Terrorists and Tippers

There is a terrorist organization living in my apartment
The Garbage Terrorists have banned together with the Sink Terrorists to create an “Axis” type bond in efforts to take over my life and I am alone
No one will join the Allies…so I guess really I should call myself the Ally considering that I am just one person.

However, WWIV is going splendidly and I feel that I am just days away from killing off the terrorists formally known as fruit flies.

This all started when a person who shall remain nameless (YES YOU ELIZABETH) ate some sort of sugary food and left their sugary bowl in the sink and a day later…to my dismay…the attack on the homeland had begun.

I have acquired the best defense weapons at my disposal and so I would like to take a minute to say… haha you terrorists I hope you are enjoying drowning in my apple cider vinegar you filthy little monsters

On a brighter note… McYummy does not have fruit flies and I thought that it should be noted

So yesterday was my first real day as a server…it was intense. In addition to things I must share about yesterday, I realized I had forgotten quite a bit last time.

THINGS I SHOULD HAVE MENTIONED LAST WEEK

Discovery #1 : We eat your food
There are many people who will look at their food and deem before you even put it down that it isn’t right.
Now I’m not sure how someone can look at French fries as I’m walking with them to the customer and claim that they aren’t hot enough when the said fries are not even within grabbing distance of the customer.
However, I find all these crazy idiosyncrasies wonderful because if
1) you haven’t touched your food
2) its not like…disgusting
We the servers will be eating it….i quite enjoy eating your food and this was a wonderful surprise

Discovery #2: Hooters
When discussing my need to still buy a shirt with the McYummy logo on it I discovered that I should buy my shirt a size smaller because I would make greater tips…interesting

Discovery #3: Technology Man
On my last day of training I had a man sit down with a Bluetooth headset on and his laptop ready and open.

I got his drinks and when I returned he had out a nook. When I brought him his appetizer out he had out his ipad…So at this point he was simultaneously using his Iphone via his Bluetooth, a laptop, a nook, and an ipad.
Well this obviously seemed like the end of his Marry Poppins bag of electronic toys.

But as I brought out the entrees he pulled out his Kindle to show his dining mate his new investment.
Now I love technology…and I could understand reasons for having each device. But I would like to understand why someone would need to use all of them at once. I mean I use my fan, tv, dvd player and my computer at once. But when is there ever a need to have 3 e readers open at the same time.

Thats like if i needed 3 tv's so i could watch 3 separate episodes of friends at the same time. (actually that sounds awesome)

Perhaps if you had them laying out then you could read one page on one…the next on the other device and then the last page on the last device. Thus having to turn pages only every three pages.

Overall I just found this funny because this man left a 5 dollar tip on a HUGE bill and lets be honest if you can afford a nook, kindle, and ipad…I think you can afford to tip better than that

Discovery #4: Cleanliness is next to Godliness
Everyone washes their hands so much (myself included) and I was pleasantly surprised because I always wonder what kinds of germs get passed around restaurants.
Everyone at McYummy is very proactive in making sure their hands are completely clean at all times.
Which is good…because I touch your used food.
Like when you drop a hamburger patty on the floor
Or lettuce
I get to pick it up
Its one of the many joys of life I grabbing moist…dirty…used food


- - -

Ok so that was everything that I had forgotten…Now to the epic narrative of my evening last night.

I was so ready to serve last night. It was Father’s Day and so in preparation I had on my skinny jeans and my smaller black polo ready to rake in the tips.

They always say that you know before you’re going to die. There is stillness in the air and time sort of moves in slow motion as you watch the car coming towards you or the gun being shot.

I would equate my first 10 minutes of serving to this feeling.

Every section has two servers and you switch off tables. Well my partner was not at work yet and somehow the hostesses were unaware that I was alone

…well I hope they were unaware, because otherwise this was a cruel mean joke…

So I get my first table of 10 people! Yay!!
As I’m going to greet them another table is sat with four people...
Before I finish greeting the first table and can even get to the 2nd table to say hi the hosts are seating me another table of 10
For those of you not so good at basic math….24 people
Within a 5-minute period I was seated 24 people that I had the sole job to take of…great…NOT
This is how my first day started

As previously mentioned, I made a promise…to not cry at work. Well I almost broke this promise.

My hands were shaking
My legs were shaking
Then the stillness came and knew that this was it…this was how my serving career would end.
I had people from 3 tables yelling at me and 24 drink and food orders to put in.

(Note: They were not yelling at me because I am a bad waitress. But both big tables had people who decided they would order for everyone. So when I brought around the drinks and people told me that is not what they wanted they got upset

Well…I’m sorry. I ASKED if what control freak at the front of the table was correct on the orders and no one said no.
When I stare at you, and we make eye contact, and I ask you “you want sweet tea right” and you smile and nod your head…im going to assume that means yes…as opposed to the dr. pepper you ASSUMED was coming to you” )

Just when I was about to crash under the pressure Sally came to my rescue and asked if I needed help. I would throw Sally a parade if I could. With floats made of flowers and candy like the Rose Bowl.

All the servers were so nice to me and helped me out so much in serving those tables. They were also all really pissed at the hosts for doing that to me.

It was a really intense way to start off my shift.

Overall the rest of the night went really well and everyone thought I did great for my first shift. I didn’t spill food on anyone which that right there is a success.

OBSERVATIONS ON MY FIRST NIGHT AS A SERVER

Well first off I have to say that I’m so pumped I have an apron because now I have almost my whole Halloween costume for this year. All I need is a Merlotte’s t-shirt and I can be Sookie from True Blood

Observation #1: Boys will be Boys
As I entered McYummy I saw 4 of the male servers glued to the window watching a sorority girl in yoga pants walk to her car.

I learned that apparently there is a system where the guys will inform each other of the hotties at the restaurant and then at various times the menfolk will walk by the table to then confer in the kitchen on their thoughts on said hot female.

In the midst of my serving freak-out … Brian walks through the kitchen
Brian : “MILF AT TABLE 71!!!....I GOT A MILF!!!!”

Well apparently the presence of a hot older lady supersedes all known protocol because all the guys ran out together to check out the MILF as opposed to their normal tag-team viewing system.

Observation #2: Some people won’t be your friend
There are two people on staff who for some reason do not like me.
One is a waitress who from now on will be called Hurricane Josephine.
Josephine refuses to talk to me. She was working three of my training days and each day I tried to introduce myself and get to know her. Each time her response was to look at me with disdain and walk away.
She wouldn’t even tell me her name! I had to find out from someone else. I find it perfectly adequate that her name is also the name of a hurricane.

(remember all names are changed in my stories so her name isn’t actually Josephine but Josephine is another hurricane name like ******* so it seemed appropriate)

Well yesterday I decided I would make friends with Hurricane Josephine and the Surly Mexican Cook. All the other cooks like me and we joke around. So all shift…to no avail I might add… I tried to talk and make friends with the Hurricane and My Fiesta friend.

But apparently they do not want to be my friend. Even though I offered to run food for Josephine and tried using some Spanish words with Mexico.

It is frustrating but their loss as I am a great friend to most people

Observation #3: People in this country are bad tippers

You know who you are

Stop doing it

When I make your child stop crying ….i deserve more than a 10% tip. Because
1) he threw chicken at me
2) Since you were so determined that he doesn’t have mac and cheese. I convinced him that we were out
3) I found him extra crayons
4) I got him new chicken after he threw his chicken at me

Observation #4: Professor Trelawney

This sort of belongs in the last observation but deserves its own story time.
So my last table of the day was 4 people
A man who said he was English but talked like he was from Australia and looked like he lived in the boonies
His daughter who nods a lot
A woman who I thought was his wife but they were on separate checks and she never once spoke the entire time…I found this odd
And a woman who looks exactly like Professor Trelawney from Harry Potter. I mean identical. I’ve attached a photo so you can understand the full effect.

Now I gave them great service. I was not swamped like I had been earlier and still managed to make 15-18% tips on my checks average. Which apparently is really good for my first day (yay).

Now I know that Professor Trelawney did not like me. I’m unsure as to why this is but I’m sure. She did this thing where she would be looking down and slowly turn her head up towards me till she was looking me in the eye (i say eye because she really only looked into one of my eyes as she did her weird bird head move thing) and she would stop and say

Prof T. “it's wrong”

And so I would ask her what she didn’t like
She wanted her ice removed from her Sweet Tea
So I got her a new sweet tea without ice and brought it back

Creepy head turn
Prof T. “it's wrong”

She wanted the sweet tea with the essence of ice.
I was supposed to take the sweet tea into a cup with ice and then pour it out of that cup into a new cup that had no ice
So I did that and she look at me as if I was an imbecile and dismissed me to go fetch her food

I brought out her fajitas and she wanted to know why they were still fuming from the stove. I explained that they are sizzling and that’s the whole point…you know…since they are called…SIZZLING Fajitas

She must have deemed that this was acceptable and went back to her eating.

So the checks were the English/aussie/boonies man and his daughter
And the mute(not actually a mute because I saw her talking when I was away from the table)/Prof. T

The English and the Aussie left an O.K. tip
The Mute and Prof T crossed out the tip section on their credit card slip. I wasn’t concerned because other people had done this and then left cash tips instead.
So I closely watched their table and when they left I was right there ready to get my tip.

I lifted up the glasses…no tip
I lifted up the plates….no tip
I looked under the table
In between the cushions
In the sugar dispenser …no tip

SERIOUSLY!!!! SERIOUSLY!!! I get this woman the essence of ice in her sweet tea and I don’t get a tip.

Rude

Observation #5 : Bodily Functions take a 2nd seat

So my last observation about serving is that you forget about basic needs while serving.

For example I forgot to sit for 6 and a half hours.

I also forgot to pee

Which I know you all wanted to know

But let me tell you….you forget to pee for almost 7 hours

And when you finally do remember it is a blissful moment.

So when I went to sit down to roll silverware my legs buckled.

They were like

“hey…remember us…well we hate you now…it was bad enough you use us to tap dance but NOW you wont let us rest... oh ok fine see how you feel in the morning bitch”

yea…my legs were sore this morning.

So that’s my thoughts on my first night of serving. It was definitely not what I expected. But so far I love 99.9 percent of the people I work with and so any bad things that have happened really don’t phase me because everyone I work with makes the environment so much fun.