I worked another double shift today (Sunday 5/4). I wasn’t planning on doing it, but I picked up for Miz J this morning because she helped me out Thursday night.
The drawback (or so I initially thought): I was to work in the dining room, and I did work in the dining room. After almost 3 and a half hours of sleep, I managed to get up and motivated this morning and actually got to work on time. They didn’t even have me on the floor plan in the dining room at first, so after remaking it and being forced into our “raised dining” area (seating that’s a few steps higher than the rest of the dining room, mainly for parties but has some booths), I was ready to start my shift.
My first table was a party of 6, a couple of grandparents and an aunt, and three little girls. One of the girls was celebrating her 12th birthday, so I just couldn’t help but to have a bit of fun with them. The grandparents and her aunt were a little bland with no personality but the girls were having fun.
The birthday girl, a little bit of a chubby girl, seemed a bit embarrassed to talk to me for some reason, so I had to open her up. First thing out of my mouth when I found out it was her birthday was, “So you’re 16 today? When are you going to take your driving test.” That got her giggling and blushing, and from there we had fun. She let me know it was her 12th birthday and she and her sister were visiting her grandparents and aunt, and her aunts adopted daughter. I got their orders in, and I found out that even though our kids cheeseburger is just that, a plain cheeseburger with fries, people still let me know that they want a “plain cheeseburger”. What I didn’t know about a plain cheeseburger is that it has no cheese. That makes it a hamburger people!
After I got the orders in, Birthday wanted to open her presents. Grandma told her she had to have my permission first. “Can I? Can I?” she asked, all kinds of excited and making me remember what it was like to be a kid. “Nope, not yet,” I replied, which she pointedly ignored. I left them to the presents, and went about my business.
I kept making her blush throughout the meal, and even though one of the cheeseburgers was supposed to be a hamburger that I was supposed to telepathically pull from their heads, I still made 28 bucks from them. It was a total of 70 bucks between the two checks, and I was completely surprised. Before they left, Birthday girl came up and hugged me, and wanted to take a picture with me. First table of the day and I was blushing.
I had a few filler tables before the other servers came in, and then I was in my boring section. I had two tables total in my actual section, one a party of 7 and one of them a couple from out of town. The couple came in while I was on break, and waited until I got there to get anything from the bar. As usual, I made the lady blush by asking if she was really old enough to drink. Clearly, she was at least in her 30’s, but it’s nice to see them smile sometimes. She was so happy when I suggested a chocolate martini, she’d never heard of one. They promised to come see me before they went home.
The next party, the 7 top, was a bunch of young 20’s guys and girls. I went up to them like I do everyone else, happy and fun. They got a few drinks from the bar, and I managed to convince them to get appetizers. I wasn’t too happy that it was only 7 people, figuring that they were young and I wasn’t getting a tip without gratuity, but I made the best of the situation. I stayed up there talking to them, and that’s when I learned that this group comes in every couple of weeks or so.
Not getting into the details of making sure they had drinks full, and making sure everything was right the entire time while actually asking how they were and what they did for work, I learned a few things from this table. Along with the fact that they come in a lot, I learned that they’ve never eaten in the game room or bowling alley, only in the dining room. It’s always the same 7 people that come in, some work together, but they’re all really good friends. Two couples, and three singles. They’ve been friends since childhood apparently.
I learned that when they eat in the dining room, the servers don’t really care about them. It’s always taken them forever to get refills, their food doesn’t come out right sometimes, they get rude and unfriendly service all the time. They told me over and over how wonderful my service was, how nice I was, how great I was. Talk about an ego boost. They enjoyed my service, as opposed to the normal dining room servers. They never knew that they could eat in our game room or bowling alley (where I normally work) and after telling my management how good I was and how happy they were compared to their normal visits, they promised to try and find me every time they come in. I was really touched for some reason, maybe because coming from them it didn’t sound as hollow as most of the game room guests I get that say they’ll come back and never do. Don’t get me wrong, I have my regulars but I have a ton of people who say they’ll be regulars and never come back. It touched me that these people asked me to sit with them and have lunch, and wanted to know how my day was. It touched me that they also took pictures with me, just like Birthday Girl did, and that the ladies hugged me and the guys shook my hand. Almost makes me miss working in a dining room setting full time. It also concerned me a little, because I was just doing what I normally do when I serve, and they were so impressed. Are my dining room servers really that unfriendly? Are they really so lazy as to not take an empty glass when they bring a new one? I’ll be investigating this further as I pick up extra shifts in the front. (they also tipped me fabulously, 50 bucks on 130)
Another table that made me happy today was on the 2nd half of my shift, when I was back in my home, the game room. There was a family that came in, Dareeta the Mother, Jamario the son, LaGordon the other son, and Thompson the Father. It was their first time, they were from Kentucky. At first, when I saw Dareeta (real name) with gold on top and bottom of her mouth, I prejudged. I won’t lie. I thought they’d be trouble, especially when Dareeta was on her phone and LaGordon had his ipod on during the first half. However, I took the time to talk to them. I got Dareeta a bottle of white zin, and just treated them like normal guests. Like my party earlier in the day, they wanted me to sit with them and eat. They smiled, they laughed. I got Dareeta and Thompson on the DDR game before they left. They tipped almost 20 bucks on a 90 dollar bill, and thanked me for making their “first expurrince” at our restaurant a great one.
Then we come to the stupid. We have the stupid Ribeye who overserved an older guy to the point he fell asleep standing up with a pool cue in his hand. I was scolded for it, but nothing else because I got them a cab home.
The last table of the night was the only one that really pissed me off. It was a group of ghetto young adults, none over 26. One girl, pregnant, her name Sheleetia, had a look on her face like she had something shoved up her ass the wrong way. Her boyfriend, LaSamuel, had tats all over his arms and fake gold all in his mouth. The other couple, Lasquanda (the only nice one of the group) and her boyfriend, a big fat stupid son of a bitch corn row having bastard named Jearl.
I didn’t think they were going to eat at first, until they came up to me and Jearl says, “You who we orda da foo from?”
“Well, yes, if you’re sitting at the tables. I’m the only one here right now, so I’m not serving the games tonight.” So they sit at a table. I get over there, and after 10 minutes of explaining that our lemonade is just pink and not strawberry, I finally get drink orders from three of them. Jearl, however, is having issues ordering his drink.
“Ya’ll juice get free refill?” I tell him no, that I have to charge full price for each glass. “Ya’ll gots appa juice?” I once again have to answer in the negative, which brings the following question. “If ya’ll got dat appa mahtini, why ya’ll ain’ got appa juice?”
“Because the apple martini is made with apple pucker, not apple juice.” I then have to remind him about 8 times that the juices are not free refills.
They finally order food, after changing the menu to suit their wants. Jearl orders a chicken alfredo. While they’re waiting (this is 30 minutes before kitchen closes), he takes every opportunity to yell at me wondering where his foods at, all the while throwing out what I learned to be “Crip” signs with his hands. I don’t know one gang from the next, but one of my cooks set me straight. Fuck if I care about a Crip, I only care about a tip. After 10 minutes of his badgering me about his food, I was forced to tell him, “It’s cooking, when it’s done, you’ll be eating. I can’t make the grill cook any faster,” and walked off. Their food finally comes out after 16 minutes, which is good for that time of night.
Jearl waits until he’s finished half of his pasta before he asks me for “some mo’ of dat sketty sauce dat’s on dis.” Then he gets pissed off that I have to charge for it. It takes about 6 minutes to come out, and that pisses him off even more. He starts demanding free dessert for his long wait, after I warned him it’d take a bit of time to get the sauce because the kitchen is about to close and they do the alfredo in a skillet making it take longer.
“You’re not getting any free dessert, you’re still eating your food.”
“You ain’ da managah is you? Get da managah ovah here, we see what day give me.” Manager S the Fibromyalgiapod comes by, and takes the food from him. No free dessert, but has the kitchen recook his pasta and send it to go.
Check time. Jearl’s check was 40.66 and the other couple was 20.79. Jearl gives me 40.20 and tells me to keep the change. “Sir, you still owe me 46 cents so there is no keeping the change here.” He counts out another 20 cents, and starts to walk off. “Are you going to pay the correct amount of your bill or what, sir? Can you not read what the price says?” Maybe I struck a nerve there, but he started getting pissed off. “Never mind, sir, that damn quarter ain’t hurting my pocket any.” I knew he wasn’t going to tip when he didn’t even pay the right amount.
All in all, except for the last table of the night, I had a really good double. You all also got to see the reasons that I do enjoy my job in this post. I don’t always have people that piss me off, and today was one of those days. It’s rare that more than one group a week makes me feel good, but to have three in one day make me feel awesome, make my head grow even larger, and make me blush is unheard of. Those three groups made me happy at work for a change, their tips sure helped, but even had they tipped 12% I’d have still been happy with them.
See, serving isn’t all bad! And some of you wonder why I still do it.
Ribeye
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