Thank You, Table 16...

You have restored my faith in restaurant patrons.

You came in and sat down, and remembered me from your last visit. You asked my name. You told me you knew I had been waiting tables at my store a long time.

Then you told me it was warm in the dining room. I said, "Yes, as a matter of fact, it is." You said, "We don't mind it so much, but you guys must be ROASTING!"

We laughed and I told you I would have the manager adjust the thermostat.

Thank-you, for thinking about the waitstaff. I have never had a table in seven years at this restaurant that cared whether or not we were sweating our asses off while we were serving you, and thank-you for voicing that to me.

You, my friends, are getting free dessert the next time you sit in my section. Thank-you for your empathy! It was much appreciated after the long week I have had.

This Time I'm Ready, Bitches...

Tomorrow is Mother's Day, the busiest restaurant day of the year, also known as The Day from Hell, Forget About a Smoke and/or Piss Break Day, and Run Your Ass Off Day. This time I am bringing a Mother's Day survival kit. Included in my kit:

1 Transdermal Nicotine Patch
1 16 oz. Rockstar Energy Drink (0 carb, blue can)
1 20 oz. Quadruple Shot Skinny French Vanilla Latte (to be procured @ my drive-thru coffee kiosk on the way to work)
1 Pair Old Navy flip-flops, in purple (to be changed into immediately after my shift)
1 Pack Camel 99's Full Flavor (to be smoked immediately after my shift)
1 Six Pack Hornby's Hard Cider (to be consumed immediately after my arrival home from work)

Bring it on, motherbitches, this time I am ready for you!

Sorry To My Readers...

Haven't been feeling it lately. It's been a craptastic week. I don't even want to go to work, and I don't feel like writing about it either. Had a lot of personal stuff going on. Don't stop checking in here, and please feel free to comment on my posts. I will always try to reply, and follow my followers, too. I should be back to my old self, soon.

спасибо

I think that says thanks. To all the Russian fans I have. (3?) According to my Blogger traffic. :-)

Also, thank you Alaska, Australia, and Danke, Deutscheland.;-)

And not to forget Canada, eh!

Week From Hell...

This week has been the shits.

My coworker, Ruby* (because she reminds me of the horribly irritating character on the kids cartoon "Max and Ruby"), has been out sick all week.

Instead of finding someone to cover her shifts, management decided to do a typical half ass job and just let one of the other girls cover the first half. Now Ruby opens, and her replacement (a sweet but waaaaay too laid back lady we'll call Ditzy) has been opening as well. But Ditzy has another job she has to be at, which means she has been leaving @ 11 AM.

Today Ditzy had an out of town appointment, and had to leave at 8 AM. I was not supposed to be there until 8:45. The Kitchen Manager came out to my car while I was having my before work smoke and says, "GM needs you inside. Ditzy has to leave and there is no waitress."

"Too fucking bad. I am smoking." I replied.

I sat in my car and finished my cigarette. When I was good and ready, I went inside and clocked in (20 minutes early). Apparently another server I will call Slutty (self-explanatory) said she would be there at 8.

9 AM, still no Slutty. Ditzy high-tailed it, so I was alone, and gettin slammed. At one point I had about fifteen or sixteen tables. Luckily I had a hostesses, but do you think GM thought it maybe appropriate to come out of the office and HELP? No way, dude. Fuck that shit, he was probably taking a nap in the office because Tuesday night is Karaoke at the bar and he had a massive hangover this morning. He only came out when I told the cooks, "If you want that hot food run, you better go get GM."

Nearly 9:30, Slutty shows up, and waltzes in like she was right on time. WTF? She told me later she forgot to set her alarm. Fuck that. You say you will be there, your ass should be there. But then again, we have management who won't cover a full shift, for a whole week straight.

Sidework has been a nightmare, too, since we have been short-handed. Thank God tomorrow is my fucking Friday.

I Want to Kick My GM Where His Balls Should Be...

If he had them, that is.

Every Wednesday we have a group that meets at my restaurant at noon. They always sit in the back room. They do little speeches. A couple of them are cranky old battle axes, and are quite anal about the way the table are set up. They move all the silverware, jelly caddies, condiment holders, table tents, etc. (a crapload of shit), to one table. They need TWO pitchers of water. Then they shove all the tables into a big clusterfuck menagerie. When they first started coming in, a lot of them would order lunch, or at least drinks. Gradually they ordered less and less, until it was one person having a coffee.

For the past two weeks none of them have ordered ANYTHING!

Just water. That's it. Ten glasses and two pitchers.

And guess who gets to spend a half hour cleaning up after these fucks? Yours truly.

And the cake topper?

Not a dime gratuity.

Fuck that noise. I heard a rumor we were going to charge for our rooms if people don't buy food. Good. This is a business we are trying to run. If they went to the conference center down the road their asses would pay. If you don't want to pay to meet, go to the library, or one of your members' homes. Don't come in and waste my time. Especially at the end of my shift. Staying an extra half an hour to clean up after these weiners for minimum wage? I could be on my way home and then...weeding my garden, doing my laundry, cleaning my toilet or picking my ass. You are wasting my time, and time is money, motherbitches.

The way I see it is, they fuck up the room, not order anything, not tip? They at least put that shit back the way they found it. Period. My GM, unfortunately, is either too indifferent or too much of a pussy to tell one of them. Other servers have offered to leave notes in the room telling these people to pick up after themselves. He vetoed that idea. He is such a spineless turd.

I am halfway tempted to Google this organization and send an email to someone about this ridiculousness. Should I? Or should I take a page outta the Eunich's Guide to Restaurant Management, and just bring them ONE pitcher of water and six glasses next week? Then just five glasses of water and NO pitcher the week after that until they get the effing hint already?

What Would Jesus Do? (To You Nazi Assf*ck)

You won't believe what happened today at my restaurant.

I was doing some running sidework in the kitchen, and jamming out singing along to the radio (the song was "Magic" B.O.B. with Rivers Cuomo) and thinking, "Wonder who closed last night and left this station on. I wonder how long before GM switches it to elevator music?" When a fellow server came up to me and said, "Check out what the guy on 63 just said. I asked him how he was doing this morning, and he said 'Pretty good until I came in here and heard this monkey music playing.'"

My jaw dropped to the floor.

She continued on. "Then he made some kind of comment like, 'We're all white in here, aren't we?'"

Since my jaw was already on the floor, my eyes bugged out. I said, "NO WAY! You have gotta be shitting me."

"No," she said. "I swear."

My shock gave way to anger right about now. She continued to serve him and ignore the fact that he was a gigantic white supremacist chunk of smegma. She told the GM, and being the passive weiner that he is, TURNED OFF THE MUSIC ALTOGETHER..
I was outraged. I told her that KKK piece of shit was lucky she waited on him, because I would've flipped the fuck out on him. I would have told him we serve all PEOPLE here, if he didn't like it, he could crawl back to whatever sewer he popped out of. And by the way,my son is half Mexican, got anything cute to say about that?

I know that this state is a little behind the times, but I have never seen such a rampant display of racism. Anyone have any advice on how to deal with it? A happy medium between my go fuck yourself and my coworker/GMs ignorant ignoring?