Ohhh, How Easily You Forget Where You Come From

                              Countless times over my illustrious 8-year stint on the restaurant industry, I have seen people come and go.  Far too often, after they leave, they forget where they came from.  This makes me far more angry than it probably should.  I hate for someone that I just worked with two weeks ago, but has since quit, to come in, run me to death, treat me like garbage, then stiff me on the tip.   This is the same person who was just complaining about a random customer doing this to her three weeks ago.  It's shitty enough when Random Dan does this, but I think maybe he's just ignorant to the ways of the service industry. Former co-workers, on the other hand, have no excuse.  They know what it's like to work for tips.

                               A former co-worker of mine at Pizza Place came in to eat today.  We had worked together for about 8 months before she quit, or maybe she got fired, I'm really not sure.  It was my turn for a table, so her and her boyfriend were mine to wait on.  I was thinking, "Sweet!!!  Easy tip."  Boy, was I wrong.   Her and her boyfriend ordered a ton of food.  About half of that was salads and apps that I had to make myself.  I took them their drinks, then started their apps cooking while I made their salads.  I took their salads out, followed by their apps.  A short while later, I took them their food.  Everything was fine and dandy.  The bitch didn't eat most of the shit she ordered, nor did she want a box to take the rest of it home.  So, I took them their check.  She came up front to pay the bill for her and her deadbeat boyfriend.  She wanted to pay $20 in cash and put the rest on her card.  This was my first sign of trouble, "uh-oh," I thought. Then I thought, "Well, maybe she just doesn't have much cash on her, and she'll put my tip on the card."  A big fucking negative on that.  "Well maybe she left it on the table, I mean she did work here for 8 months, she knows how it is."  Wrong again!  When I went over to clean the table there was nothing but garbage, half-eaten food, and disappointment. I know I shouldn't let it get to me, and i don't when it's a random customer who might not know better, but it really burns my biscuits when it happens with a former server.  There's no excuse for it.  She couldn't have even left two dollars?  She couldn't have shared a salad with Deadbeat Boyfriend, instead of getting one for each of them and not eating it, then left me the price of that for a tip?  Spare change?  Anything?  I usually let annoyances like that slide right off my back, but for some reason I just couldn't let this go.  It might have been because I didn't get much sleep last night.  Maybe it was that today was my last day before my days off, so I was tired.  It could have been that I walked out of work today with only $16 in my pocket.  Or, possibly I had just filled my quota of idiots this week.  I honestly don't know for sure, but I held onto that incident until it was a big ball of hideous spite in the pit of my stomach.  I'm not proud of what I did next, and I'm sure I will have to suffer the consequences.

                     I came home a little bit earlier than normal because it was so slow.  When I walked in the door, I was still fuming.  I got even angrier when I realized that bitch had caused me to bring my work home with me.  So, I went to my lap top and looked her up on social media.  I sent her a message.  This is what it said:

Hey, I'm so glad you came in to eat today.  I had so much fun making all those salads and appetizers that you ordered, but never ate.  It was a blast cleaning all the mess off of the table after you left, too.  When I saw that humongous tip you left, I jumped and danced as my heart was filled with joy!  What a truly fulfilling experience you gave me today and, for that, I want to thank you from the bottom of my heart.  Please come back to see me again soon, and, once again, thank you sooo much for your generosity.

                          I know it's horrible, and it didn't make me feel any better.  From the second I pressed "send", I wished I could reach into my computer and take it back, but what's done is done.  Today, I am ashamed to say, I let my anger and frustration get the better of me.  If she calls the store to complain, then I will have to take whatever punishment my manager deems appropriate.  It's my cross to bear.  Then again, that girl has more cents than sense, so maybe she will take my message as sincere instead of sarcastic.  Either way, I will take whatever is coming in stride be it good, or, not-so-good.

I have two days off ahead of me, and I will definitely NOT be posting again until Monday.  I've got a class reunion.  Every other minute of my weekend, I will be relaxing in whomever's pool I can convince to let me in.  If you're off, like me, then have a great weekend.  If you're working, then I hope you make stacks of cash.  Until Monday....

On the Other Side of the Spectrum

                   O.k., so I know that I had said I wouldn't post today, but I just had to write about this.  I decided to take my father out for lunch to celebrate him having such an all around amazing daughter!  We make the 10 mile trek over to the next town to eat at this diner that serves breakfast all day, we'll call it UJUMP.  Apparently, everyone else had the same idea of where to take the father's in their lives as I had. , because the place was packed to the fucking gills.  It is a seat yourself kind of place, so we  found a table that just needed wiped off, sat down, and started perusing the menu.  I figured it out pretty quit and spent the rest of the time watching those poor servers.  They were running themselves to death.  It was odd being on the other side of the menu and not being the one running myself to death for a change.  The girl eventually got over to us, wiped off the table, and got our drink and food order.  I had cheese sticks, 3 strips of bacon, 3 eggs over medium, 3 pieces of toast, a mountain of hash browns, a bowl of oatmeal, and a sweet tea to wash it down with.  It was a platter sent from God himself!!  Of course, I over compensated, ate fast, asked for very little, and over tipped (30%), but I had empathy for those poor servers.  I know how big of douche bombs people can be on holidays like that.  They go ape shit if one little thing isn't as perfect as they had imagined it being for "Dad" on his special day.  In the end my dad was happy, the server was happy, and I was absolutely happy as I waddled, bloated, back out to the car.  Life was good, but it's back to work tomorrow with another post from me after I finish my shift.

The Light at the End of the Tunnel

              I went to work this morning hoping and praying to every God that I've ever heard of for a slow day.  Today would be my 5th day of work in a row, and the last before my two days off.  That's right, I work in a restaurant AND I don't work weekends.  I just recently got "promoted" (I use that term loosely) to day shift Monday-Friday because I have 8 years experience with the last 3 1/2 being at Pizza Place, or it could just be that I'm the biggest of the losers so they felt sorry for me and decided to give me a break.  You know, whatever.  Anyways, I'm getting sidetracked.  As I walk in the door the other waitress I work with says "Ohh, good, you're here.  I need you to go stock the party room and take all of the menus off the tables back there."  I say "Ohh, I didn't know we had a party reserved for today."  Then she says it.  The sentence that crushes and grinds my soul into a fine powder.  "They just called.  There's going to be 40-50 of them, all college students."  I dropped to my knees raised my arms in the air and shouted "No!!!!! God, why hast thou forsaken me?!" at the heavens.  Okay, maybe I wasn't that dramatic about it, but I was really bummed.  So, I did as I was told and got everything ready for their arrival.  It turns out that they had went ahead and ordered their food and drinks ahead of time, which made everything much easier.  As I've explained before, the party room already has plates, cups, lids, napkins, silverware, and straws.  All they ordered were 5-30" pizzas, 5 orders of Pepperjack Cheese Cubes, and 12-pitchers of soda, so all we had to do was take them a big bucket of ice, the 12 pitchers of soda, their 5 appetizers, and their 5 pizzas and they had everything they needed right there to serve themselves.  It turned out much better than expected.  I told the greedy butt fucking manager he wasn't getting a dime and the other waitress and I split the auto grat $21 for her and $21 for moi.  Life was good, and the day was slow.  Right as I was trying to get everything cleaned and stocked so that I could leave, the other waitress decided it was a good time to take her break.  Then, of course, 5 tables poured in at once.  A 1-top, 2 3-tops, 1 4-top, and an 8-top.  Fucking Fan. Tas. Tic.  I worked my way through them starting with who had gotten there first.  They were all pretty nice, and had only ordered 1 or two apps per table and only one lady at the 8-top had wanted a salad, so i didn't have a bunch of shit that I had to hurry to make and get out to them before their foods were up.  I went and put all their orders in, then got all the drinks for all the tables at once and took them all out.  After I got all the drinks passed out, I went into the kitchen, made all the apps and the one salad, then took all that out.  I got refills, then their food was about all up, so I started running food.  Everyone was actually super easy to deal with, especially the 8-top, who I found out was mostly out-of-towners visiting family, so I chatted with them or a while.  Everyone ate quick and left quit, which made me one happy server.  The 8-top had auto grat on it,of course, but it was only about $12.  One guy paid the whole bill.  Another guy handed me a $20.  Two of the ladies each handed me a $10. Then another lady handed me $3, for a grand total of $55!!! From one simple, easy as pie table.  And that ladies and gentlemen is how I made $135 on day shift today without having to work very hard,  I'm sure I'll wind up blowing it this weekend on the husband, father, and father-in-law, since it is Father's Day weekends, after all.

Once again, since it is the weekend, and my only two days off for another week, I will be spending all of the free time I have with the family.  Look for another post Monday evening.  Until then!

On a side note:  If you are taking the family out to eat this weekend, make SURE you give your server a big fat 20%+ tip for putting up with your demon crotch spawn, bag of cunts wife, bastard husband, condescending in-laws, douchebag parents, or what have you.  You can barely stand your family, and you love them, so imagine how your server feels about them.  Happy Father's Day!