People and their goddamn bread!

(Fell asleep before I posted this last night. Fuck me, I hate double shifts.)

I don't know how people who work at restaurants with complimentary bread handle it. We don't do that, and people already piss me off! We do have garlic breadsticks we serve with our pasta dishes, and people can order them with other things if they'd like. Invariably, when someone asks for a breadstick, I have to clarify first that they aren't free, fuckers. This isn't an Italian restaurant. You're not family when you're here, either.

If they agree to pay the sixty cents (big money), I then have to go to the kitchen, ring it in, and then wait for the cooks to toast it and send it out. Occasionally, during the dinner rush, they'll have some pre-made for a pasta dish that isn't ready, so we can use that. More often, though, I go back out to my section with a soda refill or napkins or more ranch or more ice or a third extra plate or extra croutons or drained cole slaw or whatever the fuck people want, and Mr. Bread Stick Orderer will stop me, demanding to know where the bread stick is he ordered one minute ago. When I politely explain it's being toasted, half the people understand and half get a snitty fucking attitude with me.

Once again: Not an Italian restaurant. We don't keep an oven full of these things ready at all times because guess what? We have five items out of our 100 item menu that come with a bread stick. How many do you think we really go through? Oh, but wait, you're special so let me just go change the way the restaurant works just for you.

Lying liars who yell across the restaurant.

About a week ago, I had a verrrry pleasant customer.

Actually, they started out fine. A husband and wife, they seemed pleasant enough, even though they had insisted on taking up a five-person round table for themselves. The guy was thrilled to find out that we had a really cheap, white trashy beer on tap.

And then I forgot to ring their food in for about five minutes. But they had an appetizer coming, and fly onion rings only take three minutes, so I wasn't worried. It still wasn't an extraordinary wait, considering the place was full and we had a wait at the door.

But right before their rings came up, I stopped at their table for drink refills and was asked by the wife "what happened to our appetizer!" Which just pisses me off -- "can you please check on our appetizer?" is the correct way to ask that question.

I just smiled and said the kitchen was running a little slow, but I'd go check right away. Thirty seconds later I was back with said onion rings, and things seemed fine. Then I realized I'd ordered the wrong chicken on one of their salads -- but again, I caught it soon, it wasn't going to be a delay. So I was surprised a few minutes later when CL came up to me with her face all red and practically shaking.

Apparently this jackass saw her walking by tables on the other side of the bar from him and screaming "HEY! Are you the manager? WHERE'S MY DINNER?"

Keep in mind they'd been waiting maybe fifteen minutes on a busy night! And CL was embarrassed and shaky and upset. I don't know why, if anyone should've been embarrassed it was the douchebag yelling across the restaurant! He said they'd been waiting half an hour (wrong, but people always exaggerate that) and that they'd asked me where their food was and I'd "shown no concern" and not answered them!

That right there pisses me off -- when people fucking lie about me it makes me furious. They had ignored my drive-bys and smiles, and definitely not spoken to me. Is it possible they talked to somebody else who didn't bother to check? Maybe -- but I was the only short fat blonde chick there that night, nobody else was even close to looking like me.

So at this point I'm pissed, CL is pissed and not really believing me that I only forgot to ring things in for five minutes and that I had not actually spoken to them. She bought the fuckers' entire meals, including their drinks, and totally had a spaz attack in the kitchen.

When the assholes got their food, they'd been waiting a total of 25 minutes.

Actually, I don't think I will.

A couple of weeks ago I was calling out bingo numbers for late night; we had a pretty decent crowd, but it wasn't as fun as usual because I didn't have a mic and had to just yell the entire time. Still, it was working out okay.

The entire point of this stuff is to keep people there, hopefully ordering drinks and appetizers and desserts. So we take breaks in between rounds, and basically it's a leisurely thing. I try to keep track of when people go out to smoke or whatever and wait for them to get back.

This particular night, Helmet Hair and her husband Balding Mullet Man were going out to smoke. I politely told them I'd wait for them to come back, so they could take their time. They ignored me, of course. A few minutes later, a group of guys at the bar who were playing also went out to smoke. Then HH and BMM came back in, and immediately started glaring at me. Hey, it's not my fault that they're out past their bedtime. We don't do this just for her personal entertainment, you know.

Five minutes pass, and the bar guys haven't come back in yet. It's been about fifteen minutes since we ended the last round, and I'd said 10-15 minutes before the next. At this point, HH decided to speak to me--by hollering over a couple of tables at me. "Isn't it time? What are you waiting for?"

"Just waiting on some other players to come back in, they were smoking too." I was as polite as I could be even though I wanted to ignore her.

"Well!" She huffed. "You need to tell them to go when it's time so we don't have to wait!"

I stared at her for a moment. "I'm sure they'll be back soon," I said, and deliberately turned to talk to someone else. Sure enough, the guys sauntered back in about a minute later. I waited an extra couple of minutes before I started, just to piss off Helmet Hair. I also, again, took satisfaction in her not winning a single round. Petty, yes, but she's such a bitch!

The next week, CL told me that we were going to start bingo a half an hour later from now on, and said she heard people were getting restless and she'd talked to them. I laughed, because I knew she was talking about Helmet Hair, and sure enough I saw her explaining it to the witch.

Helmet Hair didn't win anything that week, either.

A story from a coworker.

So a coworker of mine was having a really bad day yesterday. Right before work, she found out that one of her dogs has a large tumor and probably has to be put down. But she has to pay rent, so she couldn't afford to take the night off. She was doing the best she could considering she felt like she couldn't focus; she'd also been given the station furthest away from the kitchen, which is always a pain in the ass.

So last night, L picks up a credit card at the table the absolutely farthest from the kitchen, which requires walking around the entire restaurant to get to. The lady asks for a box, so L winds her way around the perimeter of the restaurant, dodging other customers and co-workers. She drops some plates off in the dish area, runs the woman's credit card, gets her box, and heads back to the table. It takes four or five minutes, and this is at the tail end of the dinner rush, so the place is still full.

When L gets back to the table, the woman grabs the box out of her hand and snaps, "I was about to leave with the plate, that took you so long!"

L handled it very well; she didn't let it get to her. I probably would have let myself burst into tears, sobbed about my dog, and done my level best to make the woman feel like a total asshole.

Dear Asshat Cowboys

Thank you for sitting at the bar while waiting for a table. Thank you for ordering your food there, and the moving to one of my tables. Thank you for being rude and impatient when I introduced myself, and for talking to me like I was an insect beneath your notice. Thank you for telling me "I haven't gotten to try it yet!" when I asked how your food was when I returned with your ranch. Because clearly, your burger was inedible without ranch on it, which is why you didn't ask for it right away.

Thank you for swallowing your burgers whole and going back to the bar to demand your ticket, despite having ordered a second round of drinks which you then refused to take or pay for, and then stiffing me because clearly twenty minutes is too long to wait in a crowded, wait-listed restaurant on a Friday night.

And thank you, above all, for fucking right off.

Love,
Your Server

I was in a good enough mood tonight that I didn't let it bother me; I just sort of wondered how people like that justify their behavior.