I miss my coworkers!

I haven't been working this week, and I do actually really miss a lot of my coworkers. I went in last night and got to see people, and I didn't realize until then how much I miss the social aspect of my job. I hardly saw anybody this week -- some family members, and I talked to a couple of friends on the phone -- and once I went in I didn't want to leave. I ended up sitting around talking to people until 12:45 last night! And I got free food, which is nice since I'm totally broke!

Of course, I still don't want to go back to work -- because as much as I enjoy talking to my coworkers, I still think customers are bastard coated bastards with bastard filling!

Retargeting? Wha?

(Sponsored.)

I admit, I'd never heard of retargeting unless you're talking about putting up the targets in the gun range after emptying your clip! But apparently it's a business practice relating to re-directing previous visitors back to your website. I do this primarily by posting blog entries full of swear words and insulting euphemisms for customers, but there are actually retargeting companies that specialize in this concept. It's a whole thing my limited computer sense doesn't understand, regarding something called "retargeting pixels". It sounds technical and like something that might work in the effort of remarketing your business to people who already know about it. I suppose it's really a way of building on the fact that people who see your ad will already recognize your name? Confusing it is.

Another one I nearly smacked.

The more I think about this, the more irritated I am, and the more glad I am that I'm not working this week. Or next, probably. Long story.

Anyway, I made the mistake of taking a big table the other day. They'd called ahead and said there would be 17; only 14 showed up, which is a bad start. They were also late, even worse. Now, we have this new corporate rule that a table of eight has to be split, and originally I was going to have to split this table with a useless coworker.

When the people finally showed up, Useless Coworker had just been double-sat, so I ended up taking them by myself. Which seemed fine; they were mellow, not needy. I only had to get a couple of drink refills. They had separate tickets and the groups were scattered across the table, but I know how to deal with that. Everything was fine up until the very end when I passed out the tickets.

That was when I discovered I'd changed the the wrong amount for the kids' food -- fucking kids' night! While I was trying to fix that, I had two more books shoved in my face. So I fixed the prices, I ran the cards, I went out to the table .... where I discovered that two of the cards were swapped around. I really do not think I did it; I suspect they weren't paying attention and got them scrambled themselves. But they got all fucking pissy about it!

It took me a good five or six minutes to fix it, because of what our stupid computer system does when you void a credit card. Some of them were still eating when I went back to the kitchen; the guy who ended up being the biggest jackass still had half a beer. So basically they showed no signs of being in a hurry.

Well, when I came out with the fixed tickets and re-run cards, they were all standing up and inching toward the door! That in itself bugs me, because they were getting in everybody's way. But what really pissed me off was when one of the guys spotted me.

"Yay!" he starts clapping sarcastically. "There she is, she made it. Yay." Continuing to clap. I started to say something and he just repeated "Yay, there she is." clapping the entire time.

I actually had my hands in fists and was turning toward him before I caught myself.

Seriously, I DO have ears, bitch!

I have come so damn close to punching customers lately. A couple of days ago I had a crummy section -- what else is new -- and these two fortyish snotty women get sat at one of my booths. I knew they would be trouble the instant they pulled that "and weeeee are going to want separate checks!" while pointing exaggeratedly between themselves. Screw you, I speak English. I get that request about eighteen times a day. I think I can handle it.

Still, they were just your average ignorant women. I was annoyed they camped out at my booth, but they were fairly low maintenance so I tried to just ignore them. They got their food, they nibbled on individual lettuce leaves while bitching, I ignored them. Then as I was rushing by with my arms full of dishes, one flipped her hand at me. "Can I get more dressing?"

Several things happened at that point. I caught my breath (I was busy), I noticed she had the wrong size salad (wondering if I rang it in wrong or kitchen was wrong), and I was noting what salad dressing she had. So it took me a couple of seconds before I smiled and said, "Sure!"

I had not taken two steps when I heard the bitch speak. She used that "muttering behind someone's back" tone like you'd use when you don't want to say something to someone's face but also think they won't confront you if they do hear it. So I'm not five feet from the table and I hear "What, you had to think about that?" And her friend laughs.

I wheeled around and glared at her, and she pretended not to notice. I didn't even fake politeness after that. She can call and complain if she wants. Or she can shove it up her ass.

Living the dream!

This is a Sponsored Post written by me on behalf of Popstation. All opinions are 100% mine.

Everyone knows just how easy it isn't to bust in to the music business. My cousin had a great band, everyone who hears them is totally impressed, but they could never get off the ground. And yet morons like Justin Biebier are all over the place. Sorry, did I say that out loud? I just don't get the whole thing with him.

Some people get really lucky on a certain reality tv music show I'll just call American Schmidol. But who doesn't think that's rigged anymore, really? Especially with the smarmy judges pulling the strings. I like the idea PopStation has -- no gimmicky celebrity judges, just the actual audience voting.

Here's how it works: PopStation puts original songs up in their practice rooms, different genres on different days. Then contestants can record them on their own, show their stuff, innovating, have a good time. After that, the songs are submitted to the audience for voting.

The cool this is that every three months, someone wins! That someone gets a paid trip to NYC and time in a professional recording studio with a professional production crew. They get to make an album, which is then featured on PopStations website. Oh yeah -- and it's free! Free is good!

Damn. Makes me wish I could sing.

Yeah, screw you too.

I had a table tonight that seemed familiar, although I couldn't think of why. They were all in a hurry to get their first margaritas on special, as well as their appetizer. Then they lingered through most of the dinner rush, had a second margarita, didn't finish half their dinner, and asked for boxes.

I remembered who they were when I picked up their credit card slip. The wife had paid, and the bitch had circled the total -- $42.94 -- and signed her name. Nothing else. No tip. Just like two weeks ago.

I must fix them in my memory so that next time I don't waste time on them.

The snottiest woman in existence.

My next post was supposed to be about "stereotypes don't pay" but I've kind of forgotten the specifics of that. Moving right along .....

I'm used to snotty people and their bullcrap, but this woman took the cake. She strolled in with her nose in the air and her husband trailing behind her.

"Hi! Two for dinner?" asked our perky little hostess.

The woman rolled her eyes. "No, there will be five. And we need a booth, not a table!"

"Okay! Any children with you?"

Again with the eye rolling! "Um, no. He's ten. But he spends all his time with adults, so he's very mature for his age."

The hostess kept trying to be nice even though this woman was acting as if she smelled bad. As she took the two of them to their requested booth, she explained the only booth open was for four people, and asked them if they'd like a chair on the end.

"No!" the snotty bitch snarled. "He not a fat kid like some of these gross kids these days! He'll fit in the booth like a normal person!"

I really wish I'd been their server. I would have "accidentally" brushed my fat on the bitch at every opportunity.

Feeling sluggish.

About a month ago I was wiping down the soda machine at the end of the night. When I pulled the lid of the ice bin out to wipe it off, I noticed something weird protruding from under the edge of it. It looked like rubber that was wearing off or something. So I pulled the lid off .... and noticed it was moving. My brain didn't want to acknowledge that fact until I pulled the black plastic drip catcher off .... and yep, there was a big old freshly chopped-in-half oozing its way across the inside of the soda machine!

I yelled for Pot Smoking Manager -- I do not get paid enough to deal with insect activity! He scraped it up and threw it in the trash while the rest of us tried not to vomit. Then I took the splash guard off to put it through the dishwasher, found no more, and thought it was an anomaly. Well, the next night I took things apart again just in case ... and found two more of the nasty fucking things sliming around by the syrup tubes! They weren't anywhere that th

eir scum would get in the sodas or ice, but it's still just fucking repulsive. The next time I closed, I checked again, and this time there were four nasty slugs. Bitter Divorced Man was working, and he dragged them out with a fork -- they were goddamn huge! Like four inches long.

The CO2 hose goes in to an unsealed hole in the wall, which is the only place we can figure they're coming from. Unfortunately, this isn't the first time this has happened--someone else had a slug incident last summer. I still check the soda machine every time

I close, and each time I have this vision of a wall of writhing slugs coating the inside of the soda machine.

Bitter Divorced Man called the pest control company, and we haven't had any slugs in weeks .... but I've been drinking a lot of water while at work.

Still serving, still cranky.

I just can't face writing about it now. Hopefully in the next week or so. God knows I have enough stories lined up.

Back up off my table, bitch.

I absolutely hate working with Rehab when she's in the kitchen. When she's on the floor, it's better--mostly because she doesn't have an excuse to scream non-stop. But she's still a nosy bitch even then.

I had a table of three college-aged guys, who were all sort of douchebags anyway. One of them immediately started arguing with me about our drink specials. In their infinite wisdom, corporate printed up something that says "$2 pints" -- so all sorts of assholes assume it's all pints, and get in our faces about it when we tell them it's the specific ones listed on the big shiny laminated flyer right in front of their faces.

One of the guys at the table was particularly obnoxious about it. When I told him what the actual specials were, he ordered one of the beers that were actually $2 -- and then said he wanted to talk to the manager. He was being fairly light-hearted so I didn't think anything serious about it, just got good old Pot Smoking Manager and sent him over. Well, he basically told the guy the same thing I had but agreed the little bastard could get the more expensive one for that price.

The guy sort of smirked at me as I was cleaning the next table. I sort of smiled and said "I guess persistence will get you everywhere!" His oh-so-charming response? "It's not persistence, it's intelligence." I laughed and said "Oh, okay." thinking we were joking around.

So their dinner was delivered as I took another order, and I came back to check on them. Mister Intelligence was sort of poking at his steak, looking discontent, but when I asked how everything tasted, all three of them said fine. I looked directly at him, smiled, and asked if he was sure, if there was anything else I could get for him. Again, he refused to tell me what was wrong. I had four other tables that needed attention, and if he didn't want to tell me what to do for him, then fuck him. I'd tried twice. I figured I'd do a lap and then come back and see if he'd open his big dumb mouth.

As I'm talking to another of my tables, I see Rehab talking to Mr. Intelligence. She wasn't even on the clock anymore, having finished her sidework and everything about half an hour before. I don't know why she was even still there. She suddenly scurried in to the kitchen, and when I got back there she was telling PSM all about my table's problems. I thought the guy had flagged her down, but oh no. Apparently, she just "noticed he looked unhappy", went over there and bugged him -- because at first he told her things were fine too! -- until he finally started bitching that "neither my server nor the manager understands your drink specials". But apparently he does, as he doesn't work there.

Then he complained that his potato had butter and sour cream on it, and it was supposed to be butter and cheese. Oh dear lord, the humanity! It's so hard to replace a baked potato! And his steak was apparently medium instead of medium rare--which, had he told me, we would have cooked him a new one! But he's "not the kind of person who sends food back" because he "worked in a kitchen". I hate assholes like that, who claim to have done this job and then treat us who do like shit.

And still, even after telling Rehab all these horrible things that were wrong, he refused another meal. I only talked to them one more time, and he still wouldn't tell me what was wrong, because every time I turned around Rehab was at the table again, so I'd have to chase her down and find out what was going on, and then I'd turn around and she was at the table again. After four rounds of this I totally gave up and let the nosy bitch handle it.

The proper course of action for her would have been ... well, to not get involved with my table, while off the clock, uninvited. If the jackass had waved her over or something, that's different. Then she should have come to me and relayed the problem, and sat the fuck back down.