The Passion in Her Touch

I was fondled at work this week. Well, sort of. Let us look at this post as a creative writing exercise. I will begin with the story exactly as it happened and at some point I will switch it to complete fiction and you see if you can tell when it switched from story telling to a big fat fucking bullshit lie.

It was a dark and stormy night on Sunday. The north wind was blowing and the temperature had dropped to a chilly 45 degrees. I made my way into the club buffering the wind with my hooded sweatshirt. I punched in and got ready for a three-show night. "It's gonna be a tough night, " I said to no one in particular as I wiped down tables and prepared the candles. The first show was a jazz singer who was ready to wail and blow the roof off the joint. Her audience was light but enthusiastic. I took the drink orders before the show started and rang them in ready to serve my guests and give them a night that was perfectly enjoyable from all angles. (No, that is not where the story deviates to fiction.) There was a broad at table 28 who was also a trumpet player for the show. She only had to perform in two numbers so she was sitting with her husband having a glass of Cabernet waiting for her time to get on stage. About halfway through the show, I stepped into the room to begin clearing empty glasses and make room for the second rounds. As I approached table 28 for the lady's wine glass, she was facing the stage and couldn't see that I was standing behind her and trying to clear her table. Surreptitiously, I reached my arm around her to pick up the glass when her hand reached out to grab mine. Apparently she thought my hand was the hand of her husband. She held it for a brief second as she continued to watch the stage. Pulling my hand away, I glanced at the husband who smiled at me seeing what was happening and knowing that his wife thought my hand was his.

A spark ignited between his wife and my cold cold heart. I reached back out to touch her hand again and I felt the warmth of our passion flow from my fingertips to the innermost recesses of my soul and thaw out my heart that had been longing for this feeling for oh so many years. She turned her head to look at her husband and realized that it was not his hand she was caressing, but mine. Her cheeks flushed with embarrassment but then a smile came across her face making her lips a fuller deeper red than I have ever seen on any woman before or since. She pulled her hand away and muttered, "Excuse me. I must go to the ladies room." Racing towards the back of the room with her long dark hair billowing behind her, I heard a sob escape from her throat that I recognized as regret filled with longing. I cleared her wine glass, cleared my throat and avoided eye contact with the husband.

Two minutes later, I gently opened the door to the ladies room and saw her leaning against the counter with her head hanging over the sink. Her eyes looked up at me with confusion and desire. "It's okay," I said. "I feel the same way as you do." She pulled me towards her and planted her full moist lips on my mine as she ran her fingers through my hair. My hand wrapped around her waist and found a home in the waistband of her mom jeans. Kissing wildly, our tongues discovering each other, I was taken away to a place where drink orders no longer mattered and I was attracted to middle aged women trumpet players. Her hand moved from my hair to the nape of my neck, to the small of my back and finally to my ass where she grabbed and held on for dear life. When our lips parted, I looked into her eyes and a single tear fell from the left pool of blue.

"My husband is..." Her words trailed off.

"I don't care about your husband," I said. "I am in love with you. Ever since your hand accidentally touched mine four minutes ago, nothing else in the world matters to me anymore. You are all I care about." I glanced at the mirror behind her and saw the reflection of her husband staring back at me with a a dark and steely gaze. I turned around to defend my love of his trumpet-playing, mom jeans-wearing, middle aged wife. He rushed towards me, hand outreached, and I prepared to feel his fingers throttled around my neck. Instead, he brushed the hair out of my eyes with his left thumb and put his right hand on the nape of my neck, the same place his wife's had been moments earlier. He pulled me to him and kissed me with all the conviction he had. I struggled to get away and finally gave in to his power. His wife came to the front of me and they both made love to my face with their mouths savoring every inch of me.

Two minutes later, they were gone. I was alone in the women's bathroom wondering what had just happened. I splashed cold water on my face, straightened my apron and went back to the bar. I carried out the second drinks and my night went on as usual, but I was forever changed.

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Chardonnay=Pinot Grigio=Sauvignon Blanc

Now I am not a fancy wine drinker or anything. I mean, don't get me wrong, I like the stuff. In fact I am having a glass of it right now and it isn't even from a box. It is from a really large bottle though. Like a two liter size that was on special at Bill's Liquor Store down the street. I am also a big fan of the Two Buck Chuck you can get at Trader Joe's. Like I said, I am having some right now so if there are typos, you will know whay. My point is I can't tell the difference between one wine from the other. White from red, yes but among the whites? Forget it. Over the years I have worked in some pretty dumpy fuckin' places (R.I.P. Houlihan's) that served lots of wine. People always order it like they think they are a fucking sommelier. My thought is if you are ordering wine at Houlihan's you ain't no big deal. I love when they ask to taste it first and swirl the wine in the glass to get the bouquet before they give me approval to pour for the rest of the table. Gimme a break. Now, if you were in some high class fancy ass place that was known for their wine like Las Vegas or Olive Garden, then sure, you go to town. But at the crap houses I have worked at there is no reason to taste the wine before I serve it. I can already tell you it will taste like ass. But it's always some guy trying to impress his date who wants to taste it first. He takes a sip and then furrows his brow and cocks his head before he nods very slowly as if to say, "ah yes, this is the finest glass of piss water I have had in ages. Very nice, Monsieur." At least he can be sure he is getting what he ordered if he asks for the whole bottle. Plenty of times someone has asked for the pinot grigio, but we are out so we pour their ass a glass of sauvignon blanc and call it a day. Or a glass of chardonnay. Whatever. In all the times I have done this (and there have been plenty) not once did someone notice. I have been tempted to put a splash of cranberry into some chardonnay and see if I can pass it off as white zinfandel, but just have not done that yet. (Note to self: this weekend, put a splash of cranberry into some chardonnay and see if I can pass it off as white zinfandel.) It's sorta like when someone orders a ginger ale and you can put a splash of Coke into a Sprite and they never know. For real. I worked at place for three years and we never carried ginger ale but I served it hundreds of times with that little trick.

Anyhoo, I am just sipping my chardonnay or pinot or whatever the fuck it is and thought about how people will drink whatever you place in front of them. They're like cows. Only not as tasty when made into a hamburger.


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Good Tip vs. Bad Tip

I was recently asked if I could spot a good tipper from a bad tipper by some waiter vibe that I have honed over my years of service. The answer is yes. Yes, I can tell when a person will be good tipper and when someone is a complete and utter piece of shit. I think most servers can do this to an extent, but I am exceptional at it. It takes practice and it's almost like reading someones aura. You have to squint your eyes and look to the soul of the customer to determine the future tip. It's not easy, but it can be done.

Contrary to popular belief, rich people are not necessarily good tippers. My x-ray vision can see right through their Rolex watches, diamond tennis bracelets and fur coats and recognize a cheap asshole or a bitch whore who became rich by hording their money and leaving crappy five and ten percent tips to waiters. I have never waited on Donald Trump, but for the sake of argument, let's just say his tips suck worse than his hairdo. And that hairdo is pretty fucking bad. Here's a tip for The Donald: Hats. Wear 'em. On the flip side, working class folks always seem to tip better. Surely it is because they are used to doing the menial labor and can appreciate the job that a waiter is doing for them. Or maybe there is some rule in the Wal-Mart handbook that says to leave a decent tip and always be nice. It is the only logical explanation really.

If someone looks directly in my eyes to order and knows how to say please and thank you, I can usually expect a decent tip. If they are pleasant to their spouse, their kids, their friends, then I can expect them to be pleasant to me and hopefully the tip will reflect that kindness. There are some exceptions. Nuns. They don't tip well. They can be the sweetest thing this side of Jesus, but expect a quarter at most. I can't blame them. I mean, where do they get their money? What is minimum wage for a nun anyway? They can't be blowing all their cash on tips when they probably get paid with Bible verses, pennies and IOU's from God saying He will make sure they will have a kick-ass mansion when they get to heaven. Generally though, nice people tip better.

Bad tippers usually have a way about them. Maybe they have shifty eyes or they mumble when they talk but you can always smell a bad tipper. No, seriously, they have an odor. They smell like cardamom spice and heavy cream that sat in the sun for a while. Not quite spoiled, but close to it. I also find that really hot chicks with big boobies leave crappy tips because they must think that just seeing their bosoms is enough for me. It isn't. It so isn't. There are also some people who leave other things instead of tips. One thing that popped up in the south a lot were pieces of paper that looked like dollar bills but were actually cards from a church that said things like "Smile, God Loves You" and "You Have Been Blessed!" That shit pissed me off because when I tried to deposit them into my account, it turns out the bank doesn't accept that as money. And I recently read about a guy who was tipped with candy. Seriously? Save that shit for the trick-or-treaters, don't tip me with it.

I guess the point is, all people tip what they want. We all hope for a good tip from the nice lady and don't expect anything from the crotchety old man. Most of the time, the stereotype lives up to itself. Every once in a while, we are surprised by a 20% tip from a crazy looking bitch who only wanted hot water and lemons and yelled about her salad being wrong. But for the most part, we waiters can sense when we will hit pay dirt and when to brush them off. It just takes practice.

Not Your Turn, Lady

We had a really busy night the other night. I think we had about eighty-something people there and only two of us serving. The difference with this place as opposed to a restaurant is that everyone comes in at once, orders at once and then leaves at once. If the show is at 7:30, at 7:15 we are taking orders for every single person and then when the show is done all of them want the check right that second. It gets a little hairy and sometimes people have to wait. Most people are okay with it. Some are not.


The show had ended and I had collected most of my checks. I was setting the room for the next show when this bat out of hell rushes up to me looking like she is having a stroke. She was so angry. She couldn't even keep her eyes open because they were squished together in petulance. I hadn't noticed her before because she was not in my section. "I am so upset. I am so upset. Why is it taking so long to get my check? Why am I the last one? I mean I wasn't the last one to arrive so why am I the last one now? I am so upset. This is crazy!" The lady was about to cry. Her hands were balled up into fists and she was shaking them up and down. Her face was completely wrinkled and and her brow was furrowed to the nth degree. She also had really frizzy hair that was obviously dyed black and wasn't age appropriate. That has nothing to do with her behavior, but it should be duly noted.

I reached my hand out to her and gently touched her forearm. "Hi there. Is everything okay?" I asked.

"I don't know where my waiter is and why he is taking so long," she screeched at me.

Pulling my hand away from her for fear that it would get sucked into the vacuum that was her bitchiness, I told her I was certain that her waiter was taking care of her check and would be right back.

She screams at me. "But I am so upset that it is taking so long, I just don't understand it!"

I paused for a moment and said, "I'm sorry but did I do something that upset you?"

She looked at me like I had just asked her to solve the health care crisis. "No," she said like it was the most ridiculous question I could have asked.

"Then why are you yelling at me?" Pause. Pause. Staring at her all the while. After sufficient awkwardness on her part, off I go to finish my sidework as she stood there with her mouth open. Dumb bitch. Didn't she learn in kindergarten that someone has to be last? Jesus, someone just has to be last. It may as well be the ugliest woman in the room.


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Here's the Story of a Lovely Lady

My life missed being perfect and whole by a mere twenty-four hours. I worked on October 11th, but if I would have worked on October 10th instead, my life could have been completely different. Everything in the world would have come together to make sense and my days would be complete for I would have been serving Florence Henderson. Yes, I am speaking of the brilliant actress known the world over as Carol Brady from my favorite television show ever, The Brady Bunch. I was told that she was in the club the night before and when I found out, my heart broke into as many pieces as the vase that Greg, Peter and Bobby broke by playing ball in the house. The Brady Bunch is genius and to have had the opportunity to serve Carol Brady herself would have been a slice of heaven for me. Seriously. I love her.

I love her as much as Marcia loved Davy Jones in episode #63 "Getting Davy Jones." You know the one? Where she is president of his fan club and promises that she can get him to sing at the prom? And she does! She loves him so much that when he knocks on her front door to be her date, she freaks out and slams the door in his face. I would have been like that with Florence Henderson. She would have ordered her drinks and then I would have run away giggling because Carol Brady asked me to brink her a martini extra dry, dirty with olives.

I idolize her like Bobby idolized football superstar Joe Namath in episode #96 "Mail Order Hero" where he and Cindy fake a serious illness just so Joe will come to see him and then he gets to play football in the backyard with him. Okay, I don't really want to play football with Florence, but I idolize her just the same.

I am obsessed. Like when Greg becomes obsessed with baseball and Don Drysdale in episode #26 "The Dropout" and can think of nothing else. His grades slip because all he wants to do is eat, drink and sleep baseball. All I want to do is eat, drink and sleep Florence Henderson. The very thought of serving her makes my head swell up bigger than Marcia's nose did in episode #90 "The Subject Was Noses" when Peter hits her smack in the face with a football.

Alas, I missed my opportunity by one night. Why, oh why could I have not been scheduled for the 10th when the Goddess known as Carol Brady graced my station? I weep with misfortune. And just in case you think this post is not enough about serving, let me briefly mention episode #104 "Marcia Gets Creamed" where she is the afternoon manager at Haskell's Ice Cream Hut and hires Peter who is a crappy waiter and fires him and then hires Jan who is a fantastic server and then mean old Mr. Haskell fires Marcia and keeps Jan instead. Ah, the perils of food service are fraught with difficulty even in the land of Brady.

I did serve one famous person that night; Broadway star
Tammy Grimes. She's cool. Has a couple of Tony Awards. But she ain't no Carol Brady.


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Thou Shalt Not Tweet at Work

Everyone is jib-jabbering about the California waiter who Tweeted about getting stiffed by the actress Jane Adams. If you have been living under a fucking rock, here is the link to the full E! True Hollywood Story. I guess he tweeted that she walked on the check, his boss found out and then they tweeted his ass to the curb. Fired. Supposedly, she forgot her purse in her car and went out to get it and then just didn't come back in to pay. We've all heard that one before. That's right up there with "the check is in the mail" and "trust me, I'll pull out." One of her people came back the next day and paid the tab, but left no tip. So he tweeted about that too. Long story short, he is unemployed for talking about his own personal life. Pity. So many people have sent me this news piece as a sort of warning I suppose. Thank you, people. What can we learn from this sad story?

First off, we can assume that Jane Adams may or may not be a thieving celebrity who may have had no intention of ever paying her check in the first place. She may or may not have done this before as well as shoplifted, kidnapped, burgled, counterfeited and committed grand theft auto and arson. I don't know any of these things for sure, I'm just saying that she could have.

We also learn that maybe it is not the best thing to Tweet, blog, Facebook, text or whatever about the specifics of your job. That would just be career suicide. Follow my lead. I never never ever talk specifically about the place that I work or have worked with the exception of Bennigan's, Houlihan's, Pizzeria Uno, VYNL, Black Eyed Pea and every other place I have ever worked. Stay vague. And do not talk shit about your boss, unless his name is John and he owns VYNL in New York City, because he can suck it. Honestly, I don't give too much of a shit because everything I said about him and his crappy restaurant is true so what can he do? Sue me for truthfulness?

Finally, we learn that if you wait on a famous person, treat them like every other nobody in your station. Famous people are whores who want more and more attention and if you fawn over them or give them special attention, their heads swell to abnormal proportions. When Miss Famous Actor said she forgot her purse, the waiter should have told her the same thing I say to some loser bag who tells me that tired excuse. "Well, you better call someone to bring you some money or get your ass in the kitchen and introduce yourself to the stack of dirty dishes, because you owe me some cash, bitch." The only famous person I have written about serving is that old man who played Palmer Courtland on All My Children and I didn't say anything bad about him. (He was with a really hot younger guy who I can only assume was his gay homosexual lover. Can we say Sugar Daddy?) I also wrote another story about Doris Roberts from Everybody Loves Raymond, but that story was told to me by someone else so the fact that she was a bitch is just secondhand information and might not be true at all. Although it probably is. I'm just sayin'.

The Bitchy Waiter wishes good luck on the poor server who was fired for speaking the truth about his famous customer who tried to steal. Hopefully, one door closing will mean another door is opening and he will soon be living life to the fullest again and taking food orders and carrying drinks to people who are much more successful than he is. Godspeed, waiter. Fare thee well. And Jane Adams, you might be habitual criminal. Just sayin'.


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No Cell Phones, Please

Being in a new serving environment has opened up a whole new can of worms regarding annoyances. At the last job, it was like a can of Upper East Side stroller mom bitch worms, while at this place it's an occasional worm of total cluelessness. Seeing that I now work in a classy joint with candles and performers, the customers are, for the most part, pretty aware of the situation. They are there to see a show. A performer will be on the stage in front of them singing songs and baring their soul and they do not want to hear a fucking cell phone go off. It baffles me that people can listen to an announcement that says to please turn off all cell phones and then just not do it. In a restaurant, it's annoying, but not a deal breaker. In a movie, it disturbs me, but movies are full of people who have no manners so it's kinda expected. At a Broadway show, that shit really pisses me off because I paid an arm, a leg, an eyeball and my left nipple for the ticket and don't be ruining my night at the theater.

A few nights ago, the place was pretty full because the performer was popular and the show had good reviews. The announcement came on that said to cease and desist with the cell phone crap and to enjoy the show. I was dealing with table 34 and trying to get them to understand that there was a two-drink minimum. Bitch ordered a cranberry seltzer and then wanted to know if tap water could count as her second drink. What do you think the answer is to that? She really just wanted water for the second drink which is totally fine by me. One five dollar bottled water it is. Her husband wanted the same thing. Already they were annoying the piss out of me because their check was going to be for $20 before the cover charge so maybe I was looking at a three dollar tip. Wishing they had ordered the $15 Pear Cosmos, I shuffled off to get their drinks. I was mentally done with them because two cranberry seltzers and two bottled waters means nothing to me at the new job. I like to focus on the old men with big swollen alcohol noses who will order three or four Jack Daniels in the course of one hour. I love those fucking losers.

About three songs into the evening, I hear a cell phone go off. The performer somehow didn't hear it, or if they did they just ignored it. If it was my ass up on the stage, I'd be all up in their business and embarrass the hell out of the bitch who doesn't know how to hit vibrate or silent. It rings a second time. I look over at Miss Cranberry Seltzer and she is rifling through her giant pleather purse to find her phone. I inch my way towards her so I can shoot her a crusty just as she pulls the phone out of her bag. And the she answers it. What the fuck? She thinks she is whispering. "Hello?," she says all scrunched down in her seat like it makes a difference. "Oh hi there. How are you? Uh huh...uh huh...oooh, okay...well, alright. Listen, I've gotta go, I'm at a show... I'm seeing a show. A show." She finally hangs up.

Seriously? This place only hold about 100 people and it's really small. She was about twelve feet away from the stage and she thought it was alright to have a freaking telephone conversation? I handed her the five dollar bottle of water and gave her a mental cunt punch. The show ended without incident, but I can see that this job will have its own idiosyncrasies for me to get used to. Like bitches who use their phone while I'm trying to serve drinks and someone else is trying to sing.


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Neat vs. Straight Up

As a cocktail server, I am coming across many terms that I have never encountered before. Despite my eleventy-billion years of slinging food, some words have not made it into my lexicon. One of them was "back" when referring to a chaser. For example, "I'll have a shot of Jack with a ginger back." Okey dokey... In my three weeks at the new job, I have had three people order a "back" of something. Weird. Now, I was the first to admit that I was unaware of that bar term and just asked the first dude who ordered it what it was and it was no biggie. But last shift, someone clearly did not understand the bar term he was using and blamed it on me when his drink came out wrong.


Two people are waiting for the show to start and I go to take their order. The lady asks for some drink I have never heard of. It was called a Mazzarerk or some shit like that. I think bitch made it up or dreamed it. She asked me if I knew what it was and I told her no. "Well, does the bartender know what it is?" My telepathic powers were in the shop that day making me unable to read the bartender's mind so I had to to tell her that I didn't know if he knew what it was. "Well, it's made with rye," she says like that will jog my memory. Ohhh! A Mazzarerk made with rye! Now I remember! What a cunt. I tell her we have a barbook so we could look it up and she says that if the bartender has to look it up to make it, she doesn't want it. I dunno, I guess because then he would be following a recipe and that would somehow make it all wrong? She has to think about it. The ass wipe she is with says he wants a Maker's Mark, straight up with a ginger back. I tell him how I have just learned that word and how odd it was to have heard it for a third time in just a couple of weeks. "Well, it means a chaser." He said it all condescendingly like he should be so proud of his alcoholic knowledge. I assured him I knew what it was and tried to tell him that I've been waiting tables for eleventy-billion years but realized I didn't really give a shit. His boozehound lady friend says she'll have that too. Fine. Two Maker's Marks, straight up with two ginger backs.

Now, in my head, "straight up" means chilled and poured into a martini glass. If I ordered a margarita straight up, it would be chilled, shaken and poured into a martini glass. You can even Google and Wikepedia that shit, because that is what "up" means. I bring them their drinks and the guy looks at the glasses and moans. "No, no no...up! I don't want it shaken. Look, you can see it's got bits of ice in it and now it's all watered down. Up means just pour it right from the bottle into a glass, go it?? Up, up!"

"Oh, you mean neat then, not straight up." The asshole shut up. I got his Maker's Mark neat with his ginger back and placed it in front of him and walked away. He tried to ignore me for the rest of the shift but he wasn't really because it was me who was ignoring him. I got his second round and then gave him his check all the while thinking how I wanted to take that bottle of Maker's Mark and neatly shove it straight up his ass.

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You Order Eggroll?

Occasionally, The Bitchy Waiter gets to go to a restaurant and have someone fuck up his order for a change. After nearly a score of waiting tables, (as in four score and seven years ago...), the dining experience for me is almost always uncomfortable. I want to help the server; I stack my plates, I never complain, I over tip and God forbid I go out with a large group of people who want to push tables together and all be on separate checks. When I eat out, I spend the whole time overcompensating. Waiting tables has ruined the experience for me. But I went out to dinner a few nights ago.

There was a craving for Chinese food in the homestead so I Googled, Zagated, and CitySearched until I found a place that was highly recommended. The reviews for Hunan Park were good and the price was right, read cheap. It was little bit out of the way but I was feeling adventurous. Why not? Off to the Upper West Side I shall go! With address in hand and salivating for some good orange chicken, my dining partner (none of your beeswax, busy bodies) head to Columbus Avenue and 70th Street. When we get there, we go back and forth on the supposed block and see nothing that serves egg rolls. Every other ethnic restaurant is on that block but not one fucking Chinese place. We look up the address and realize we are standing in front of it, but it is now some lame ass deli that I applied for a job at about three weeks ago. What the fuck? Did Hunan Park up and leave? Never fear, there is another location on 91st Street, only twenty blocks up. We trudged ahead. At 91st street, nuthin'. A grocery store, a post office and a homeless lady who may or may not have been Chinese. We call the mysterious Hunan Park and they say "No! No! Ninety-fifth Street. Five Five!" Four more blocks and we finally behold the wonder that is Hunan Park; the magical mystical Far East heaven that has made me travel all the way from Queens to a neighborhood I didn't even know the name of. Hunan Park was a dump.

"Well, Zagat gave it a 9 for decor but a 19 for food. It must be good. There's no one here though, that's weird." As we ignored every red flag that was waving before us, we stepped into a place that may as well have been next door to me in Queens. Zagat can not lead us astray, could they? There was an old man sitting at a table with headphones on and a pile of food in front of him. He looked like he could be a close personal friend to the homeless lady at 91st Street. The only other people eating were employees on this fine Friday night. We sat "anywhere" and a waitress threw some water glasses and some chips with duck sauce at us. She looked like she was in a real hurry, like she must have been in the middle of giving a manicure to someone else at the same time. She came back about ten seconds later and said "you ready?" We politely asked for more time so she moved about two feet away from us and stood there staring at us. No pressure or anything, Fawn Lawn Young. It was only 9:30 and they didn't close until 11:00 so I don't know what her fucking hurry was. Maybe it was Chinese New Year or something and she needed to go build a dragon mask. We ordered an egg roll (greasy and possibly frozen) and vegetable dumplings (I didn't try them because they were green and I don't like green food) for our appetizers. I then ordered pineapple chicken because they didn't have orange chicken. It came out as some doughy fried chicken with about six cubes of canned pineapple next to it. And a huge bowl of sauce that may as well have been called High Fructose Corn Syrup with MSG. Across from me, my dining companion had a plate of Moo Shoo Chicken that was said to taste like dish soap. Again, I didn't taste it because I don't like food that tastes like dish soap. The only decent thing we had were the two bottles of Tsing Tao beer. Perfectly prepared, they were.

The check came along with an orange slice (fancy!) and fortune cookies. I wrapped up my chicken because even though it was horrible, gummy, disgusting and I thought it tasted like shit, a homeless person might want it. We put down $43 dollars and left. No one else came in the whole time we were there except for a group of three who walked in, looked around and left. And another couple who picked up some food to go. Zagat was wrong. They lied to me and owe me $43. How long will it be before I am ready to again venture to the other side of the menu? Days? Weeks? Hunan Park and Zagat just made this bitchy waiter a little bit bitchier.

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Bitch at Table 19

It is hard to find things to bitch about being a waiter when one's waiting job is actually tolerable. That's right, The Bitchy Waiter has little to complain about. The job is profitable, the hours are short, the co-workers are nice, the managers are cool and I get to listen to amazing performers sing while I work. Well, there was this one woman the other night. What a beyatch.

At the club, it is very important that people sit where the hostess has seated them. Everyone has to pay a cover charge and some people pay different amounts so it really screws things up when people move around, because I am not a psychic. I can't be calling my psychic friend, Dionne Warwick, and asking her how much is the bitch at table 19 supposed to be paying for the show. Two couples came to the show and they wanted to switch their seats so they could sit next to their partners instead of across from them. Isn't that sweet? I mean, really, who gives a shit? The show is an hour. Get over it, co-dependents. I picked up their seating passes which alert me who is paying what, but since they had ants in their pants and had moved around, the seating passes got mixed up. It wasn't my fault, I promise. When I gave the checks at the end of the night, I had charged one couple a cover charge even though they had prepaid. The man was really nice about it, and I just voided off the cover charges. No biggie. So for the other couple I had put two $0 cover charges when I really needed to put two $25 cover charges. I had to add the $50 cover charge, but I didn't bother voiding off the two $0 items since...well, since they were for zero dollars. I laid their check down and moved on. Five minutes later, the lady is at my side breathing down my neck.

"Excuse me? Ummm, Excuse me?" I turned to see what she needed and she was already complaining to the manager. "Hi there. Yes...uh...I am not responsible for my friends cover charge," she says. I looked at my manager and gave him a look that said "I don't know what this bitch is complaining about." He took the check from her icy talons and reviewed it with her and then she snatched it back and mumbled to herself for a few seconds. "Two cover charges for $25 each...two scotch and sodas...one chardonnay...one Pelligrino..." She shut up. I knew she had finally noticed that two of the cover charges, the ones for her friends that she would not be responsible for, were for zero dollars. That's right, lady, read the check. She was all ready to complain and make a stink that smelled worse than her crotch probably did and she had no fucking argument. She just rolled her lips into her mouth (do that, so you know what I mean) and slinked back to the table without an explanation. When I went to pick up the check, she avoided eye contact with me because bitch knew she was wrong.

I love love love it when customers are wrong. Especially when I am new and it is quite possible that it was my fuck up. But not tonight lady. You moved tables and didn't tell anyone about it and made the check all complicated for you and your pea brain. The customer is not always right.

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Say Cheese, Asshole

My first day at my new job went off without a hitch with the exception of one huge asshole who sat at table 24. Do they follow me? Am I an asshole magnet? My fellow co-workers were shocked that this guy treated me the way he did. "We never get people like that. I am so sorry you had to deal with him." Poor me, destined to deal with assholes no matter where I work. I may as well be a fucking proctologist.

So this place I work at now is pretty nice. Did I mention we have candles? Yeah, candles. Most of the folks that come in for the shows are prepared to drop a pretty penny for the cover charge and the two-drink minimum. But this guy was different. He plopped his fat ass at his seat. I gave him the shpiel about how he had to have two drinks while there and how helpful it would be to tell me both of them now so as not to interrupt him during the performance. "Do you gots Bud Light?" Being new to the job and seeing that he had a list of beers in front of him, I paused and told him I wasn't sure. I looked at the list and said, "No, sorry just Amstel Light and Sam Adams Light." He informed me that he would have an Amstel Light.

"Alright, sir. And would you like that for your second drink as well?"

"I dunno." Long pause as he stared at me. "I'll tell you what I do want though. Get the biggest glass you have. Fill it with ice. Then fill it with water. Then put a lemon in it. I want two of those right now." I make my way to another table and he calls me again. "Do you have any food?" I suppose he doesn't understand the purpose of the menu sitting in front of him.

"Yes sir, we do. I have hummus and pita chips, spinach artichoke dip-"

"No, no no. Food. Real food."

"That is food sir. We do consume that."

"Meat. Do you have any food that is meat?"

I was staring to hate this guy. "Then no sir, we don't have any food."

"What kind of food do you have then?"

I have now crossed the line from starting to hate this guy to actually hating this guy. I reiterated our food options and he finally agreed on the cheese plate and then berated me for not knowing the price without looking at the menu. He almost choked when I told him how expensive it was, but he ordered it. The table next to him told me "good luck" as I went to ring in his order. He yelled out to me he also wanted a shot of Jack Daniels. When I brought out his beer, shot and two waters (which he never touched) he told me he needed a Coke chaser and he was not paying for it because where he comes from you just automatically get a Coke chaser with a shot of Jack and he was not paying for it and he would not be paying for it. Got it, ass. Fine.

Halfway through the show he leaves his seat to come to the bar and complain that he is dissatisfied with his cheese plate. He was not paying for a plate of crackers with one piece of cheese. He would not be paying for it. Got it, fine. Meanwhile the other server went to retrieve said cheese plate and showed him several pieces of cheese that were still on it proving that it did have more than one piece as he claimed. "Well, I don't like swiss!" (It was edam.) "And I don't know what those other cheeses are!" (They were gouda and brie.) I guess he just didn't recognize his old stalwart cheeses of American, cheddar and Whiz.

We took the cheese plate of his bill. After the show, he walked around the room talking to some of his friends and ignoring me as I waited to accept payment. About fifteen minutes later I hear the other server calling after him as he walked toward the door. "Sir, are you going to pay your check??" Asshole laughed. "Oh my Lord. I totally forgot about it. I'm sorry. How much do I owe you? Hardy har har."

I ran his credit card and you know what the asshole did? On a $49 check, he left me ten bucks. I swear to God, I just don't get people.

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On Your Mark. Get set. Go.

Today is the big day. My new career as a cocktail server begins. After hours upon hours of highly intensive training with skilled professionals who know the ins and outs of serving liquid libations, I am ready to have my first very own shift at the new job. I am freaking out. I dreamed about it the other night too. One of those horrible waiting tables dreams that all servers have. You know the one: where you have a whole giant restaurant as your station and every single table is wanting your attention. They all need drinks refilled and food orders to be taken and people want their checks. You have about twenty credit cards to ring in and you can't get caught up at all and you wake up covered in sweat. I hate that. Because in real life if I get that far into the weeds, I just go to the bathroom, wash my face, make a phone call, take a deep breath and figure "who gives a fuck?" But in the dreams for some reason I actually care. Hmmm, weird. Hopefully during my first real shift all my training will come to the forefront and make me a server superstar.

I trained for three shifts. For no pay. It's such a drag to be the trailer because you do all the dirty work while the server you follow gets half the workload and all the tips. The first night they threw me a twenty dollar bill and a glass of wine so I felt like it was a real score. Little do they know I would have done it for the wine alone. The job definitely has some real potential and can I just reiterate how satisfying it is to have no kitchen? Really really satisfying. The food is minimal and all we have to do is throw some over-priced dip on a plate, pop it in the microwave, serve it and ring it in. Cha ching!

Surely after a few days of serving potent potables, new stories will come my way that I shall pass on. Since this is a new job, I have tried my hardest to conceal the Bitchy Waiter that lies beneath the surface. But he is there. Lurking in the shadows of glass racks and giant containers of Goldfish, he patiently waits for the perfect moment to emerge. When will someone push the button? That button that makes him think, "this lady needs a fucking punch in the cunt." Wish me luck. I trudge ahead to make life better for the world, one table at a time.

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Rest in Peace

Now that I have earned gainful employment at a new establishment, I finally feel free to write about my last job and how I was unceremoniously dumped from it. I won't say the name of the place because that would be completely unprofessional, but they really acted like a total piece of shit. Well, when I say "they" I really mean the owner. My actual managers were all pretty cool and so were the people I worked with except for one guy. Man, this guy was a total fruit loop and really really old. (Hey, Bill! Luv ya!)

I gave VYNL on the Upper East Side the best eleven months of my life. I was on time, respectful, fastidious, reliable and loyal. And if you are a frequent reader of this blog, you know how well I treated my tables. For the last three months rumors were swirling that we would be closing but no one would confirm or deny. We were told that maybe the restaurant would close for two weeks to remodel and then reopen as a Mexican food restaurant, but we would all still have jobs. And in the two weeks that we would be closed, they would do their best to find us shifts in some of the other restaurants that the asshole owner owned. Or maybe they would give us a stipend to tide us over while the remodel happened. That talk slowly faded away. Because the owner is an asshole.

After weeks of rumors the most persistent one was that we would close by the end of August. Here it was the middle of the month and we still had no official word. So I called the corporate office.

"Thank you for calling Chowdown Inc, can I help you?"

"Uh, hi. My name is [The Bitchy Waiter] and I work at VYNL Second Avenue. I keep hearing that we are closing next week but no one will tell me if that's true. Since I've worked there for almost a year, I feel like I should know if I will be unemployed next week. Can you tell me what's going on?"

Pause. Pause. "I dunno. I haven't heard anything about the restaurant closing."

"Really?" I say incredulously. "Because I would think if one of your five restaurants were closing then if anyone would know about it, it would be the corporate office. Don't you think that's odd?"

"Have you asked you manager about it," she asked me. Like I hadn't thought of that brilliant idea.

"Yeah, I did. They say they don't know either and I don't know if they really don't know or they're just supposed to say they don't know. You know? Can you understand my frustration?"

Pause. "You should ask John about this." John is the asshole owner who had avoided coming into our location for the last few weeks because he knew we would ask him this very question.

I told her I would ask John. "Can I have his number?"

Pause. Pause. "I don't know it." Seriously? This bitch thinks I believe that she doesn't have the number for her boss who is the president and owner of the company that she works for? She doesn't know how to reach him? It must make it really difficult to give him his messages, poor thing. "I can send you to his voice mail," she eeks out.

So I left him a completely professional voice mail-for real, totally professional- about how I just kinda needed to know if I should be looking for a job and could he please call me back when he gets a chance and all that. He didn't call back. So I called back two days later and left another really nice voice mail which he didn't return either. Because he's an asshole.

A few days later we were finally told. On Thursday they informed us that we would be closing and our last day would be Sunday. They gave us three whole days of notice and I only had one shift left. On my last day we were told not to tell any of our tables that we were closing and reopening later. They didn't want customers to know that it would be the same company with a different name and menu. I could totally respect that so I told every single table that we were closing and we were reopening later but it would be the same company with a different name and menu. I also told every table how little notice they gave us because I was totally playing the sympathy card. One regular we called Coach (hated him) overheard me telling someone we were closing in two days. His response? "Oh no! My turkey burger!" My response? "Oh no, my job!" That shut him up.

Two week later, I had not received my last paycheck, so I made a call to the corporate office. The clueless wonder of a receptionist said that she thinks they were mailed to another restaurant for us to go pick them up. Nevermind I didn't work at that restaurant and was never told that was where my check would be. "I think they were going to see if anyone came to pick them up and if they didn't they would mail them out to you."

I responded. "Why would I go to a restaurant I have never worked at to get my final check after I was fired? I don't wanna sit around for three weeks and wait until someone finally decides to put a stamp on my paycheck. Do me a favor. Call them and ask them to mail me my check tomorrow, please." I got my check two days later.

And VYNL Second Avenue can eat it. Along with the owner, John. They both suck.

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Two Year Old Bitch in England

I may have found my new hero. Someone sent me a story (holla out to Bonnie) about a something that happened somewhere called Hallifax West Yorkshire in England-land. The link is at the bottom of the page but here is the gist of it written in a much more entertaining way and with much worse grammar.

Some family went to the grand opening of a Mexican restaurant and brought with them, as parents are apt to do, their two-year old child, Molly. Jeez, do parents have to take their kids everywhere? It's so annoying. The parents were obviously pretty stupid because they were going to a Mexican restaurant. In England. What the fuck is that? Chicken enchiladas with a side of scone? And English Breakfast margaritas? Whatever. I guess the restaurant was really slammed, or as they say in the Queen's English, "bartle bagged." (I totally made that up.) The family had to wait a long time for their food and I guess (say this with a Cockney accent) the lit'le tyke got a might impatient waitin' for 'er food and threw a bit o' a 'issy fit. (You can stop with the Cockney accent. You're really bad at it.) The article doesn't say exactly what Molly did other than get a bit "moany" and "grumbly" but I am pretty sure I know how she behaved. She wanted to wander around the restaurant and get in people's way and annoy other people who do not have kids. When her "mum" made her sit down, Molly began to scream at the top of her lungs and throw sugar packets and bread pudding spoons all over the fucking place. When the dad threatened to spank her arse, she cried until the food finally arrived making the waiter and every table around her hate dear sweet adorable Molly.

When they got the check they noticed at the bottom of it that something had been typed in underneath the food. It said, "thankyyou littell fucker." Now even though there are some points deducted for spelling, it is clear what was being said. The check called Molly a little fucker. Bravo! Here ye here ye! My hero. This server is Queen of all Bitchy Waiters. Capital B. Capital W. Understandably, the family got in a tizzy for insulting their little precious bundle of cunt and demanded an apology and blah blah blah blah. I am sure they got the apology and probably a free order of fish n chips quesadillas too. The sad thing is the person responsible for the "offensive" remark got fired. Or "sacked" as they say they across the pond. The server was just speaking the truth. Had she lived in America maybe she could have stood behind the freedom of speech and all that crap, but seeing that she lived in jolly old England, they fired her British ass. Hopefully, that server will move on to her next position having learned something from her mistake. You can never insult the customer. What I mean is you can never insult the customer where they will find out about it. Say it in the kitchen, write on your pad, think it in your head. Do not print it on their check. Amateur.

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Hallelujah!!!

The skies opened up today. Grey clouds parted and sun shone through as the finger of God reached down to touch me gently on the forehead. He brushed the hair and sleep out of my eyes and and said unto me, "Bitch, get your ass up. You gotta go to work today." Yes, someone swallowed all the bullshit that spewed out of my mouth during a job interview and they gave me a starting date for employment. The Bitchy Waiter serves again.

Today will be my trailing shift to see if the restaurant and I are a good fit. Basically, I will follow a server around while he tells me the ins and outs of the job and then at the end of the day I will do all his crappiest sidework for him and get no tips. Hopefully, there will be some minimum wage involved, but you just never know. Sometimes they will pay you with a meal or just a big hearty "thanks, but no thanks." But my new job is not in a restaurant. It is in a swanky cabaret club where I will be serving cocktails to poor schlubs who have to meet the two-drink minimum while they listen to a show. When I say swanky I mean swanky. Like they have candles and shit. And they don't have a kitchen which sorta gives me a semi-hard-on of excitement. Any food that is ordered is of the light fare variety and is catered in. Tingles of joy run down my spine at having no ketchup bottles in my immediate future. Now don't get me wrong. This is a trailing shift and could be my last one if they decide that I suck. At waiting tables, I mean. Or maybe I will get there and realize that the tips are really really bad and I have to be there for nine hours to walk with only $40. Only time will tell.

But this could be the beginning of a new dawn. An age where I enjoy carrying trays of over priced cocktails and I look forward to slicing fruit. I may have found my new calling as a cocktail server. I see myself eagerly trotting to work each night giddy with anticipation to wait tables because my new place of employment treats me with respect and the customers all love how I do my job and they throw piles of twenty dollar bills at me. I would then be known as The Happy Waiter or The Satisfied Waiter or The Euphoric Waiter. Or it could just be the same ol' same ol' job of waiting tables and The Bitchy Waiter will reign supreme forever and ever.

Amen.

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WANTED DEAD OR ALIVE: Suze Orman

It has been brought to my attention that Suze Orman went onto the Oprah Winfrey show some time ago to give some sound financial advice to all the Oprah-ites who bow down to the feet of the great and powerful O. Suze Orman is the financial guru who has all the answers in the world when it comes to saving money and making money work for you. If you had any money to begin with, that is. Her sage wisdom that she passed on to people was apparently to reach into my pocket and take the spare change from it and then put it in their own. Uh huh, Suze told people to rape me hard and true, and not in a good way. She suggested that in order to save money in these uncertain economic times people should only go out to dinner once a month. Okey dokey, Suze Whoreman, good advice. I do the same thing when I am pinching pennies. Then she said that if you do go out, then skip the appetizer. Alright, Oozie Orman, I can see your point. I have done that as well. Then the bitch went one step too far. She said that when it comes time to tip you should just leave 10% instead of 15%. What is this Oozing Whoremonger of a bitch telling people to do? First of all, 15% is not enough of a tip; I want 20%. But she is telling people to leave 10%. Somebody needs to hold me down because I want to stalk this bitch and strangle her with her own ugly clothes. I want to pull out every one of her too-white tooth out of her head and then I want to do the same thing to the teeth in her vag. I want to take that thumb that she is always thumbs-upping with and stick it up her ass.

Let's just say I sell $1000 worth of food one night. If people leave 15% I would get $150 but then tip out the busser and bartender 3% of sales which would be $30 letting me walk with $120. If people left 10%, then I would only walk out with $70 because I would have to tip out on my sales regardless of what I made in tips. That is a big difference, Suze. Forty dollars less a night times five nights is a difference of $200 a week or $800 dollars in one month! Meanwhile, the douchebag that took her advice and only goes out to eat once a month and leaves only 10%? How does it affect him? Let's say the bill for him and his ugly fat girlfriend was $40. He leaves four dollars instead of six dollars saving him a whopping two dollars for that month. Or in other words, $24 for the year. Wow, what a difference that makes for him. Just by listening to that Pud Muncher, Suze Orman, he saved twenty-four whole fucking dollars in a whole year while I was robbed of $9,600.

Good advice. Thanks, Oprah for letting that horrid woman onto your show to spew such utter nonsense to the people who will no doubt take the pearls of wisdom to their pocketbooks. Suze Orman better watch it. If she turns up in my station some day, I hope she likes the taste of bacteria. Because I will dig to the bottom of the ice machine and find some slimy ass black mold and drop it right into her glass of cunt juice, or whatever the hell she orders to drink. Fellow waiters, I advise you to do the same.

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Tip Me

The Bitchy Waiter is needing some tips. I wonder how much money one of those people makes who has the cardboard sign and sits by the subway. Their sign always says "stranded in New York, baby on the way" or "lost everything in fire, please help" or "need money to buy beer." If I lived in a regular city maybe I could invest in a squeegee and wash the windshields of cars stopped at lights. Or have a garage sale, maybe. But I don't live in a regular city. I live in (supposebly) the greatest city in the world. A city where dreams come true and fortunes are made. The Big Apple. New York City! It's also a city that has about umpteen million restaurants that are all completely staffed and won't hire me. For the life of me, I can't understand why I can't find a decent waiting job. Maybe I should take my www.thebitchywaiter.com off of my resume, I dunno. Nah, that can't be it. It must be because they already have a bevy of servers with attitudes just as fine as mine and cannot afford to take on one more. Surely, that's it.

Eventually something will come along that doesn't involve overnight travel or four interviews or giving massages to the owner's wife's bunion covered feet. In the meantime, help a brother out...

Just click it...

Yo No Comprendo

I am about to pull my hair out because I am so over the job search, but I shan't do that for my hair is far too gorgeous to pull out over a waiting job. Last week I went to a place that was, according to Craigslist, hiring. The application was so long I felt like I was writing my memoirs. It asked me to define great hospitality and then to tell a story of how I would exceed the expectations of a guest. For one thing, I think if you are eating at this place your expectations are pretty low to begin with. But I digress. I didn't have time to stay for the interview because I had another totally useless interview somewhere else that day, but the manager, Lisa, told me to come back the following day. I did. She took me to a table and we shot the shit for about ten minutes. She asked me how did I ensure a good relationship between the front of the house and the back of the house. I should have just asked her to bend over so I could blow the smoke directly up her ass. "You have to know every person's name, from the line cooks to the prep cooks to the dishwasher. It makes such a huge difference in the restaurant." She smiled slightly, closed her eyes, tilted her head to the right and slowly nodded as if to say "ain't it the truth, brother. Ain't it the truth." (Do that movement as described so you know exactly what she did.) After impressing the hell out of with my interview she said, "I wish I would have interviewed you yesterday. I really do. But I just hired ten servers yesterday and now I can't hire you. But when someone quits the training as they always do, I will call you. Thank you for coming in." I left thinking that that Lisa was a pretty cool manager lady. I also wondered what kind of place has to hire ten servers at a time. Red flag?

Fast forward 5 days and I am on Craigslist when I see the same restaurant is hiring servers. What the fuck? Did that Lisa bitch lie to my face or did she just lose my resume? I decided to give her the benefit of the doubt and went back in to find out. I saw a different manager this time. I young lad by the name of Alex.

"So, do you have an application?"

"I filled one out last week and met with Lisa? She told me that she wished I would have been in earlier because she didn't need any more servers and she had already hired her quota but I saw that you're still hiring so I just, you know, wanted to see...what's up with that?"

Alex looked at me as I stared right back at him. "Oh, well, maybe if she didn't call you she decided to go in a different direction." Yeah, like the direction of inexperience.

"Really?" I queried. "Because I have 15 years of waiter experience in New York City. Am I just over qualified to work here? I just want to know. Because I keep going to interviews and not getting hired and I just want to know, for me, what I should be doing in order to get a job. Am I doing something wrong?"

"Uh...err...uhhh..I could go ask Lisa."

So he goes to speak with the lying cunt known as Lisa and he comes back to inform me that she wanted someone with Mexican food experience. Because I guess carrying a plate of enchiladas is somehow different than carrying a plate of steak. Or eggs. Or a hamburger. It's just different according to the skank of all Mexican restaurant managers, Lisa. I told Alex, "Oooh, now I get it. Well Alex, thank you for your time and good luck with the hiring." I strolled out with my head held high wishing all good things for their fantabulously craptastic restaurant. Which shall remain nameless. (Dos Caminos on Third Avenue and 50th Street.) I hope Lisa chokes on a chicken chimichanga.

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Times is Hard, Sir

I got a job. A one day job. Although it did not involve food service, it did involve a huge helping of humiliation with a side of shame. As you may recall, I was offered a position as a waiter/bartender/chef/entertainer on a train. I turned it down because it just seemed weird to leave my home and not be back for 36 hours, all the while being with people I did not know anything about. But when he called me for a one night job, I thought, "I'm broke so okay." So for fifty bucks, I agreed to this:

This guys owns a refurbished 1950's railroad dining car and he hooks that shit up to Amtrak and then drags people's asses around the eastern seaboard for tours of quaint towns while they eat gourmet dinners, watch the scenery and listen to high class entertainment. Well, on Sunday night instead of high class entertainment those folks got me. He told me that he didn't need me to serve food but he did want me to sing. Okay, better than filling ketchup bottles. I took an hour and half train ride to Poughkeepsie in order to meet his train that was headed back to to NYC. I would join him and be the songbird of the evening. I practiced my karaoke skills, ironed a shirt and washed my hair. I even fucking shaved for this shit. I envisioned stepping into this glamorous dining car and seeing people all dolled up in tuxedos and gowns while drinking Manhattans and sharing droll stories of where they summered by the shore. I would sing Frank Sinatra songs while they threw tips at me because they were enamoured by my golden vocal chords. What I saw was not anything like that. I got into the car and saw six people. Six. Two of them were reading books, two looked half asleep, one was sick and coughing up a lung, and one was 17 years old and mortified that she was there in the first place. All of them looked bored and none of them looked like they wanted to listen to me sing for the next hour. They were almost home and that is all they wanted. But I was hired to sing and I was going to sing. Besides, the thought of not having to fill the empty water glasses that were in front of all of them made me giddy with excitement.

I tried, people. I really tried. I tried to engage them, to make them laugh, to entertain them, to make them smile, to keep them awake. But it was 9:30 at night and the 80 year old lady was clearly up past her bedtime. I sang the few songs I had practiced. A little Frank Sinatra a little Tony Bennett. And then the guy who hired me started putting all kinds of karaoke songs on. Like just because I said I could sing then I must automatically know every goddamn lyric ever fucking written. I plodded my way through "Pretty Woman" and then "Twist and Shout" and two or three Billy Joel songs. "Dancin' Queen" came on next, but I knew things were really bad when he played "I'm a Little Teapot." The whole time I am begging the six people to join in or take a turn. I was actually relived when "Hello Dolly" came on because finally a song I knew all the words to. Don't judge. Then he put on "O Sole Mio." I looked at him like he was fucking crazy. Pavarotti sings that shit. Not me.

"I don't know that one."

"Oh, sure you do."

"No, I don't."

"Sure you do. Everybody knows 'O Sole Mio.'"

Really, asshole? Everybody knows an Italian aria that was written about hundred years ago? I don't think so and I proved to him that there was at least one person who does not know "O Sole Mio." Me. But it played on that karaoke screen and I faked my ass through it trying to make up Italian pronunciation as I went and apologizing to my audience (of six) for not knowing it better. Or at all. Here I am trying to sing some opera shit to people who don't don't care and all I was thinking was I'd rather being filling a fucking ketchup bottle.

We made it to Penn Station. He gave me my fifty bucks. We parted ways. But only after I told him to call me any time if needs me to do it again. Times is hard, sir. Times is hard.
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Chew Chew Train

Looking for a new restaurant job sucks big hairy donkey balls covered in dingleberries. There, I said it. What especially sucks about it is that you have to expel all this energy for something you don't even want to do. And at this time of year, no one is hiring because every restaurant is closing up their patio and cutting shifts. Whenever I walk into a place the bartender or waiter says the same thing. "Hi. One for lunch?" Then I have to say that I am looking for a job and I see their eyes shift into a look of pity towards me. They take my resume to "put on file" but I know what that means. It goes into a drawer for a week and then it gets thrown out. I know this because I have been the one that throws that crap out. But I persevere.

Craigslist is a veritable feast for restaurant jobs, but you never know what you are applying for. I saw an ad today that caught my bloodshot eyes. It said "Waitstaff/Entertainers, Weekends Only." I can do that. I can do waitstaff. I can entertain. I sent my crap via the internets I sent my waiter resume, actor resume and headshot. (Don't judge.) Lo and behold I got a call. The guy starts to tell me about the job and I have to interrupt him to ask him which place he is from. Hello, I have emailed about a thousand places. He tells me that he needs waitstaff who can sing and he sees that I have extensive musical theater background. (Don't judge.) So I am thinking it is some lame ass singing waiter job at like a 1950's diner themed restaurant or something. He asks if I can make drinks. "Sure I can, I do it every night." I didn't tell him I meant at home. Then he asks if I can cook. What does he want? A singing waiter/bartender/chef? Jeez, what am I getting into? Then he tells me it is on a train. A train. Uh huh. For a flat fee of $250, he wants me to meet him at an Amtrak station on Saturday at noon to prep the train. Like I know how to prep a train. A salad bar, yes. Train, no. I would be serving food on a train going to Vermont and then entertain the patrons who, he informed me, are all old . And how would I entertain all these old people? Why with a karaoke machine, of course. I kid not. Then we would spend the night in Vermont and I would be home Sunday night at midnight. What is this? I would be gone for 36 hours. I don't even know this man. What if I get on the train and there is some serious Agatha Christie shit going on? Intrigue, murder and mayhem! And how do I know what kind of place I will be spending the night at in Vermont? He said he had a suite for the crew, but what if I end up sharing a bed with a hairy greasy cook named Bruce? And what if I after all this crap he decided to only pay me twenty bucks? And you know what's really fucked up? I actually thought about it doing it. I asked to think about it for 15 minutes and then I came to my senses and called back and said no thanks.

I just want to serve brunch. Is that too much to ask?

The Second Interview...

So I went to the second interview for the big corporate restaurant yesterday. It was scheduled for 3:00 but I was at another restaurant at 2:40 waiting to meet with a manager and getting a little nervous. I finally had to bail and literally run to catch a bus and then run three blocks to make it to my interview on time. Believe it or not, punctuality is hugely important to me and to show up late for an interview is just showing a bad first impression. I made it at 2:59. Mr. Fancy "I Wear a Suit to Work" Manager came to meet me at 3:35. Nice. He asked me all the same questions that the other guy in Chef's Whites asked me last week. I wanted him to notice that I had cut three inches off my hair to show how serious I am about my future with their company, but he never did. And voicing it just seemed to fucking desperate. Even for me.

I asked them some questions and got some startling answers. At peak they have twelve servers on the floor. Twelve! I looked around the restaurant. "How many tables do you have in here?" I asked. He told me that each person has a three table section. At my last job I had the whole place to myself sometimes and had up to 12 or 15 tables at once. What do you do with three tables? hover? Chew their food for them? Wipe their mouths and their asses? Jeez. He told me that sales for a dinner can range from $1000 to $2000 and a slow lunch could be $500. That's not vague or anything. I also asked about the tip out situation. Not too shabby. You only have to tip out 3% of sales and I was really surprised that it was that low. (I worked for a corporate place once that shall remain nameless [Rosa Mexicana] and we had to tip out 40% of our tips. We were supposed to tip the food runner, the bar, the busser, the guacamole maker and the fucking coffee girl. Even if you didn't use coffee. They told me that on day two of training. There was no day three of training.) I fed Mr. Manager some bullshit about how long I have been a waiter and that they wouldn't have to train me to be one. They just have to tell me what steps of service they require for their restaurant. When I told him I had been waiting tables for almost 18 years, I could see the realization on his face that I had been serving food since he was in the fifth grade. That made me cry a little on the inside.

Finally, he told me he would discuss my application with the other managers and decide if they wanted to bring me in for a third interview. A third? I'm sorry, did I accidentally apply for the position of brain surgeon because I thought I was just asking people what food they wanted and then carrying a plate to a table.


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15 Minutes or It's Free!

There are lots of ways that servers can feel demeaned whilst slinging hash. Most of the time these feelings are thrust upon us by the wonderful people who sit in our station, but on occasion it comes from the restaurant itself. Bennigan's in Houston, Texas on FM 1960:

Someone at the top of the food chain, Mr. Bennigan I presume, came up with a wonderful plan to let people order food and then give it to them for free if it wasn't on their table within fifteen minutes. "15 Minutes or it's Free!" they called this promotion. Mr. Bennigan stayed up late one night and thought long and hard to come up with that name. The man is an utter genius, I tell you. This was a lunch promo and it sucked. Maybe they still do it, I dunno. If they do, I feel for the poor bastards who still work for that crap. But hey, then they have a job which is more than I can say so kudos to them for finding a restaurant that manged to stay open for business.

For each table in your station, you had to wear a stopwatch around your neck. So you potentially had nine of these things swinging around as well as all the "flair" crap you were supposed to wear; suspenders, stickers, buttons, whistles, butt plugs and flags. After the table ordered you had to re-read what they wanted and once they approved the order you took a stopwatch from your neck, placed it on the table, and started it. Then you ran like holy hell with fire under your ass to make sure this shit came out on time so it didn't come out of your tips. If anyone else was on the computer, you'd knock their ass down to get to it first. And people thought they would be all cute by ordering very well done steaks and burgers or anything else they thought would take a long time. No one ever ordered a side salad because that would be too easy. Plus it was Texas and people there don't really understand the concept of salad. Unless it's fried.

There was a routine you had to deal with when one of these orders came up. You had to alert the kitchen so they knew it took priority. And you had to give them updates. So every five minutes you had to run to the kitchen and give them a time for each order and then when it was three minutes before FREE FOOD happened, you had to "red flag" it or some shit. It was a real pain in the ass because all you did for lunch was run around to tables and check their fucking clocks and freak out. If you failed to give all the updates to the kitchen then it was not their fault if it went over time. It was the server's fault. And we had to pay for it. That sucked. If you did manage to give all the alerts and it was still late, then the restaurant would pay for it. I never had to pay for it. I made sure I gave every fucking alert because if it was late and I had done my part, I didn't give a rat's cheap ass who paid as long as it wasn't me. I ignored tables if I had to in order to keep track of the clocks. I remember one time, I was seconds away. I had a huge tray of food practically running to get to the table before the timer went off. I pretty much threw the plates at them but it made it on time. The customers were so pissed when that happened. They actually rooted for us to drop a tray or for the computer to jam or whatever else it took for them to not have to pay for their $6.00 burgers.

God I hated that place. I always felt like if they needed food that fast, they should have eaten at Taco Bell or brown bagged it. Just don't make me pretend to be a fucking race horse.

The Job Hunt...

I have been doing the job search thing ever since my last restaurant pulled the rug out from under me giving me three days notice before I was unemployed. "Hi, employees. Today is Thursday. We are closing the restaurant on Sunday. We hate you and don't care about you and fuck you." Yeah. So I have not written about that yet too much because I am still angry, bitter, mad, vindictive and pissed off. In a word: bitchy. Anyhoo, I have been looking for the next food establishment that wants to take advantage of my full on people skills and help me spread joy across the land one table at a fucking time.

Looking at craigslist for a restaurant job is a joke. I love the places that say to send a resume because they only want people with lots and lots of experience. But send a headshot. A headshot? What the fuck is this, A Chorus Line? In other words, they only want to hire you if you're hot. True story, this: A few years ago I was applying for a server job in Chelsea were hot gorgeous men apparently grow on trees. I went into a place that had a help wanted sign in the window. I saw several guys filling out applications at the bar so I asked if I could have one. They told me they were not really hiring anymore. Hmmmm. I looked at the guys at the bar filling out applications and said, "uh, what?" What they meant to say was they were only taking applications from guys who spend their lives at the gym and have the bodies and faces of Adonnis. Now, I may not be a Greek looking God and all that shit, but I am not the fucking Elephant Man. "I am not an animal!" Whatevs with them. I want to do an experiment on craigslist someday and send in two applications for the same job and attach two different headshots. One of a hot model guy and one of a pimply ass weasel looking guy and see who gets called in. And maybe make the hot model guy's resume be pretty lame with like three months of experience but make sure his picture is a torso shot showing off his abs and chest. I'd really like to try that little social experiment, but I am way too fucking lazy to even update my own resume, so the chances that I will go through all that just to prove a point? Slim to none.

I went to an interview yesterday for this really corporate restaurant. I know how they work. I worked at the freakin' Marriott for seven years for Pete's sake. The interviewer was all dressed in Chef's whites like it was big deal or something. "Blah blah blah...what can you bring to our restaurant?...what makes you a good server?...blah blah blah." He asked me when was the last time I went above and beyond to exceed the expectations of a guest? That must be corporate restaurant question number three in the handbook. I told him about how on the last day at my last job someone left his credit card on the table. Well, I knew we were closing down and if he came back the next day we would be closed and he would never get it back. So I ran out to the street and took a chance and went South, running one and half blocks before finding the guy. He was happy and thankful. The interviewer was really impressed with that story and crazy enough it was actually true. Then he asked me to tell him about last time I found myself in a stressful situation and how I handled it. Told him some bullshit about how I "take myself out of the situation" and "breathe deep" and "ask a manager for advice." Whatever. The real way I handle a stressful situation is nothing like that. It involves a cocktail, going into the kitchen and screaming about what a fucking asshole my table is and then clicking into the realization that it's only someone's meal and it doesn't fucking matter. They will have three more meals tomorrow that can be better for them.

But I got a second interview for next week. This close to having another job that will fill me with joy and contempt. I mean contentment.

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