This is a most strange flu bug....

Okay, yesterday morning I felt good….thought I was gonna get a lot of stuff done…..well, I thought wrong. You know, you wake up thinking that this flu bug, or whatever it is has run it’s course, and you can’t wait to get out and make up for lost time. Then a couple of hours later you realize that you’re not going anywhere except back to bed. What a drag!

It’s really irritating! You’re not sick enough to not care that you’re still in bed…but you know if you push it and start running around, you’re gonna end up right where you started. So I stayed home, laid low, slept some more.

So today’s plan is to try and fake it out. (right, like that’s gonna work) I have to go to work tonight, so as soon as I write this, it’s back to bed.

I’m figuring I can get through the night if I get enough rest. There are two things in my favor for not having to over do it tonight. First of all, it’s Tuesday, not known for being particularly busy, and second, we’re supposed to have a snowstorm today. The weather report said there was a 100% chance of snow. In this area we never really trust the weather report, but if they’re saying it’s 100% chance of snow, I’ll go with it. Which means it will be slower that normal. If the weather does what’s predicted, this will be our biggest snow of the season so far. Which means everyone will just hibernate tonight. I’m good with that today.

I’ve been off work for three days in a row, and that rarely happens. I think I’m going through work withdrawal. (I know, I know, you’ve got to be kidding me) So on with my plan, and back to sleep before this catches up with me again. And yes, I know I’m only fooling myself, but I can dream, can’t I?

It started out in the ususal way.....

Last weekend, starting out with Friday night, seemed to be progressing in the usual way…..the dinner crowd came in, we got a little busy, the singer was singing, we were having fun, had a nice bar crowd, everyone was chatting…nice night for the first week of January. Okay, let’s see what tomorrow brings.

Saturday morning, having coffee, doing some writing, and then I felt exhausted. Hey wait! How can I be so tired, I’ve only been up for a couple of hours! So I gave in and went back to sleep for another hour. Woke up, felt even worse. My head was pounding, my stomach was churning….where the hell did this come from?!? Back to sleep for another hour….woke up, felt worse. How can I go to work, if I can’t even make it to the kitchen for something to drink?

I hate being sick, and even more, I hate calling off work! But I had to. My head hurt so bad, the light was hurting my eyes, and I had the blinds closed! My stomach was tossing and turning so bad, I figured anything I consumed was gonna come right back up. So I called off. I’m thankful for cell phones, and that I didn’t have to get out of bed to do that.

Back to sleep, with the blanket pulled over my eyes to hide them from the glaring winter light that was forcing it’s way through the blinds. (Somehow that just doesn’t seem right)

I was hoping this was gonna be a one day thing, I had great expectations for Sunday. Set the alarm to go to church, got up to put the coffee on…uh-oh….it’s starting all over again, better get back to bed. I guess that marathon gym visit I had planned is a no-go.

I didn’t know I could sleep that much! At least I didn’t have to call off on Sunday, I wasn’t scheduled to work.

So now that the weekend is over, I feel human again! Yay! (Now all I want to do is eat)

Not another normal day!?!

 One would think that a normal day is one where everyone who is scheduled actually shows up. But a normal day now seems to be a day of scrambling to cover those who call off sick or don’t show up because they misread the schedule.

Yesterday was no exception. I arrived at 10:30 a.m. to set up….get everything in order….figured when lunch slowed down about 1:30 or 2:00.….I’d get a break for a couple of hours before working the evening shift behind the bar. Not!

As soon as I got there, the boss told me one guy called off, I thought no big deal…..it’s happened before…..and then he told me who he called in…okay, cool…..and then he mentioned that we had to set up downstairs for the weekly lunch meeting of the local Kiwanis Club. Oh shit! I had forgotten about that! So I hop to…get the dining room in order, and then run downstairs…..the replacement he called just showed up, and we realize none of the tables are set. It’s no big deal to set a table, but it becomes one when you have to set tables for 70 people, and you’re in a severe time crunch. The third server shows up…we decide to pool the whole restaurant.

We have 8 ladies playing bridge, you know, the ones who don’t move the cards out of the way while you’re trying to serve lunch, and switch seats after the order is taken. They’re in a separate banquet room. Oh! Their new thing: hot water with lemon. I am less than thrilled to be running around getting you something you’re not even going to pay for. The group downstairs starts filtering in….the dining room starts getting some action…at about 2:00 p.m. we realize that those of us working a double shift, aren’t really going to get much of a break but we’re busy, the day goes by rather quickly…and as soon as a the first server for the next shift shows up, we tell her how glad we are to see her, and all bolt out the door saying, “Back in 20 minutes, bye.”

Yep, just another normal day.

Small World.....

When you spend your entire life in a small geographical area, it does indeed become a small world. (Although I did go on the “Small World” ride at Disneyland once, and to this day, I can’t stand that song)

Anyways……we have a group of about 6 or 7 gentlemen who come in for dinner every couple of weeks. Last night they were at a table right across from the bar. Considering they were the only table in the lounge….it was next to impossible not to hear them.

Near the end of the evening, they were talking about local high schools….and then they threw out some years…like “72.….’74.….so I got curious and walked around to the table and asked who graduated in ‘74, and from where. Turns out one of the guys and I graduated together. Not only that, we also went to the same junior high school. So once we had that established we started talking about all the people we remembered in common…..the 30th reunion……I even threatened to make a copy of his old year book picture and bring it in. lol!

They had also mentioned another name of someone I went to elementary school with, but had moved and went to another high school. Turns out he was the ’74 graduates accountant….and I knew the guys parents and sister from another restaurant I had worked at.

So then the ‘74 graduate throws out some more names, I remember them, and they are all the cousins of another guy at the table.

Considering there are 100,000 people in our city, and our graduating class had over 700 people, and this is 37 years later….it was a lot of fun to play who knows who.

It just goes to show you, you never know when your past is gonna pop up and bite you in the ass….. So behave…..

Corporate vs. private restaurants.....again

I was just thinking about the last two December’s I worked, and the vast difference between them. In December of 2009, I was working at a corporate restaurant. There were a lot of hoops to jump through. First of all, management was on your ass every minute to sell gift certificates. They would have a contest every year to see who could well the most. They would even take one of the computer terminals and move it by the hostess stand so they cold sell gift certificates. It always baffled me why they would take a computer away from the servers during the busiest time of the year.

And then there were the performance scopes. To refresh your memory…..we were supposed to get every table to go home, go online and fill out a questionnaire…..oh yeah, and every answer had to be a “1”, on a scale of 1 to 4, (1 being the best) or it didn’t count. Okay, the logic here is lost on me.

Besides that…..I always the thought the purpose of dining out, was to relax and enjoy a meal….not be badgered by the server (that’s what I always felt I was doing to people) to go home and do homework.

Ah, but this most recent December it was a different story…..we actually focused on the food and drink and service. Despite the long 55 hour weeks (in a corporate restaurant you’re not allowed to work overtime) it was a far more relaxing experience. You get to actually enjoy your customers, since badgering is not a requirement.

Where the action is.......

When it comes to New Year’s Eve….I always used to tell everyone, “If you really want to be where the action is, work!”

It makes perfect sense. First of all, you’re going to be busy, so the night will fly by fast. It’s one of the best money nights of the year, so take advantage of it. It’s usually a lot of fun…..everyone is always in a good mood. There’s a little electricity in the air!

Most places around here seem to have everything wrapped up by 10:00 or 11:00. That gives you plenty of time to get to that party, if that’s what you want to do. I also think of this as the “Hangover Savings Plan.” Sure, everyone at the party will have had a head start on the drinking…but that’s okay…they will have a worse hangover the next day than you will. That is, unless you do something stupid, like start power-drinking to catch up, in which case the day next, as you are moaning and can’t function…you will have no one to blame other than yourself.

When the New Year’s Eve rush was all over last Friday, we had a champagne toast in the kitchen, (we were still sporting out finery of beads, glow-in-the-dark bracelets, tiaras and antlers) and then our year of work was officially over. I was home by 10:30. Plenty of time to get settled to watch the ball drop. I was telling my son that I remember a New Year’s Eve or two, when the new year was 1960 something. (Whoa!)

At the stroke of midnight, we toasted the new year, I with my Gatorade, he with his Mountain Dew. I like starting off a new year without a hangover!

Retiring holiday work attire........

The holidays have come and gone once again, what a relief. It’s also time to retire the holiday work attire.

No more brightly colored gaudy holiday print ties…..I don’t have a holiday print tie, so my one festive piece of flare was a dancing reindeer pin that I used as a tie tack, that I had gotten from my son when he was in elementary school in the last decade of the previous millennium.

One of the servers wore a Santa hat throughout most of the season….others wore those headbands with little reindeer antlers attached to them. I never liked wearing the antlers. First of all, the headband drives me crazy…and I feel clumsy with them on….I keep banging them into stuff, like all the hanging glasses…just never been my style.

As we were readying ourselves for the New Year’s rush…one of the girls said she brought treats for everyone. My mind immediately went to food products, like candy. (Those of us who were working earlier that day, went through a dozen and a half donuts in what I’m pretty sure was record time. I was really hungry and picked them up on the way in.)

Okay, back to the treats…they weren’t candy or any type of food product at all….she had brought packages of brightly colored beads and glow-in-the-dark bracelets for everyone. The one who brought this stuff in was also sporting a shiny tiara that read “It’s my birthday!” for the most part, everyone just assumed it said “Happy New Year!”

We all acquiesced and wore some part of this finery. I had on blue beads and a blue glow-in-the-dark bracelet. One guy opted for a bracelet, however he hung it on his belt loop. I thought it was pretty cool that the boss let everyone wear all this stuff.

But it’s January now, and all the holiday attire is retired for another year, stuffed in a closet, probably to be lost forever. Maybe next year we’ll all wear Rudolph noses.