Santa's 8 Douchebags

The holidays are over. All the love and joy people show towards one another at this magical time of year has ended. Unless you are lucky enough to work in the customer service industry, in which case there never was any love or joy displayed towards you, so you don't really have occasion to miss it. It may come as a surprise to you that rather than people being kinder and more understanding to service industry personelle around the holidays, customers are actually even bigger douchebags than normal. They are more demanding, less understanding and less generous about 80% of the time. Thank baby Jesus that the other 20% actually throw us some holiday spirit and a couple extra bucks, otherwise we might all flip our shit and go hunt bad tippers down, dressed as Santa and weilding a very pointy candy cane.

A couple years ago I had a table around Christmas time that was a two top, parents that had been out shopping for their kids. At the end of their meal they let me know that they wished they could tip more, it's just that they have 7 children and have to buy a lot of gifts, then left me like 2 or 3 bucks on a $50 bill. What I said was "oh my gosh, don't worry about it, I totally understand!" But what I was thinking was "oh my gosh, did I make you guys bone eachother without protection at least 7 times and refuse to let him pull out? No, I did not. McDonalds is across the street, go there if you can't afford to tip. And while you're at it, swing over to 7-11 and pick up a condom." The holidays are a tough time financially, yes. But you know what? Your server is also having a tough time. If you can't afford to tip, please eat somewhere without sitdown service so that they can have a table that does intend on tipping decently.

But hey, at least that table wasn't a jerk on top of it. To show you what I mean, I present to you the 8 douchebags that took over guiding Santa's sleigh this year, in chronological order starting the day before Christmas eve and ending last night. Ho. Ho. Ho.

1. A couple days before Christmas, someone breaks the window of one of my coworkers cars while he is asleep in his apartment, stealing all the toys he bought for his 3 year old son, which he was hiding from him in the vehicle so Santa could bring them Christmas night. DOUCHE.

2. A 5 top walks into the restaurant, hosted by a woman hovering around 500 pounds and including some children and an elderly woman. The lobby is packed. They are informed the wait for their party will be 40 to 45 minutes. 30 minutes later, she comes up to the hosts, stark raving mad, asking what is taking so long, stating that the elderly woman in her party can't wait that long, she can hardly stand, and citing other parties that arrived after them and were already seated. Of course they were two tops, which can fit at any table, while theirs requires a larger table since it's a larger party. The host explains this to her, and she yells that 5 isn't a large party. She can see an open booth, and requests they be sat there, the kids can all squeeze on one side. The host doesn't want to point out to her that a woman of her size definitely could not fit in a booth, and says that she cannot seat her before other parties of the same size that arrived first. The lady flips out, starts yelling for a manager, making a scene. When the manager (crazy GM) gets up to the lobby, angry lady demands the number for corporate, then delares "and I want your name! (points to GM) and her name! (points to a host) And her name! (points to another host)" and so on until she has pointed at every employee in the lobby, claiming they will all be reported. GM finds an emergency spot to seat them right away. The host takes them back to the table, and after getting the elderly woman seated, angry lady yells "Can't you see she's having a heart attack!! Go get her a glass of water, stupid!!" which the host does, it no hurried manner. They are rude to their waitress, their entire meal is comped, and they do not tip. DOUCHE. It's the busiest time of the year for retail, which spills over into restaurants that are located near shopping centers, such as we are. So you should expect it to be busy, and furthermore, if the host tells you it will be 45 minutes, it will probably be 45 minutes. If grandma can't hang, take her somewhere else. We can't just give exceptions to everyone who claims they can't wait and need to be seated right away. Then it would be "I have small kids,they can't wait!" "I have an old lady, she can't wait!" my son has a broken foot, he can't wait!" "I'm really hungry, I can't wait!" and then how do we decide who can't wait even more and should be sat first? That's why it's first come, first served. And don't act like we are withholding food from you or your loved ones, there are ten bajillion other places you can aquire food if you don't want to wait, get a grip.

3.Myself and another server have a 9 top, seems like maybe mom, her daughters, and daughters boyfriends or something. The adults at the table each have two drinks, and we're talking fancy martinis, 8 bucks a pop. One guy even gets a free margarita because the other server accidentaly rang it up and since it was made and would just be thrown away, we gave it to him on the house rather than waste it. The check was split 4 ways, each one with the 18% gratuity that is added to parties of 8 or more, which is written in the menu, and I believe to be common knowledge. Big party=gratuity. So I take the check from one of the guys, the one who got a free drink. His check is 82 and some change, he has a $25 gift card and $45 cash. I figure he must have thought there was more on his gift card, print out a check showing his payments and his remaining balance of $12 and bring it back to him. I discreetly show him the check and let him know he still owes some money. All douchebaggy and loudly, he holds up the check, points to the gratuity, which is $11 something and says "And what's this 11.58?" which really meant "I don't want to tip you so I didn't put enough money in to cover the gratuity and was hoping you would just realize that I didn't intend on paying it." DOUCHE.

Technically, the gratuity is optional. Technically, you can have it taken off, since we can't force someone to tip us (unfortunately). But I was already pretty miffed about the 3 dollar tip I just got on my 7 top's $85 dollar check, so I wasn't about to let it go that easily. And it wouldn't just be me losing the tip, half of that belonged to my room partner. So instead of saying what the management would probably require, which is "we add an 18% gratuity on parties of 8 or more for your convenience, however it can be adjusted or taken off entirely if you would prefer," I said "It's automatic gratuity." And walked away. My plan was to make my roomie go collect the rest of it from him, seeing as she's way more of a badass than I am and could probably have squeezed it out of him more efficiently, but luckily I didn't have to because he brought me a 20 and I got him some change. We didn't get anything extra on that table, but damnit we got our full gratuity, and I didn't let that douche nozzle push me around!

4. I am doing to go orders and the phone rings.

"Thank you for calling the Italian Restaurant in City, this is Waitress, how can I help you?"

"Yes, what is your wait for 5?"

"It's about 35 to 45 minutes"

"Okay, please put me on the list, the name is doucheface"

"I apologize, sir, we don't do call ahead seating."

"You're kidding me!"

"No, sorry."

"You don't take reservations?!"

"We do take reservations on weekdays for large parties, but if you wanted to come in now that is call ahead seating, which we do not do."

"That is rediculous. So, I'm out here in the parking lot in my car, and you're telling me I have to walk in the rain and come inside just to get my name on the list?"

"yes."

"I can't believe that. I want to talk to your manager!"

I let the managers know the situation, and crazy GM jumped on it. I thought she was going to put his name on the list, since she kisses guests asses (such as the angry lady mentioned prior, who she gave a free meal to for basically nothing other than the lady was a bitch), so I went and found her after she was off the phone to see what happened. She relayed that she held fast to our policy, he said that was completely insane and doubted that she was even the manager. When she told him she was in fact the general manager of the restaurant, he told her that she's "too young to run a restaurant" based soley on hearing her on the phone. And when she told him she is 40 years old, he still didn't believe her, and said he wanted to come inside and talk to her face to face. She said "If you want to come inside and have a discussion with me about our policy that's fine, but if you're going to come inside just to yell at me I will ask you to leave. I have heard your opinion on this subject already." He decided against coming inside, or eating there at all (thank god) but did make sure to tell her that she's stupid, selfish, and doesn't know anything before hanging up. And this was all because he didn't want to walk 50 yards in the rain in Washington state. DOUCHE.

5. I am on the phone taking a largish to go order when the other line starts ringing. Usually if i am towards the end of taking an order, it's easier to just let the other line ring a bit and try to finish up before I grab it. Sometimes one of my awesome coworkers will grab the other line and put it on hold for me. In this case, the other line rang several times and then they hung up. I finished with my order, and right after I hung up, the phone rang again.

"Thank you for calling the Italian Restaurant in City, this is Waitress how can I help you?"

"You can start by answering the phone faster next time!"

I start to apologize and let them know that I was on the other line assisting another guest, but they just hang up. That's all. I don't even know what they wanted. Maybe to place an order, maybe to inquire about the wait, or when we close, no idea. But whatever it was, they were so incredibly infuriated that I wasn't able to answer the phone fast enough that not only did they decide that they no longer wanted whatever they originally called for, but wanted to call back, presumably to make sure they had the right phone number, and then just to be a jerk and then hang up. DOUCHE.

I understand that a lot of people never work in the service industry at any point in their lives, and maybe don't have a lot of insight into why one may not be able to answer the phone right away in a large chain restaurant such as the IR. I would hope they would assume that the person responsible for answering the phone was very busy, or not near the phone, or on the other line, etc. I don't think that my first thought would be "They are lazy or don't care about my call" and become so infuriated that I decided to boycott them for the remainder of that night. Oh and also call back to make a snarky remark and hang up on them. seems like a waste of time and energy to me, but whatevs.

6. Same night as the previous 2, I am pretty busy with to go orders, and the restaurant is extremely busy. A little earlier I had been talking to a coworker about douchy to go people, and how sometimes people will ask me to bring their order out to their car, which is not a service we offer. I have done it before if I wasn't too busy and was feeling charitable, and the reason was always they had a baby or small child sleeping in the car and didn't want to disturb them by bringing them inside, an obviously can't leave them in the car. Oh, and once because a lady had her kitty who had just been spayed in the car and didn't want to leave her, precious. And these people had always, when placing the order, first let me know about their situation and asked if I could do carside service before placing their order. Anyway, I am trying to do like 3 things at once when the phone rings.

"Thank you for calling the Italian Restaurant in City, this is Waitress how can I help you?"

"Yes, I placed an order earlier for pickup? I'm here, but I can't get out of my car, can you bring it to me?"

"I'm sorry but I am very very busy right now, I really can't go outside."

"Oh, really...oh I don't know what to do then..."

Now, as much as I talk a lot of shit, I am horrible at saying no. Unless there is some policy for me to be backed up with (such as no call ahead seating for anyone ever) I am likely to cave under pressure.

"well...are you parked in a to go space?"

"There aren't any open, I'm going to park in a handicap space."

So I got the make and color of her car and told her someone would bring it to her but it may be a little bit, to which she said "okay" all bitchy like she was annoyed it would be awhile for us to give her a service we dont offer!! DOUCHE!

Eventually one of the managers took it to her, and she hopped out of the car and walked a few feet to take it from her, obviously not physically limited in any way.

7. Same night, starting to finally slow down. Phone rings. The lady says "I don't know if I need to talk to a manager or what but I have a complaint." So I grab a manager of course, and, of course, inquire after as to what the problem was. Bitch Manager (who is about to go on maternity leave thank God) said that they were upset because they forgot their boxed up leftovers and when they came back a few minutes later found that the table had already been bussed and reset and the food thrown out. She told them she was sorry that happened, but also happy that her bussers were doing their job so efficiently. She got their info to send them a gift card of course, and that was that. I was in the breakroom and telling a couple people about how dumb that is that people get mad at us because they forgot their stuff, and a busser that was in there said it was him who tossed the food, and that he's been feeling really guilty about it. Apparently, the Dad came back a few minutes after they left, after the busser had quickly cleared and reset the table, which is his job, and asked where their boxes were. He told him that it had been thrown out, and the guy was pissed. "My kids barely touched their food, and you just threw it away? Now they don't have any dinner!" He apologized, explained that we are very busy and must turn tables very quickly. Even offered to have the kitchen remake it for him, but he said he didn't have time for that and left, leaving the busser feeling responsible for his kids not having dinner. DOUCHE. Then after he made the busser feel like shit, his wife called to try and make the manager feel like shit. Hey, you're an adult, watch your shit. People leave boxes full of food on their tables constantly, we cant have some giant fridge full of boxed up food and try and keep track of what table and what time and what dish so you can come retrieve it when your brat child decides they want their noodles now. If you left a bag of potatoes on the bottom of your shopping cart at the grocery store, would you get mad if you came back later and they weren't sitting right where you left them, or tucked away with a note that said "3rd cart in on the cart return, 3:30" and furthermore accuse the cart attendant who put them back of starving your children? No, you would realize that you're an adult responsible for your own shit and if you lose it, that's your issue.

8. The final douche is a common breed. We only take reservations for parties of 8 or more. He calls and wants to make a reservation for 6 people at 5pm.

"I'm sorry, we only take them for parties of 8 or more, for a party of 6 you'll just come on in and put your name on the list"

"Okay, then I would like to make a reservation for a party of 8 at 5"

"Hold one moment please"

I just need a minute to decide what to do with this fucker, and consult a manager as to what they want me to do. If I could, I would tell him what happens when jerks like him lie and say they have 8 when they don't. I would tell him that each server gets three tables as their section, and on busy nights every section is assigned. If a party is 8 or more two servers have to be on it to ensure they get good service. Since none of our tables can seat more than 7 people, two tables, belonging to two servers, will be pushed together for his reservation, and when only 6 show up, they will have to decide which one of them is going to take it since they can't add gratuity and there is no point to sharing such a small party. This leaves one server with only two tables for the duration of your meal. And since a bigger party takes more time, and the restaurant is busy which means food takes longer, and tables take longer to turn, that server will have only two tables for at least an hour, or maybe two hours. And this literally costs them money in lost tips. Maybe two decent tables that they could have made 20-40 bucks from. So because you are rude and selfish and can't be bothered to wait for a table like the rest of the population, another person will lose money that they need to pay their morgtgage and feed their kids. And this makes you a DOUCHE. However, BM told me to just take the "reservation" because it's not worth calling him out, but I made sure to tell them it was really 6 so they wouldn't use 2 tables.

"HEY, PEOPLE! THIS IS THE EARTH CALLING! NEWSFLASH; I DON'T, I REPEAT, I DO NOT REVOLVE AROUND YOU! THERE'S THIS FIREY BALL, MAYBE YOU'VE HEARD OF IT? THE SUN? YEAH THAT'S PRETTY MUCH MY FOCUS.HAPPY FUCKING HOLIDAYS ASSHOLES!!!"

Tact: Some Have It, Others Don't

Working in the customer service industry, you have to become really good at reading people. Someone who has been working with the public for years can tell from the slightest glance that a customer is upset or confused or has a question, etc. This is not something that most people are just implicitly good at, it takes some time to develop. You also learn how to present yourself to your patrons, masking uncertainty, frustration and outright rage. Just like that scene in "Waiting" where the angry bitchy waitress walks through the kitchen cursing every piece of shit customer in the place and all her coworkers, but then hits the floor with a giant smile and sickly sweet tone;

"Is there anything else I can get for you tonight?"

"I think I'd like a hot fudge sundae!"

"MMMMMMM, mmmmmmmmm, that does sound good! [laughs] I'll be right back with that for you"

The second she is back in the safety of the kitchen: "that fat bitch, like she needs a god damn sundae!!"

Anyway, a well-seasoned server is a master of disguise, an actor in many ways, being who the customer wants them to be, not who they are.

They also become accomplished at saying things tactfully so as not to offend anyone. Rather than say to the 500 lb man "we have a booth for you, is that okay?" and force him to stammer that he wont fit in a booth, the tactful host says "would you like a table or a booth today?" And maybe has already put a chair with no arms at the table so he wont have to ask for one. Rather than return to the table where the card was declined and loudly declaring "your card didn't work, there's no money in your account" the tactful server says "I'm sorry, it doesn't seem to be going through. It may be a problem with our computers, do you have another card I can try?"

However some people are so self-involved that years of experience still leave them lacking the ability to say things tactfully, and this has been a big issue twice this week.

We will start with the tactless manager: crazy GM. She is so inside her own head that she rarely thinks before speaking and often says things that are rude or just downright mean.

One of our coworkers has been serving at the IR for over 10 years, and she and crazy GM were actually servers together back in the day before GM decided to climb the corporate ladder, they were friends even. So GM is fully aware that this server has a passion for animals, and a very close bond with her pets. Anyone who knows this person knows that her dogs are very important to her, so when she had to have one of them put down earlier this week, we all knew how upset she must be. She still came to work and attempted to put on a happy face for her tables because she couldn't afford to miss work, but every once in awhile she would take a minute in the break room to feel her sadness. I was in the alley getting a couple trays ready for my tables when GM started yelling "no no no" and walking towards the break room. I looked in that direction in time to see a host pulling away from a hug with the server who had lost her pet. GM was yelling rather loudly "No touching other people's bodies, keep your hands to yourself!"

I should note here that corporate has a strict "high-fives and handshakes only" policy to protect themselves from sexual harassment suits where any physical contact beyond those two is not allowed.

She could have left it at that. They knew they aren't technically allowed to hug, and the host even said "sorry GM, her dog just died I was just trying to comfort her" to which crazy GM said "No, if it were a person, maybe, but its just a dog!"

I was rushing around getting my stuff ready, but I could see how upset the server who lost her dog was. I don't know if many of you are animal lovers, but I know that my dog is like a child to me, and if she died I would be devastated, incapacitated and inconsolable, and if someone then said "It's just a dog" that would be too much. It's not just a dog, it's family!
After that incident, it was all the server could do to keep from crying, even while at her tables. Of course GM is so oblivious that she didn't even notice how much she had upset her until someone pointed it out to her and suggested maybe she should apologize, which she did. But still, have some freaking tact! You have been working with people for over 14 years and you can't be more sensitive to someone's grief? Even if you don't understand it you should respect it.

The other instance of tactless douchebaggery is far more humorous than the former, and even more irritating because it involves stupid new kid. Sooooo, another server we will call....Farrah (for her fave teen mom of course!...sorry inside joke) has a table of a mom and her tween-aged daughter. Servers had noticed that the tween's butt crack was hanging out of her low-rise pants, but butt-cracks are nothing too exciting at the IR, we see about 60 hairy cracks and 25 whale tails a week. Farrah goes up to her table to drop the check, lets mom know that she will be their cashier. Mom was looking at her like she wanted to say something, or something was wrong. Being that this server has sufficient people-reading skills like any good server does, she can tell something is up.

"Is something wrong? Are you okay?"

Mom: "well...that guy over there (points to Stupid New Kid), just came over to our table and told my 12 year old daughter that her butt crack is showing. At first I thought it was funny, but then I looked at her and she was bright red and near tears and just totally mortified. Those guys at that table over there heard him, and that table there did too. It was just really embarrassing."

Okay, let me share a little something here. when I was 12, I went to the water slides on a class trip. The entire sixth grade from my school was there actually. I went down a slide and as my inner tube bounced into the pool at the end, my bikini top flipped up. Full exposure, with many of my classmates and friends standing there waiting in line to see. I wouldn't even mention this for years after, and I still remember it vividly because when you are 12, public humiliation, especially involving anatomy, is like, the worst thing in the world. And 20 bucks says that when she is 20 something (not giving away my age here!) she will still remember what Stupid New Kid did.

Farrah apologized profusely, and genuinely, agreeing that it was totally inappropriate. Then she went looking for Stupid New Kid and tore him a new one. He could have done many things differently, the first being not to say anything at all considering he is a grown man and she is a girl of a tender age. Or he could have told Farrah to say something. Or if he absolutely had to do it, he could have said it quietly, tactfully, to the mother so she could tell her daughter. Anything but what he did. After Farrah was done chewing him out she told the manager, crazy GM as it were who of course lacking tact herself did not respond appropriately. She comped their meal and gave them free dessert, and then said to Stupid New Kid (I witnessed this) "now don't do that again! Talk to a manger or something!" and she was half smiling when she said it. A slap on the wrist. In our handbook, embarrassing a guest is grounds for immediate termination. Normally this is in reference solely to returning tips as in "you need this more than I do" but I think that loudly pointing out exposed body parts probably falls under that too.

This isn't the first time that Stupid New Kid has appointed himself in charge of informing females when they are showing too much skin. I wasn't working when this one happened, but from what I heard, a woman was sitting out in the parking lot on one of the little cement thingies that keep you form pulling too far forward. She was facing the restaurant and wearing a skirt, and didn't have her legs crossed or down or anything. She was flashing her under-roos to the whole late side but in a way that it didn't seem that she realized people could see her. Male bussers and servers were appreciating the view, and Stupid New Kid decided someone should tell her. Now I'm sure that in his tiny pea brain he thought he would be doing something noble by going outside and telling this stranger that she was flashing her labia, just as he probably thought he was sparing the 12 year old further embarrassment by telling her to pull her pants up, but really, he needs to enlist someone of the same gender to do these things, or it's just rude and perverted.

How is he not fired yet?!

No gold stars for you!!

When I was in second grade, I was really into stickers. My teacher had a shoebox full of all different types, shapes and sizes of stickers which would be presented when you did something nice, or where quiet or well-behaved. My favorites were the fuzzy ones. Little cats and dogs with fake fur glued on to make them soft. I had a binder at home full of notebook paper on which I would place my awesome stickers so I could gaze at them for my own childish enjoyment.

Flash forward 18 years. I am pimping spag and balls at the IR, trying to get that paper and make ends meet. My manager wants me to memorize all the ingredients of a bunch of drinks and regurgitate them in case some corporate big wig calls to check on our "product knowledge." I'm thinkin "hey boss lady, I'm just tryin to make it rain in my bank account, I'm not really into playin the drink game right now."

But then, it was as though Moses parted the red sea of marinara, and through it I saw a sticker. A most magical and sticky sticker that could be mine if only I could recite all the drinks, including garnishes, perfectly to my manager. Not only would I receive this mind-blowingly awesome sticker, but I could place it next to my name on a chart that would be displayed for all my co-workers to see and envy. I will do ANYTHING for a sticker.

This is, I'm sure, the scenario that my dumber than a sack of fucking rocks manager had played out in her mind when she came up with another of her schemes to "motivate" us to do what she wants. Previously I mentioned how at our annual service meeting she made us do some competition where the "prize" was a poster that the winning team would sign and put on display for "bragging rights." So now she had decided that adults are motivated by posters, and that if we not only get our name on that poster, but GOLD STAR STICKERS, we will be blown the fuck away and want to do anything it takes to get a sticker by our name. I even took a little picture of it to show you non-OG's that I don't make this shit up. Names have been concealed to protect the poor bastards involved (myself included)

The idea was that if you said all your drinks right, you would get a star and you would be off the hook for the rest of the week, and everyone would see how awesomely good you are at memorizing some shit and repeating it, a skill that takes years of mastery. A couple people that studied early childhood education pointed out to her (this is BM we're talking about) that this kind of "reward" system has been proven ineffective because it's not just displaying achievement, it's displaying failure by making it known who didn't get their star. She seemed slightly concerned but stood her ground. The funny thing is, a handful of people were actually pretty into it. Of course the little brown nosers, but some other people just assumed that there would be some further reward or consequence involving this star chart, because otherwise it makes no sense, right?

One dude was standing there looking at the chart and exclaimed "man, look at all these people who don't have their stars! What's going to happen to them?" To which I replied "absolutely nothing"

"What? Don't we get something for getting all our stars for like a month or something? Or if you don't get them does something happen?"

"Nope, nothing happens either way"

"What the hell?! Why are we doing this then?!"

That's an excellent question! After a couple weeks, everyone realized that there was no reason to do this. There was, however, a different reason to memorize the drinks. If someone did call from corporate and you got the call and said all the drinks right, you would either get $50 or a bottle of wine. However since the chart and the phone call had no correlation, people stopped caring and the star chart still sits unused.

Well now there's a new problem. Our survey scores aren't looking so good. Pretty much every time you come to the IR, you will get this ridiculously long receipt with a survey you can fill out online that enters you in a chance to win some money or something. Of course, the only people who go fill it out are people who are either a)pissed off and want to bitch about it or b)had a server that told them to go do it and say good things about them so the managers will think they're awesome. So of course the scores suck, only angry people fill it out, but we still use this information to make a lot of decisions and it's how the management decides what to yell at us for. I have debated with crazy GM on this, telling her that the scores are whack because no one has a nice normal dinner and decides to go fill out a survey. She disagrees, needless to say.

Man, we really need to get these scores up...the managers from other area IR restaurants get together with ours and come up with a  plan. We get paired up with nearby IR and they put us at competition with the other. Whichever restaurant can give rockin service and get the overall survey scores for their restaurant up the most will get a prize. This prize is not a gold star. It is not a poster with our name for "bragging rights" nor is it $50 or a bottle of wine. This time they have really outdone themselves. The winners get.....(drum roll please)...cookies.

WHAT.THE.FUCK.

Are these special cookies? Do they sing to you before you eat them? Do they make your tits or wang grow three sizes after each bite? Will they make me smarter or more attractive? No? Then I don't give a shit. Cookies? Are you serious? I think that if I want cookies (which I do, I love cookies) that rather than bust my ass to try and get some arbitrary score up, I will probably go to the store and buy cookies. Or bake them at home. Or have my boyfriends mom make me some because that woman can bake! Any of these options are far more accessible to me, and they will probably result in some tasty cookies.

I can only conclude that BM and GM have some kind of brain disorder where adults appear to them as second graders. Someone should really study and diagnose this. They can call it "Sachetti syndrome"

On another note, BM has gestational diabetes. This is very shocking considering her healthy diet of cake and chicken alfredo pizzas. Please pray for her child.

And since I promised but did not deliver on relaying the story about the new kid threatening one of our own, I will briefly re-cap it here. I'm sure you've all heard it by now anyway. This is paraphrased from what I can remember when the server told me what happened, which was a few weeks ago.

Stupid new kid and Smokin hot server (SNK and SHS) are both standing in the appetizer window, she is waiting for a dessert and he is getting breadsticks. There is a tray in front of them with nothing on it. Her dessert comes up and she puts it on the tray

SNK: Hey, I was going to use that

SHS: Well, there was nothing on it. If you want to hold a tray you need to put something on it besides a cheese grater, that's just how it goes.

SNK: Well that's fucked up!

SHS:Sorry, but that's how we do things, people did the same thing to me when I was new here, I'm just trying to help you learn the ropes

SNK: That's great that you just perpetuate this fucked-up unfair thing that everyone does, maybe you should change it instead of doing it to someone else.

The Smokin hot lady takes the high road and walks away, a few minutes later she approaches him at one of the computers on the dining room floor to try and make light of the situation and resolve the tension

SHS: So, do you think I'm a bad person now?

SNK: I can't say what I think you are

SHS: Wow, it's not that big of a deal, dude

SNK: You know what, next time I'm going in or out of the kitchen and I see you coming the other way, I'm not gonna stop, maybe I'll just hit you in the face with the door. You better watch your fucking back.

This was peppered with many F-bombs and other naughty words. Keeping in mind they are standing in the dining room near occupied tables. Another server that was standing nearby intervened and told them to take it in the kitchen, once again the smokin hot server just walked away. She might have just let it go at this point, but he continued to mutter "watch your back" and other aggressive things as they crossed paths. So she decided to tell the manager, who was DM that night. He took a statement from the other server who witnessed it and brought the Stupid new kid into the office. New kid finished his shift, DM wouldn't tell anyone what they discussed or what happened, but he definitely wasn't suspended because he continued to be at work. I think he gathered that no one likes him, nor are we impressed by his shows of uber masculinity (like trying to open a bottle with his bicep) so he mostly keeps quiet now. But seriously, I have seen people instantly fired for threatening coworkers at the IR, so we were all pretty pissed that he maybe got written up but nothing else. Lame sauce.

Resignation isn't funny

So...for the two of you that read this you have probably noticed I haven't thrown down some snarkiness in awhile. The reason for this is that I have passed over into another place. Before I was in the "my job is lame and my managers are douches but it's kinda funny how lame it is so lets bitch about it" place. Now I'm in the "my job is lame and my managers are the biggest fuckers on the planet and I hate this place so much I want to rip my eyes out which is NOT funny" place. I have been lacking the drive to hilariously recap the daily events at the IR, and I have been applying for every single job I think I could possibly qualify for trying to GET OUT. However as per a request or two, I will try to drum something up here....

One of the (many) things that drive me crazy about this place is how the "guests" fucking stupid customers walk all over us and we just fucking take it and beg for more. Two recent examples; A few weeks ago I answered a call when I was doing to go:

"Thank you for calling the Italian Restaurant, this is Waitress how can I help you?"

"Yes, my wife and I were just there for dinner and everything was really great, but I gotta tell ya the air was just on way too high, it was really cold and it kinda ruined our meal."

What I was thinking was "you are a piece of shit who wants something for free and 1) restaurants are always cold, everyone knows this, bring a fucking coat and 2) did you ask for anyone to turn the air down? Or you just thought you would wait until you got home and whine over the phone like a little pussy?"

But what I said was "Did you want to speak to a manager?"

And he says "Yes! I would!" all fucking cheery like he is obviously not upset but excited about the gift card he is about to get.

Of course the manager pussed-out and gave him a freaking gift card, which irritated me even more. At least the time when the lady complained about a crying baby the manager got her to hang up before caving with a gift card. Recently someone even called and complained that they had gotten a to go order and it was really dry, didn't have enough sauce. When did this take place? Oh yeah, that would be over a month ago. Can you imagine getting a takeout order, thinking it could have used more sauce, and then over a month later deciding to call and bitch about it. WHO DOES THAT?! Obviously they knew they would get something for free, it's not like they just wanted to let us know, or it really affected them so deeply they have been unable to sleep for weeks thinking about their horrible dry pasta. They probably were talking to a friend and I imagine had a conversation somewhat like this:

Fucker Customer 1: "Dude, the other day we were eating at the Italian Restaurant and my mom didn't like her dish and got all bitchy about it and said none of the food was that good and the manager took all the dishes off, it was awesome!"

Fucker Customer 2: "Whoa, that IS awesome! I got some food there like a month ago and it was good and everything but I wonder if I bitched about it if it would have been free"

FC1: "Aw man you should have, I bet they would hook you up with a free meal, you should just call them now!"

FC2: "I don't know, it was like a month ago"

FC1: "Dude just do it, they wont say no, just tell them you wont eat there ever again and shit"

And so Fucker Customer 2 calls and gets a fucking gift card! I hate this place! They think "oh no, we have to give them gift cards and make them happy or they wont come back and they will tell their friends!"

Yeah, they will tell their friends all right, tell them to come walk all over us and get free shit!

The other recent instance of this was a largish party (about 10-15) that came in on a weekday night. They were apparently germophobes because they told their servers they wanted all their drinks in Styrofoam to-go cups and they would be using the plastic to-go silverware and napkins (where is that crying Native American when you need him?!). Later in their meal when they had entrees they started wigging out. Most of them left the table and went outside. The servers went over to see what was amiss and one of the men told them that there was a fly in the room and it had landed on some of their plates and that is so disgusting that they were repulsed, and left the restaurant having lost their appetites. The servers sent the manager out and he went through and pointed out which plates the fly had contaminated (about half of them) and she took them off the check. He then said "Also, he (indicating another of his party) had his drink spilled on him, can you do something about that? Take ten percent off or something?" Of course the manager took that drink off, and afterward the servers told her that what happened was they set his drink in front of him in the Styrofoam cup with a lid as per their request, and he tried to stick the straw in the wrong side of the lid and knocked it onto his own lap. So pretty much he wanted (and got) his drink comped because he spilled it on himself. GRRRRR. there is no dignity to be had in this place!!

So there you have it, and I actually meant to tell another story but I will save that for next time, it will give me another thing to talk about. but it includes one of the newer servers being a total fuckwad and threatening another server. To be continued...

TMMI= Too Much Manager Information

I think it's great when your manager can be your friend. I have had many jobs where I was able to walk that line between respecting that they have ultimate authority but being able to relate to them as human beings.

But you know what really blows? Having a power-tripping manager who treats you like crap but expects you to listen to EVERY. FUCKING. DETAIL. of their life....or pregnancy...

You all know which one I'm referring to.

I think any of our other coworkers who have recently had babies can tell you that I love talking about their pregnancies. I am fascinated, want all the details, you can talk my ear off about it. However, I don't want to hear about it from a douchebag who I don't even like 90% of the time. ESPECIALLY since the particular details she wants to share are way too much information.

When you do to go you endure much more manager face time, especially when you close, because they have to swipe their card and do all the cash drop stuff, and you have to go with them to the office to watch them drop the money and make sure they don't steal it. This is where it began. I think everyone has found themselves trapped in the office at least once with a manager who wont shut the fuck up (crazy GM) about something that you couldn't possibly care less about if you made a concentrated effort.

The first time I got trapped in the office with BM going off about her baby for an extended period was in relation to what they are going to name it if it's a boy or a girl, and how they are referring to it as a combination of the names until they find out the sex of the baby. This would be a great story if, I don't know, I had asked her or it somehow came up in conversation, but no. We were not talking about it, I was not asking about it, I did not care about it. She just started talking and I had to listen for like 5 minutes pretending I gave a shit. You would think someone with normal social skills would notice when someone is clearly not interested in what they are saying, but I guess I was doing too good a job faking it, oops.

Even before she got knocked up, BM has regaled me with stories of how she and her husband waited until they got married to have sex, etc. Which really is an "inappropriate" conversation to be having with your employee, but at that time she wasn't a total bizzle yet so it was more like chatting with a friend, it didn't bother me. But now that it has become "I am going to nitpick everything you do and enforce stupid pointless rules and treat you like a toddler, but I expect you to listen to all the disgusting details of my personal life" I am not so much a fan. Things BM has recently (to my horror) shared with me (or other to go specs) without my illiciting the information:

1. How she used to get diarrhea all the time but pregnancy makes you constipated so now she is regular
2. How she waits until she is about to poop her pants before she goes so she doesn't get hemmeroids
3. How her husband woke her up for sex the other morning and she "caved" because she didn't want him to go looking for it somewhere else
4. How she actually only sees her husband for more than an hour a few times a week so they really don't "have" to have sex that often
5. How her in-laws stopped by while they were having sex in the middle of the day so they didn't answer the door

and things of that nature. I feel a twinge of guilt sharing this info with all of you here, but I am 97% sure she would probably have still said it if you were there, so hey, whatevs. Plus she is a big old beotch to me most of the time.

It just really irritates me when they are all strict about every stupid meaningless rule that corporate has for us, but they bend their own rules all the time. Like I'm pretty sure I could consider it sexual harassment that she tells me that crap, especially when I certainly never asked her for the info, and definitely wasn't sharing anything about myself. She is doing a great job of fulfilling my original description of her as the "cool" young manager. That poor baby.

Oh yeah, I feel lame requesting comments, but if no one comments I assume no one is reading this...so I am less likely to post very often. Just sayin...

Biting Your Tongue. Hard.

Last weekend, after cheering on my man as he completes an 8K run, his parents take him, myself and his brother out to breakfast to celebrate. His mother notoriously takes an agonizingly long time to order when we try someplace new, so I am relieved when after only two return trips by the server to see if we are ready to order yet, she orders a short stack of blueberry pancakes (yes it took her 15 minutes to.decide on that). A short time later another server comes out to deliver our food.

"short stack of blueberry pancakes?"


I motion to the correct person and the server begins to set down the plate when BF's Mom stops her


"I didn't order that..."


Oh no. She did not. just. do. that. She's about 55 but that is not old enough for her to be doing the old lady "I have no idea what I ordered" thing. Of course, I immediately intervene. I have stood there one too many times while someone at a table denies ordering what I am 200% sure they ordered and no one else at the table helps me out.


"Yes you did!"


Thankfully at this time the BF's fam chimes in and confirms that yes, she did in fact order blueberry pancakes, and she takes and eats them because she likes blueberry pancakes, but just didn't intend to order them.


I find myself in this kind of situation quite often when I dine out with my boyfriend's parents, because...and I will say now and reiterate again and again they are wonderful people and I like them, I really do... they do many of the things that I bitch about in this blog. No the kind of things that make you hope your table gets into a debilitating car crash on the way home, just the ones that annoy you enough to maybe mention in the side station "man, table 16 is driving me nuts!"


I know we've all been in the situation a time or two, dining out with someone who definitely never worked in food service and biting your tongue when they do annoying crap. I mean when it's my own family I'm like "hey douchebag, don't do that!!" but I would never, could never, point these things out to my (hopefully) future in-laws lest they find out that I am, in fact, not the sweet girl they think their son is dating and am actually a raging bitch (Oh no!)


One of our co-workers told me about his mother who is a huge evil bitch of the variety that gets spit in her food when they eat out. Makes a scene and yells. How horrifying for someone who has been on the other side to watch this happen and not be able to say anything. Thankfully my experience has been nothing of this sort, but does include on every dining occasion three things that drive me nuts:


1. Hot Tea. Every time. His Dad orders it sometimes, but also might get coffee, water, juice, whatever. Mom orders hot tea 100% of the time. The sun could be melting and the world imploding and she would enjoy a nice hot tea. Will always need a refill on hot water.
2. Taking 600 years (approximately) to order. As noted before, the server will inevitably come back at least twice to see if we are ready yet. Often she will also ask what vegetables are in the "mixed vegetables" and once getting the answer will need more time to decide. Mom can never decide, whereas Dad usually waits until the server is there taking his order to look at the list of sides and see which one he might like to enjoy. On Father's Day we sat there for at least two whole minutes while he read over the list of sides and the server stood there...and stood there...and started looking around....and smiling painfully...I wanted to rip my fucking skin off.
3. Not paying attention while others are ordering, which is important when there is some choice of sides, dressing, soups, salads, whatever. It's always Mom that isn't paying attention when Dad asks what the soup choices are, and then proceeds to ask what they are ten seconds after the server has just listed them. This also happened on Father's Day, right after the never-ending sides debate.


Again! Disclaimer! They are wonderful, giving, kind people. So great. They are just annoying guests!


I have also been known to piss off my boyfriend (current and pasts) by pointing out things they do that I personally find annoying from a service standpoint. One guy I dated would always refer to the dishes or items as belonging to the server. As in "can I get your chicken sub and your chicken noodle soup." This bugged the shit out of me, not sure why...


I have chided the sexy hunk of man I am so fortunate as to have in my life now (hey baby ;) ) for saying his name when he calls an establishment, no matter what the reason. As in "Hi, this is hot guy, what time do you close?" because it irritates me when people do this, as there is no reason I need to know your name in order to answer such a question. Of course he points out that it's harmless and I am a fucking bitch, I agree that yes, I am, but can he still not do that?


So basically it puts us in an awkward, uncomfortable, and unfortunate situation that we know exactly what the server is thinking when one of our well-intentioned dining companions ask "is it free refills?" before ordering anything (my love has a tendency towards this as well).


So what kind of painful bystander situations have you found yourself in? And did you say anything?

Legal Rights? Oh Yeah Those Don't Apply Here

Sorry I was lazy and waited a long time to document this now long-past story. Took a little vacay, bestie got engaged, fun things were happening that made me not care about taking time to bitch. Sadly, that time has past so here I am!

A few weeks ago, I was closing to go. It was a Monday, and I had served that morning, and had to open to go the next morning, so I was already tired and rest was not in the near future. Also, I was scheduled all of these shifts, I did not pick them up.

So you know how we have those things called legal rights where our employers are required to give us breaks now and then so we don't keel over and die? Well those aren't really respected in the restaurant industry, at least not for service staff. the hosts and cooks are able to take a ten minute break once during their shift, which is still insufficient. Most places of work you should be getting a 10 to 15 minute break every two hours, but considering the pace of food service, this isn't really possible. So somehow they get around the ten minute break thing, but there are strict laws about meal breaks. The US Department of Labor website says that the guidelines for meal breaks in Washington are that you should get: "[A] ½ hour [break], if work period is more than 5 consecutive hours, to be given not less than 2 hours nor more than 5 hours from beginning of shift. Counted as worktime if employee is required to remain on duty on premises or at a prescribed worksite."

Another way the evil corporation who owns the IR has gotten around this is by prompting us to waive our right to this break at the beginning of our shift. When we clock in it asks "you are entitled to a 30 minute meal period if you work more than five hours, do you want to take this break or waive this right?" Most people waive it because you have to clock out and no one takes meal breaks unless they are a double and wont get a break between shifts.

A to go shift is generally 7-8 hours long, and we NEVER take breaks. Given sometimes if it's slow you are kind of on a break most of the time, which is why the break laws aren't enforced so strictly in this biz, but at some point between 4pm and 11pm I am going to need to, I don't know, eat or something. Maybe just so I don't pass out. And usually I just kind of eat when I can, and am interrupted every few bites by someone needing to check out, the phone ringing, a guest picking up or placing an order, etc. This is annoying, but I am still getting paid so I still have to do my job duties. Sometimes I will ask the bartenders to answer the phone and check people out for 15 minutes so I can actually enjoy an entire hot meal without getting up. This is until the GM started being a snatch and saying she just wanted one person (ie ME) to check everyone out so I can make sure they have their checker and manager signature (she is assuming that I give a shit about these. Okay, I do make sure they have a checker signature but fuck managers). So now I literally cannot sit down and eat without being interrupted. Some nights this is really frustrating, I was busy, I'm tired, and I just want to be left alone for like 5 fucking minutes, but no. So I have been toying with the idea of actually taking my meal break. Yeah, it's 30 minutes off my shift, but it would be worth it. Plus, I could just take 15 minutes and get clocked back on early, but if I am not clocked out on a meal break I can't tell people to F.O. when they come ask me for shit.

So, it was on this night, about 7 hours into my double, when I decided, fuck this noise. I am taking my goddamn legally allowed (required!) break and they can suck it! Of course it was BM on duty (who is big as a house 13 weeks into her pregnancy, but that's another story). It was like 8:15, and I was not going to see the outside world until about 11, so I thought it was a good time to take a minute.

We are in the alley, along with many others

"hey BM, I want to take my half tonight"

blank stare..."Like a 30 minute break?!"

"Yeah, I'm a double and I open tomorrow, I'm tired"

"It's almost 9:00, if you want to do that I'll just send you home"

This time there was a blank stare on my end.

She walked away, I fumed. Others who heard her told me not to let her send me home, I am entitled to that break and if she doesn't like it I can call corporate. The IR has been sued several times for screwing people out of their breaks and she certainly wouldn't be doing herself any favors by costing them more money.

And I didn't even want to go home! I needed the hours, needed the money, I just wanted a break! Is that really so much to ask?

About ten minutes later, I am standing by my computer and she comes up beside me

"So, do you want to check out the early side servers and then go home?"

"No, I don't want to go home, I just want to sit down for 15 minutes and eat something and not answer the phone or check someone out, and if I am on the clock I can't do that."

"Well that's fine, you can sit down and the bar can check people out, it just seems like taking a 30 minute break this late is pointless."

"Okay, well GM doesn't let the bar check people out anymore so I don't really know what I can and can't do at this point."

I order food, let the bar know what's happening, and go to sit down in one of the empty dining rooms to get some peace. As I am walking out of the kitchen with my food, BM sees me and says "Oh, are you going to sit out there? I wanted to but didn't want to go by myself" And she proceeds to fucking follow me out there!! And sit with me!! I know some people don't do the best with social cues, but really? I have been pissy with you and pretty much shooting hate daggers out of my eyes at you and you think I really want to sit down and share a meal with you? So I had to sit there and pretend not to hate her while acting interested in her pregnancy for 30 minutes (I did NOT clock out, BTW, fuck her!). She sucks.

I always especially hate when things like this happen because as snarky as I am on here, I am actually very non-confrontational and have a hard time standing up for myself to asshole managers.

Case in point, yesterday Douche Manager (he is back to douche rather than dude, cause he is an asshole 85% of the time) tells me what while the weekend to go person is on vacation for 3 weeks, he is going to schedule me all her shifts. Friday, Saturday, Sunday, 4 to midnight? My man works a Monday thru Friday 9-5, so that shit ain't gonna work for me. So while I did point out to him it would put a serious cramp in my love life, I didn't straight up say no. I suck!

Hot Dog Ravioli and Smart Juice

Last Saturday was our roughly once yearly service team meeting. They have everyone who works the front of the house (servers, bussers, to-go specs and hosts) drag their asses in at 9am (this is early for people in the service industry) and tell us a bunch of crap we usually already know and then make us play stupid games and act like we are excited. Last time we had one of these it was about a year and a half ago when we started wearing black aprons and introduced "service evolution" which involved making us responsible for a whole bunch more crap like making sure the person in the section nearest you doesn't suck and piss people off. This time it was to discuss a number of changes to our menu, dishes coming off as well as several new ones being added and some new desserts too, WOHOO!

We have been trying the new dishes and desserts over the past couple weeks and no one is overly impressed. One, a shrimp and crab ravioli, smells and tastes like cheap hot dogs (no joke), but we aren't supposed to talk about that, because it's freaking delicious and so authentic!! Every time the name of the dish is mentioned someone says "is that the hot dog one?" and the manager gives them the death glare. I think it's likely that someone will be written up at some point for disparaging the new dishes. But anyway...

In true form, those of our coworkers who fiercely hit the pipe...or the bottle...or the needle or whatever showed up late. The drunk dude (who I should note I haven't actually seen drunk at work since that incident) walked in with his hair standing straight up, some very dark glasses and a trench coat on. He immediately rendered in my mind a vision of the boss from "weekend at Bernie's 2" only without the arrow through his head. He sat in the back and from what I understand, slept through the whole meeting hidden behind his glasses. The other cracked out chick was of course late so she had to find a spot in the front. I got a pretty good view of her with her eyes rolling around in her lolling head, alternately trying to stay awake and pretending to take notes with her head down and her eyes closed. She probably should have gone for a stimulant for the early morning meeting but hey, maybe she was running on a limited supply.

Crazy GM started the meeting with some recognition (shocking!!) for a couple people who got good guest feedback, gave them some stupid pins then told us all how great of a job we are doing. This was a real deviation from her normal method of telling us we all suck and will all be written up and fired until only the service nazi remains. She then went into a spiel on how we need to be recommending crap to the guests, how we should do whatever makes us feel comfortable to greet them and try to make them buy shit they don't want.

"If you need to, bring a prop, if that makes you feel more comfortable. You can bring, I don't know, a lemonade pitcher if that makes you more comfortable."

Seriously? Why not just say a wine bottle since you make us do that anyway. Do you really want us bringing a pitcher of lemonade to the table the first time we stop by? Should we pour them a sample in their wine glass? What if a stack of dirty dishes makes me more comfortable? Or a stuffed kitty-cat?

They then broke us into two groups which they had forced some poor unfortunate certified trainers to make names and posters for. The theory was we would talk about the new dishes and drinks and desserts and how to describe them, then we would pick one person from our team to represent us in a competition with the other team. Each rep would draw at random a drink, entree and dessert and would describe it and sell it to a table. This pitch would be rated on a scale of 1-5 by three impartial judges, then whoever had the most points wins for their team. OMG! What fun!! And what do we win for this overly complicated ridiculous competition?! Candy? no. Money? no. Anything? no. Well, actually the winning team would all sign the poster their CT's made and it would be put in the break room for "bragging rights." Hell yeah, we are bigger brown nosers than you, woopah!

So we broke into groups, and the person who had the misfortune of having sat too close to the giant post-it note pad on the wall had to stand up and take notes on the "buzz words" or whatever that we would use to describe these fabulous new items, yum! On our team, a bad-ass chick who I have referred to as "Autumn" in the past happened to be sitting in the seat of honor. I should also note that the manager overseeing our group was BM, and that despite her raging bitchiness, she is kind of afraid of Autumn, as pretty much all the female managers are, so she can get away with a lot more than the rest of us. We start with the entrees, people use stupid phrases like "dripping with cheese" or whatever the handbook tells us to say to describe them, someone says "smells like hot dogs" about the gross ravioli, we laugh, BM glares. We get to the drinks, which are just fancy-looking combinations of juice and sprite, one of which has pomegranite juice and one of which has acai, that crazy berry that health nuts are all obsessed with right now. Autumn was getting understandably bored and irritated writing "rich and creamy" 500 times, so when we started talking about the drink with acai, and no one had anything to say about it, she suggested "Acai makes you skinny! Just tell your guests, 'it helps you lose weight at the Italian Restaurant, so stick another breadstick in it!" adding under her breath "fuckers!" This would have gotten anyone else a reprimand from BM, but she just held her tongue. The next drink was the one with the pomegranite juiced. She offered "It has pomegranite in it so I don't feel like I'm being bad. And it makes you smarter!! Tell your guests 'I wont forget your boat of alfredo cause I drank this!'" Everyone laughed and BM fumed over her amazing and effective activity being made light of, but she didn't say anything. We nominated someone from our team to compete, lost by one point, and no one gave a shit. The restaurant opened and it was slow as hell cause it was a beautiful day. I ditched out early and enjoyed the sun.

Oh, and that poster they all signed for "bragging rights"? It was stuck in a corner of the break room and a box was immediately shoved in front of it, covering it up.

Next time I will tell you about the other night when BM told me that if I wanted to take the 30 minute meal break I am legally allowed, she would send me home.

Goin all Pollyanna on your ass

Ah, another year here come and gone, and I am no closer to a way out. My mom tells me this blog is depressing and that it probably has a negative impact on my mental health because I am focusing on everything negative. Well really the convo went more like

"If you really hate that job so much and everything about it, how can you still work there? You sound so unhappy"

"Well, I don't hate it THAT much, like I don't dread going in or anything, I love my coworkers (with a few exceptions) and that makes it tolerable"

"Well then why don't you write about that sometime!"

"...Because that's not funny..."

But the more I think about it, the more I think that although I do bitch (a lot, constantly) about my job, it is really very entertaining. Crazy diners, drugged-out coworkers, it's all very hilarious a lot of the time, and that's how I manage. So here you go Mom, I like that there is never a dull moment at my job. That's a positive thing. And I have talked about other things that made me laugh a lot before, but maybe just wrapped them up in a "I hate this place" package. For example; dumb things people say (hilarious!), the story at the end about a coworker flipping a manager off is awesome, and I find this amusing, okay that's not that many, but I guess I should just clarify that yes, the people we serve are freaking idiots, but they are also entertaining in their stupidity.

That being said, I had an experience with a drunk woman worth sharing, but first;

Yesterday I was doing to go and a woman called to place an order, after she specified salad, she said

"And don't put any of that other stuff that's not good on it."

This was so vague and obscure that I didn't know what to say...so I didn't say anything. I just kind of waited for her so realize that what she said made absolutely no sense. A couple beats later and she said

"Oh, you know...do you put sardines on it?"

"No, we don't."

"Oh, okay good! And do we get some of those long guys with it?"

Long guys? This chick is speaking some language that I totally don't understand.

"Uh...you mean bread sticks?"

"Yes, yes!"

What a weirdo. That just reminded me of something else to go related. For some reason unknown to me, people at this IR always seem to need to use the bathroom urgently when they come to pick up their food. I can only assume this because they come in, tell the host they are there to pick up, to which the hosts say "Okay, I will page her and she will meet you right here (indicating just behind them) in just a moment", and then the directly go into the bathroom. So when I get up there 20 seconds after I get the page, they're in the freaking bathroom! Now I either have to go back to the kitchen if I was actually busy and have them page me again when they come out, or just stand there and wait for them. So I am wondering if people think that the hosts are paging me at home and it will take me 20 minutes to get there, or did they just down a big gulp on their way and can't hold it a second? Either way it always shocks me how often people do this.

So anywho, not this past Sunday but the one before that, I ended up having to close for the to go person (I was serving) because of some emergency (wont go into that but some of you know what I mean), and I was really irritated because I hadn't wanted to work at all and now I was going to be there until like 11, wha wha wha. Well it was about a quarter to ten, ie closing time, when I got paged. I'm like WTF, I hate when people come in right before we close, so just to be a douche, I didn't run out right away. About 30 seconds later, the closing host came running back into the kitchen and was like "This lady is having issues, she said she's in like a really big super hurry and she's kind of freaking out" Oh great, maybe she will actually order something simple and get the fuck out! I go up front and she is looking over a menu with a server who was on his way out the door, and he is recommending a certain pizza that is popular (he is a silly boy to recommend pizza to someone in a hurry, but I wont go into that), and as I am walking up she is saying "yeah, but this guy is like a chef at a really fancy restaurant, so I have to get him something really good."

She is in fact "freaking out" as well as slurring her words noticeably.

"Um, okay, I am in a really big hurry. This is the only place that's still open and I'm just in a really big hurry and this guy is a really good chef and we don't normally eat pasta, no offense or anything, but we wouldn't normally eat here, and I'm just in a really big hurry"

As we start looking over the menu, I can smell alcohol on her breath. She starts rambling off several things that she wants, mostly appetizers, and two of the same entree. She then requests "tons and tons" of extra sauce, no matter how much I have to charge her, tons of extra sauce on the side. I offer her two alfredo sides, two marinaras, and a meat sauce. In all she has like 4 appetizers, two entrees and four sides of sauce.

"I know my bill is gonna be like $80, I'm just in such a big hurry. Do you have a phone I can use?"

I let her know I will grab her the cordless phone, and she tells me she is going to sit in the bar and have a glass of wine while she waits. I go break the kitchen's hearts and ring in this what is actually a $96 order five minutes to closing. Many of the appetizers we are out of and have to be pulled from the freezer and thawed, which means they will be taking awhile. I go bring her the cordless phone and her bill. She is profusely thankful, keeps saying "oh my god, thank you so much, you're amazing" I go track down the bartender who poured the wine so I can find out what kind it is and add it to her bill. It's the most expensive per glass red wine we have on our menu at $10.95. So when I add it on, her grand total is around $107.

I go to bring her the updated check and she is on the phone, crying. she is saying "This is the 4th fucking place I have been trying to get food for you." I gather at this point that all of this food is just for her and one other person, and that she is really trying to impress him. The whole thing is just way too weird, this chick looks like a hot mess, and not the kind of hot mess that can afford a hundred dollar meal for two people, so I go give the manager a heads up that there is a possibility that she might skip out before the order is even ready.

I go about getting the sides ready; the sauces and salad and breadsticks. One of the bartenders comes into the kitchen and asks if her order is ready yet. Tells me she is talking his ear off and she is nuts, to please get her out of here STAT. He goes back out and a couple minutes later I go see if she is ready to pay. As I am walking into the bar I see that her hair is all ruffed and messed up, and she is sliding her hands over her breasts. I catch the end of a sentence that she is attempting to whisper. All I catch is "for a stripper?!" She has two hundred dollar bills out on the counter with her check, so I take it to go get her change, let her know it's almost ready. While I'm back there the bartender comes back in, says "did you hear what she said?!" I didn't. "She was telling me all about her ex who cheated on her with a stripper, and she said 'would you really pass up all this (fluffing up the hair and sliding the hands over the breasts) for a stripper?!'" He again pleads with me to get her out, get her out now! At this point the bartenders girlfriend is sitting in the cafe just watching this chick like she's a show (which she really was, it was awesome) and the host is also getting a pretty big kick out of it. Here you go again, Mom. I even said "I'm actually glad I had to stay cause this shit is funny!!" 

Her order is ready (finally) and I bring it out to her along with her change. She asks "Do I need to check it or is it all there?" I tell her it's all there, knowing full well that she has no idea what she ordered anyway. I count her change back to her, which is $92 and change. She asks if I can break down the fifties. Then she says "Actually, if you could break down the 20's too, that would be great. Just like all 5's and 1's. Thank you so much, you're so awesome, I'm gonna take care of you, don't worry, I used to work here." Wow, this just makes her crazy on a whole new level! I give her like 20 1's and 60 5's. She again thanks me profusely "oh my, god, thank you so much, hold on...okay this is gonna look weird." She  then busts a HUGE wad of cash out of her wallet and starts sifting through dozens of 100's until she finds a 20 and gives it to me. Then she has me break down some more of the big bills for her into 5's and 1's. When I come back, she tells me that she just got back from New York and is flying to Mexico in the morning so she needs small bills to tip people in mexico.

The last bartender is still hanging around because he can't really leave with someone sitting in the bar, lest she start looting all the booze once left alone. Crazy pants asks us for a rubber band, and he finds her one. She is counting and bundling her money. I bid her goodbye and go back into the kitchen. A Minute later the bartender comes back to get more rubber bands, says she is counting all her money which she loudly announces when she's done is over 4 grand. Keep in mind that this is the same chick who was having a shit fit cause she was "in such a big hurry" and is now chilling ten minutes after her food is done.

I am in the kitchen, trying to get things cleaned up so I can go home, when one of the closing servers tells me that crazy pants is looking for me. Oh god, what now?! I go in there and she is wondering if there is any way she can get more alfredo, cause she just doesn't have enough. I go get her the last little scrapings for the day and bring it to her. She gives me 5 more bucks. Then she wonders, is there still more bread? she knows we just throw it out anyway. I get the crusty old bread for her too. She tell me she used to work here but now she is on disability cause she has brain damage. I say that's too bad, do you want me to split your order into two bags instead of this now packed one? No, no, she's got it.

I go back to cleaning, and she thankfully doesn't ask for me again, but still sits in the bar for another good 15 minutes. when she finally leaves the host tells me that he held the door open for her as she left, and she was complaining about how heavy the bag was. She then started talking to him about how underpaid he was, and gave him some money. Oh, she also tipped the bartender $10 for her $11 glass of wine and told me that she would have tipped me double if I were her server. The second she was out the door, the host pulled it closed behind her, and just as he was doing so she turned around as if to say something else. He just waved. She mad her way to her car, a very new looking Subaru WRX (very nice expensive sports car) and sat there for a long time. One of the bartenders was outside smoking when she finally pulled away about 25 minutes later, and said she was revving the engine and riding the clutch in a way that you knew it wasn't her car.

So what was she, love slave to a rich restaurateur? A disabled former server who played errand girl to a rich man in exchange for trips to New York and Mexico? Who knows, but she said next time she came in to eat she would ask for me, and if she does I'm sure that will be a whole 'nother story.

I didn't get out of there until almost 1am, but it was worth the entertainment. There Mom, are you happy? LOL.

Newsflash: You're Not Funny!

A couple weeks ago I went to a major league soccer game with some fellow IR slaves. We were way up high on some very steep bleacher seats on which the journey to we all panted and marveled at how much energy it took to make it up. So when we saw the vendors trekking up these steps that we found to resemble mount Everest, and while carrying a case of beer around their neck or a tray of hot chocolate on their head, we all thought the same thing: "Damn they must get so tired doing that!" As we flagged down the beer man to buy a few, I resisted the natural urge to make a comment on his journey, remembering at the last second that everyone and their fucking mom must say something to him. My friend (love you!) did not catch herself though.

"You must get a great workout ca--"

"Bud or Bud lite?"

And then she knew she'd done it, she'd made a cliche joke or comment, the kind of thing that drives those of us who see hundreds of customers a day nuts. And it just goes to show that even we are guilty of it. I was thinking the same exact thing while he was hauling that case of beer our way, and I almost said it too. There have been other times I have said similar things to waitresses, grocery checkers, etc. only to get the fake laugh, half smile and the "hu hu, yeah" that told me that they wanted to punch me in the face for making them conjure up a feigned reaction to the thousandth time they have heard that today.

You may think that this revelation would make me more forgiving to my guests who make these comments, thinking themselves original or funny, knowing I on occasion commit the same faux pas, but nope. I still want to punch them in the face. Sometimes I actually have to walk away because I can't even drum up a half smile or fake laugh and I know that if they see my death glare my tip goes buh-bye. Here's a few of my faves;

When they say "I'll make it easy on you, I'll just have the soup and salad" and it takes every fiber of your being not to explain to them why they are so dead wrong. And why do people always say this?! Did all the soup and salad eaters get together and decide to order it this way. It would be far more accurate to say "I'll make it easy on the cooks, I'll just have the soup and salad." To which I would say, yes very easy on the cooks, you're right. On your server? Not so much. Don't add insult to injury, just order the damn thing.

When you mess something up, something as small as bringing the wrong kind of soup out which is fixable in less than a minute and they say "ohp, there goes your tip!" And you expect me to laugh? That shit's not funny! It's just awkward! What do you want me to beg for it doucheface?

When really high maintenance guests, maybe they keep asking you for something every time you come by or their kid is being a little shit, sense your tiring patience and say "don't worry, I'm a really good tipper" or "Sorry we're making so much work for you, but we'll take care of you, promise." I literally have never, EVER had someone say this and tip well. More often than not they actually tip poorly. Sometimes sufficiently, but certainly not anything worth the amount of running they made you do. When people say this, I actually hear " I don't get out much so I have no idea how to behave in a restaurant, and am also oblivious to the fact that you have other tables. I am going to tip you an amount which I think is a lot because I have never worked in food service, but really is crap. But I have good intentions!" I'll tell you where to put your good intentions...

When people make jokes about the bill it's just insanely awkward and I have no idea what you are expecting me to say. If I say "any dessert or coffee for you, or are we ready for the check?" and you say "oh, no thanks, we don't want the check, hu hu hu" I don't know what to do but just pretend to laugh and bring it...I don't get why this is funny. Or even better when they say "Oh, I thought you were paying for it! Hahaha" Yeah, I just work here for my own sadistic entertainment, I am actually a filthy rich heiress, let me get that. Finally, the most popular, when you drop the check and they say "hey, I didn't order that!" Shut your fucking mouth. And tip me 20%

The most irritating thing, though, is the jokes about cheese. These are the times when I have actually walked away from the table to hide my look of hatred and disdain. Before when people would say "oh, we really like cheese" I would say "well, you came to the right place!" and they would love it and a little piece of my soul would die. Well, apparently all of my soul is dead now because I can't even force myself to endure it anymore, much less get in on the act. Here are the cheese jokes, in order of how much they make me want to rip your face off and serve it to you as your entree. These are all prompted by me beginning to grate cheese on the soup, salad, entree, whatever, instructing you to say "when" when it's enough. "Just say when!"

1. "Oh, we're cheesy people, he he he" STFU
2. "When your arm gets tired, lol" Oh I think I can save enough strength to hold you down in your soup for two minutes until you drown.
3. "How much cheese you got, buah ha!" Probably like 2,000 little cubes, and I would love to force you to eat them until you explode and DIE
3. "When you can't see the food!" You wont be able to see it after I jam both my thumbs into your eye sockets asshole!
4. Guest says "when" indicating it's enough, everyone else bursts out laughing "you aren't actually supposed to say when!!!" Then they each say "when" on their turn like it's the funniest thing ever and laugh some more. How about I kick you in the vag and you just say "when" whenever you can no longer procreate and make more stupid kids who tell stupid fucking jokes!
5. You keep grating and grating, suddenly one of the others says "you're supposed to tell her when!" and they say "Oh I forgot!!" and they all laugh their fat asses off. At this point I want to take their steak knife and cut my own throat to put myself out of misery.

I know they mean no harm. But I still want to throw them into the bay weighted down with salad tongs. Deep cleansing breath...

which came first, the restaurant worker or the degenerate?

15 days from today I will have been working at the IR for 3 years. 3 whole years of my life asking "soup or salad?," taking crap from strangers, essentially begging for money by letting them give me crap. Add on my previous job and it's actually 4 years of serving all together.

Having worked at a couple different restaurants and 4 different IRs, I have noticed that the, shall we say, "morality" of the workforce is never impressive. I am not claiming to be above this myself, this job makes me racist, bitter, bitchy and hope that horrible things happen to rude people after they leave. It makes me want to drink and it makes me want to blog about how much I hate it. But I have to wonder, was I already this type of angry, bitchy, snarky person, or has 4 years in the trenches made me this way?

Among our coworkers we see abundant drug use both in and out of the restaurant, excessive drinking, promiscuity, infidelity, gossiping, seeking of power, seeking of destruction, apathy, rage, and every other morally objectionable action and emotion one can conjur. So did we come into this place a bunch of drunk angry sluts? Or are we victims of the industry?

It's the classic 'nature vs nurture' debate. As the typical Libra, I am going to shoot down the middle and say it's a little of this, a little of that. I for one know that I have always had a tendency towards being a gossip (though I try not to be a malicious one, I think of it as sharing information and try not to hurt people in the process), but working in a place where everyone is constantly doing crazy shit that's gossip worthy makes my natural tendency towards talking shit go into over drive.

Somehow I think at the core of it is the fact that we are employed as slaves basically. Our job is to let people order us around and treat us like crap all in the hopes of getting a tip. We are often degraded, demeaned, insulted and harassed, and we are expected to endure it with a smile. This can take even the nicest most good-natured person and turn them into a fucking bitch, at least while they are on the clock. So what about the kitchen staff and the bussers and the managers? They don't deal with the guests the same way the servers do. But they still feel the sting. Bussers get shitty tips from servers, cooks get yelled at, managers have to fix everything that gets fucked up, which makes them see us all as fuck-ups. It's a vicious cycle.

But hold on here. Am I really saying that working in a restaurant will turn Pollyanna into a cokehead slut? I don't know, maybe. I just have to wonder that aside from the obvious answer that restaurants don't drug test, why do most of the people we work with smoke like fiends and drink 6 nights a week. Or fuck anyone or anything who will sit still. Or make it their personal mission to make everyone around them feel like shit. Or act like they are better than you. Or write spiteful blogs that they would NEVER want to be read by the people they talk about?

I am not talking about anyone too specifically here, except maybe those like BM or super server who would never read this. We are all different people than we were before we worked  in a restaurant, and although we can say we "learned a lot" from it, probably no one can say it's made them a better person.

Lets take super server for example. Before she worked here, was she a know-it-all who took herself incredibly seriously? Not form what I've heard. At her previous jobs, did she alienate everyone around her by acting like she was the shit because she followed all the rules? I doubt it, mostly because your average job doesn't have 5,000 rules like we do, and especially not ones that are so easy to break, and so inconvenient to follow. My guess is that she is just a perfectionist who ended up working a job where perfection is not possible. There is the "right" way to do something to make the management happy, the "right" way to do it if you want to make the most tips, and the "right" way to do it if you want it to be easy. Because she wants so badly to be the best, she realized she could either please the management, or have her co-workers like her. And she chose to please the management. She became the kind of person you feel like you can't trust not to "tell on you" for doing something "wrong." She became a brown noser and an enemy to her peers, and I hardly think that is who she wanted to be.

So, are you the same person you were before you entered the industry? If you were plunked down into a more "normal" line of work, would you fit in with the workforce, or would you stand out as some kind of degenerate, people wondering why you are so bitter. Would you be surprised if your coworkers weren't all drinking every night after work, that they didn't get pleasure from your demise, that they didn't all hate their job. Would that seem "weird" to you?

I surely hope I get the chance to find out.

Guests Say the Dumbest Things

Ring Ring

Waitress: Thank you for Calling the Italian Restaurant in City, this is Waitress, how can I help you?
Dumb Guest: Yes, I need to place an order to go
W: Okay, what would you like?
DG: I wanted to get your chicken sandwich with the mozzarella sticks
W: I'm sorry, we actually don't have sandwiches
DG: Really? You don't have a chicken sandwich with mozzarella sticks?
W: No, sorry
DG: Are you sure, cause I just saw a commercial for it today
W: Well, the item on our commercials right now are the crepes, one of them has chicken and it's in a white wine cream sauce. That would be what you'd see on TV.
DG: No, no, that's not it. So you don't have anything with mozzarella sticks?
W: Well we have mozzarella triangles that come as an appetizer, you could get them with chicken strips...?
DG: Hm, Well you kinda ruined my plan here, I'm gonna have to call you back
W: Oh, okay, sorry, bye
A few minutes later the phone rings
W: Thank you for calling the Italian Restaurant in City, this is Waitress, how can I help you?
DG: Hi, it's me again. Can I get chicken alfredo?
W: Oh, was that what you were trying to order before?
DG: No, I wanted chicken parmigiana but it sounds like you don't have anything like that
W: Oh, we have chicken parmigiana
DG: Well that's what I wanted!
W: I'm sorry I thought you said you wanted something that came with mozzarella sticks
DG: Yeah, chicken parmagiana!
W: Uh, okay....did you want soup or salad with that?
DG: Soup, and can I get alfredo on the pasta?

Sometimes I actually think people are joking when they do this. Or maybe it will turn out to be Jubal doing a phone tap on me. But people are really just clueless or not paying attention or dumb. This phone call the other day made me reflect back on some of the dumb things my guests have said, as well as reports I've gotten from other people on what their guests said or did. They really do say the darnedest dumbest things.

Waitress: Are we ready to order? What would you like sir?
Guest: Yeah, can I get the steak quesadilla?
Waitress: Um, this is an italian restaurant?

Waiter: What can I get for you ma'am?
Old lady: Can I get linguine with the marijuana sauce?
Whole table bursts out laughing

Guest: I want soup and salad, but I don't really want soup, can I get something else instead?
Waitress: Um, like what?
Guest: Like a pizza?
Waitress: No.

Guest: And I want an appetizer as my meal
Waitress: Did you want to add any soup or salad to that?
Guest: No, I will just eat some of their salad (which is served family style on a per-guest charge)
Waitress: So you want to do an add salad? It's $3 if you want to eat the salad
Guest: No, I don't want to pay for it, I just want to eat some of their salad
Waitress: Okay, then I have to bring a salad for two (there are two guests who ordered salad) and you can't have any refills
Guest: Okay, but can you make the salad extra big?
Waitress: No.

the check is dropped at a three top, a man in his 30's picks it up
Guest: (very rudely) well, do you have a pen or am I supposed to sign it in blood?
Waitress: Actually, I have to run your card first then I would be happy to bring you a pen to sign with
Guest: Oh. sorry.

Waitress: what would you like ma'am?
Guest: I want a bowl of soup and a half a sandwich
W: Do you mean soup and salad? We don't have sandwiches
Guest: Oh yes you do, I sat right over there the other day and had a bowl of soup and a half a sandwich!
W: Ma'am I've worked here for 4 years and in that time we have never had sandwiches.
Guest: Let me talk to your manager!

13 year old boy: So, do you get a lot of phone numbers working here?
Waitress: Uh, no not really. I think other people do sometimes, I never have
Boy: Oh, well, if someone gave you their phone number, would you call them?
Waitress: I don't think my boyfriend would like that very much
Boy: So if I gave you my number, would you call me?
Waitress: no.

I never work before drink!

Ah the IR. Never a shortage of crazies and douchebags, crackheads and drunks. You may think I'm talking about the guests, but today I am talking about my wonderful co-workers. We all know that working in the restaurant industry drives people to drink and do drugs, but usually they keep their recreational activities at home, or at least at a level low enough that no one is aware that they are on anything, they just appear to be having an exceptionally good shift.

Which is totally fine with me, I just have an issue with people walking around so high they look like zombies and making us all look like idiots because they are falling asleep in the side station. Last night, however, the issue was that the ugly side of "chemical alteration" was all up in my business while I was trying to train someone. Let me start from the start...

This week I am training a host to be a To Go specialist, which is cool. I like the break from the mundane everyday grind, and I actually get paid pretty well to do it. Last night we were closing, and while the restaurant was busy but we weren't, I was having her expo so she could get to know what all the dishes look like.

One of our bitter older gentleman coworkers came in to be the breaker. This guy is generally kind of short with everyone, to the point, never smiles, hates his job so he just does it and leaves. But sometimes, he acts kind of "funny." He is all smiley, a little glassy eyed, slurs his speech a bit. One might even surmise that he has been drinking. Okay, everyone can tell that he gets sauced before coming to work at least once a week. Usually just when he is breaker, probably because he figures it doesn't really matter. So he arrives, walks up to me, gets his red ass watery eyes all up in my face and asks "dju wanna brek?" Number one indicator that he is all kinds of fucked up is that I am wearing a black shirt, obviously doing to go, and the breaker doesn't break to go people. Last time he came in drunk he did the same thing, then came and asked me again about 2 minutes later. So anyway, after I remind him that he doesn't break me, he starts poking my upper arm really hard while starting  blankly at it.
"Uh, OW? Can you stop that?"
"Yur a whiney liddle thing aren't cha?"
Another of our coworkers is walking by him just looking tired like everyone always does and he looks at her and says
"You look like hell runover there sunshine"
Fucking great, he is drunk and he's being especially ornery, this will be interesting. He walks around with a shit-eating grin on his face, running food and bothering people. Starts asking the line cooks if their nipples ever get sore...? I go into the side station to get some coffee and he follows me.
"You know, I'm surprised you're not more fit. When you get to be thirty you gotta try harder to get fit. I'd poke your leg but I'd probably get into trouble"
At this point I am just trying to ignore him
"When I moved here from bellingham I was rock solid from all the rock climbing and hiking and whatnot everyone does there"
"Yeah, well I'm not really into all that"
"well...how old are you?"
I ignore him
"I'm gonna go away just tell me real fast"
"I'm 25"
"okay"
he goes back into the alley.
A minute later I also go back to the alley and start expo-ing with my trainee, going a little slower than usual because I am taking time to show her each dish and explain what is in it. He's standing next to me for some goddamn reason, hmming and hawing.
"goddamnit I'm losing my patience here"
"What exactly is it that you are waiting for? Do you need something?"
"Uh, I dunno, God I guess"
"Well you think you could go wait somewhere else?"
At this point I am getting really fucking annoyed because not only is he being rude and obnoxious but he is literally following me and trying to think of rude obnoxious things to say. He even follows me with a tray when the person who's table it is wanted to take it just so he can harass me. We get back to the window in the alley.
"Man, I don't know why I thought you were 30, I guess it must be the lines under the eyes"
"Thanks a lot, that's really nice of you to point that out to me, that's really great."
Now I am just raving mad, I am sick of his shit, and though I am not one to "tattle" on people, I am also not one to sit there and let some drunk asshole tell me that I am out of shape and I look old. So I grab crazy GM and tell her
"Dude is drunk or something, he's being a jerk, saying rude things to everyone and she is literally following me around and saying mean things to me, he needs to go. NOW."
"Okay, okay I'll talk to him"
I go back to expo and she immediately asks to talk to him in the office. They are in there for like 5 minutes then he come out, clocks out and goes. GM comes to me and says she's really sorry that that happened and that he apparently thought he was being funny and fun and trying to entertain people, and that she tried not to tell him who talked to her, but he pretty much knew it was me.
Great.
I'm just hoping he will realize he was being an ass cause he was drunk and just let it go. Out in the world our friends or acquaintances are drunk fuckers all the time and we just let it slide. But when you are at work and you have to involve a manager it's a very different story. Time goes on, the restaurant slows down and we start checking servers out. The phone rings, so my trainee answers it.
"oh, okay, hold on a second"
"It's drunk dude!"
"What?"
"He wants to talk to you!"

Oh god. This is the last thing I want. I am a a very non-confrontational person (though I may not come off that way) and I would really rather just let it go and never mention it again. I really really don't want to talk to him. So my trainee says "you want me to talk to him and pretend to be you?" and I'm thinking, okay, that is the lamest 8th grade thing ever, but I really don't want to talk to him and he probably wont remember it anyway so whatever "Go ahead, just don't really say anything" She picks back up, pretends to be me, and just says "uh huh, uh huh" a few times, then "okay, we'll I appreciate your apologizing and I will just see you next time we work together. Bye" She tells me he said he was really sorry he invaded my space and that he was just joking and he thought I was someone he could joke around with like he does with the guys, but he was wrong and he's sorry.

The thing is that I AM someone you can joke around with. I love pitching people shit, making fun of them in jest, and I can take it as much as I can dish it out. But telling a woman that she is fat and looks old is NOT playful joking around, that's just mean and something he only did because he was fucking drunk. He would NEVER have said any of those things to me if he weren't three sheets to the wind.

A while later he called back again, this time to talk to crazy GM. As far as I was aware, she sent him home because he was being mean, not because he was drunk, because of course GM has no idea how to tell when someone is drunk, and she is so naive it's painful. That actually really pissed me off because as far as I was concerned, the issue was his inebriation, and his behavior was just a symptom of that. But that's how she rolls. Anyway, at the end of the night I asked her what he called back for and she told me that he called to tell her he apologized to me which she had specifically told him not to do, but rather to just let it go. She also told me at that time that when she pulled him into the office to send him home that she did mention that alcohol issue, and told him that other times people have complained about him being rude and obnoxious and have said that they thought he was drunk, so that she would now be "watching" him. We all know what that means. Absolutely nothing.

What kind of pisses me off more than anything is that he gets drunk, drives to work, then drives home. Drunk driving enrages me like none other. He is just an ultra douche.

And I have to work with him tonight. I really really hope he just acts like nothing happens and doesn't talk to me. I have a feeling I wont be so lucky.