Total Meltdown....

yep, that was me Saturday night.

A couple weeks ago, I had a REALLY bad night.
Just in case you missed it...
And Saturday was starting out to be the same.
I was in Station 9, I got yelled at by Mr. Shitter, my regulars were late, and I held a table for them in the middle of a busy Saturday rush, and I was dealing with my own Holiday stress.

I went out to the break room to try to cool down. One of the bartenders was out there and he made the mistake of asking me what was wrong. It was like a cork was released. I had a total meltdown as I screamed what was wrong. What was wrong with the restaurant and the fact that we still have too many servers on even though business is back to normal, the customers who are jerks, the constantly crashing kitchen, the door servers who can't seem to find the back of the restaurant, the way the bathroom smells. You name it, I yelled it.

In my 17 years of waitressing, I have never had such an abusive outburst - AND IT FELT GOOD!! 17 years of being nice to people that secretly disgust me, and it finally came out.

Anyway - Once I was done screaming, I laughed a little, pulled myself back together, and went back out on the floor.

Merry Christmas

and all of that...

Thank you to all of the wonderful people who contributed to the spoil my children fund.

May you all be blessed with wonderful service, perfectly cooked steaks, and clean silverware!

Merry Christmas!

Ritalin, Anyone?

Tonight we will be offering an appetizer course of Ritalin for your table, on the house.

Your table has been chosen as the recipient of three doses of Ritalin.
We offer this special only to qualified families!

To qualify you must meet the following criteria:
*Loud Children who won't sit down in their seats
*Taking over 35 minutes to get the children to decide what to eat
*Excessive drink spills
*Popcorn flying over your table
*Children who are constantly up running in our isles
*Children who bump into waitresses as they are carrying trays
*Grabbing things off the tray as the waitress tries to set them down
*Saying very inappropriate things to the waitress

If you need more than 4 glasses of wine to deal with your children, something may be wrong...

Really not that funny....

I have a cold, so in order to get through the past couple of nights, I have pumped myself full of cold medicine - which makes me a little dizzy, nearly deaf, and seeing spots. Not to mention, I seem to be laughing at everything.

So table 21 was sat with a family that seemed to have everything except a sense of humor. They ordered the finest wine, the Filet Mignon, and several of our special "Combo" meals. I put in the order, brought the apps, and everything seemed to be going fine.

I was at another table when the manager delivered their meal. All of the combos were mixed up. Great - $90 check and I can just see the tip going down....

I went to the kitchen to see what was wrong, and found out that The manager had brought a combo from another table's order, and mine was already being eaten by another customer. Even better - that tip is shrinking as we speak!

I explained the situation, and the table was actually kind of understanding. The meal came out again - delivered by another manager. STILL WRONG!!!!! Are you kidding?!?

"This is kind of like a Saturday Night Live skit!" The lady said to me. I apologized up and down, then went back to the galley to laugh. I couldn't help myself!! Was this really happening?

We finally fixed this - and my $90 check earned me a $13 tip.

Please Leave Your OCD Friends at Home...

Last Friday I waited on a party of 8. 7 of the 8 were wonderful, normal people. Unfortunately, they brought their severely OCD friend with them.

She started complaining about the seating arrangements at the table, and somehow it was the door servers fault. When I showed up for a drink order, she ordered tap water for everyone, even though only one other person actually wanted it. She also made sure I knew haw badly she wanted some free popcorn.

When I cam back with my tray loaded with drinks and two bowls of popcorn held precariously in my other hand, she looked at me in shock. "You are going to bring more popcorn, right???" I gave her a look, and said as sweetly as I could. "Of course, I just thought you'd want a drink first."

Taking the meal order was almost painful. 6 of the normal people ordered normal meals in a normal fashion, then I got to Freak.
"Well, what did Rosemary order?" I looked up at the table. Could anyone save me??? Who the hell is Rosemary???
"Is everyone getting a full meal?" WHO CARES?!? Is SHE paying?!?
"Alright, I'll just get the turkey dinner, with mashed potatoes, gravy on the side, extra cranberry, a little extra butter for the biscuit, the stuffing on a side plate, an extra plate in case anyone wants to share, and a box." Are you kidding?
Next, the poor elderly lady next to her tried to order. "How is the broccoli cooked?" Before I could even answer, I heard Freak speak up. "Hard as a rock. You should probably get something else. It will be way to hard for you to..."
I had to step in - I couldn't take it any longer. "We cook it however you like it."
"Oh, can you make mine a little softer?" Of course, Nice Lady.
When the meal finally arrived, I was busy making sure all of the plates were in order, so my coworkers delivered it. I went over to check on everything, and I heard 7 "Yes, it's wonderful"s.
Then Freak had to speak up. "I'm going to need more butter. You forgot my box, and I'll need 6 napkins."
"6 Napkins?" OK this was all I could take - I laughed in her face, and walked away. I counted out 5 napkins and returned to the table. I handed them to the Freak, and refused to return to her end of the table.
The rest of the table was awesome, so I only checked on them.
But seriously, if you are going to bring your OCD friends out to dinner, you will need to take care of them yourselves.

I HATE MY JOB!!

Ever have one of those nights??

Everything that could go wrong, did!

It started to snow, so the highway on the way to work was a parking lot. So the whole night started later than usual.

I was in station 9, THE WASTELAND, which is apparently too far away from the hostess podium for the door servers to find it. The few tables that I did get, I had to seat myself.

The tables the hostesses actually did seat me were nothing but teenagers. Did I piss someone off up there? The hostess actually had the nerve to laugh when she told me that one of the other waitress was giving her trouble for the tables she had sat me. Yeah - well, I'm so glad YOU think it is a joke.

Around 7:30, I finally stopped talking to people. There was nothing nice left to say, and all I wanted to do was walk out and never come back. Just leave my tables and sneak out the back door. Some day - on a night like last night, I will sneak out. I wonder how long it would take them to notice...

Party of 65

We close at 11:30 - Our liquor license runs out at Midnight -

11:15 PM - Party of 65 at the door.

How much fun was that?!?!?

There were only 4 of us still on, and we needed to end this as quickly as possible, so I had a party of 10, a party of 16, and two parties of 4. All teenagers.....

At least they were nice kids...
At least they did leave something for a tip.....
At least they didn't make too much of a mess....