Here's why

I was the opener for dinner which means I get there an hour before everyone else and relieve the lunch closer. I had four tables, one of which were the biggest bunch of assholes I've ever had the pleasure of waiting on, very demanding, a new request every time I came to the table with their previous request, making up their own drinks (dude, margarita mixed with strawberry, blue curacao and swirled with pina colada? BARF!), special requests on everything, you know the type. 8% tip, fucking assholes.

Baby Manager (hereafter referred to as BM), kitchen manager, and head server were sitting in the dining room as well. One of my tables had a small kid, and we were out of lids for our kid cups. Who the hell runs out of lids on father's day?? Surely there won't hardly be any kids on father's day, right? Ugh. So anyway, of course the kid spilled his drink while I was running my ass off for the table of jerkoffs.

Did BM, kitchen manager or head server do anything? Nope, none of them got up off their asses. Just sat and watched it. The customers moved themselves to another booth before I even saw what happened. When I asked kitchen manager where the mop bucket was so I could clean it up (since no one else was), he finally asked BM to do it. BM doesn't like to do anything so he wasn't happy about that. He was also irritated with me because I had asked him if he was going to make more house dressing (we were completely out). BM thinks he's above it all and we should all bow down and defer to his greatness. How dare we lowly servers suggest that we need something only he can provide?!

The night progresses. I have the busiest section plus I'm taking tables in the pickup section. Other servers do things that piss me off like moving one of their tables to my booth because the table was wobbly. Then when I am slammed and get sat again I asked the guy whose section was on the patio (which was empty - he had nothing to do) if he could please pick it up for me. He said sure, then glanced into the dining room and said, "Oh, never mind. I've had them before, and they're bitches." Ice is empty and I ask the closest server standing around with his thumb up his ass if he could refill it, only to hear "That isn't MY sidework." Kitchen was pissing me off, fucking orders up left and right, and of course the Queen Bitch cook (who was expediting) was arguing with me about it because she is NEVER wrong.

Ok, so there is a rule at our place that no one is allowed to take a smoke break till 8:00. There seems to be no reason for this rule, it's just How We've Always Done It, and it's strictly enforced. Also only one person can go at a time. So 8:00 comes and I ask BM if I can go. He says "No." I said, "Really? Why not?" He said, "Because I said so, now do your job!" WTF? Ok, that was the straw that broke the camel's back after the shift I'd had. I told him to just check me out because I was done. He wouldn't even do that. He told me to go ask head server to do it.

So I did, and he followed me. She, of course, asked me what happened, and I told her that I wasn't going to be treated like a child when I have more years of experience than BM has out of kindergarten. He interjected at this point and said, "There was already someone out there. You just had to wait your turn," as if he was perfectly fucking reasonable. I reminded him that he said nothing about that, and if he had, I would have been cool with it. Did my checkout and left.

Called my bestie on the way home and she and another good friend met me at a bar, where I proceeded to get fucked up.

I'm honestly expecting a call from the real FOH manager today. She's really shorthanded and I'm one of the few non-dumbfuck servers she has. I will not work another Sunday with BM as the closing manager if I do go back, so help me FSM.

I quit

Walked out in the middle of a shift, something I've never done before.

Stay tuned...

Wish me luck

I'm going to apply for a new job today. We went to eat there last night so I could scope it out, and I think it will be much better.

The reasons are many, but the main reason is that my current place is just too slow and usually overstaffed for any money to be made. The patrons are cheap, and eat there because it's cheap, and they aren't looking for a dining experience like I'd like to provide; they are just looking for someone to slap a hot plate in front of them and get the fuck out of their way. I can't tell you how awkward and embarrassing it is for me when I try to engage people in conversation or suggest items and they just scowl at me like "What the fuck are you doing? I know what I want. Get out of my fucking face."

Not to mention, the last Wednesday that I worked, I went home with eight fucking dollars. Fuck. That.

The place we went last night was pretty busy for a Wednesday. Our server's section was filled up by us and at least one other table while we were there. Our bill for two people was about what a six-top's would be at my current place.

And the best part? The new place doesn't have tortillas, so there is no tortilla grill for me to slave over cleaning at the end of the night. Hopefully the sidework required wherever I end up will be appropriate and not give the appearance of what I suspect is going on where I work now: the kitchen manager realized that waitstaff is CHEAP labor, so we do all the stuff that kitchen staff does in a normal not-trying-to-fuck-waitstaff-in-the-ass restaurant.

New hostess

We had a brand spanking new hostess tonight. She follows the "hostesses are fucking idiots" rule and takes it beyond ridiculous.


So between her and the fucking assholes who think 10% is SUPER (verbal tippers, all of 'em), I had a really shitty Saturday night. Which is great because summer camp and car repairs hardly cost any money at all.

Apparently the host that was training her is her friend, so he was defending her dumbfuckery, which made me want to slap the shit out of both of them.

Our owner is pretty awesome

Ever since I worked at hmm, let's call it Schmario's in Schmalveston, Shmexas, I have had an irrational fear of restaurant owners. The owner of Schmario's, who we will call Schmohnny Schmecca, was quite simply a dick. More accurately, he was a gigantic ego with a tiny dick. Employees were not seen as the people who kept his shit going and made him money. We were seen as scum, basically, practically his property. I can't count the number of times he screamed at me over trivial things. Or the times he brought 12 of his family members in to eat and didn't tip me for waiting on them. In fact, once his mom slipped me a 20 and he made me give it back! "I'm already paying you!" he would say. Grr.

The owner of the place I work now is definitely not like that. He is so nice and approachable, and he gets in there and helps when we are slammed. And not just expediting or getting behind the line to just yell and be a dick to compensate for his tiny penis like Schmohnny used to do, he actually does things that Schmohnny would think were beneath him.

Example, last night I was delivering a buttload of things to my tables, which included a to-go order of black beans and rice. Well, I had a clumsy moment and dropped the bag, which caused the little cup of beans to become a bean bomb and explode everywhere. The owner was standing there when it happened. Forgetting myself, I said, "S, could you grab me another to-go order of black beans?" Now, if I had addressed The Almighty Schmecca that way, he would have screamed at me in front of the customers and refused to get it. Or if he did get it, he would have grumbled and bitched at me for wasting $.05 worth of beans or whatever.

S didn't even blink, he ran back to the kitchen and got me what I needed. Then while I was delivering more stuff to my tables he cleaned up the spilled beans. I just thought that was kind of awesome. If you want to instill teamwork in your team, you have to be the example, and S definitely is.

I don't think Schmecca has cleaned anything ever in his entire pampered life. Do I sound bitter? Yeah, I probably am.

Please see the hostess for patio seating

Can you read that?

Congratulations, you are smarter than 90% of my customers tonight.

How to make your server cry

Not me, I don't cry when I'm mad or frustrated. But another server tonight, a really sweet girl who is normally on the ball, was having a hell of a time with these 10 old ladies that were there for a birthday party. They started out with one server but then they just got up and moved themselves to the bar so they could smoke. They told another server (not theirs) to just pick up the stuff on the table and move it for them as they breezed by. Their first server saw that they were going to be twats, so he had them transferred to our cocktail waitress.

They stayed in there the whole three hours I was there tonight, and by the end of our cocktail waitress was standing in front of a computer terminal sobbing. I looked over her shoulder and saw that they had ordered a bunch of appetizers to share, and they had her split all of them 10 ways. So the screen was full of "1/10 Tableside Guacamole... $.94" and "1/10 chicken fajita nachos.... $.87" etc.

SERIOUSLY?

She said they were so rude to her, and acted like they were the only people in the place. There was a band on the patio tonight, and it was packed, no room at all. The outside hostess said they came and demanded that she find them some place to sit because they were here before the band got here and they should be able to move out to the patio if they want. Pretty sure the outside hostess told them to go get fucked.

Yeah, I'm 12

Coworker bumping into the tray of waters I have: Ooh!
Me: Sorry!
Him: It's fine. I'm sorry. I'm wet, you're not.
Me: That's what she said.

Thanks? I think?

Coworker: "Have you waited tables before?"
Me: "Yes, for years, but I've been doing other things for a while now."
Coworker: "I thought so, because you seem like you're not a dumbass."

Thank you jesus for auto-grat

I had the party room tonight. That is where we put large groups. The first group was of 23 people, and they were absolutely delightful. There was a little girl about 7 years old who was just the cutest thing, so polite and charming. She gave me a hug before they left. That kind of thing just makes my night.

The second group was supposed to be 20, but it somehow grew to 28, and they were making me HATE THEM. Here's a tip if you're going to eat out with a big group. First, if you see me with a tray of 8 margaritas, that isn't the time to expect me to push another table up for you RIGHT.FUCKING.NOW. And don't expect everything to be done immediately, okay? There are 28 of you and one of me. I know you think you REALLY need your little bowl of salsa RIGHT.FUCKING.NOW but dude, I'm sure you can see that I am hauling ass back and forth from the bar to get everyone their drinks. Remember how there's only one of me? Yeah. The next time I go into the kitchen, I will grab your fucking free salsa. Settle.

The next thing you should know is that if all 28 of you have separate checks, (and waitresses REALLY FUCKING HATE YOU FOR THIS) it's going to take a while to get it all separated, printed, distributed, and then collected. Especially when you catch me off guard and inhale your goddamn food and want your check the second I deliver the last meal to your table.

In addition, I do everything in order of how you are sitting at the table, so not only will standing there at the computer beside me not make it go any faster, it will actually slow it down because once you're out of your seat I have no fucking clue who you are and which check is yours. Again, SETTLE. One of me, 28 of you.

Oh, and finally? To the idiot hostess who asked if there is anything she could do to help? If I say, "YES! If you could go in there with a pitcher of water that would be great," that doesn't mean literally go in there and stand there with a pitcher of water waiting for me. Fuck. Try pouring it in the glasses! It's the new thing the kids are doing with pitchers of water these days.

Worthless bussers

I hate our bussers. HAAAAAAATE. They are so fucking worthless. They won't take barware back to the bar. They never wipe seats, and half the time they don't wipe tables properly. They never sweep no matter how big a mess is under the table. They get infuriated if we dump a pre-bussed plate into their bus tub instead of taking it back to the dishwasher and scraping it and sorting it ourselves. WTF are you here getting paid for then? I am running around like a crazy woman and you are standing there with your stupid whore thumb up your ass, take the fucking plate, bitchface.

Whew. That felt better.

Would you like me to blow on it for you?

I've heard of people complaining that food is cold, but this was a new one on me. A lady ordered a half rack of ribs, which we serve on a hot skillet like fajitas. She complained that it was too hot.

Herpaderp

"I want to make a to-go order, but my husband hasn't called me to tell me what he wants. Can I just pay for it now and then call in later to tell you what he wants and you can make it then?"

Ummm. Yes, ma'am, that will be $300. Or maybe $3. Who knows.

I'll be your robot wish-fulfillment device tonight

"Hi! How are you doing tonight?"
"Get me an unsweetened iced tea."

On the subject of entitlement

Some people take offense to this kind of blog because they think bitching about the rude and poorly-behaved customers I wait on, who I have to say are in the minority, makes me "an arrogant, entitled bitch," a "whiner."

First off, as I said, this blog is just for me to vent. What the fuck is wrong with venting? You never vent about your job? Venting makes you arrogant and entitled? What the fuck ever

I'm pretty sure the "entitled" label is because I bitch about tips. Maybe to you, a tip is just "extra" for when you're feeling generous, or maybe you are resentful about having to tip. But for me it isn't extra; it's my wages for doing my job.

The restaurant pays me $2.13 an hour, which is about enough to cover taxes. I make that much because I am expected to make the majority of my money in tips. I have to give a percentage of my sales (not my tips, my sales) to the busser, the bartender, and the expediter if we have one. So if you leave a crap tip, I may not get any of it, because they get the same percentage no matter what. Worse, if you leave no tip, I actually paid for the privilege of waiting on your sorry ass. Not griping about that, because hey, it's what I signed up for and I know I can make enough to make it worth my while.

However, put yourself in a similar position for a moment. Imagine you take a job, and you do a badass job, do everything you're required to and more, and then after you've already done the work, your employer says they're going to pay you half the going rate. And then after that, they wanted you to do even more that isn't in your normal job description like scrub crayon off a concrete floor (for example lol). You'd just be okay with that? Or maybe you'd be insulted? Hell, you'd probably quit.

So haters, hate on. But I don't think I'm arrogant and entitled to feel like I should be paid for the work I do. Do you feel arrogant and entitled every time you deposit your paycheck?

BTW, I had a great night last night, everyone was so much fun and so great. :)

Don't Stereotype Your Tables

That is what they tell you, but really, you totally can in most cases.

Younger trio, kind of thuggy looking with tattoos and stuff, barely old enough to drink, and they cavelierly order the most expensive shit on the menu.

You see where this is going, right? Yeah, 10%.

Some people's children

Okay, I have a passel of children myself, and I canNOT believe the way people allow their children to behave in a restaurant. Tonight I was working on the patio, and the restaurant next to us (a super expensive steak house) had a live band on their patio, so the cheap people came and ate at our place and listened to their band.

There was a table who had a little boy of about 2 years old and a girl about 6 years old. I think it was the grandparents with them. Anyway, they sat there from 6:30 pm till about 10:00 pm, and of course, the kids were bored.

So what do grammy and grampa do? Why, they let the boy crawl all over the patio in between tables (IN THE DARK!) and also sit up against the door where servers come out onto the patio with big heavy trays of food. I told her she couldn't let him do that because it was dangerous, but she was too busy having a good time to watch him.

The kicker is when they let the girl draw all over the floor of the patio with a crayon. Fucking seriously! Who does that?

Some of the worst types

Tonight two women and four kids came in. Three of the kids were about 5-7 years old and the fourth was about 11-12. I get their drinks and their order and everything is fine. The order came up, and as it wouldn't all fit on one tray, the expediter filled up one tray and then called for a runner while I waited to get the second tray. For some reason, one of the women's chicken dish was not coming up. The runner returns to the kitchen. Half the table already has their food. Bleh. So I ask the cook what's holding up the chicken and whether I should go and come back for it or just wait a few more seconds. He says to go. So against my instincts, I go. I haaaaaaaaaaaaate not delivering all the food at once, but at this point it's already done and I didn't have any control over it.

I return to the kitchen and the chicken is ready. I start to walk out with it and the little ramekin of sauce (she asked for the sauce on the side) when I realize there is no cheese on the chicken. So I go back and they put some cheese on it and throw it in the oven so it will melt. Finally I arrive with the chicken and tell her that they had forgotten to put the cheese on it and so that is why it took so long.

They all dig in, and I go about helping other tables. Next thing you know I see the manager at the table giving the woman a fresh plate of chicken. I grab the manager and ask what the problem was. She said that the woman didn't want sauce on it, so she had it remade. I told her that it did not have sauce on it when I brought it out, and she shrugs. This tells me the woman did not address her problem with the manager at all. Or she put the sauce on it and decided she didn't like it. ORRRRRRRRRR, more likely, she was just trying to get something for free. :) Gee, wonder which it could be.

So then I go to the woman and ask if there was a problem with her chicken. She says it was severely overcooked. I apologize and ask if her new chicken is to her liking. She says it is.

Okay, so time passes and the kids manage to make the biggest fucking mess I've ever seen. They keep running to the hostess stand and grabbing toothpicks, gnawing on them, and dropping the broken remnants on the floor. Just dropping their goddamn trash on the floor and leaving it there. What. The. Fuck.

The woman asks me if she can have a to-go box for her chicken. I give one to her and apologize again for the first order of chicken. I get them their checks, cash them out, and then they proceed to sit there for another HOUR. The kids are bored as hell running around, bothering people, spreading the mess further and further away from the actual table.

When they finally get up and go, leaving behind a disaster of a mess in their wake, I go to pick up the checks. She has left a note on her credit card receipt that says, "I am very disappointed that I was charged for a meal that was late to begin with and then so terrible I couldn't eat it." UM. HAAAAAAAAAANG ON. You didn't get charged for that one. You got charged for the SECOND one, which you ate and took the rest home with you and fucking enjoyed.

At the bottom is a $2 tip on a $36.00 tab. Her cunt friend also left a dismal tip, $3 on a $42 tab. I don't make the food, I don't get to comp items, she spoke to the manager and didn't ask for anything to be comped, all of this was beyond MY personal control, AND we made it right, AND she sat there and hogged my table for hours, ANDDDD her little urchins trashed half the dining room, AND she came in here looking for an opportunity to get something free and she didn't, and she takes it out on me?

FUCK. HER.

Luckily all my other customers were delightful tonight.

Hello, my name is Dixie

And I'll be your waitress tonight.

After 9 years away, I returned to waiting tables after getting laid off at my job with a giganto computer manufacturer and going back to school. I thought I had encountered assholishly entitled customers before, but the customers in my current town really take the cake. I need a place to vent, so I figured I'd start a blog.