We all have them, we all hate working with them and most of us just plain hate them. They are the managers that have the beady little eyes and the hateful “numbers only” attitudes. They are the managers that will force you to serve alcohol without seeing an ID from the guest, they are the managers who don’t back you up when you have a problem with a guest, and they are the managers who make you come to work with a 102 degree fever because you couldn’t find anyone to cover your shift when you tried to call out 6 hours beforehand per the corporate procedure.

As any of you who have read my recent posts know, I had an issue with my GM on the expo line a couple of weeks ago. Now, I’m not only having a problem with him on expo, I’m having a problem with him in the FOH (Front of House for the non-indusriers). This manager is not well liked by the staff, not so much because he’s making changes in our store but because he’s making the wrong changes.

My issue with him last night stemmed from one of those changes. Formerly, servers where I work were allowed to take parties of up to 25 guests by themselves. Now, we have to have a partner if there are more than 15 guests. I have no problem with that rule if the servers are newly validated, or cannot handle that quantity of guests, however for those of us who are experienced and have been with the company for a while and can handle that volume, I hate the rule.

Last night, there was a call-ahead party of 18 that was going to be coming into the bowling alley. It was decided that I would be partnering with Mr. N for this party, because of this new “company” policy put into place by my GM. I wasn’t happy about having to split the party, but I didn’t bitch. We had their three lanes put on hold and I stood around to wait until they showed up.

An hour later, they start arriving, and I find out it’s going to be 5 adults and 13 kids. The adults are drinking top shelf drinks and liquor from the bar, including : Glenlivet on the rocks, Johnnie Walker Black, Gran Marnier, Patron, Belvedere, and Chivas Regal. The kids were all drinking bottles of root beer, making for plenty of extra charges because refills aren’t free. Both Mr. N and I still had our sections to take care of along with the party. Mr. N’s section got filled up, and I was taking care of the 18 by myself. Not a problem, I was enjoying it and the kids were having fun. I introduced one of them to a kid that plays on Hannah Montana and she was thrilled. Mr. N decided to let me keep the party alone because he was so busy.

They bowled for almost 2 hours, ran up a tab of 380 bucks without their gratuity. They had a total of 32 appetizers. When they were done bowling, I still had some stuff left on their lane to clean up, napkins, glasses and a few plates. I’d been prebussing the whole time. They left me a hundred dollars over the gratuity, knowing the gratuity was there. It wasn’t like they didn’t think I was getting tipped, they knew what they were doing. I made a killing off that party. Total, including what goes on my check, 160 bucks. I was thrilled, and they wouldn’t shut up about how awesome I was (making my head bigger), and how accommodating we were, and how awesome our restaurant was. I don’t get such great tips all the time, much less get awesome comments like theirs were, so when I got them I made sure to let my manager, Manager S the Feminine, know what they thought so she could catch them before they left and do a “table visit”.

About that time, Soulless GM walks up to Manager S. He looks at the lanes where the party was playing and sees what I’ve got left to clean up. I let him know what all happened, and how happy I was to have gotten such a great tip and compliment. He asks who all worked the party, and Manager S explains that it was just me because of Mr. N getting slammed.

Manager S received “chastisement” for allowing me to take a party of such size alone going against our policy and giving the guest such bad service.  I walk up about that time, and he turns to me and says “That’s why we put more dan one server on a party of that size, so you don’t give such sloppy service.”  Had he been joking, it wouldn’t have bothered me so much.

He wasn’t joking.  He doesn’t really know how to joke around.  This fucker actually thought that I was a bad server, despite the extra Benjamin Franklin I got on the party, and the compliments I received.  I asked him what he meant with his comment and he replied, “Look at that lane, you didn’t prebus or clean up anything while they were here!”

I always prebus.  I scream at others to prebus.  I didn’t get the last bit because they were finishing up and cashing out.  I let him know how many plates they had and why there were still some on the lane.  “You call that prebussing?” he asks.   “Yes, sir, I do.  I can’t take plates they’re still eating from or glasses they’re still drinking from.  You try serving 13 kids and see how well you do!”

The guest was standing behind him as he talked shit about me to my face, and the guest was not happy with his comments.

My manager wonders why the morale of our store is so fucking low right now, it’s because of comments like the ones he made last night.   What he said in front of other servers, another manager, my guests, and to me in the middle of our bowling area was rude, it was unprofessional, and it was hurtful.  I work my ass off for him, and this is how I’m treated.  I’m basically told that I’m a bad server because I didn’t prebus every single plate they had when they were eating right up until the time they paid and left!

This is why I’m out looking for another place to serve and/or bartend.  I would have tried bartending here except they won’t be flexible with my hours and training hours and I can’t afford to give up job #2 for a position I might not make cash in.  I’d love to be a bartender but I can’t afford it.

My stress level can’t afford this GM much longer either, I’ll end up snapping on him and getting myself fired, thereby ruining a great job reference for nearly 2 years of hard work in one spot.

I guess we’ll see how things go.

Ribeye

This post has been too long in coming, and for that I apologize.  Working two jobs is Hell on my schedule.

This past weekend, we got busy.  Not just busy, we got our asses stomped into the ground.  It started when I went in on Friday.  I’d just gotten off work from Job #2, at 3:30 pm, and walked into Job #1, the Restaurant at 4.  I enter, wondering just when I started being unhappy when coming to work

When I come on, I’m told that the closers are not going to be in until 6:30 or later, leaving me with two very new ladies and one semi-new lady that tends to freak a bit when she gets busy.  I choose to treat the closing server’s sections as “pick up” sections, meaning any of us that had time would continue to pick up the tables that sat in those sections.

All looked to be pretty simple at first,  we started out dead.  A couple of tables go down in the other sections, so myself and Ms. M the newest both step up to the plate and pick them up.  Another goes down in one of the open sections, and Ms. M greets them.  I notice that Ms. M has 3 tables, one of them very ghetto, and she’s started to get a bit flustered.  Let me tell you something about Ms. M.  I LOVE Ms. M.  She’s not one of the younger crowd that’s been getting hired lately, and she’s not a brainless drunk like most of those that have been hired lately.  She’s coming from a bar up north where she was a bartender and didn’t have to deal with a computer system like we have, or an extensive menu like we have.  I can understand why she gets frustrated, it’s a lot to take in when you haven’t done it in a while.

Ms. M has also been quite disappointed lately with the money we’re making.  I can’t blame her there either because I was making double what I am now last summer.   Ms. M started freaking out a bit at 3 tables because she’s not used to it, and another went down.  I didn’t know she was getting in the weeds so when I noticed it, I immediately jumped in and started picking up the tables on her side of the game room.  Somehow, I ended up with 8 tables by the time the closers finally show up.

Ms. A and Mr. S show up, and I’m slammed and behind.  The kitchen has crashed and food is taking forever.  I’m guessing they weren’t expecting to get busy.  I wasn’t either based on the past few weeks.  They walk up about the time I’m asking people to get ice cream for milkshakes from the kitchen.  Ms. A has an overnight party she’s trying to get out of working.  “Ms. A, can you run to the kitchen real quick and grab enough ice cream for two shakes, this ticket is already running 10 minutes.”

“Well….I’ll do it if you’ll do something for me…”  I assume she means closing for her, which I can’t do as I have to be up at 7am the next day to make sure I’m awake to get to work by 9.  Now you see why I’m so tired all the damn time.  I reply, “I can’t tonight, Ms. A, I’m sorry.  Can you get the ice cream or not?”  She doesn’t answer, but walks away to talk to another server leaving me fuming and ready to snap her little head off.  This is the girl who says “I’m so much older than 18 mentally and emotionally, I’ve been through so much more than anyone else my age.”  What the fuck ever, honey, every 18 year old says that, no matter what they have to go through.  We all grew up too fast, so stop whining and do your job.

Ten minutes later, I’m still wondering why nobody has gotten me any ice cream.  I’m now asking managers to go, and none of them have time to do it because they are dealing with the fuckups of all our new serving staff they shouldn’t have hired.  Keep the vets on the weekends, put the newbies on the day shifts.  During all of this, it’s now 5 minutes till 7 and I’m still waiting on appetizers that I put in at 6 and earlier.  I didn’t even realize things had been in the kitchen for so long because I didn’t have a chance to look at a clock other than for the milkshakes.

Finally, after 10 more minutes, I manage to convince Ms. A to get the fucking ice cream, after yelling at her that I was serious about needing it and she was standing around doing nothing.  That’s not really too new for her, she’s one of a new breed of server that embarrasses me to no end, the lazy bugs.   The two shakes that I literally waited for 30 minutes to get because I couldn’t get to the kitchen myself for ice cream have now been bought for the table, as well as the two appetizers that took nearly 40 minutes.  Now that I’m more caught up, I run to the kitchen to yell about the food I’m missing for the other 6 tables that are waiting.

Then I see something I always dread:  The General Manager has taken a position on the Expo Line.  General Managers are not supposed to work in the kitchen, they are purely in the restaurant for show.  They are supposed to stay away from us peons, and from his little Demi-Managers that work the floor, safe in the office doing administrative things.  When they get in the kitchen, the General Manager will always get a type of power trip when it comes to the expo line because they always think they know how things are supposed to be.

This GM is no different.  I’d been wondering why a couple of my tables got chicken sandwiches instead of wings, and a table got a gardenburger instead of a cheeseburger.  I’d been wondering why instead of cheese sticks a table got potato wedges.  They don’t look anything alike, especially not on the KDS expo screen we use.

None of that really matters though, because the GM can do no wrong when he/she is working the expo window.  They never send out the wrong food because they are “incapable” of making a mistake.  This one is worse than normal, because he doesn’t just fuck up a couple of times in the shift, he stays on the line and fucks us out of our money all fucking night long!  Not only that, but if you try to ask him the ETA on a table’s food, you get your head chewed off and spit into the ground.

THIS one had the nerve to tell us that he read the tickets correctly, and that we were just ringing in the wrong orders.  We were the ones fucking up apparently, not them.  We were the ones who were ringing up potato wedges instead of cheese sticks, despite the ticket clearly showing the correct order and the inept food runners (all except for one) not caring and still running the food like little Latin drones.

Needless to say, Friday night was Hell.  It was pure Ghetto and Redneck Hell, and I made about 70 bucks on over a thousand of sales because of it.  These weren’t understanding people, they were trash.  I’ll get more into the guest interaction from the weekend on the next post, but there was lots of screaming, lots of cussing, and lots of me calling people “Dick Cheese Eating, Cooze Slobbering, Inbred, Cock Stained Bastards”.  That, among others including the words Dick Cheese and Cock Stain, were regular phrases coming from the mouth of the Ribeye this weekend, along with threats of walking out and quitting to find better work.

I’m not going to quit in the forseeable future, I know that change will again come, that money will get better, and that half or more of these new hire morons we’ve got will be gone.  I’ve just got to be patient.  I’ve been there too long now and done too much to just throw it away.  I’m at least going to wait until I have my dental work done before I do anything, because I think I may try to go into management.

Here are some of the things to look forward to this week, as I’m using this week to talk about the Hell of this weekend.  Some highlights of the upcoming posts:

• “Why da fuck do deez wangs gots bones?  I axked fa da drums, day ain’ got da bones!”
• The Vanishing Money
• More Dick Cheese
• Camel Toes that just shouldn’t have been
• Many dirty little girls that couldn’t have been legal with many ghetto guys that were far too legal
• The Ranch Drinker (did I finally serve Springs1?)
• Finally, Me snatching the drink from the hands of a girl with no ID that looked like she was 12 and thought she was smart.

I’m looking forward to it.  I’m also planning on getting a long awaited Round Table up this week, probably Thursday on that one.  I’m actually off work on Thursday and I can’t wait for it!

See ya soon!

Ribeye