I’m plain and simply put exhausted. We closed an hour later than we normally do on Monday nights, but none of the servers knew we were going to. We were short staffed all around. 4 total dining room servers, 2 cocktail servers in the bowling alley, and 3 of us in the game room. I ran a 6 table section all night long. I got my ass kicked, once again. The worst part? My dept leader was back from his time off today. He was there for an admin meeting in the morning, and spent the evening doing scheduling. Not helping out his department, seeing that we were getting our asses royally handed to us on a fucking platinum platter, oh no, that would mean actual work. This mother fucker sat on his ass in the office working on a fucking schedule. I was pissed. I’m still pissed. I want his job so fucking bad, and he wastes it. I’m so tired of picking up the slack for his fuck-up’s.

We also started out with 2 bartenders at the beginning of the night. Why the 2nd one had the nerve to leave at 8 pm, I’ll never know, but that meant that drinks were coming out very slowly. I ended up jumping behind the bar and helping out along with running my 6 tables. That was a blast, let me tell ya. I didn’t mind too much, I enjoy it when I go behind the bar, knowing that I deserved to get that job in the first place and didn’t. I’m sure I’ll get it next time.

Nothing major to say about the shift except that I got my ass kicked, and stomped straight into the ground with a stiletto heel. I’m in pain all over, and I have to go back tomorrow. I’ve also lost one of my 2 days off this week that I was looking forward to, that being Thursday…payday. I was really looking forward to having that off, stopping in for a half minute to pick up a paycheck and leave again. Oh no, I have to go in and open, and the gods only know when I’ll be getting out of there.

My dept. this week has been in a shambles, which is a big part of my frustration. I take that back, it’s not just been this week, it’s just been the worst this week. The “one in charge” actually left someone who no longer works for the company on the schedule, and said that everything was covered. How the fuck would he know that, he’s been off on his honeymoon with “Flip-Flop” the dept. boss of the dining room servers, his “roommate”. They took their vacations the exact same time. The day before Christmas Eve until today. They came back in town just in time for the admin meeting they have every Monday, but did they stay and help out their areas? Nope. The managers are royally pissed at the cocktail leader due to his short staffing and his excuses about it. Last New Year’s Eve that I worked, we only had 12 cocktail servers on the schedule, and we still had more on the clock on these holidays than we had this year, and this year we had 17 cocktails on the schedule. What’s wrong with this picture? I know that job can’t be all fun and games, but come on, learn how to write a fucking schedule, or people are going to start rebelling on you. I don’t know how true it is, but I’ve heard that a couple of people are putting in notices. More money for me, I say.

To the nice old woman that I cussed out, I really do apologize.  I was pissed off not at you, but at everyone.  You sitting down and nagging me about cleaning your table, despite the good tip you eventually left, pissed me off anymore.

Here’s how it went:

Ribeye: “Hey guys, I’ll be with you in a few minutes.  We’re extremely short staffed, and I’m running behind.”

Old Woman:  “Is there a server for this table?” No, bitch, I didn’t just tell you I was going to be with you in a few minutes.

Ribeye: “Yes ma’am, and I’ll be with you as soon as I can.”  I had my hands full of dishes, and was trying to get away.  I’d started to walk away when…

Old Woman: “Are you going to clean this table? We’ve been waiting a while.”

Ribeye now loses his temper: “I just told you I’d be with you as soon as I can, now fucking wait a minute and I’ll be with you as soon as I can!  How fucking hard is that to understand?!”

Old Woman: “How dare you talk to me that way!”

Ribeye: “Because you didn’t fucking listen to me the first time I answered you!  I told you once I’d be with you when I fucking could and you fucking had to keep it going instead of saying ok!  Just wait for a damn minute, Jesus Fucking Christ, how hard is that to do?”

They didn’t stay, which didn’t bother me at all.  I felt bad about it later, but when she sat down, I was running 7 tables, and couldn’t get to them.  I just hope they don’t call corporate on me.  Even if they do, they didn’t talk to anyone when it happened, so it won’t matter much…

I guess now that it’s happened, all the pissiness from work has built up and blown up at a poor defenseless old woman who could have probably beat the hell out of me with her gigantic shoplifter purse, it won’t happen again for a while.  I felt a lot better after getting it out though…

Oh yea…

HAPPY FUCKING NEW YEAR!

Ribeye

Tags: alcohol, bitch, bitchery, bitching, dirty, fuck, fucking, hateful, Hell, holiday, new years eve, ribeye, server, serving, table, waiter, waiting, yell, yelling

Another of my “Things to do and not to do” series tonight, mainly because I’m tired and as such my brain just isn’t working correctly right now.  Here are some of the things you can do to make your servers happy when you go out to eat.

If you say you’re ready to order, be ready to order!  We want to get your food in as quick as possible so we can get to our other tables.  Getting behind doesn’t make us happy, it puts us in the weeds.

Keep your kids under control.  When kids are polite and well mannered, we are glad to serve your family.

Be polite when you’re asking questions.  Nothing pisses us off more than a guest that comes at us asking things like “Why da fuck my food ain’ heah yet?” and “You do know what you is doin right?” If you want us to check on your food, then ask us nicely.  “I’m sorry, but would you mind checking to see how much longer our meal is going to be?”  I don’t mind helping out at all when I’m asked nicely.

Be polite when you’re ordering your drink.  “Can I get a top shelf margarita, please?” goes a lot further than, “Brang me dat Patron’ mahgarita main.”

If your food is running a long time, don’t get pissed off.  More often than not, it’s the kitchen running long, not your server.  Huffing and puffing and making demands of bread and free salads when the restaurant is clearly busy as Hell is just going to piss us off.  We’ll gladly bring you a salad on the house most of the time, as long as you’re nice about asking us.  Most of us will even offer it to you.

Don’t be snotty to us.  We’re there to make sure you have an enjoyable experience while dining out, and when you’re happy, we’re happy.  Telling us how much better you could do our jobs pisses us off.

We don’t make the prices.  If you don’t like them, please don’t take it out on us.  I don’t much enjoy high prices myself, but I don’t bitch about them, and you shouldn’t either.   Taking it out on us just pisses us off, and makes us less inclined to be nice to you or your crotch spawn.

If we’re out of something and tell you about it, but someone near you gets what you wanted, that just means we only had enough of that product to fill the orders that were already in the kitchen when you came in.  That doesn’t mean we just don’t want to serve you what you want.  We are told that we’ve run out of something by our managers, please yell at them and not us.

Compliments are nice, and we all like them.  Compliments, however, do not pay our bills.  Therefore, if you plan on giving us compliments, please do so along with a tip.  If we’ve deserved your praise then we obviously did something right and deserve a bit of cash as well.

When it comes time for the tip, please actually look at your bill and tip a percentage, or at least more than 10%.  For those of you older diners who think that tipping 2 bucks on every single check is still the standard, please remember that it’s no longer 1970.  The cost of living has gone up and as such, so has the standard of tipping.  I’m all about serving older people, I enjoy hearing stories, I enjoy flattering the older ladies and older diners are a lot of times more inclined to talk to us.  The problem remains that older people (older men mainly) tend to tip a flat rate of 2-5 bucks a check, regardless of if the check is 20 bucks or a hundred.

If you’re going to talk to our manager on the way out and are complaining, please at least give us a heads up so we can figure out what went wrong.  If it’s something you didn’t like about our service, at least we know.  If you just didn’t like the food or prices or something that we have no control over, please don’t go bitching about how horrible your service was and make demands for our corporate/owner’s phone number.  We want to see you flayed when you do that.

Ok, so this post wasn’t exactly the normal “Ribeye quality” you’ve all come to love/hate, but I’m tired tonight, and I have a long day tomorrow.  I just wanted to at least give you something.  More to come.

Ribeye

Tags: bill, bitch, bitching, check, complain, complaint, corporate, elderly, gentlemen, hate, love, men, money, old, old people, pet peeve, quality, ribeye, server, service, tip, tipping, woman, women