Italian Restaurant/Party Planning Service/Postman etc.

Just walked into the kitchen, about a minute late for my togo shift. Flustered, trying to get ready. Cuff sleeves, put on apron, find swipe card, clock in, get cat hair off entire outfit. The phone rings.

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

"Yes, I just came in and bougt a gift card and left it in the bar for Nancy McCann when she comes to get her order, and I was wondering, when she comes to pick it up COULD YOU SING TO HER?!"

Confused...

"Uh, I'm sorry, have you talked to a manager about this?"

"Oh, I've talked to a few people about it. I just came in and bought a 15 dollar giftcard and left it with a birthday card for her. She is going to come in between 4:30 and 5 to get a togo order. You'll know it's her because she's hearing impaired. I just forgot to ask when I was there if when you gave her the card you could SING HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO HER?!!!"

Several thoughts. Envisioning myself singing to someone in the lobby. Bad. This woman is also hearing impaired, so singing loudly. Very bad. Don't want to say no because this lady is really excited about the prospect of us SINGING TO HER! Decide to just give a somewhat affirmative but not promising answer, then blame it on someone else if it goes to hell. Bad plan.

"Uh...I suppose we could probably work something out..."

"Oh, my, COULD YOU?! Cause it's her birthday and that would really just top it off! Oh Thank you so much, THIS IS GREAT!"

I have a feeling something bad just happened. I find the bartender who she said sold her the giftcard. Yes, it's up at the host stand in an envelope with the birthday card. They have been instructed to give it to a woman with a hearing impairment. I tell her about the singing thing.

"We can't do that. The new policy is that if the guest starts singing, we can accompany them, but you can't just sing it to her."

This is because we got rid of the rediculous song we used to sing to people on special occasions. Now if they start singing "happy birthday" we can accompany them, but since the song is copyrighted and we are corporate, we legally can't just walk up to some possibly deaf woman and sing happy birthday to her.

Great.

So I tell the manager and he says "well have fun singing" which really means "fuck no I'm having nothing to do with this."

I try to get the hosts to do it and they just give me a blank look, apparently also not interested in humiliating themselves. So I figure, worst case scenario, the lady asks her friend if we sang and she says no, so she calls back angry (when I'm not there). But since she didn't pay for a service or anything, she has no grounds for being upset.

Just after 5, I get paged up front for an order, and it's our birthday gal. She is holding a card, but she doesn't look in any way excited, says nothing about it, far as I can tell she couldn't give a crap about her friends master scheme to give her a great birthday. She orders, takes ten years to decide on a dessert, I go to the back to ring it in. The phone rings.

"Hi, this is crazy bitch, I was wondering, DID NANCY MCCANN COME GET HER ORDER YET?!"

Shit.

"Yes, actually, she's here now, she just placed her order."

"ooooooohhhhhhh, did you SING TO HER!?"

"Uh, I acutally found out that we can't really do that because of policy, we can only sing when someone else starts, I'm sorry."

Her voice drops to a growl

"oh, I wish you would have told me that."

"I'm so sorry, we weren't aware at the time."

"You guys really disappoint me sometimes."

"I'm so sorry."

Her voice picks back up

"Well was she EXCITED when you gave it to her?!"

"I'm actually not sure, I wasn't the one who handed it to her, the hosts did, I can go ask them what her reaction was if you'd like."

The growl is back.

"Nevermind. Bye." Click.

Seriously? WTF? This is a fucking restaurant, not a telegram service! We are not obliged to make sure your stupid friend gets her gift card at all, much less sing to the bitch. A lot of places wouldn't have held on to the card at all for fear of losing it and being liable, but that wasn't enough you need a damn song and dance or you are "really disappointed." I let the managers know and they both thought she was a psycho hose beast and claimed they would tell her so if she called back. But of course what they would really do is appologize up and down for my performance and send her a giftcard so she could come back and be a bitch and complain some more. Yippy.