What's the Point?........

If you are trying to have a nice classy white tablecloth restaurant...what's the point in covering the tablecloths with white butcher paper, that everyone gets paper cuts from? I hate it when a customer has to ask for band-aid. (we're not off to a good start here....right off the bat they're gonna want something for free) Putting the paper on the tables is the equivalent of wearing flip-flops with a formal while standing up in a wedding...Which statement are we going for.....classy place....or "we are actually cheap, and don't want to go through that much linen and think we are fooling the public by using the paper".... ( kinda trailer trashy).... square sheets of paper do not drape nicely on a round table.....I think that may come from a lack of knowledge of simple geometry.....(or just plain lack of knowledge).....or is it trying to fit square pegs into round holes.....eh, doesn't matter....



Why on earth would you want your servers to wear white long sleeved shirts, when everything they touch leaves marks of some sort on them? Let's take a look and see if any form common sense prevails....we have to bake bread and handle oil and greasy trays.....we serve wine...somewhere ...( I think this is like one of thse "Murphy's Law" things)...sooner or later, it's gonna get on your shirt....those large trays have a way of leaving black marks on your shouler.....wait...what were we talking about?.....oh..oh common sense...the reason I forgot, is I think it's rather a moot point to try and blend common sense and corporate in the same thought process.....

The most common whine at a restaurant.....

"We want separate checks"....is perhaps the most famliar whine at a restaurant (and you thought it was Chardonnay) now there are some occasions when we don't mind doing this...here are some occasions when we do mind: there are 2 people at the table...no big deal...it's easy to give separate checks for two people.....Person one orders...and then person two says, "I'll have the exact same thing." Your bills are going to be identical! Can neither one of you take a number (nay number!) and divide it by two?!?! This is considered too stupid to be true...so yes, we mind.

The server approaches the table..."Hello, how's everyone doing tonight?" (In a really pleasant voice, I might add) "WE WANT SEPARATE CHECKS." I'm fine also, thanking you for asking." Was this display of a total lack of manners a poorly rehearsed group thing, or were you all trying to beat each other to it?"

The customers don't ask for separate checks...and then after you've dropped off the bill and  you go to pick it up.....they start holding up credit cards and saying..."This is for the veal and a glass of wine.....so now ya gotta go separate the damn checks.....only you have to make sure everything was rung under the right seat number...because if it's one check it doesn't matter where you ring everything in....so now ya got.......ass holes..why didn't you just say so in the first place....we wouldn't dislike you as much as we do right now.....

The worst though...is when you have a large group, they want separate checks and start pointing to who should be on who's check...and they are scattered all over the table....okay...we can get to that later.....all we ask is that you don't switch seats on us.

"Why" they ask, with that ever-so-becoming deer in the headlights look....

Because we enter everything by seat number...and if you move...we won't know who is on what tab.

"Oh." (This group has a nice economy of words and a pretty tight gene pool)

You know right away that this was totally lost on them......within five minutes they're playing musical chairs.

Here's what I learned while working at a corporate restaurant.....

Corporate restaurants are a very interesting study in human puppetry. I view it as a multi-tiered marionette show. But not everybody has strings to pull....now the guys at the top....they have the most strings...you can see their arms and legs constantly dangling.....they even have strings on their feet and hands, they flop around all day......it doesn't mean they get anything done....(so would that be wasted motion?).... some days they just like to pull on the strings...ya know why?....because they can. Simple as that. They are standing on the top tier....they have the most elaborate costumes. There are only a few of these top-tiered marionettes. They have brightly painted smiles on their over-sized porcelain marionette faces.



On the next tier down, you will find a larger group of smaller statured less elborately costumed marionettes....They too have many strings that they may pull...ah...but if you wanna pull some strings....ya gotta pay the price....and every now and then they feel the jerk of the strings....so you can imagine that their painted porcelain smiles aren't quite as vivid as the more elaborately dressed ones....but nonetheless....they are smiling. Because when they are jerked....it jerks the strings of all the marionettes below them.



Now we go down another tier....these marionetess are plainly dressed....they have many layers of strings pulling on them....(and a whole lotta those strings are tangled)...(bummer)....their mouths are just fainly curved black lines....



Now at the bottom tier of this marionette show....there are no strings....they have no costume at all....much less elaborate....they have no arms....they have no legs....no porcealin face to paint a straight black line on....there is little they can do....they are just oven mitt puppets with a hand shoved up their ass.

....Some of the greatest actors and actresses are servers....

There are nights when servers get an unbelieveable amount of bull shit thrown their way by customers who think more of themselves than anyone ever possibly could.....let's talk about some of the things that servers have to smile at while working their way through the shift......why is it when people sit at a restaurant table, they completely lose the ability to tell time? "We asked for more butter ten minutes ago!!!!!...(1)...and!...they're indignant about it. Truth be told...it was more like 2 minutes ago, if that....its not our fault that your once you saw the bread, your over zealous saliva glands put you in "Pavlov's dog" mode, and you're now drooling on yourself. Besides that, you just consumed more butter on a single piece of bread, than was necessary for a weight-gaining sumo wrestler on a 9000 calorie-a-day diet.

We tell you the house salad has lettuce, blah blah blah and is topped with bacon....You then order it...we bring it to the table...you look at it in horror and disbelief (?!?!?) and declare "I can't eat bacon!!! I didn't know it had bacon on it!!!" (2) I'm gonna go out on a limb here, and guess that you've been a moron your whole life...and now you are at my table and I have to smile through it. But still, I will give you the benefit of the doubt, and figure you can count to three...so something else has got to wrong....(according to you). But we are expecting it now...the other servers are walking by to see what else you're gonna complain about....oh shit! they just caught your eye..."We need more lemons for our water!..(3)...We ran out of sugar packets....(4)....(cheap asses are making their own lemonade) We want more bread....(5).....what's taking so long...where's our food!...we ordered half an hour ago!?!.. .(6)....ok...the runner brings the food (btw- it took 14 minutes) This isn't what I ordered!!! (7) As they stab at it with the fork they held up in the air to see if it was clean (8) (I hope something falls in your eye) You still, can only count to three...but your complaining is like three to the tenth power! we're still smiling.... We're cussing you out, back in the kitchen....but we're still smiling.....and we are staying calm....which is harder than smiling....you tell everyone else to check their food, because you are sure everyone was served the wrong dish......teeth are now gritted...and now you have that set-in-cement server smile thing going.....the only thing that softens this smile is the vision you have in your head of standing over them with a gas can in one hand...and a match in the other.....what's it gonna be folks?



And the Oscar goes to......

Pre-shift?!? Put up a list and save everyone's time (you're not that important)

I was totally unaware of these droll little daily occurances they call "pre-

shift", until I started working in the fantasy world of a corporate restaurant. Sometimes it's hard to figure out just what the purpose of these twice daily time-wasters is...... informational.....okay.....pep talk?.....gimme a freaking break! We're servers...not the high school football team! Or is this the day that corporate pulled managements strings a little tighter and they're going to browbeat us into getting the "performance scopes" mentioned last week. Or are we going to have another stupid contest....like seeing who can sell the most wine flights? Corporate wants us to push these wine flights! Why! What difference does it make if we sell (actually, if the customer orders) a wine flight or a glass of wine? They're the same price! Besides that....it's bad enough (particularly when you're busy) that you have to stop and polish every wine glass...who wants to sell a table a bunch of wine flights and polish three times as many glasses?!? I mean really, common sense should prevail...but not at pre-shift. Heres' one of my favorites...."Don't break the dishes, they cost money." No shit! Seriously, one manager actully said this! Apparently we had never considered this concept.



I started to think of pre-shift as nothing more then the "Mangerial Self-Important Soapbox Lecture Series." Really now....if you want us to pay attetion, stick to the pertinent info....what's the soup of the day....what are the specials...and that pretty much covers it. We are not poking each other....rolling our eyes back....or making comments to each other because we are the immature little idiots you seem to think us to be......it's quite the opposite....we are simply amusing ourselves through a situation which is just too ridiculous to be true. This is when (if I haven't done it already) I frantically look over my left shoulder, jump up!...and run to the imaginary emergency at my table. ( I already know they need nothing). This is especially fun when I have no tables.

The Doldrums can also describe people (who camp)

I love Monday nights....mostly because I don't work them. Ahhhhh but

Tuesday.....how do you describe a Tuesday crowd.....it's kind of like the tail end of a

hangover.....no one is too thrilled about anything...just going through the day....past that

point where you say "I'm never gonna drink again" all the while thinking ... eh, maybe tomorrow,

(and that includes the servers). We're just hoping we to make a few bucks...and then we hear that

little phrase that can screw up our entire night, pull you immediatly out of the fog you were

roaming around in, raise your blood pressure, and make you go in the kitchen and vent in a way

that would be totally unacceptable in the middle of the dining room, but would make any sailor

proud.....

"We haven't seen each other in a while."

Number one, we don't care. Number two, we don't want to care. Number three, you just told us

that you are going to take up our table for the rest of the night. Number four, (and this is the

most important number) we're losing money because of you. And! Just to pour salt in the wound,

you're both gonna order some stupid ass salad and split an entree....(which brings us to number

5, we don't care about your stupid ass diet) Now we're in the doldrums. There are people coming

in the door, but there is no room at the inn, in our section. So we watch in frustration as

money is being made all around us....our only recourse is to go back in the kitchen and make

another sailor proud.....and pull out the voodoo dolls....screw using pins....give me the big

cleaver!

People!!!! Let's use some common sense here......(and we're going to throw in some basic math

skills, also) The average amount of time we expect to have you at our table...is about an hour

(or less), we expect you to spend about $25.00 per person, and then you should leave a 20 percent

tip....after all, you don't want the whole world to know, if you're cheap. So if we have a table

of four, and then a table of two followed by a table of three......we should expect to make

approximately $44.00 from three turns of that table. If two people spend a total of $37.00, sit

there for three hours, and leave an $8.00 tip......(I told you there was math involved)

well...that is unacceptable....and now Julie (your server) has to tell her son that she can't

sign him up for little league because she didn't make enough money.....because self involved meal

splitting morons didn't think to compensate her for the time they camped out at her table.....

Bread is neither an appetizer nor a birthright.....

I mean really...this is not something that should have to be pointed out to

anyone....what's the big deal about bread? "You're gonna bring the bread, right? Oh, I

dont' think we need an appeitzer, the bread will be plenty"....let me interpret this for those who

have never worked in a restaurant......"We're far to cheap to pay for an appetizer....just bring

us mass quantities of the free bread." If I offered you a free appetizer in place of the

bread....you'd say "screw the bread." I bet 90 percent of the time, bread never hits your home

dinner table....Don't ya just love it when customers get indignant because you made the egregious

sin of not getting the bread......the second basket, no less, (the bread that is made from flour

sprinkled with gold dust) on the table, at or before the exact time when their greedy little

sauce-covered over-stuffed paw reached for it. It's not like we forgot to give you your dialysis

treatment!!!! How about this (for stupid statements) "We're bread eaters.." good for you, I don't

believe anyone inquired about the eating habits of your clan....."We just love the bread"....you

do realize that we have an entire menu of items that are not bread, we can help you with the big

words......I always eat too much bread,and then have a hard time finishing my

meal......moron.....looks like you've made a lifetime habit of that.... ..."What other kind of

bread have got?" OH! C"MON NOW!!!!......it's freaking bread!...you came here for a

meal....trust me...if you had no bread with your dinner tonight...you would will still be around

tomorrow to talk about it.....