One of us!

I am not some angst ridden teen discovering and adopting ideals of an anarchist utopia here but I loathe blatant conditioning and forced assimilation/integration.  If I wanted to be a carbon copy drone I would have come into this world as a copy of a copy of a copy from the original memo you stuck in the copy machine at work.

I started noticing this conditioning a few months ago.  Every time I see the GM there would be a greeting, instant ‘hello.’  Then I started saying it first.  Then I stopped because I realized that I had been conned into saying it.  I didn’t really want to say ‘hello’ to the GM, I was just doing it reflexively something like Pavlov’s dogs.  Another thing: “don’t let the phone ring!” and I was at work, not clocked in but there post-meeting to have breakfast and almost answered the phone.  That I can’t actually blame on anyone.

Forced assimilation/integration.  I’m glad you have your little quirks that work for you.  I really am.  But here you are complaining about turn over times and telling us to drag out the patrons’ stay while we get through a now lengthy script that they probably don’t want.  They know what they want.  You come up to some of the them and don’t even get your greeting out before they tell you what they want to drink therefore why should I waste my time, their time, and the company’s time to ask them if they wanted what they ordered plus something else?  Why?  And these ridiculous buttons aren’t doing us any favors either.  If we don’t ask, we suffer?  More accurately: If they don’t remember when they’re evaluating us then we get screwed over.  Please, rely on customer memory (when most don’t even remember what their server looks like two minutes after they’ve left the table, let alone their name) to recall what we said to them.  They’ve been to restaurants for years, they know how things go so they’re going to tune out 95% of what we say unless they make a conscious effort to respect their server.  That’s how I like getting screwed over by the restaurant.  Love it.  I won’t even get into the obnoxious size of these pins.  This flare.  Nazi imposed Jew flare… sending us to the crematorium.  (God, that’s offensive.)  But let me state for those people who like the conformity and drone actions of servers who are all the same: we are not high class dining, I don’t get enough in tips to be a drone, and the nasty uniform is bad enough.

Superfluous

Got to hang out BoH as expo on Saturday.  No real reason to be there since they started cutting right when I arrived.  Didn’t need to fill the line except for fruit.  All-in-all, it was a pretty good use of my life.  I mean, I did get paid for minimal labor and there’s nothing easier than reading tickets and traying food.  Unfortunately, BoH was more subdued than usual, less shenanigans, though cooks did pick up a game to pass the time with the slow weekend day.  I was skeptical.  Thankfully, it hasn’t progressed to the game in Waiting.  Once it does, I fear BoH will slowly rot from the inside out and eventually vanish into some alternate dimension.  Though humidity does make me question whether I would really stick my nose up at such a game – any excuse to get naked!  …kidding?

Popped in today.  Back of House was… silent.  Smokers were out smoking, one cook on the line, and not a soul else hanging out.  Tumble weeds could have passed through, fires could have started, we could have been robbed of all the fresh bakery and no one would have known until it was to late.

You know, I didn’t take the fourth of July off because GM has been saying how everyone wants it off and its good we’re getting new people to take those shifts but did I get scheduled for it?  Nope.  Scheduled all around it but not on the fourth.  Well, hell.

2.65 per HOUR!

Goodbye Michael Jackson.  Lets just get that out of the way.  The one thing I didn’t enjoy over this whole ordeal is that people/papers started jumping the gun.  “Reports” are not the same as “confirmations.”  That would have been a shambles if over zealous reporters “reported” he’d died and it was later “confirmed” that he wasn’t.  Lucky for the papers, not so much for the Jacksons.  I also feel like Farrah Fawcett got swept under the rug.  Way to steal the show, Michael.

More news: Bozeman city realized their asshattery.  Huzzah!  My interweb activity is safe from my employers and other wandering eyes in HR.  Just because they work in HR doesn’t mean they’re not capable of malicious intentions.

Other news more down to earth and relating to my existence: According to a certain store’s website application I don’t have the personality to work in retail.  What expectations do you want me to meet?  Apparently they’re seeking people without a degree, who aren’t seeking further education, who don’t deal with really disgusting, low, crude people, people who don’t operate efficiently in a team setting and independently, who don’t multitask every moment, who aren’t excellent problem solvers,  and who don’t communicate effectively or work well in a fast paced environment while keeping a close eye on detail.  Huh.  Guess I don’t fit into retail then.  Selling stuff, what do I know about up-selling?  About handling money?  About pushing items?  About effective communication and assisting people?  Nothin’.  According to them, nothing.  Maybe it was the fact that in my spare time I like to exercise instead of sleep away my day off.  It also could have been that I enjoyed spending time with my close friends and family.  I don’t know.  What values are you really looking for?

My one day this week gave me the riches of 2.60.  I would just like to say that if any more hicks want to chat me up and run up their bill they’d better be leaving me more than one percent because I don’t need to listen to them bitching about their inconsequential lives to me, question what’s on the food then not believe me, while their kid crawls practically everywhere all for a dollar.

In Hell

It is hotter than hell right now.  I can’t even begin to imagine what the restaurant must be like with those uniforms.  It’s got to be like a sauna in there – tidal waves of sweat sweeping away stray napkins and platters.  Is there no happy medium?  Humidity like a tropical rain forest and a beating sun are presently sapping my life from me.  I can feel my soul pooling on the ground around my feet and frying like a sunny-side up egg.  I could go to the beach but I’m absurdly fair skinned and would look like tabasco sauce on ice cream.  (The hell’s wrong with me today?)

So, I was sitting in the court house waiting room for an interview type deal and in comes a gray haired man past his prime.  That’s not unusual however it looks like this guy’s gone through a mid-life crisis and never gotten out of it.  Take an almost twenty year old boys fashion sense and slap it on a late forty/early fifty year old man and that was him.  His music was so loud I could make out words from across the waiting room.  That’s something.  Anyway, he had a tick of lip smacking (which drives me batty).  On top of that the moment he takes his headphones off he decides he wants to talk to me about how he was a day early yesterday, how it’s great the receptionist didn’t know when is appointment was, and how bleeding hot it is outside.  Why, why would I want to talk to him?  I spend my day with a smile plastered on my face.  I’m tired of trying to be interested in what people have to say to me all of the time – it’s exhausting.  This story isn’t going anywhere.  Done.

In other news: I have no food.  I’m living off of Ramen and a thing of cheese.  It’s like I’m in high school again.

Father’s Day

Congratulations you have the ability to bear and/or raise children/offspring/parasites!  This day is for you though you’re probably just going to get a meal and some trivial gifts.  So really, it’s like the poor man’s Christmas.  I, not being a father myself, still reaped some of the benefits: mass food consumption being one of them.

I’m fairly certain that my family was more distressed about the lack of days that I work than I was.  They were up in arms about the GM and about finding another job (which, believe me, I need a second job there just aren’t any).  None of them really wanted to get off the subject.  Glad I went out for a Father’s Day dinner to listen to that.  I should know all about how ridiculous the scheduling is – it’s my schedule!  I don’t want to talk about, don’t need advice on it, etc.  Leave it alone!

Unfortunately, we lost someone in the family this morning so this is as long as the post gets.  2009 has been a rough year thus far.

Off Day

I am in a rut.  I have gone years with a mostly set schedule.  That would be: Monday – Friday with classes of various topics with professors and teachers force feeding me information while I struggled to stay awake, not talk, and generally pay attention and do the monotonous busy work that was probably just as painful to grade as it was to do.  The fact that it’s my first summer after graduating from college leaves something to be desired.  I have been working towards this moment since I was old enough to fathom being this old.  Now that it’s here I realize my folly and would like a refund on the past several decades of my life.  Granted, I’m going back as a grad student but it’s another transition into the unknown.  Grad school is not under-grad work and this summer with this miscellaneous work schedule is ruining my ambition to do much of anything.

I require a schedule to function!  I am doomed next week with the: “one day schedule” as I’m referring to it.

As for today, it’s been ruined already.  I’ve wasted enough time trying to sleep when my body revolted against the idea and took charge leaving me with three hours of questionable rest and a general feeling of laziness mixed with anxiety for things that would come more quickly if only I would get out and do something else.

On the bright side: money.  Pay day.  A real check.  I shall continue to escape the box community for another month.

Outside News: This was just brought to my attention.  It seems that Facebook, WordPress, Livejournal, and Myspace are a hot new way to do illegal things because otherwise asking for your username and password would seem like an extreme invasion of privacy…  Bozeman city, you’re off your bleeding rocker.  This is poor news from the very start.  I feel my rights have been infringed upon and I don’t live anywhere near there and now nor do I want to.  What sort of asshat comes up with stuff like this?  Last thing in that article: No one has removed their name from job consideration.  Well no kidding!  One would think people need money, need to survive, acknowledge that times are tough and we’re suffering.  …privacy can be compromised when we’re faced with the prospect of homelessness and starvation.  Thanks.  Brilliant.

The Late Morning Shift

The glory days are over.  Work is calling me back tomorrow for the late morning shift.  Really though, is there anything better than the late morning shift?  The late morning shift is the chocolate of shifts, the brownie batter of shifts, especially during the week.  You don’t wake up before the bats are sleeping, get there a little before the lunch rush, you leave when the night shift comes on…  Restaurant gold – though, possibly to late for Ham and Cheese Omelette Man.

I always dread going back to work.  That rising anxiety at the prospect that I’m going to have the worst day ever, spill hot water on myself (worse: on someone else), forget an order during a rush, have a walk-out.  All of these fears just lurking in the back of my mind like monsters under the bed.  I am way to high-strung for a job like this and yet here I am.  Thank you very much, economy.  Not to mention I’m not working with my favorite people that I look forward to working with.  Who takes a week off?  Come on!  You have rent and food and living to pay for.  Get back here.  The restaurant has you in its clutches and is calling you back with its siren song of pancake batter and crispy bacon.

I’d also like to mention, since I’ve put the late morning shift on a high enough pedestal that I’m sure it’s going to topple off and crack my head open, these two days off have been days of weird old men.  Old men in their convertibles getting all up in my poor cars business like it had a choice to have the acceleration ability of a snail, old men watching my laundry while mouth breathing and mumbling incoherent words at me to let me know I should take my laundry out of the dryer, and an old man with a bucket of ice cream trudging home on foot through a game of frisbee.  Is this some sort of sign?  Should I be wary of old men?  Are these signs of Armageddon?

Ham and cheese Omelette Man

Hats off to you Ham and Cheese Omelette Man.  Ham and Cheese Omelette Man is the only frequenter of the restaurant I recognize besides for the one with the obvious tick.  This leathery old man todders in, looking like a grumpy old bulldog, and always comes in alone.  He’s not the friendliest looking, you’re lucky to get a smile out of him, and his diction and articulation is almost indecipherable.  Fortunately, he orders the same thing every time he comes in.  The same omelette, the same sides, the same drink.  I had him three days in a row one week and it was always the same.  One, through experience, would assume it’s not profitable to have a one top, especially if that table is someone who looks like Ham and Cheese Omelette Man.

This is not the case.  This is the most patient and generous old man I believe exists in the area.  Eight dollar check/bill/(what you will) always, always equals three dollar tip whether he’s had to wait through a rush for you to give him his bill or not.  He is probably the most unobtrusive person to walk through the the front door and is potentially, dare I say it (I could jinx myself), my favorite person to sit in my section.  Big tops, people with children, college kids, middle class, upper class.  Eh.  Give me Ham and Cheese Omelette Man.  I may never know his name (even if I asked I wouldn’t understand his garbled speech) but damn it he flips my pancake.

There, something cheerful so you haters I see in the real world can stop harassing me about just being angry all the time.  Next time though… next time, I’m talking about the other type of old people.  You can’t stop me!  Soap box at the ready!

On a side note I found some treasures – and I do love treasures:

• Waiter Rant
• Bitter Waitress
• The Insane Waiter
• Confessions of a Part-Time Waitress

And that about covers my plugging (comment card?) quota for the month.  Good stuff, check it out.  I wouldn’t post it otherwise, Ye-of-Little-Faith.

The James Bond of the restaurant

This is not a James Bond film.  Don’t ask me suspiciously and with that certain lilt what I had to do before you put your chicken scratch on my print out.  I rolled my silverware (much to my annoyance) and did the rest of my sidework.  Do I look like a host to you?  Most of all, don’t ask me about something you have already asked me to do.  I’ve done it, I listen, I pay attention when asked to do something.  As much as I love hanging out getting paid less than a prostitute per hour, I would rather gtfo (that’s right) than wait for you to find more slave labor for me.  I feel like I’m a step above a factory worker in China working for the big “American” corporations.

This had such potential to be less angry than the previous posts that I’ve started out with.  I should change the title to: Angry Waitress Blog.  …that’s something.  Poll?

Something less angry, something less angry… I don’t know.  It’s my day off.  I went to the gym.  What sort of masochist does that?  Day off, don’t have to stand up for hours on end – lets go to the gym!

Well, I wanted something happy so here’s a picture of happy toast.  Look at that, a poll and a picture all in one post.  One would think I’m getting creative but lets not get carried away just yet.