bitches. Perfect example from yesterday:

Customer: "I don't have any television! I woke up this morning and there's nothing on my screen! I'm so sick of all the problems with you people!"
Me: "That's definitely frustrating, ma'am, and I'm going to find out what's going on for you. First of all, is your television currently on?"
Customer: "How am I supposed to know! There's nothing on the screen!"
Me: "*sneaking suspicion I'm dealing with a total fucking moron* Okay, let's look at your Cable Company receiver. What lights do you see?"
Customer: "Just one red one."
Me: "Thank you. Now, can you please press the power button on your receiver and tell me what changes?"
Customer: "*HEAVY SIGH* Okay." Immediately I heard a tv program come on. "Oh, it's fixed! What did you do! Thank you!"

Fucking moron. Of course, we also get angry people calling sometimes -- had a Southern guy rip me a new one the other day, swearing up one side and down the other while telling me I was sitting on my ass and that's why he didn't have tv. Let's review. I'm west of the Mississippi. He sent his money order, less than a week ago, to a processing center in Atlanta. Yeah, that's my fault. What the fuck ever. I still get paid the same despite him not being happy, which is awesome.