As you all know from a couple of posts ago, I had a “fun” weekend last week.  Issues with the Expo line, stupid guests, lots of little slutty looking girls that didn’t look old enough to drive much less act like they were and wear what they did.  I saw more camel toes last weekend than I have the entire time at the “Restaurant that shant be named”.  Last Friday night, much like most of the recent Friday nights, I ended up in the bowling/billiard areas of my job.  I hate being in those areas on the weekends because they get even more people who’ve caught the dumbass than normal.  At least in the game room there are still some normal people.

One of my first tables of the night provided a great deal of happiness for me.  Not because they left me a big tip (they didn’t leave anything for me except a complaint), but because they thought they were smarter than I was.

Approaching the table, I see a foreign looking couple.  From a distance they look to be Latin but when I got closer I could see they were Kurds.  Everyone knows that I hate serving Kurds because they don’t tip for shit, but I couldn’t get out of it.  That early in the shift, it was just me on the floor.  Trying not to groan as I walked up to them, I put the most fake smile I possibly could onto my face.   “Hey guys, how ya’ll doing this afternoon.”  I use my hick accent to it’s fullest advantage sometimes, namely because tourists love it.  I used it this time because I was in a mood.

“We tursty,” the guy said with his heavy accent.  I always wonder if Kurdish people just can’t pronounce the th sound or if they’re just trying to be smart.  I wonder the same thing about many black people when it comes to the word ask.

“Well sir, it’s Happy Hour if you would like to get something from our bar.”  I’m still pouring it on even though I’m starting to think I’ve waited on these two before, the girl has really bushy and long red hair and she looks very familiar.

“Bring me someting….exotic,” Adawallah responds.  I decide to bring him something fruity.

“That’s no problem sir, I just need to see your ID first.  And ma’am, what would you like to drink this afternoon?”  I ask, turning to Amatullah of the Bushy Hair and grabbing Adawallah’s ID all at once.

“Bring me shot of Bailey’s.”  If nothing else, these mother fuckers were concise.  No please, no Can I have?, no I would like.  Just Bring this now!  I hate that attitude.

“Would you like that straight up or on the rocks, ma’am?”

“On rocks.”

“Have you got your ID on you, ma’am?”  I ask, somehow already knowing the answer.  She might have long and bushy hair, but Amatullah certainly did not look to be any older than 14 years of age.  She starts digging through her pockets, all one and a half of them, for her ID and manages to fish out a debit card.  She hands me the debit card and tells me “We want start tab,” then goes back to playing her game.

“Ma’am, I would certainly love to start a tab for the two of you but I cannot serve your Bailey’s without seeing your ID first.”

“It must be in car,” she says while racking the next game of pool.

“Would you like to go get it?”  I asked, wondering if she really expected me to bring her drink without it.

“Just go ahead and bring her drink, you see my ID already,” Adawallah chimes in.

I turn to him, “I can’t serve her a drink until I see her ID for it.  Would you like to go and get it from the car for her or does she just not have one?”

“It is in car.  Bring her drink and we get ID later.”

“No, sir, I can’t do that.  Ma’am, would you like me to bring you a coke or tea for now?”  I ask.  I can see the look of hate in her eyes, she knows I know she’s not legal now.

“No, I will be fine.”  That’s quite fine with me.  I go and get his drink and drop it off.  I hang around for a minute to see if they want anything to munch on while they play.  They don’t order anything, and are even shorter with me than they were to begin with.  I guess I really did piss them off.

I decide to keep an eye on them while they play, knowing that she is going to drink out of his drink.  At that time of the day, my only guests are in the billiard room so hanging around to keep an eye on them isn’t a real problem.  I wander through every few minutes or so, mostly making it look like I’m cleaning, occasionally checking on other guests.  Finally, I catch this bitch with the drink in her hand.  I let the manager know, who says she needs to see it before I can take it.  I tell her that she has to keep an eye on them then, and let someone else answer manager calls for a few minutes.

When I go back to check on them again, she’s had more of his drink and it’s a little over half empty.  “Ya’ll doing alright over here?” I ask.

“I no like this drink, I want someting else,” Adawallah tells me, holding it up and shaking it a little.

“That’s fine, sir, let me take this one out of your way then.” I reach out to grab the first drink, and he pulls it away from me.

“I will keep this.”

“But sir, if you don’t like it then why would you want to keep and pay for it?  I’ll just take it out of your way for you and you won’t have to deal with it anymore.”

“Bring me Bailey’s on rocks and I will finish this one.”  When he orders the Bailey’s a red flag pops up in my head and I respond accordingly.

“Sir, I’m not bringing you a shot of Bailey’s, I’m sorry.”  I make to grab the first drink again and he pulls it away from me again.

“Why not?” he asks me with a knowing smile on his face.

“I’m not bringing it because it’s the exact same drink that she ordered, and she has failed to produce proper ID for me.  I’ll gladly bring you something else, but I’m not going to bring a drink that you’re clearly going to give to her.”

He doesn’t try to order another drink, and as I walk off, I guess just to piss me off even more, I see the girl pick up the fruity drink and take a big swallow from it.  Seeing that, I go and grab my manager again.  I let her know what’s going on, and that I’m not going to serve him a shot of Bailey’s that is going to go directly down his girlfriends throat.  She goes and speaks with the guests and comes back.  She tells me that the guy made it quite clear the Bailey’s was for him, and that she made it quite clear that his girlfriend had to have ID to drink and if she was caught drinking out of either the fruity drink I served first, or the Bailey’s that was about to be served, that I would be removing both drinks, they would pay for both drinks, they would pay for their billiards, and they would leave the building.

I don’t like being told I have to serve a guest alcohol, especially when it’s my liquor license on the line if something happens but out of respect for the manager and the fact that TN is a Right to Hire/Fire state, I went ahead and did it.  At least I knew that I’d be able to snatch a drink from them, and that made me happy.

I dropped the Bailey’s off with them and started the waiting game.  I hovered for a little while, let the front desk employees know what was going on, and let the other cocktail servers know what was going on.  If this bitch so much as picked the drink up, they were to let me know so I could take it away from them.

She avoided it for a while,  even when she didn’t know I was watching.  For a split second I wondered if he really did order it for himself, being that he was the only one drinking it.  Then I noticed something:  I noticed that the drink was never getting shorter despite him bringing it to his lips a number of times.  That just made me more diligent.  I had to serve a couple of guests in bowling during this, so I didn’t have my eyes on her the entire time, but when I was up at the host stand, I glanced over to see her pick up the drink and try to kill it.  I nearly ran over to them to get it away before she finished it.  I was happy to notice that when I got there, the straw was still at her lips and I was in time.

I grabbed the drink from her as she was sucking it out of the straw, and it splashed all over her.  That brought me a certain amount of satisfaction.  “What you doing?” she shouted at me.

“You were already told by both myself and my manager that you had to have your ID to drink.  You failed to show either of us a proper form of ID.  You were also told that if you were caught drinking that you would have to pay your tab, pay for your pool and leave.  I’m going to need you to pay for your drinks now.  Would you like to use the credit card I’m holding or would you like to pay cash?”

“We pay cash,” Adawallah said, stepping in front of her before she had a chance to say anything else to me.  He held out a 20 dollar bill to me.  I took it and went to get his change.  I put his change and the credit card I’d been holding on to into a check presenter and left it with them, telling them they had 10 minutes to leave the premises.  I then went to clock out for a break and smoke.  I almost made it out the back door when a manager stops me and pulls me back in.  The guest has stopped at the host stand to bitch about me and accuse me of stealing their credit card.  Manager B the Wise is getting the third degree from these assholes, and I actually feel kind of sorry for him.  I don’t like dealing with them either!  I run back up to the front, and let Manager B the Wise know that their credit card was in the check book that I’d put the change into.  They got their card, almost pissed off that I hadn’t stolen it and given them a reason to bitch at me.

Too bad I was in the right with the situation.  Everyone knows how much of a hardass I am about checking ID.  I’m not letting anyone else slide, so why am I going to let someone who looks like they’re still a teenager slide?  I’m not losing my job over something stupid.

Ribeye

No tag for this post yet.

I have had another exhausting day today…another double shift.  I went in at 12 today, originally scheduled off at 10 pm.  When I got to work, the managers were asking if I have a phone.  An odd question seeing as how they have my phone number listed in my file.  I change numbers a bit often for my liking, but I always make sure to update, can’t take the chance on missing out on money.  Apparently they were trying to call me and tell me they didn’t need me till 4.  I couldn’t afford to leave, so I convinced someone else to go home and come back later.

After staying up late Saturday night, despite my trying to sleep, I went in exhausted.  It was dead during the first couple of hours and that didn’t help my exhaustion.  I didn’t even have time to get any Red Bull before I went to work.

I went through the normal motions I go through, waking up naturally and getting annoying guests that tipped 10% or less.  We started getting busy later in the day, about 2:30.  That’s when I started making money.  Other than my feet getting blistered though, nothing bad really happened….

Until the night shift….

Every month, on the last Sunday of the month, we have a group that comes in.  I don’t know what the significance of the end of the month is, but it never fails.  The entire young Kurdish community of Nashville comes to my job.  They’ve been doing it since I started my job over a year and a half ago.  Ever since I started, there’s been a group of this community that I have to deal with.  It never fails.

This portion of their little “family” gives me some type of problem every time they come in.  In the beginning, when we still allowed smoking, we didn’t allow cloves or cigars.  It was a corporate thing that I never really understood, but it was a rule.  Some of the guys happen to smoke cloves, and got very pissed off at me when I used to put them out.  They bitched about every little thing, from having to pay an upcharge to go from a cheap side to an expensive one, to having to pay by the hour when they bowled.

It doesn’t matter if I happen to be in the bowling/billiards area or in the game room, they always end up with me.

Tonight (Sunday) happened to be that night again, and I didn’t even realize it until I heard the quacking of their voices.  I looked to see where the strange noise was coming from and my good night suddenly got bad.  I prayed they weren’t going to sit in my section.  There are about 24 of them that gravitate toward my section when they’re there and sure enough tonight was no different.  Half of them didn’t order, the other half ordered one thing at a time.  Not as a group, where it would have been easier.

They spread out across my section, taking up 5 of my 8 tables.  Only the people at 2 of the tables chose to order anything tonight, the other three were just hanging out.  Being that they were a party of more than 8 people, I had to put a gratuity on the checks.  *note* We got a memo at work recently saying that we no longer have a choice at whether we put a gratuity on a check or not.  If it’s 8 people, they get a grat no matter what.

They didn’t like the gratuity.  The first couple of checks I delivered had 5 of the 9 orders on them.  I dropped the checks and walked to the kitchen to pick up some of their food.  When I got back, Bartender B pulled me aside.  “They are pissed off that you put a gratuity on their checks, they say you have to have 8 people for a grat and there’s only 4 at the table.”  Well yeah, of course there are only 4 people at their table, they aren’t piled in to the point of bursting anymore.  At any rate, another part of the memo was that we have no choice but to remove a grat if the guest asks.

I hunt down Manager B the Wise and have him exempt the grat.  I then try to explain to them that I had no choice in the grat, that despite them sitting at different tables, they were still one big party.  They didn’t care.

They left me exact change.  I got no compensation on the 110 dollar check and I did everything right.

I hate Kurds.  Not all of them, just some of them.  The ones I have on a monthly basis have a harsh smell and a superiority complex.  I don’t like being around them, but nobody else will pick them up.  They see how I get treated, and I get stuck.

I think next month I’m going to exercise my legal right to refuse service to them.  I’m not even going to care if they call me a racist because of it.  I’m tired of being shit on by these fuckers.  Let them go to a restaurant that caters to their nationality.  I’m tired of them changing every single thing they order to something completely different than what’s in the menu.  I’m tired of the attitudes.

Right now, I’m just plain tired!!!!!!  I’m going to take care of that problem in a few minutes though.  The toilet calls, and the RagingPartner needs cuddlings, and I just plain need sleep.

I’ll post something tomorrow so until then…make sure to check out the Horror Stories page, and submit your own from there.  I can only update as long as you all send them to me.  I put up a new one earlier, bringing the grand total to 4.

Enjoy,

Ribeye

Tags: asshole, bad tips, bitchery, cigar, clan, clove, community, family, foreign, fuckers, gratuity, group, Hell, Kurd, Kurdish, language, odor, party, quacking, smell, smoker, smoking, stink, tip, tipping