Poor hiring decisions.

We've had a rash of really shitty newbies the last few months - I don't know if Fester is crazy or just that desperate, but here are some of the winners we've had:

Nitwit #1: Woman in her fifties who claimed to have been a server before, but after an extra week of training still couldn't get it together. On her first solo shift, the woman was throwing away her merchant copies of credit card slips! Her sidework took her hours, she forgot about tables all the time, and she had rules totally backward - she thought she got free food every shift, for example, and that she could eat said food before she had clocked out. After about two weeks on the floor, she quit, claiming she "got a job offer she couldn't refuse."

Nitwit #2: About twenty and dumb as the day of the summer equinox is long - but thought she was suuuuuper cunning. When she was first hired, she said she was going to have surgery for her endometriosis in a couple of weeks .... but after a bunch of missed shifts and inconsistent stories, we all suspect she had nothing wrong with her. Her first week, she was always "surprised" she had to do sidework - we have a training manager and she'd give him her checkout slip and then when one of us stopped her she'd be shocked she had to do anything. Her second week, when she was caught skating on sidework again, she claimed Work Wife "never trained" her to get her checkout slip signed. She was always late, she never helped anyone else, and she would never listen when anyone tried to tell her something. Finally, the other day she forgot to greet one table and then forgot to ring in another's order for half an hour - and those were her only two tables. Harley took her apron and told her to get the hell out. Several of us literally did happy dances.

Nitwit #3: Okay, this one wasn't really a nitwit, but that's the way I'm counting so I'm sticking with it. He was a nice guy and did his job really well ... for two weeks. He worked the oil fields and it was a slow patch, and he was very upfront about it. Why the fuck did we hire someone who we knew would, at any day, no longer be available?

Nitwit #4: Somehow took until four in the morning to get a Monday night's dishes done.

Nitwit #5: Asked me yesterday - after three weeks on the floor - "the kid's grilled chicken is grilled chicken, right?" 'Nuff said.

Nitwit #6: After almost two months, still can't handle more than three tables without utterly panicking. Also apparently doesn't brush his teeth, judging by the rank stench every time he opens his mouth.

And then there are the promotions that make no fucking sense to me.

One guy who was a whiny little bitch on GU and expo got promoted (so to speak) to serving .... where he continues to be a whiny little bitch and throw tantrums when frustrated. Seriously - the other day he wanted me to sign him out and I told him he still had to do silverware, and he threw his book against a wall and smacked a package of napkins across the kitchen.

There was also a host who thought he was hot shit and badgered his way in to serving when we were severely short-staffed. He still thinks he's got the world by the balls, despite fucking up repeatedly - once to the point where his serving shifts got taken away for a week. He also called in one day claiming he'd broken his leg. Guess who showed up two days later without a cast or crutches?

And then ... then. Then there's the newest trainer. I have no idea why they chose her. Sure, she's a strong server. She knows the computer system inside and out, knows the menu really well, and can juggle a lot of customers.

But ... she's quit and come back three times now. She rolls in 2-5 minutes late nearly every shift, her uniform adherence sometimes leaves something to be desired, and there are some policies that she just refuses to follow unless someone important is watching. She's somewhat terrifying to new people because she tends to just vomit information at them. Her attitude isn't always so hot, and she can be heard to say "I hate people" nearly every day. She makes a lot of snarky comments about guests while in the kitchen - in fact, she keeps a secret blog where she rants about them.

That's right. I'm going to be a trainer. God help the fresh meat.

Can I help you, 'customer'?

Thanks for all your comments, guys. You made me smile and laugh, which I really haven't been doing much of lately.

Also, someone asked why customers calling back can get us fired. We have four statistics we're graded on: call handle time, customer survey scores, quality assurance department scores, and repeat calls. If our statistics are consistently below goal for any of those, we get talked to, have someone sit with us and lsiten to calls to figure out where the problem is, given help, and if we still can't manage to improve .... "up to and including termination."

The first three are fairly simple; even the survey scores don't worry me much, because the company actually isn't trying to fuck us over on them like restaurants tend to do. It's actually a very fair, simple scoring system. The repeat calls, though, bug me. The company's theory is that if I do my job, if I'm confident-sounding, offer them "self-service" solutions like using the website, offer them an upsell (in case they were thinking about it and forgot, I guess), and resolve the issue they've called about, then my customers won't need to call back within a certain number of days. They do allow for a margin of error on this, I think it's 20% or something like that, but if I consistently have half of my customers calling back, and can't fix it, then I could get fired. Of the four statistics, that's the one that they put the least pressure on us about, but it bugs me because I also feel like it's the one we have the least control over.

Time for a co-worker rant!

The Russian drives me crazy. Sometimes I end up sitting next to her even though I don't want to, just because there's not another desk available. But the way she talks just drives me crazy! She always tells customers "I'd be more than welcome to look in to that for you!" and she always says "go ahead" as "goh-head" -- and she says it a lot. But what was driving me bonkers today was when she'd ask customers if she could call them by their first name.

When I ask (which isn't often because I hate doing it), I say, "And may I call you Diane?" The Russian always asks "and is it alright if I goh-head n call you by your first name Diane?" But the thing is, her inflection is fucked up, and it sounds like Diane is in quotation marks. "Is it alright if goh-head n call you by first name 'Diane'?" It sounds like she means to say "by you first name which is Diane", like the customer needs to be told what her name is. It just grates on my nerves horribly.

Not to mention, she's been there at least three months longer than me, and she sucks at her job. She asks dumb questions, she can't explain bills, she doesn't know how to handle tech calls. Today she told someone we don't have 24 hour customer service .... which is true for our particular call center, but 18 out of 20 call centers are 24/7. And she's fucking loud! Not on her calls, but when she's in between she'll stand up and yell stuff to Frat Boy, or be talking to someone on the other side of me, so loudly I can't hear my customers. And when I ask her to be quieter she just looks at me.

I'd be more than welcome to help her put a sock in it.

Update from the restaurant.

So CL didn't give me a single shift for a month, and replaced me on bingo. So I put in my two weeks' notice, two weeks ago today .... and not a single one of the managers has so much as acknowledged it. Whatever. I'm so done.

Nick was fired, via a voicemail, because of a Facebook post. Now, say what you want about watching yourself on Facebook -- his post was absolutely nothing that warranted firing. It said "I only have two shifts next week, guess I should look for another job because I can't pay my bills." HOW DARE HE?

Cali Girl quit. I was pretty shocked; she'd been there even longer than me. But one day this week, she got dressed and headed to work .... and halfway there decided, fuck it, I'm done. So she turned around and went home. Didn't even call in or anything. I don't really approve of that, but I approve of her getting the fuck out of there!

As always, the height of professionalism.

In one shift, CL did the following:

1) Yelled at two different employees in front of two sets of customers.
2) Sat next to customers talking trash about employees with Junior.
3) Stood in the kitchen screaming so loudly I could literally hear her on the other side of the restaurant. Which was half-full. And had football blaring out of every tv.
4) Did a jell-o shot with all the bar customers to celebrate her college football team winning a game.

Yes, she's still employed.

Yet more bullshit.

Work Wife and I are kind of on the outs now because she basically told me I deserved what I got on Friday because she heard about "the things" I was saying and they weren't cool. Now, I don't care if people say bad things about me as long as they're true. Am I temperamental, judgmental, crude, and often negative? Absofuckinglutely. Do I say negative things about veterans and active military, particularly on Veterans' Day? Absofuckinglutely not. And that's what somebody told Wife -- and maybe CL, for all I know. What the fuck is wrong with these people? Why do they make shit up?

Incidentally, I re-scheduled one of the interviews I had to cancel last week because of being so sick. So maybe I'll be able to escape soon.

Too angry to write.

I want to, I've been trying to, but I'm so fucking pissed off I can't seem to coherently write the story. Basically, Chicken Little cost me about $150 tonight. She sent me home in the middle of my shift, on our busiest day of the year, because she didn't think I took very good care of a table that was kissing her ass (and never said one word about being unhappy to me, and tipped me VERY well) .... and because I had the balls to say I wanted to make money.

I hate change.

There has been an ever-dwindling list of people that keeps me working at my current job. Seems like every few months, someone else leaves or is fired. Right now, the list of people keeping me there is pretty much Work Wife, Cali Girl, and Mistress J. And because one person, one very important person who made every shift I worked with him better, left, I have an absolute feeling of dread every time I go to work. I really don't know how much longer I can stand that place.

Goodbye, Pot Smoking Manager. Thank you for three-plus years of goofy sexist/racist/ageist jokes and obscure musical references. You kept me sane.

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?

Your uppance will come.

One of the more annoying FNGs is … well … she's a go-go dancer. And not the classy kind, the naked-but-for-boots kind. I would have no problem for that if she weren't also a raging bitch. The first sign of this was when she approached one of the hostesses and asked what she was eating.
“It's chicken alfredo.”
Go-Go Girl poked the hostess in the stomach and said, “That's going to make you fat.” and then walked away. This was the first day she'd ever worked with that particular hostess. I pretty much just try to avoid her because I mostly want to slap her skinny ass to the ground.

I don't know what I did to my knee a few days ago, but it's been hurting like a sonofabitch. I've spent three days limping around the restaurant, calling every morning to request a section close to the kitchen, and basically trying not to cry every time I took a step. So imagine my irritation when I arrived at work tonight to find that I had the hardest section to work, and the one the absolute farthest from the kitchen: the goddamn motherfucking evil bitch patio. And unfortunately for me, I came in the last of everyone so I couldn't get any other station. I was irritated at CL for putting me out there, but I was even more annoyed when I found out that originally, Go-Go Girl had the patio.


The same hostess who I mentioned earlier told me that Go-Go Girl went to CL and said, “I don't want the patio. It's too far to walk. I'm not doing it.” And CL, having not worked with me the last few days and not knowing about my knee, decided to give the whiny little bitch my section just outside the kitchen door. Go-Go Girl, however, had worked with me and knew all about my sore knee.

I'm not going to be stalking her every move to get revenge or anything, but at some point she's going to need something. And when she does, I'm going to remember that because of her selfish bitchy little ass, I spent tonight in knee-crunching agony.

Guess again, Beaver.

I walked into work pissed off today. Actually, I woke up that way, and it just didn't get better. Then I arrived at work at my scheduled time of 5:30. I didn't expect my section to be full; things rarely get moving that early. But, since I was already in a bad moon, I naturally walked in to a nearly full section. I had two booths and three tables. Booth 11 was empty, booth 12 had five people in it who hadn't gotten their food yet. Tables 20 and 21 were sat with a table of eight, who had waters but no real drinks and hadn't ordered yet. Critical info. Table 22 was pulled together with table 23, which was in Eager Beaver's section, for another big table.

Eager Beaver's section wasn't full, but he also had tables in the section in another section; he was taking orders at 22 and 23. I was already irritated at the whole situation, but I waited for him to come down to aisle so I could “ask” if I could take the big top at 20 and 21. When he broke away from that table he turned and stopped at table 12, and at the same time the table I was going to ask if I could take flagged me down and asked to order. They'd been sitting for at least five minutes, because despite his greed and rudeness, Beaver really can't handle many tables and he frequently over-extends himself.

So I smiled and introduced myself, found out of they needed separate checks (yes) and began taking orders. Halfway through, Beaver bounded up while I was asking one of the guests about his side dishes.
“I got ya!” Beaver cut me off, holding his notepad at the ready, clearly giving me a dismissal.
I shook my head at him and continued talking to the now-confused customer. Beaver's face clouded up and he looked like he wanted to punch me. He stood there for a minute and then stalked off, muttering and swearing under his breath.

He continued to give me dirty looks and bitch behind my back all night. He also tried take table 12 when it got re-sat, until he turned around and I was standing there watching him. I could tell from his expression he was hoping he could get their order before I realized what he was up to.

I did sort-of apologize to him later, because it was kind of a bitch move to just take a table he considered his without asking. But really? He was going to keep 4/5 of my section? It would be one thing if they table had already ordered, but general common courtesy is if no food order has been placed, the incoming server gets the table. And then any lingering guilt was dispelled when one of the hostesses told me that Beaver had switched our sections! When those four tables got sat, and the first few members of the big parties arrived and started taking up tables, Beaver looked around and my nice empty section was sitting there waiting to be filled, with me fifteen minutes away. So Beaver got out a dry erase marker and swapped our fucking sections …. and then hung out at the host stand seating every table he could in his new section.

I really do not like him. I think I've mentioned that before.

Scamming.

Eager Beaver seems to always be rolling in cash.. He drives 20+ miles to work …. in a Hummer. He goes out drinking and runs up huge bar tabs. He's always bragging about how much he makes and waving his cash around. Some of it might be the fact that he's a blatant table thief, especially when it comes to the patio – if it's not assigned to only one person, then every time a table gets sat out there he is right the fuck on it. I don't like him, so I've kind of bitchily figured he's been stealing. But in the last couple of weeks several other people have told me they suspect he's stealing as well.

I wish I had proof. But all I have is other peoples' unsubstantiated word. AA said she's pretty sure she's seen him double-charge people when they're fighting over the ticket – if one person approaches him away from the table hands him cash, and another does the same with a card, he'll pocket the cash and run the credit card. Cat-Eyes thinks he's cheating on his upselling scores by always ringing in drinks that count, regardless of what the people ordered. If they were the same price that wouldn't be an issue, but if that's what he's doing, he's over-charging customers.

I think he's playing every stealing server's favorite game, and playing with soda counts. Corporate thinks they've stymied that with the new computer system, but …. not so much. I don't want to go into too many specifics, but I can think of at least two ways to very easily pocket money off of cash tickets. I don't know that Eager Beaver's been around long enough to have figured out those tricks, though.

And of course, the managers aren't always very careful with their cards, so there's the possibility he's applying discounts to cash tickets for his own benefit. I've noticed that PSM has been a lot more tight-fisted with his card when Eager Beaver is around, but he's never liked him. I don't think Lapdog does either; HotPants I'm not sure of. CL loves him, of course.

If he is stealing, I'm sure it's a combination of all of the above. If he can comp one meal a shift, senior discount another couple, pocket the cash from four or five sodas, over-charge people who tip on percentage, steal three or four tables from other people, and really luck out and have people who double-pay …. well, it all adds up. Someone might eventually catch him if he keeps it up, but I'm hoping I'll “stumble” across some evidence sooner rather than later. I really don't like him.

I don't fucking do my job.

I like to swear as much as the next person. In fact, I fucking love to fucking swear. But the next time I hear Bug say the f word, I might lose it. Because it always seems to be used in the same way: “I don't fucking (insert part of her job here).”

“I don't fucking get ice.”
“I don't fucking run hot food.”
“I don't fucking answer the phone.”
“I don't fucking take tables on the patio.”
“I don't fucking close.”
“I don't fucking do the bathrooms.”
“I don't fucking put my hair up.”
Etc.

And of course, because she's a 26-year-old stick insect who gets wasted every night despite having three kids – i.e., she's who CL wishes she was – she gets away with whatever the fuck she wants. Tonight CL flipped out at me about how there were dirty tables, food to run, ice to get, blah blah blah – things I'd been doing. Bug, who was also cut already was doing her sidework and ignoring everyone panicking around her. Not a word was said to her. Grrr.

Anyway, because I've learned to take what little bits of satisfaction I can, I was amused when she pulled another “I don't fucking” that actually hurts her. We have a wing special one night a week: 5 for $2 or 10 for $4. Apparently, Bug finds this too confusing because the last time I worked with her on that day of the week, I heard her flat-out lie and tell someone that the regular wings were a better deal.

I asked why later, and was told “I don't fucking do that. I don't fucking mess around with this 'two dollar' 'four dollar' bullshit. They can get the fucking regular wings. It's the same fucking thing.”

I just said okay and left it at that. The regular order of wings is 10 wings, and one upsell point. So if she wants to screw herself out of upsell points on every other table by not ringing in two orders of five instead, that's just fine with me. Shifts are based on upsell percentages, after all.

Valium. Please. I'm begging you.

I was closing out a ticket tonight, and CL was sitting at the bar doing nothing, like she likes to do. In a perfectly pleasant tone of voice, she chided me, “You have a lot of dirty tables, young lady!”

Despite being irritated at her patronizing me (she's younger than my mother, she should just shitcan the 'young lady' crap), I held my tongue. I looked around. “32 just left, I'm working on 28.”

“What about 31, I bussed that ten minutes ago!”

No, she didn't. She stacked the plates up and walked away. “Isn't that clean?” I peered over and could see that some genius had stood the dessert menu up in front of the salt shaker that signifies a dirty table. “Oh.”

“You'd better get on that, I don't know why you have so many dirty tables.” She said, still fucking sitting in one place.

“Have you seen me standing around doing nothing?” I said it in my best stressed-out, planitive tone of voice, because despite only having two tables I was getting my ass run off – by other peoples' tables!

“Well! I'm sure there are other things to do!” she huffed. I just said I'd take care of them and walked away. When she cut the floor, though, she gathered everyone in the back and began to drag us all across the coals about the “sassiness toward the managers” and how she doesn't have to be nice, and she is DONE with this “sassiness”. I knew I'd triggered it, and I knew if I didn't say something it would fester like a mental boil and would be only be lanced when she found some way to shaft me. So a few minutes later, I apologized and said I didn't intend to sound that way.

“That was just the last straw!” she burst out. “I'm so tired of this! I'm 41, I have two kids, a mortgage, and I run a four-million-dollar-a-year business! I'm not here for this teenage gossipy bullshit! People think I'm sleeping with two employees, a carful of servers went to (amusement park) and spent the whole time bitching about me, and I'm just done! I'm done with it!”

I didn't even know what to say. People wouldn't think she was sleeping with employees if she didn't brag about sleeping around, obviously flirt with anything under 30 with a penis, and then bring up the rumors where everyone can hear her. The car of employees bitching has zero to do with me (although I know who it was and can't believe two of them trusted the third). And for somebody “not here for this teenage bullshit,” she's the biggest goddamn gossip in the place! Perfect example: L's Arch-Nemesis told CL in confidence that her brother has a drug problem and so she needed to make some changes to her schedule. CL helped her with the schedule …. and then went and told Dolly the whole thing! And Dolly told fucking everyone, and everyone naturally repeated it.

But she's not here for this teenage gossipy bullshit.

This isn't your courtroom.

The Lawyer seems bound and fucking determined to get on everybody's bad side. Ever since she found out that she did, in fact, pass the bar exam, she's been a massive pain in the ass. Now, I can understand – if I had a ticket out of this place that I was just waiting to cash in, I'd be irritable too. But the thing is that passing on the bar exam (on her third attempt) does not make her better than anybody else, which is what she seems to think.

There was a perfect example of this tonight. She was the only bartender, and she was seriously sucking a hind tit. I am not exaggerating in the slightest when I say that it took fifteen fucking minutes to get two draft beers. I checked the computer. It was ridiculous. PSM comped them for my pissed off table, thankfully. And The Lawyer was busy, I know that; but still? Fifteen minutes to pour a beer? Are you fucking kidding me?

That was bad enough. What was worse was when she finished making a shake. I happened to be ringing in an order, and she asked me what time it was.

“Five after seven,” I answered, wondering why she wanted to know.
The Lawyer consulted the drink slip in front of her, then said at top volume, “I need Cat-Eyes to the bar for a seven minute drink time.”

I about choked. After taking fifteen minutes to pour a goddamn beer, she was going to get on somebody else's ass about a “seven minute drink time”? When that seven minutes was entirely because she's fucking slow? Christ on a popsicle stick.

HotPants is kind of an asshole.

But at least tonight he was being a hilarious asshole. He wrote up a sheet of goals for us – some silly, like guess his cologne, and some serious, like sell five top-shelf margaritas. I won two prizes, so I acquired new pens and a glow-stick necklace. Other people got containers of slime or keychains. I think he just went to the dollar store and bought a bag of crap.

One of those items of crap was an airhorn. He honked it once just to test it, and when he saw how much it startled people, he started acting like a five year-old. He started honking it when he saw the cooks do something wrong; he threatened to do it the next time he saw someone pour water (don't know if he ever did), and at one point he jumped around the corner in the kitchen and blasted a bunch of people standing there talking.

After that, people started watching him carefully and covering their ears when he came up behind them. So he quit it for a while … before deciding to get creative. I happened to be standing there the first time he tried this out. “Chrissy, I need to talk to you outside.” he told the bartender with a very serious expression. He wouldn't tell her what about, just said he had to show her something. I followed because I'm nosy that way.

So they walked out the side door, and as soon as Chrissy was outside, HotPants spun around and freaking blasted the airhorn in her face! I thought she was going to punch him for a second, but she finally started laughing. She didn't even warn anyone else, so he got a few more people that way too.

Then he started another tactic. Knowing I'd already seen the trick, he tried to get me to go outside.

“No, I don't think so.”
“Come on, I have to tell you something.” he started walking away, then turned around to see if I was following him. I wasn't.
“I'll go with you if you give me the airhorn.”
His face twitched, his hand going to his pocket. “I don't have it.”
“I don't believe you.”
“Come on, I really need you to come outside.” he started to walk away again.
“Okay, if you keep your hands up in the air the whole time.”
He obligingly put his hands up and started heading out. Wondering what the joke was this time, I followed. Just as he pushed the door open I stopped.
“Wait a minute. Who's hiding around the corner with the horn?”
”Dammit!”

Ha! Try to fool me, will ya!

Latest insane gossip.

Someone reliable told me yesterday that CL's been trying to get in to the pants of one of the new male servers, sending him suggestive text messages and such. If it's true, I really hope he has the sense to save the messages and go to her boss. That or thievery is probably the only thing that will get her fired. And if it's true, she deserves to get fired. I find the idea of her committing such blatant sexual harassment hilarious considering she used to freak out about servers hugging each other.

Blatant favoritism.

(I'm all moved, but can't even describe the chaos leftover from said event. It's going to take me for-fucking-ever to get my life back in order, so I'm sorry if posting is irregular or my response to comments continues to suck.)

For whatever stupid reason, HotPants will now be doing the schedule instead of Lapdog, who's had responsibility for it for oh, the last ten years. I had a feeling it was going to be a fucking disaster, and I even tried to express that to CL. But I didn't want to say the real reason I was concerned – because I'm pretty sure he doesn't like me – so I just said sometimes I thought he had a hard time keeping people straight. She blew me off, naturally.

But, sure enough, when HotPants posted last week's schedule, it was completely fucked up. I was lucky, he'd only taken my Thursday and Friday second cut shifts and replaced them with a Tuesday first cut. I say 'only' but I was raging fucking pissed at first. Take my two money-making shifts and put me on a shitty kid's night first cut, when I'm not even supposed to be available on Tuesdays? Fuck you, fucker!

Then I looked at the rest of the schedule. Ooooohhhh boy. Fud went from eight shifts over five days to three shifts in two days. Mistress J, probably the most senior server we have, was taken completely off her Tuesday night and her Thursday double, and given a Friday first instead of her usual close. Kate had one first cut Monday shift. Her sister Ally had double first-cut shifts on Tuesday and nothing else. Me, Mistress J, Kate, and three other people were all taken off our regular Thursday night shifts—I don't know who the fuck he had working. Work Wife's days were right, but her closes were taken away and she was given first cuts. Those were just the most extreme examples, everything was totally jacked.

And who got all those shifts the rest of us didn't? HotPants' favorites. Cat-Eyes had two to-go shifts and five closing nights. The Bug had four closes and three other shifts. Eager Beaver, who's been here less than a month, had three closes and four other shifts. Another FNG had five fucking closing shifts. I was so freaking pissed off, but I knew a hail of shit was going to rain down on HotPants for this blatant fuckery, so I decided that a very polite email would stand out in the crowd a lot more. I very carefully, politely, please-and-thank-you'd my way through asking for my regular schedule back, and then I waited.

Sure enough, this week my schedule was back to normal! Not everybody's was, and I think it's because HotPants was being a little passive-aggressive. When I thanked him for giving me my regular schedule again, he said, “Sure, all I needed was an email. At least yours was NICE!”

And strangely, since then, he's been talking and joking with me a little more. Score one for me.

A little common sense goes a long, long way.

This is my 650th post! Holy shit, I really never do shut up!

We've lost another FNG, utterly through her own actions. I didn't think she'd last long anyway, because she just couldn't seem to wrap her little brain around the fact that we're not her other restaurant. She was also working at a pizza place, and every other word out of her mouth was something about how things were so much better there, or she just didn't understand why we didn't do THIS or THAT like at her other job, or how she just couldn't remember all our sides because at her other job they only have four. Wait, you mean different restaurants have different shit? No fucking way!

Anyway, on her last shift a few days ago, FNG was sat with two police officers at one of her booths. She approached the table, saw they were cops, and then walked right past them and said to the hostess, “I am not waiting on 52!”

Yeah …. table 52 is right by the host stand. So naturally her vehemence caught their attention, and they were listening when she lowered her voice and went into a diatribe. Apparently, she fucking hates cops. She thinks they're all assholes, she refuses to wait on them, and she thinks this city's cops are particularly douchebaggy. She wishes they'd never come in, they make everyone uncomfortable. She then asked the hostess to never, ever seat her with goddamn cops again, and went off to find someone else to take the table.

The nice officers finished their lunch, waited on by Tiffany, and then requested to speak to the manager. It's probably lucky that CL wasn't there, she might have had a stroke. Instead, HotPants got the job of assuring the police that FNG would be talked to about her attitude and that they do not, in fact, make everyone uncomfortable.

Needless to say, FNG was suspended, code for fired on the next payday, immediately. You just can't talk that way about customers where they can hear you.

It doesn't help that insulting the police is a bit of a sore spot with CL anyway, due to a story I haven't shared yet. It's a little too specific, plus not entirely resolved, so I'm waiting for the fallout before I write it up. For now let's just say another employee lost their job because they pissed off a police officer. So for a second of her employees to do it again sent CL through the freaking roof. I didn't even see her until almost a week after it happened, and her face still turned a frightening shade of red while she talked about it.

The height of professionalism.

When I arrived at work today, I thought it might be a good day. Then I found out that Pot Smoking Manager was at the end of his shift, and CL was working the evening shift. That was bad enough, but then she came out of the office … and her face was all pink, her hair was crazy, and her eyes were all red.

All night she kept vanishing into the office. Then she'd come back out, her face tear-stained, and yell at us about stupid nit-picky shit. One of the last people scheduled to came in arrived in hysterical tears (later found out her boyfriend had just dumped her), and CL sent her home … then later was bitching about how unfair it was that she “has employees showing up in tears when I want to go home and cry!”

I eventually found out that she was all upset because some guy from an online dating service that she'd been emailing, calling, and texting wasn't answering her for a couple of days. A guy she's never even met. For Christ's sake.

What did you just call me?

I used the bathroom in the middle of the rush last night (not that I was busy, with my measly four tables), and was highly irritated to find that both stalls were had an empty roll of paper and the soap was out. I stomped out and found Lapdog dropping some dishes in the GU.

“Can I get your keys? Whoever had bathrooms today …..” I took a breath, not wanting to go into a diatribe. “... whoever had bathrooms must have been busy.”

“Yeah,” he snapped, “just like you guys are so busy now and that's why I'm cleaning your tables.”

I spread my hands innocently. “Hey, they're not my tables.”

He handed me his keys as he stalked past me to the sink. “We all run the same floor, there's no 'yours' and 'mine.'” he growled.

Oh, what the fuck ever. I thought, but I in the spirit of teamwork I just said, “That's very true.”

“Yeah, so why don't you go clean some tables?”

“I'd love to, but right now I'm busy doing somebody's daytime sidework.” I snapped, shaking his keys at him as I turned on my heel.

His laugh followed me past the cooks' line. “I know. Thank you, sweetheart.”

Sweetheart?