7.27.2011

This week just keeps getting better

So I was totally going to post last night but I closed at the restaurant and by the time I got home, I was so freaking tired that I barely made it into my bed before my eyelids just stopped opening. I had forgotten how physically draining it was to work doubles at restaurant, on top of working another job three days a week. I just keep telling myself that I'm there to make money so that it will be easier for me to buy new living room furniture. I couldn't possibly have gone back there at a worse time because the end of the summer in Bethesda is a dead zone for restaurants. Since it's a pretty affluent area, most people/families go on vacation at the end of the summer before school starts again. That means that all the people that would normally come in don't because they're out of town. All the servers are complaining about not making money blah blah blah, they just don't know how to work the tables that they actually do get. I will hustle the shit out of my tables because I'm not there to make chump change on a dinner shift. That's exactly what I did last night, I hustled the shit out of all my tables and then once the manager started cutting people, I took the majority of the incoming tables until I physically couldn't take anymore.

Everyone that I have ever worked in a restaurant with will tell you not to get on my bad side and if it looks like I'm having a bad day, stay far away. I can be a raging cunt to the staff but schmooze the shit out of my tables. There are some customers that are just rude, no matter how nice you are; they're just unhappy people and want to take that shit out on everyone. There are these two women that come into the restaurant, they're twins. They live in the neighborhood up the street and when we see them walking down the block to come in, we all call "not it" because they are god awful people. I have, never in my life, met women like this. I don't even know how to describe them to paint an accurate picture. I waited on them and a few of their friends last summer for a girls night they were having at the restaurant. They yelled at me, they were blatantly rude to me and then they expected me to walk to the Giant around the corner because they wanted something that wasn't on the menu. You've got to be kidding me, right? They were dead serious and they expected the restaurant to pay for it. Three words: not happening bitches. Waiting on them was such a horrible experience that it reduced me to tears and I'm not a cryer. I was in the kitchen bawling because they were so horrific. Marco, the dishwasher, kept giving me napkins so that I could blow my nose and wipe my eyes; he kept saying soothing things to me in Spanish. At the time, I assumed that he was telling me to stop crying but looking back on it, he was probably saying some nasty shit because he's a dirty old man. Anyway, those women are the ones that send food back to the kitchen because it doesn't taste right, they send drinks back to the bar because they don't taste the way they think the damn things should. They're pushy, they're rude and they expect everyone to cater to them. I don't give a flying fuck who you are, I will not bend over backwards to accommodate you when you're not even going to leave me a 10% tip.

I walked out on the patio last night and low and behold, these two bitches are sitting in my section. I hadn't even greeted them and they were already bitching. My heart sank. I really wanted to kill the hostess for giving me that table and all I was thinking about was how I could phrase it just right so that one of the other servers would take the table instead. I decided to suck it up and wait on them. Their check was well over $100 and it was mostly alcohol. After the first round of drinks, I just kept the martinis coming because I knew they were going to be there all night and they were walking home afterwards. They kept telling me how on point I was and how personable I was. They clearly didn't remember me from before so I just rolled with it. These bitches fucking loved me last night. They said that I had given them the best service that they had ever had there, I couldn't help but smile at that one because they had told me, when I waited on them before, that I was the worst server they had ever seen. They asked me all sorts of questions about my life and what I was doing with it blah blah blah; I answered every single one with a smile on my face. I told them that I worked for the Red Cross and what I was doing there. The scarier of the twins offered me a job. I'm sorry, come again? You want me to apply for the position and you'll go to HR and specifically request that they hire me? The job pays 49K a year. That's more than what I'm making now. I want that job and I want to make it my bitch. But then, this big, unfriendly, neon sign popped into my head: SCHOOL! Damn you college, you are the bane of my existence. I told her that I would only be able to work three days a week and she said that that wouldn't work out because the job really is full-time. I would have been working in sales and PR; they were adamant about me having the personality for it. It sucks balls that I can't take the job but whatever. I'm just happy that they fucking like me now. And it really doesn't hurt that they left me a 50% tip.

It's nice that all the summer internships are winding down. I probably haven't mentioned this before but I'm the volunteer coordinator responsible for all the internships in our region (8 counties in MD & VA) and I'm also responsible for recruiting volunteers for Montgomery and PG County. We're going through a re-org again because National HQ is taking over some of our departments, cutting our funding and completely eliminating positions. The organization has been a very unhappy place because people aren't sure if their jobs are in jeopardy. That's completely understandable. If NHQ was taking over my department, I'd be worried as fuck too. But since we're an 80% volunteer organization, they're not touching the Volunteer Engagement side (which is my department). Thanks guys, it's nice to know that I can safely stay on the island. The job has kept me busy since January because people were looking for summer internships and all that good shit. That's how it just happened to fall into my lap. We kept getting internship requests and no one to filed them to so my boss voted me as the person in charge. She didn't give two shits about me not having a college degree, she just knew that I would own the shit out of it. And what did I do with the job, I made it my bitch. I, along with the heads of various departments, selected 9 fucking amazing interns that we really couldn't be more pleased with.  We held a going away party for them today because some of them are leaving next week. I basically did the planning, the donation soliciting (because NHQ cut our budget so we didn't even have the money for it), the supplies gathering, the set-up and the clean-up alone. My boss was supposed to help me out with some of the execution but per the usual, she was nowhere in sight in my time of need. I'll keep my thoughts about her to myself, it's safer that way. Since it's been so hot lately, we decided that it would be a good idea to have an ice cream social. I think that today was the first time that all the interns had been in one room all at the same time. It was nice to sit back and watch them interact with each other. It made me realize that they think I'm a lot older than I really am just because of the way I carry myself and they way I interact with people at work. Hearing them and watching them, they reminded me a lot of the way I interact with my friends. It was really nice to see that they all got along and that they could fuck with each other like old friends. Of course, I had to give a speech because I was the one responsible for placing them. To my surprise, the head of my department also gave a little one. She was so pleased with all the interns and everything that they have done for us this summer but she's also heard great things from them about me. She said that they loved the fact that I was so easily accessible and that they knew they could turn to me should they have any problems. They also liked the fact that I was easy to talk to. I've never been responsible for an internship program before and I really didn't know how to go about it. It was a trial and error process and definitely a learning experience; I wouldn't have traded it for anything. I honestly cannot stress enough how amazing my interns are and it's experiences like that that make my job so worthwhile.

In other news, a very wonderful thing popped up on my Facebook newsfeed today. The Ravens are opening their training camp to fan next Saturday. I read the post while I was sitting in bumper to bumper traffic on my way home from work. I got so excited that I nearly rear-ended the car in front of me. I am totally in there like swimwear. I'm totally wearing my Ray Rice jersey because I'm cool like that. He probably won't even remember me from Memorial Day, his loss. Maybe I can get player autographs or pictures with them. None of my friends are Ravens fan so I don't really have anyone to go with. They're all Skins fans because they're stupid or they're Cowboys fans because they just don't know any better.

Is it the weekend yet? I really want to sleep in!

1 comment:

  1. My restaurant is slow during the summer, too. Luckily I'm a manager, so my income isn't affected.

    I hate rude customers. I've been close to tears with a few, but I usually just start shaking uncontrollably and yell to my coworkers once they're gone. People are bitches. I feel like everyone needs to work food service once in their lives in order to see just how it is. Then they probably wouldn't be such assholes.

    Glad that they weren't so bad this time, and that they tipped well. :)

    ReplyDelete