No Pressure Here...

This quickly became one of my favorite tables. A couple, the man very cocky and full of himself, and the woman in charge of everything. Thank goodness she liked me.

The time came to order, and the woman had decided, but the man had spent the entire time on his cell phone, so he wasn't ready. I took the woman's order, and looked at the man.
"Oh, just give me a second! I'll find something."
There are over fifty items on our menu - you won't find it quick enough.
"That's ok - I'll come back."
"No! I'll find something - Just put the pressure on. Hmmm. Wild Bleu Salad, what does that have? Hmm.. Maybe a cheeseburger... Oh Steak..."
"Yeah - I'll give you a few minutes." And I left. It was the middle of a busy Friday night. I was in the weeds already. Don't do this.
When I came back back to ask if he had decided, he had the nerve to tell me that he had forgotten because I took so long. I swear his wife kicked him under the table.
I said nothing and returned to the computer to place his order.
I proceded to check on the wife throughout the meal. She was a doll. And the husband suddenly became very sweet and kind. Maybe he was afraid she'd kill him if he was rude again.

I love people.

Stillllll waitressing - - -

Yep, so I had a meltdown a while ago...
In addition to my crappy job and the stress of the holidays, I was being sued by a bunch of liars for almost $200,000, and I am fighting with the car dealership because my new car is a lemon. It was only a matter of time before I snapped....

So I took a little break. I gave away a bunch of my shifts. I worked a few extra hours at my other job - the one I actually like....

But now I'm back - and nothing has changed, except for my attitude.

I have found that keeping things bottled up inside is not a good idea! As servers, we take crap from people all the time - and if we want to keep getting paid that $2.63 an hour, we smile about it.

So I decided to stop doing that. And it feels liberating. If you want to be rude to me, you are just going to have to wait to do it, because I will walk away from your table at the first sign of disrespect, and I may not come back. If I like the people you are with, you might be able to get them to order you something.

I have plenty of stories to share....

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.