Saturday Night Wrist

Tonight at work started out as pretty fast paced. I checked in, opened my section, and was immediately sat with a large party.

They seemed to immediately come in with a pissy attitude, and nothing seemed to please them. They payed with a gift card and then a CC for the rest. I wasn't expecting much from them because of the poor atmosphere radiating from their table no matter what I did. Their bill was $76, and they had a $50 GC. Oh shit. I have learned to hate gift cards because people tip off of the discounted price. Don't you people understand? I tip out based on your full bill before the GC discount....and in this instance, I did the work for a $76 bill. But then on their remaining $26 CC bill, they left me $7. Like, wow, less than 10%. The thing is, I am not sure if people really are stupid enough to believe it's OK to tip off of a discounted bill amount, or that they believe they are entitled to screw me over because they have a gift card. They should rename them "Screw-your-server-over" cards.

OK, so I expected that and let it slide. And then I was immediately sat with ANOTHER large party. Also with a gift card, but they were generous enough to leave 15% (hey, I deserved 20% with the service I gave...but with GCs I'm just happy to get part of what I'm deserving of BETTER than 10%). They leave and for a third time I'm sat with a large party. Jesus. And then as soon as they left it's like the restaurant closed or something. My section cleared out and was empty for 30 minutes, and nobody walked in the door.

I finally caught a break when I wandered over to the hostess stand and heard the hostess telling a group of 3 guys that walked in "Well, you can sit at the bar, or...." I jump in front of them, give my biggest smile and say "...Or you can sit with me!" They kinda laughed and said "Ok" and I took them back to my section and BS'd with them a bit while I took their order. They were nice guys. And then lo and behold all of a sudden out of nowhere my section filled up completely and I was ecstatic.PEOPLE! MONEY! They happened to include a group of 5 military guys and I charmed them to death as well. After my section cleared out I had gotten 20% or better from my last group of tables.

When I did my checkout, I was really happy to learn that after a string of bad Saturday nights, I had done over $100 after tip out. (In my restaurant, that's pretty decent). Thank God. I had felt faint and sick all night, and I congratulated myself for not going home sick.

I really needed this pick me up. So much bad has been haunting my life in the form of depression that this was fabulous.

Work

Time to go to work and feel normal again. It feels strange and boring if I don't work a lot. I haven't worked since Monday, and it was so slow I only had 5 tables all night!

Lazy Day

I'm not sure why, but some days off seem better than others. Or maybe I just needed this one badly. I haven't worked yet this week, so it's not like I'm tired from that. I guess just being sick has taken a lot out of me.

Slept until 1 pm. Being lazy. Have to go the store later today to print some pictures for a gift, and then straight back home. Video games with my dad, and then sleep. TOTALLY fun. Just the way I like it.

New blog Email

I created a new email address for this blog should anybody like to contact me. I didn't want to use my personal one.

So here we go:

AZWaitress@gmail.com

Day From Hell

Yesterday I worked a double, 10:30 opening to 10:30pm. All day I had cheap customers and it pissed me off because I was initially in a great mood and doing great. I decided that if people were going to be cheap as hell, then I'd have to make up for it in volume. So I said yes to the hostess whenever she asked me to pick up a table.

The biggest annoyance I had was towards the end of the night. I had a party of 8 sat, and then before I could even get drink orders I was double sat. WTF hostesses? I understand we're busy, but if you want these people to get good service, you can't give me a large party, and then double seat me 1 minute later. And of course your tables act like they're the only ones in the restaurant and huff and puff when they don't get service at lightning pace. Hello, this is a busy Saturday evening with a 40 minute wait time; you're not going to get the same quick service you could get on a weeknight.

These last 3 tables were my biggest headache. Demanding and needy as hell. One was an old couple who felt the need to repeat their picky particular requests 3 times like I hadn't heard them, not letting me leave until they reiterated everything a million times. Then the old lady thought her medium prime rib was rare (it wasn't) so she complained, and then her husband jumped on the bandwagon and said his sweet potato was hard and he couldn't 'slide his fork through it like usual'. Over and over again I agreed to fix it and they just kept bitching and making expressions like they had sucked on lemons. I finally brought back fixed food and they were finally happy. What's funny is the old woman said "now THIS is delicious and perfect". But the prime rib she had just called rare? We didn't cook it any longer. All the expo guy did was throw it into the au jus pan for 3 minutes and throw it back on the plate. So it looked darker, but it wasn't cooked any longer. That's fine with me, her damn prime rib WAS medium just like she asked. I've seen rare prime rib. It looks waaay different than hers did.

The second table had 2 gift certificates and a coupon. They left these and $13 and said they were good so I wished them a good night. I go back, and get the manager to apply the GC and coupon. She tells me the GCs don't include their alcohol, so I needed to go ask for more cash to cover the bill. Of course I look out and the people are gone. The manager sighs and goes "They totally knew what they were doing" and thankfully discounted the check so that the $13 ended up going in my pocket as a tip.

Dealing with the 2nd table took like 5 minutes, so by the time I got back out to figure out how the large party's checks would be separated, they were standing up and glaring at me impatiently. I explained how I had encountered a problem with the last table and apologized for having it take so long....I really had no control over it. So I go to separate the checks, then run the cards and hand them back and they all thank me and leave the books on the tables.

Mother f*ckers. 1 left me 20%, another left me 25%....but the other 2 checks both left me 5%. Now I'm pretty sure that was on purpose; they were bitchy about having to wait. It wasn't my fault dammit! I gave them awesome service (when my other 2 tables let me...), ran my ass off for their extra sides, tons of beer, etc. My coworker friend said "Just tell them in your mind to eat a dick and move on". I laughed, fumed a bit, and then thanked the lord when I saw I was finally cut.

I had the lowest common denominator for customers yesterday. I wanted to cut a bitch by 1pm....by 10:30 I was seething. Ugh.

At least I broke my record for tips and made the most I have made at this job yet. Stupid tipshares....I had to pay out $34. Without that I would have walked with almost $200. Booooo. :P

Holy Cow

Holy cow.

Tonight on my last table of the night I grab the black books off the table after they leave and go to the POS the input my tips. I open the last one and do a double take. I still couldn't believe it so I asked two co-workers to confirm that they saw the same thing written as I did. They did....

I dunno if the guy was drunk, liked me, or both, but his check was $37. 47 and he wrote $60.00 on the total line. So I had to work out the tip myself....holy cow. $22.53 on a $37 check. OMG.

Score.

When the Lights Go Out in the City...

Tonight was cut short by a massive town-wide power outage that knocked out 3/4 of the town I work in. I got in a t 5pm and the power went out at 7:30pm. Damn! i was on a roll too, it seemed it would be a decent Thursday.

But then the power went out, we had to hand write checks, and use the old fashion credit card machines that make a rubbing of the card. Fun!

I had one guy joke about skipping out and I glared at him. He asked who would pay for his meal if he were to ditch the bill, and I said the restaurant would, but he'd be screwing me out my tip at the same time. He laughed and handed me a 5 for his $23 check. I thanked and he called me back over as I was walking away.

"How much do y'all make? Minimum wage or what?"

"Yeah sort of-$4.25/hr. It used to be $2.13/hr."

He looked at me in disbelief. He then reached in his wallet and gave me 3 more dollars. Haha. Score. Nice to see a custie that gets it.

And then my last table lucked out big time. Their order had been made right before all the power went out, so they got their food. Some diners had to go home hungry because of the outage. You'd think they'd be greatful? Their bill was $53.18, and they handed me $60 and told me to keep the change like they were being really generous. Wow, a $6.82 tip on your $53 check. Bastards. Not even 15% when I rocked on my service to them.