If you read the previous post, “Black Olives,” then you might be interested in what happened next.  However, it is important to understand that “Black Olives” was written as fiction.  I took situations that were familiar to me and added, subtracted, and exaggerated in an effort to tell you a story.  And while my primary goal is always to tell a good story, I admit that sometimes I don’t mind making a point along the way.

This post is a nonfiction follow-up to the “Black Olives” fictional story.  I also want to emphasize that what I will be telling you here is my interpretation of events; I am sure there are others with different interpretations.  For the record, I have worked at four different restaurants, so any connection of “Black Olives” to an actual restaurant chain is again, subject to interpretation.

After I posted the story, I let people know about my blog through Facebook, e-mail and word-of-mouth.  I recognized there was a risk in my apparent criticisms of a fictional restaurant that might resemble the real life corporate restaurant at which I worked.  What I didn’t expect is that someone would think it would be funny to copy and paste my story on the corporate Web site.  You should stop now and gasp.  I certainly did when I found out.  While my name wasn’t included, the local general manager decided I was the person that wrote the “anonymous letter,” as the corporate guy three levels up described it.

And then Corporate showed up at work.  This is never a good thing because they are middle-manager knit-pickers who will go to any length to protect themselves at anyone’s expense.  There is nothing they hate more than top-down complaints.  Bottom-up complaints can be buried or ignored, but top-down, not so much.  I would love to use this guy’s real name because the nickname for his full name is slang for a male body part, which fits.  Nonetheless, let’s call him, hmmm, John (with apologies to Johns everywhere).

So about two days after my fiction story was posted to the corporate Web site as an “anonymous letter” The Corporate John shows-up unannounced just before lunch.  When I arrived the general manager and Corporate John were hunched over her small desk in a tiny dark office that looks more like a janitor’s closet, reading a lengthy document.  Now I don’t have a big ego.  I don’t always assume everyone is talking about me.  But I knew instantly they were reading my story.  It was like the line in “Star Wars” when Han Solo said, “I’ve got a bad feeling about this.”

Immediately after they had both been glued to the cubby they call a desk, Corporate John wanted to meet with servers.  He had brief perfunctory meetings with three of my co-workers – that I know of.  One funny side-bar is that one especially ass-kissing server was so proud of himself for not saying a damn thing.  Oh, yes, that’s ever so brilliant.  A Chatty Cathy and a brown-noser who decides to stop chatting right when he could do some good.  He’ll always be Shirley Super Server to me because he was so sure that he was so very good at his job and loved telling the rest of us that he was good.  Well, and also because I always thought he was such a Squirrely Shirley.

Each of the meetings with my co-workers lasted about five minutes.  My meeting lasted about 45.  I was grilled, point by point, with general questions that mirrored my own short story.  Corporate John kept checking his notes to make sure he didn’t miss a question.

1.  Do you feel you are treated fairly here?  (Read this as: was there racial discrimination?)  By who?  What happened?
2. Do you understand the policy about eating food here? Who was eating?  What were they eating?  Have you ever seen managers eating?  (Read this as: Is anyone eating black olives?)
3. Have you ever seen an employee “lick a plate”?  (Well, that one speaks for itself.)

Dude, seriously, did you think you could ask me these questions and I wouldn’t figure you out?  I was pleasantly surprised that he had enough imagination to speculate I wrote the “letter,” even though he is ruled by the dark side of the force.  Thank you (insert smiley face here).  I choose to be flattered that you thought I could write it.

Yes, it was my experience that I was discriminated against.  No matter how many ridiculous questions he asked or how he bullied me, yes, there was discrimination.  Now this French-cuff wearing, hair-sprayed, golf-playing corporate clone has no clue what real bigotry is because deep down, he loathes all of the peasants.  I had the feeling it irked him to have to shake my hand because I shoved it right at him and there was no way out.  That was fun.  Also, I kept using his first name because I could tell it peeved him.  Three times in our meeting I had to say to him, “John, you called this meeting.  You are the one that asked me the question and I am just answering.  I am not ‘alleging’ anything.”  You see, he was here to make sure no one would sue.

Remember, what corporations care about, first and last, is money.  Secondarily, they care about being sued, but that is really because of it might cost them money.  Third, they care about public relations, but that is because reduced sales cost them money.  John’s attempts to bully me into backing down from my assertion of “discrimination” were a waste of his time.  As I said to him (three times, to be exact): “John, I did not call this meeting.  You did.  You asked me here.  I am giving you my opinion and expressing my feelings.”  In spite of how many times he minimized my assertions I stood my ground.  That pissed him off.  It was the kind of steely-cold, not showing his cards kind of white-hot anger.  So I threw him a bone to get him off my ass.  “I am not making an official allegation of discrimination.  I am expressing an opinion, and only because you asked me.”  That was enough for him to believe I wouldn’t sue and get me the hell out of that meeting.

The next day the schedule came out and my hours were cut in half.

After that unpleasantness there were three more days of corporate visits.  On the bright side, the district manager apparently thought I was referring to her when in the fictional story I described a district manager’s hair as boring and she showed-up with a new hair color.  The new manager-in-training that might have thought I suggested she was recruited from a truck stop started wearing a suit jacket.  Well, the same one every day, but at least she was trying.

When I interviewed at this restaurant 15 months ago, I was given a personality test before I could be hired.  Right now, some corporate goon is revising the personality test to assure that no server is hired who can write complete sentences.

I was originally hired with “full-time availability” which I took to mean full-time employment.  My rolling average of weekly hours when I left was between 22 and 25 hours per week.  Since paid vacation and other benefits begin at 30 hours, do not for one second think it is an accident that I never received the hours for which I was asked to be “available.”  I went to great lengths to pick-up shifts from co-workers and train in other areas.  I am not the only one.  The next time you hear a business described as one of those “great” companies to work for, please, please, be very skeptical.

Now, “John,” here are some things I didn’t write about in my fictional short story.  I know of bus persons who worked all day without making minimum wage.  I know of servers for whom a manager tried to change how much they declared for tips.  I have worked from 8:30 a.m. to 10.30 p.m. without more than a 15 minute break to change uniforms.  I did not eat.  I did not pee.  I have done this more than once.  It occurs to me some of these things are not in keeping with current labor laws.

Even though we were all working in a restaurant where guests received numerous free refills of select food items, employees were not allowed to eat any food without paying for it.  I have seen employees threatened with a “write-up” for eating a bread stick or half-cup of soup.  We were only allowed to eat after being clocked-out and not allowed to get food to go.  If we were in between shifts, there wasn’t always time to eat and the kitchen might have been too busy to cook for crew.  Further, we had to eat standing up.  There was no break room and the only thing close was a counter area where we turned in our money at the end of the night.  I frequently packed food from home, though we were not allowed to use the store’s refrigerators or microwaves.  (Remember, this blog post is nonfiction.  I am not making this up.)

As I have experienced, anyone who complained ran the risk of getting their hours cut.  Now I also understand that it is possible that green-card employees are preferred because it is less likely they will understand labor laws.  You think?

I do love irony.  Here’s another one.  Had Corporate John been less full of himself and talked to me like a human being, he would have received more information.  For example, since it never occurred to him to honestly ask me if I wrote the story, it also never occurred to him it now lives in the public domain on this blog site.  My “views” for this blog are not off the charts, but now that I have a new job I do intend to encourage expanded readership.

In the last couple of years I have been working in food service as one of the ‘underemployed’ or ‘working poor.’  In an effort to survive, and because I truly enjoy restaurant work, I was serving tables at three restaurants simultaneously for months.  Each of these restaurants put out their schedule only weekly.  It became impossible to manage and I was still only getting by.  I started cleaning houses, which was more money than waiting tables, but also inconsistent.  In the past two and one-half years, I have never once had the same schedule two weeks in a row.  Human beings really don’t function well under these conditions.

I have (mostly) forgiven the person who thought the corporate Web site posting would be funny.  As he reminded me, every writer wants to be read and get a reaction.  Well, yes, I did get that.  And by some (divine?) mercy, I was not fired for expressing my frustration – but not because they didn’t want to, only because I managed to get out first.

When I quit, I did so professionally and without any of the drama in “Black Olives.”  I wrote that intentionally because I believe it is every server’s fantasy, when stuck with a difficult table, to just walk out with a few select words.  I did not give the restaurant two weeks’ notice because they never gave that to me.  I gave them about four days because if I had given more, I would have been treated badly on my final days, and quite practically, that’s just how long it took to get my hire letter and start date at the new job.

So this fall as the political debates begin, listen closely to rhetoric about people like me who worked three jobs and still couldn’t afford health insurance.  Listen closely to talk about deregulation of private industry so they can create more jobs that I promise you will be low-paying – if any are ever created.  Pay attention to the people who can afford to eat out but don’t feel the need to tip fairly.  Eating out is a privilege and you should expect to pay for the product and the service, not one cent less than 20 percent.  And finally, free refills are not your god-given right.  It is just greed and gluttony.

If you are in food service and you understand these things, then make damn sure you are registered to vote, and do it.  Thank you for your hard work and great efforts to make other people happy, no matter how poorly you are treated.

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For me, I was working in public accounting.  I had been there just over a year and things weren’t clicking at the speed I wanted them to never mind what my bosses were thinking.  We were ticking down to September 15th where we’d have to file the extended corporate returns.  There were folders everywhere and people running around calling clients trying to squeeze out the last bits of information.  We were looking forward to the respite promised by the next weekend.  Especially me as I had plans to go up to Quebec for the first time in years.  I just had to get through Tuesday first.  It was a beautiful day – a crisp morning with a long blue sky.  The traffic wasn’t too bad even with the kids back to school.  I think we were all counting down the hours of the summer, in some ways looking forward to Autumn.

I got to the office about 8:30 and set up, looked at my to-do list.  I was trying to wake up by checking email.  One of my coworkers walked in.  She was one who had to have everyone’s attention any time she spoke, but she was so sarcastic you couldn’t be sure how much she was saying was true.  She had said as she walked to her desk that a plane had crashed into the World Trade Center.  I thought to myself ‘Crashing a plane into a building isn’t a good long-term survival technique.’  It happened every once in a while that a little Cessna would get out of control and crash.  I didn’t mean to be flippant, but we had bigger concerns.

It was when she saw on the internet that a second plane had hit, announcing it almost too matter-of-factly like she didn’t believe it, that I was awakened.  My mind couldn’t comprehend two small planes hitting the exact same place.  I had forgotten that there were two towers, but regardless it was puzzling. Those were the days before streaming video when a headline still had to break the news. I think we were all stung by the hot iron in that small window of minutes.  I jumped on the internet to see what we were up against realizing for the first time these were passenger jets.  That’s insane!  One of the managers had a tiny TV, maybe 6″ black and white.  It was one of those things that just gets piled over by papers and other junk in the corner of your office.  I had never noticed it before and I never saw it afterwards, but in those moments he had it on.  We were watching a black and white fire raging while the newscaster reached for any phrases beyond ‘a plane has crashed into the tower,’ but that refrain would be with us forever.

It was like a natural disaster you figured had to end.  And yet the moments left us pathetically out of breath.  The first tower down.  The second tower on fire.  The second tower down.  A plane charges into the Pentagon.  An unconfirmed fourth plane in Pennsylvania??!!  Then it all just went silent.  Silent in the sky.  Silence in our hearts.  People would come into the office and you’d ask them if they had heard anything.  There was nothing to hear.  The nation had a murmur for most of the rest of the morning.  In the weeks and months that would come it seemed almost everyone in the Northeast had at least a small fingerprint on what was lost that day.  I went to college with a couple people who perished with the towers.  In all, it was too much to consider in a short period of time.

At the end of the workday most of us hadn’t sifted out much good, but the mere ability to look at our coworkers and say ‘See you tomorrow’ was a golden enough reward.

God bless those at rest and those who still struggle with the events of that grueling day.

At another accounting firm I worked at we were right down the street from one of the local news station headquarters.  Occasionally you could see the anchors in their cars as they cut you off after a long, crappy day and we’d just laugh, laugh, laugh.  One day we got a knock on the door.  It was the police.  They said we should probably not leave the office as they got a report of a man walking around with an AK-47 looking to have a little meet and greet with one of those anchors.

Every workplace seems to have a little charm, in that respect.  I worked for Market Basket briefly as a “sacker.”  It is an institution here in Massachusetts and New Hampshire known for its narrow aisles and sawdust.  Oddly enough, I’ve never seen an ad on TV telling me to use sawdust to clean up spills, but go into a Market Basket anywhere and there’s a big, old box of sawdust.

At Sears Hardware the guys in the back decided to drag race lawn tractors until the manager decided to can them.  I worked at another small accounting office that was in the same building as a hospital.  I’d have to walk through the wing of the hospital to get to the office.  No, I did not shortcut my route by hopping on a gurney, though I guess I could have.  At one job I had a boss who ate tuna fish every day so there would be stacks of tuna cans in the cabinets.  How could I forget about the phones in the toilet stalls where he would talk to his stock broker or his unfortunate administrative assistant?

I’m sure you’ve got some behind the scenes stuff at your workplace that keeps things interesting – the room no one is allowed in, an ironing board in the conference room.  Make us jealous or creep us out.  Just tell us about it.

At the end of this week I was looking forward to putting academia to one side  and get stuck into my passion that is hospitality.

I worked Saturday night, 6.00pm until 4.00am with no major problems worth venting about. I was back on Sunday at 5.00pm to work the floor. It was pretty quiet for a Sunday evening. Winter’s starting to set in here, so I guess people were just content to stay warm in their homes rather than venture out into the cold.

Anywho, let me talk about the folks on table 73, a three-top consisting of a younger couple in their mid-to-late 20s, and an older man whom I would guess was the father of one of the younger guests. I promptly took their drinks orders, come back with their drinks and then asked if they’d like to order. They did, and the girl asked for the chowder, which we had ran out of. I apologetically explained to her that it wasn’t available today, blah, blah, blah. The older man appeared a bit miffed by this. “Well do you have the beef and Guiness stew? Cause that’s what I want,” he chipped in.

“Yes we do have that for you sir,” I replied. And proceeded to take the younger guy’s order as well. So far so good. Until I cocked up the older gent’s order.

Now I have to do some explaining. Just this week we’ve changed to our winter menu. We’ve done away with the curry of the day, and have introduced the casserole/stew of the day. That was the older gent’s beef and Guiness sew. We also had a curry available that was our addition. I made the mistake of thinking the stew was the addition, and so rang it on the till as such.

Needless to say I was a bit confused when 73′s order came up and there was a curry sitting on the pass. I went out and explained  the mix-up, that there had been a “miscommunication” in the kitchen, and I apologised profusely. I said that we have a curry on the pass that he could have free of charge, or that I could have the kitchen make him his stew ASAP, also free of charge. The gent packed a sad. I’m not even sure why I’m calling him a gentleman, because his behaviour was far from gentlemanly. “Well that’s it. I don’t want anything. I’ll sit here and drink my coke.” I tried to bargain with him, assuring him that it would be taken off the bill. He wasn’t having a bar of it. And he sat there with his coke, while the younger couple continued with their meals. Real mature mate, real mature.

Yeah okay, so I fucked up. I don’t blame you for being a bit prissy. I made a mistake, and I’m trying to put it right. Now you’ve made a scene in front of your family, who looked rather uncomfortable, and have created an awkward situation where the other two are having their meals while you’re having nothing, and are refusing to be compensated.

Now apart from that, everything else went relatively smoothly. All my other guests were happy chappies, just how I like them. I was even told by a lady, who incidentally was at table 73 later in the evening, that I was “very good”. That’s the closest thing you get to tipping here in Christchurch.

Today was a particularly high stress direction-giving experience. All started out fine, a nice older sounding lady called and asked if she was going the right way if she had just passed the animal hospital. In my mind I pictured myself passing by the animal hospital and assured her with confidence that she was indeed going the correct direction and that she should just keep on heading the way she was going. A little after I hung up, I briefly entertained the inopportune idea that she was going the wrong direction past the animal hospital. A visual of the nice sounding older lady heading straight for Kentucky as per my directions, flashed through my head. I giggled to myself at the obscure misfortune of my thoughts. About 10 minutes later a slightly more frantic older sounding lady called saying that she had just passed what she believed to be the last sign of civilization. My heart sank; there was no mistaking it now… she was headed for Kentucky!

After perfuse apologies on my part and many moments of long confused silence on hers, she was headed in the right direction and we were on the same page. For some reason her trust in me was a little ruined and she persisted to call me at each major landmark to be reassured she was heading in the right direction. During this period of time she learned my name, and I learned her number on the caller ID…it helped us skip the formalities and get right to the point. I learned that her mother was in the car with her and that I was on speakerphone. I learned that this was just a practice run for picking someone up for an appointment tomorrow morning.This realization relieved a lot of stress I had been feeling about a deadline.

Soon they were so close that if they knew the right direction to turn their heads, their noses would scrape the side of the building. I was expecting to see them drive up at any moment, and then the phone rang: “Kim, we are behind a bunch of brown buildings…” I could not believe it! We had escaped the grips of Kentucky together! I would not allow them to get stuck behind the boy’s dorm only a couple of seconds away! So, in a valiant effort to bring this terrible goose chase to a finish, I replied: “Turn around and go straight, I have red hair!!”

As I stood at the edge of the road by the nursing home frantically waving my arms at the floundering car that was coasting up the hill towards me, pushing 1 mph they were, I felt as if I was welcoming old friends after long anticipation. However, when they finally arrived beside me and we exchanged greetings…they were just some middle aged looking lady strangers. They didn’t even come in…they just turned around and went home!

Today I learned that it is important to know which side of the road the animal hospital was on when you passed it.

This is totally unrelated…but I laughed. Also, I don’t hate Kentucky, Kentucky is beautiful!

“It is,” I replied.

“Come into my office and shut the door,” he instructed me sternly, though with a hint of humour. Honestly, I was a tad scared, thinking he had received a complaint re me getting lippy to patrons while behind the bar or something.

“It’s come to my attention that we’re not paying you enough,” the big boss informed me. “I’ve noticed that you’re still on our starting floor rate, and it’s time to bump you up.” Needless to say I was relieved.

“Great! Thanks so much,” I said.

“Well we appreciate your hard work. Should put a wee bit of extra cash in your back pocket.”

And that was that. For a wee while I had been thinking of going for a personal development review with my boss, as we’re entitled to go for one every three months after commencing employment. I decided against it as I didn’t really need the extra cash, as I’m on a student allowance which limits how much I can earn. Anyway I was pretty chuffed that I was given a pay increase without even asking for it. It’s reassuring to know that my contribution is valued

For much of my time in hospo, I’ve either worked for minimum wage or slightly above it. It’s often said that being paid minimum wage is proof that your employer would pay you less if they could. When I was working at the pizzeria, I was still on minimum wage despite being a shift supervisor. I expect that I would’ve received a pay rise after getting my General Manager’s Certificate, but I left just before it came through. It still irked me that people who didn’t put in half as much effort as I did were getting paid the same rate.

Anywho, it’s reassuring to know that I now have an employer that does appreciate my hard work, and that it’s reflected in my wage rate. It’s just one of the number of reasons why I love working at my current job.

It’s the same when we do Jager and Red Bull,as we charge a pretty steep price of $12.50, I’ll often give patrons the rest of the can as a bit of a courtesy. But if you’re an absolute douchebag who demands it, of course I’m not going to give it to you.

So Sunday, I was on the floor again. I didn’t get off to the best start when I work up at the time that I was rostered to start. I immediately called my manager for the day to inform them that I had made the awful mistake of sleeping in, and raced around the On Sundays we have one of must popular specials, 2-for-1 Stone Grills. And boy, does this deal test the patience of any waiter or waitress! They’re big, heavy, and bulky; they take an age to enter into the tills, and dumb-arse patrons don’t think for a second that they might need to move their cellphone/wallet/sunglasses/keys/whatever out of the way so that we can place these ridiculously hot stones on your table.

Anywho, we had a typically busy Sunday lunch shift, and we sold out of these hot wee babies by 2.00pm (much to the ire of the guest who fails to make a booking). It was relatively hectic, and of course the chefs were getting a tad shirty with the wait staff. I certainly didn’t do myself any favours when I screwed up a dessert order.

I knocked off at 2.30 for my break and returned at 6.00pm. The evening shift went okay, and everybody was mostly happy. At about 8.00pm I had a couple of Australian tourists come in for dinner, I informed them that we had sold out of the stones, and also our ribs. The woman didn’t look terribly impressed, but hey, what can I do? She said she wanted a “light steak” meal, but didn’t want to order our rib eye, as she thought it’d be too substantial. She asked if we could give her our ribs and steak combo, with two steaks instead of one. Chef wouldn’t have a bar of this, so I apologetically told her that it couldn’t be done. With nose screwed up, she flipped through the menu with much disdain. I politely told them that I’d give them a few more moments to peruse the menu and walked off. I’m not just going to stand there with her just bitching at me the whole time. Luckily for them, we had two stones become available for them, which appeased them to some extent. Though sometimes there’s no pleasing these kinds of people. In the end, I think they left relatively pleased with everything. But come on, don’t get all prissy with the waiter when they inform you that something isn’t available – we’re just the messengers, and we can’t whip up what you want out of thin air. If we don’t have it, we don’t have it. Your moodiness isn’t going to change a thing.

So, on a fine and sunny Friday afternoon, I received a text message from my good university chum asking if I was keen for a few pints at the pub. Of course I was keen as a bean. We went there at four to take advantage of the Friday happy hour specials – $4 from 4pm, $5  from 5pm, and $6 from 6 until 7pm. I ended up staying until 2.30am, with a brief break when I went home to get changed. To say I was ruined is an understatement. A very inebriated Caleb crawled into bed just after 3.

Then came time for me to start my Saturday split shift at 11am, I had to ride my flatmate’s bike to work as I had left my car there due to the beer consumption session the evening prior. Now Caleb does not bike, he barely engages in any form of exercise. This was well and truly a sight to behold, this severely unfit and incredibly hung over student attempting to navigate a bike on the streets of suburban Christchurch. After completing what felt like the Tour de France, I finally arrived at work, hoping that the bike ride would have done something to burn off the hangover. No such luck, I tell ya.

Daytime bar was pretty easy going, and mainly consisted of prep for the night shift, and completing a couple of cleaning tasks. I also brought a new Victorinox knife to cut fruit with, and my goodness was it a treat to use! The blade just cut through those hapless lemons and limes like a dream. Yeah I’m easily impressed.

I went home at 3.30, and returned at 6, where I was rostered on the floor. Things were pretty easy-going, and the DM had put me on as maitre’d which was pretty easy to handle. All the punters were happy chappies, as was I.

A message to parents
Parents, please control your children. I realise this is a standard rant on the part of many a waiter, but it doesn’t seem that the message has gotten through. We had a table upstairs of about 6 or 7 adults, with a similar number of small children. These lovely people decided it would be fine to let them run wild in the pool room, brandishing cues and the like. Of course the parents didn’t bother to clean up after them either, leaving the kiddie packs we kindly provided strewn across the floor. Gah, is it to hard to arrange for a sitter?

Then to the bar
Because I’m such a nice guy (and have immense difficulty in saying no), I said yes to covering one of the barmen for the remainder of the night. By that time most of the hangover had worn off, though I was still pretty tired. Things hummed along quite nicely, despite the fact that my legs and feet were killing me (no doubt partly due to my bike-riding stint that morning). Towards the tail end of the night (about 2.00am), I had a young lady approach the bar.

YL: “Hey ah can youse turn the lights down and play some better music please?”

Me: “Sorry hun, this is what we do towards the end of the night. We turn the lights up and play slightly shitty music to slightly nudge our patrons in a homeward direction”.

YL: “But your licence is until 3.00am,” she whined.

Me: “Our licence doesn’t require that we stay open until that time. Our closing time is at the discretion of the duty manager. It his call.”

YL: “Well can you get the duty manager for me?”

Me: “I can tell you what he’ll say. The answer is no.”

Young lady walked off in a huff. Stupid tart.

Young Sid
While on the bar I had the pleasant surprise of seeing my old flatmate, Young Sid, rock up to the bar. Normally he doesn’t get past the doormen because when he’s had a few, he displays rather pronounced signs of intoxication. Not to mention the fact that when he’s sober, most people would enquire as to exactly what state he is in. Young Sid started spinning yarns to me about how he initially was denied,  but got in because of the impeccable state of his kicks. Young Sid does have quite an impressive collection of shoes. He and his friend ordered a few rounds of lager and Drambuie. It transpired later on that Young Sid may have picked up a bird at the pub, but unfortunately that failed to materialise into any serious action for him. They loitered around quite some time after the music stopped playing, hoping to wait until I finished up. I told them that they couldn’t hang around, but they weren’t having a bar of it. While I was out back, my the GM (who was also there) told them that I had gone home, as he thought I had. I told him that was probably the best solution ha.

And then we have the other type of regulars, and I’ll target one group in particular. We have a certain female sports team that comes in two-to-three times a week with their 50-something year old male coach who thinks he’s just the shit. He must’ve sweet-talked our manager or something, because we sponsor them and now they have our logo emblazoned on their uniforms. The coach is a grumpy old git who feels that he should get priority service over the other punters – we all think he’s an absolute knob head, and he takes himself far too seriously for someone who just coaches a female sports team. You’d think he’s Graham bloody Henry the way he struts about the place. I digress…  Now a few weeks back, one of the managers shouted this sports team a few pub snacks, just to thank them for their loyalty blah blah blah. The problem now is that it’s fostered a sense of entitlement amongst these people – a couple of times since they’ve asked the bar staff if they could have their complimentary bar snacks. The sheer cheek of it! We’re a very busy place, and they could take their business elsewhere and we wouldn’t notice it in the slightest. We also have a loyalty card system where our patrons get 10 per cent of what they spend back on their loyalty cards, which they can in turn use for food and drink. That’s a pretty good deal in itself. To think that you’re somehow entitled to free shit just because you “grace” us with your presence a few times every week (and they’re by no means big spenders) is sorely misguided.

At the pizza restaurant I once worked at, we’d “Wine Group” in every Tuesday evening. The size of the group would fluctuate from 12 to 20 or so. Because they were regulars, we’d give them free corkage. Also because they were regulars, they’d insist on near instantaneous service, the best tables in the restaurant, splitting bills, ordering pizzas that had been taken off the menu several years ago,  making ridiculous substitutions, the list goes on… I once overheard one of the smug pricks say to another guest, “Oh we’re here every Tuesday. We pretty much keep this place open.” Ah you really think so eh?

On Thursday night I had a couple of young fellers order a couple of these trashy drinks. As usual, I made them properly and took a wee taste to make sure they were right. Within three minutes of serving these guys their drinks, they bring their empty glasses up to the bar. I was a bit miffed by the fact they consumed the bloody things in less time than it took for me to prepare them. They then came up to the bar and ordered about two more rounds. One of my colleagues served them the second time, and she also took some care in their preparation.

“I bet that you’ll find those glasses empty at the bar within five minutes of serving them,” I told her.

As expected, they were. I told her if they were going to get them off me, I was just going to build them. They obviously don’t give two hoots as to how the thing tastes, but rather its alcohol content. I now find Wondrich’s description of the drink quite apt.

Fast-forward to late Friday night, and I had an older gentleman ask for two of these powerfully alcholic concoctions. I prepared them as I usually do, tasted them and served them up.

“I’ve ordered a couple of these tonight, and you’re the first one to actually make them properly. Thank you,” he told me as he was paying for them.

It’s nice to know that my hard work and diligence doesn’t always go ignored

From Monday through to Wednesday, 4.00 – 7.00pm we have “Stone Grill Happy Hour”, where everything on our Stone Grill menu is only $20, with $5 drinks and desserts. People love this shit. It’s cheap, plus there’s the novelty of cooking your own food on a hot stone. It works reasonably well for the kitchen though, cause it means they can get them out reasonably quickly. The wait staff, on the other hand, can’t stand them. Especially for the specials, they take an age to punch in on the till because you have to change the prices for drinks and desserts. No to mention that they’re bloody heavy and take up a fuck-tonne of room. My first table of night was one for seven bogans. All of them order the stones. Great. Just fucking great. They were those unresponsive types where you’d ask them a question and they all would look at you dumbstruck. Meh, I wasn’t going to waste my charm on these fuckers anyway.

Not long after they started eating, my section quickly filled up. Tables ranged from reasonably pleasant, to downright infuriating. Here are a couple of notables:

• Pregnant Bitch
  Seated her with her friend not long after the bogans mentioned above. Things started well, I was chirpy, upbeat, and quickly gave them a table and got them their drinks. After that, everything turned to shit. Pregnant bitch starts asking me about everything that’s in our dishes. She then proceeded to order our char-grilled lamb salad, but without feta, onions and garlic, and the lamb needs to be well-cooked. “I’m pregnant,” she smugly informed me. Kitchen then tells me that the lamb is marinated with garlic. I return to the table to inform her of this. “Oh could I have salmon instead?” she asked. I said that she could, as we also do serve a salmon caesar. “But that’s smoked, I can’t have smoked salmon. Do you have salmon fillet?” We didn’t. FFS woman, if you were so protective over your foetus, why did you even bother eating out? She sat there umming and aahing, flicking through the menu, interrogating me about various items. With a tonne of other things to do and tables to see, I just said, “I’ll give you few moments with the menu”. And briskly walked off. After deciding what she finally wanted (and in consultation with the foetus itself, I’m sure) she orders our BBQ Ribs. Oh yeah because I’m sure bubs is really going to love that. No spring onion on the top though. I hope that child is the spawn on Satan himself.

• The Scousers
  One of my coworkers sat this delightful table of six in my section. “They’re gonna be big spenders,” she told me. “They’ve asked about champagne.” After the bogans and pregnant bitch, I was keen to lap this shit up, and was hopeful of a semi-decent tip. Oh how my hopes were dashed. Cheerily I greeted them and asked if they’d like any drinks. “Oh we’re ready to order everything now,” they said. They proceeded to then bark their orders at me with effectively no pause between them. They had me scrawling like mad on my docket book. I repeated the order back to them to make sure I had everything. To drink they had two 375ml bottles of Moet, which we only sell once in a blue moon (I think the last time one was sold was on New Year’s Eve and that was to yours truly). I let them know that the bottles are the smaller ones, and aren’t full size. “Oh we’ll just have to get multiple bottles then won’t we?” the head of the group said. I wasn’t fussed, obviously money was no object for them. When it was time to take their food out, I realised I had fucked up their side dishes, and so there was a delay with those. They were happy with the food at least. Desserts, I missed one when putting it into the till. Great. Kill me now. Mother then informed me that she was disappointed with the crème brûlée, as the top was not crispy enough, and told me that I should pass this on to the chef. I expressed my regret that it wasn’t to her liking, and that I’d pass the feedback on. Of course I didn’t. We got slammed that night, and chef was getting fucked off at me no end with all the alterations I was making to the dishes. It was only going to piss him off. A $90 round of cocktails followed dinner, bringing their final bill to just under $800. We seldom see bills like this at the pub. And, of course, no tip was forthcoming. Yeah okay I did fuck up parts of the orders, but I busted my arse for those scouse bastards, and put them ahead of my other tables to make them as happy as possible. Thanks a fucking bunch.

• Picky Bitch
  Nothing too major here, but I’ll rant nevertheless. Table of four young girls in their early 20s (they looked much younger, but I think I recognised a couple of them from the school bus I used to catch). After being slammed, and being given all sorts of ridiculous requests, picky bitch asked for one of our burgers without lettuce, tomato and guacamole.  Good lord girl, did your mother tolerate such fussiness?

Yep that was my shit night. Almost every ticket that went from to the kitchen had “SEE TILL FOOD” at the bottom of it, boy did that make me popular with the chefs! “You obviously look too accommodating,” chef told me. I did have some help from fellow staff with a number of tables though, which was great. Towards the end of the night, I had a couple of tables that were very happy with their meals, so it was good to end on a high note. But for most of that night, I felt fucking shit at my job. But hey, now it’s behind me. I guess we all have those days.

We managed to close the pub pretty early that night – we were out by 11. We all had a drink together afterwards, and then migrated to the Irish pub around the corner, which was still humming along. We each bought a round plus one, and sat outside smoking and chatting away. As we all parted ways, I thanked my DM for all her help that evening, “I was well in the weeds tonight love, thanks so much for your help”.

“No problem at all Caleb! It’s what we do, see you tomorrow,” she replied. It wasn’t until I started working home that I realised how smashed I was! I pretty much had to crawl into bed. It was an epic struggle just to remove my clothes. I didn’t wake up until past midday to the odd realisation that I was naked. And I’m not one of those people who sleep in the nude either. I can’t even remember taking off me knickers! Did I make sweet, drunken love to myself that night? I have no fucking idea…

But despite a reasonable wait in the kitchen, and the bar finding it hard to keep up with our drinks orders, and having to see to tables out of my section, I managed to keep on top of it. Out of 11 tables, only one got up with dishes still to be cleared (which I consider a major failing on my part, but this was at the peak of the rush).

And despite the anxiety and frustration with all these needy customers, I still summoned the strength to grin and bear it. And that’s what I think some of the others don’t know how (or want) to do. We have a couple of  young waitresses who’ll make it perfectly clear to everyone that they’re not having a good day. They’re the sorts who are blunt with guests, take their order, plonk their food on the table and not see them again until they’re ready to pay the bill. God forbid they ask for another drink or a dessert! See, we’re part of the hospitality industry, which is in turn part of the wider service industry. If you’re unable to put on a pleasant façade to make guests happy despite you being stressed to the max, then perhaps you’re in the wrong job, hun.

All in all I was reasonably happy with my performance last night. While I didn’t have the ecstatic reviews like I did on Monday, most people left relatively happy and I didn’t receive a single complaint. Most of them I cheerily thanked as they walked out the door, and many said they enjoyed their meals. I’m pretty happy with that considering the ass-raping we received.

Now time for an old-fashioned rant…

The award for worst table of the evening hands-down goes to Table 81, a table of seven booked for 6.00pm. At the time the booking was made for, only two of the party had shown up. The others, I’m sure, thought that 6.00pm was a flexible guideline, and we didn’t have a full table until about 6.45pm, by which time things were already starting to pick up. Just saying folks, you would’ve received better service and your meals in less time had you been punctual. Instead you decided to turn up just before the peak of the dinnertime rush. Nice work.

Now when taking their drinks order, one of the ladies at the table ask me, “Do all your cold drinks have ice? I have a bit of a sore throat.” I  politely answered that we can serve any of our cold drinks without ice. “Do you have fruit juices?” I get this question surprisingly often, and it aggravates me no end. Of course we fucking do. I rattled off our selection of juices to her. “I’d quite like the cranberry, but preferably at room temperature”. Oh good lord! Do you know the ridiculous nature of your request woman? Like what most normal people would do at home, we also keep our juices in a fridge.

“I’m afraid our juices are served chilled ma’am,” I replied.

“Oh I’m being a bit of a pain in the ass. I’ll get the ginger tea, with lemon and honey,” she said. Yes you fucking are m’am, yes you fucking are. Gah.

When it was time to take food orders, another woman at the same table said to me, “Oh I’m a bit fussy.” I was tempted to tell her to GTFO then. She then proceeded to order one of our burgers with so many alterations and substitutions that it bore absolutely no resemblance to the original in the menu. I love these people. I obliged and nothing was further mentioned re the burger. I kept smiling, and I kept serving. If only the really knew what I thought of them…

A young lady at one of my tables asked if we had any comment cards, because she was so pleased with the time she had with us. To her service, the food, everything was just brilliant. We don’t have comment cards at our establishment (they’re not very common here in Christchurch, unless you’re dining at Denny’s) but I did say that she could send her comments through via our website. She was more than happy to do that.

Another equally pleased guest was an older gentleman from Australia. From looking at his credit card, I gathered that he was some sort of academic at the University of Sydney. He was confused as to why we didn’t have an electronic tipping facility when he signed his EFTPOS receipt. He said that had we had such a facility, he would’ve given a tip. Now I don’t depend on tips to pay the bills or put food on the table, so I wasn’t so phased by the fact that he didn’t leave one in the end. I was just happy that he was pleased with everything (how altruistic am I?)

So that was my Monday night on the floor. I was actually on a bit of a high, and pretty chuffed with myself at how smoothly everything went. After the kitchen closed and all my tables left for the evening, I then went on to work the bar. We had about 15 – 20 people in from our sister restaurant on the other side of town in for a staff party. We did the same thing prior to Christmas at their venue, where we spent well in excess of $3,000 on booze, which included at least 80 tequila shots. I wasn’t too fussed about the probability of a late night. They had to put up with us, so now it’s our turn to return the favour. While I found some of them a pain in the arse, things went pretty smoothly, and it did help that their manager made a rule of no cocktails or shots. I really do owe him one for that. He did allow for a round of shots, which they all did together. The shots were Cock Sucking Cowboys. The manager said he only really wanted them to do shots for the sake of doing shots, as opposed to doing shots to get fucked up. Fair enough, host responsibility and all that. Interesting though, because once they did them, it had a sort of placebo effect as they all appeared to start acting increasingly like drunken idiots, despite the fact that the alcohol content of the shot was no more than 16 per cent. Silly twats. We got out at 2.00am, which is virtually unheard of on a Monday night. But hey, it builds up my hours for the week.

Last night was really no different to any other Saturday night since I’ve started working at this place in September. When I first started the shift, everyone was in a strangely upbeat sort of mood. My lovely DM also thought it’d be fun to play songs like Macho Man, YMCA and the Macarena on our music system. I think she might’ve been in a bit of an odd mood ha. All those memories of primary and intermediate school discos came flooding back.  At 6.00pm there wasn’t a heck of a lot to do, which I guess explains why many of the staff were dancing about the place. Well it definitely put is in a bright and chirpy mood! Later on in the night, the DM also took it upon herself to Rick Roll our poor unsuspecting patrons. Nice move DM, nice move. By eleven things were full-throttle. Having two, sometimes three, other bartenders on certainly made things bearable. A couple of them do have a bit of a habit of disappearing though, which can be a tad frustrating to say the least.

All in all the night went pretty smoothly. At times the bar looked like a bomb had hit it, with used glasses about the place, and things not being put back where the should be, but I could put up with that. Patrons didn’t do anything of note to piss me off, which is always a good thing. At one point we had two hens parties and one stag do all in the pub at the same time. Needless to say there was a fair amount of banter. One of the lucky grooms to be, dressed in a tutu stood in the middle of the bar floor and got flogged by one of his friends with some sort of instrument. Poor feller.

I had one lady who asked for my recommendation for a sauvignon blanc. She said she didn’t like our house pour, because to her it smelled like BO and didn’t taste very nice. I had never heard that before! What an odd thing to say about a sav. I poured her a glass of the Saint Clair Vicar’s Choice, which she didn’t seem to mind and came back to me about three or four times throughout the night asking for a top up. She said she always went to me because I knew exactly what she wanted without having to ask her. Well that made me feel a wee bit special

However at the end of the night lovely DM informed a couple of us on the bar that we need to be a bit more careful when taking cash cause she counted at least $20 in Australian coins. Those cheeky little shits! Not sure if they were actually Aussies, or Kiwis who had just returned from a boozy holiday on the Gold Coast with a shit-tonne of loose change, therefore I won’t pass judgment on our siblings across the ditch. I genuinely never noticed anything about the coins I was taking. But I guess that could be put down to the low lighting and the rush of a Saturday night. The things that some people do to rip off their local drinking establishment! Despicable!

One thing I realised tonight though is that I have to quit showing a slight favouritism to female patrons. I’m generally a chivalrous type of guy, and so figure that the fellers can wait. But god tonight the ladies were very keen on the cocktails, which sometimes I just can’t be arsed making. We definitely sold our fair share of Berry Daiquiris, Frozen Margaritas and Long Islands last night! I thought to myself that it could’ve been a lot easier just to serve the fellers their pints and/or bourbon and cokes and let some of my colleagues deal with the ladies who want to feel like classy bitches sipping on their cosmos like they’re on Sex and the City. But hey, I’m pretty new to bar work, so I’m still finding it interesting making mixing different drinks. It sure beats serving up ten vodka and Red Bulls in a row. That shit gets boring pretty quickly!

The ‘Others’ are the not so fond of colleagues of another team.

The ‘other office’ is about half a mile walk away from ours.

And we are tied to each other. When there is talk about untying us, my manager equates it to hip surgery. His manager thinks of it as brain surgery. And most of the rest of the world says divorce.

Anyway, our meetings are invariably intense in a corporate way. So today, when we got out of the meeting, my team got into the elevator and continued discussions on what just happened and should happen in the future…

Another person had also joined us in the elevator, this person got out when we reached 15th floor. And we continued our discussions.. After about a minute we realized that the elevator wasn’t moving anymore. Any guesses?

Yeah… We never hit the ground floor button..

The bathroom for the bakery was in the front of the store.  The first thing you noticed about it was how bright it was. The color on the walls was a bright turquoise blue and it was kind of annoying if you were in there too long. It was a small room, with an expensive sink that was always wet, a fancy wall mirror, a toilet and a small cabinet on the wall that held extra toilet paper, air fresheners, and other supplies. Sometimes there were cardboard boxes full of cupcake containers in the bathroom, stacked up so that while you were sitting on the toilet you were likely to bump into them. That’s not food safe, but the bosses wouldn’t listen to us anyway. The door to this bathroom was a glass French door. Yes, a glass door. With a hanging Venetian blind that barely fit across the glass

The other fun part about the bathroom that was it was literally feet away from the shiny glass display case. So when you were inside of it taking care of business you could hear everything, even when the fan was on. .  While sitting on the toilet you could kind of see through the slats. You would at least know if someone was in front of the door because you could hear the counter people talking with customers. You could also hear the toilet flush from outside, it was a really loud flush with strong water.

If something smelly was going in the bathroom, the customers would know once you opened the door. It was horrible. Needless to say, I hardly used it during business hours. That was the nice part about baking at night; you had the bathroom to yourself and didn’t have to deal with worrying about offending everyone with your bathroom behavior.

One night I was making a copy in the office when I looked behind me and noticed there were two doors. Now Rex’s office was huge, it was about half of the bakery. There was a television in there and a couch. And lots of random filing cabinets. Must be storage, I thought.  After a minute of copying, I decided to check out what was behind the doors. The first door revealed some shirts on hangers and a bunch of boxes. I guess it was Rex’s change of clothes.

Behind door number two was a bathroom. With a nice color scheme that was calming to look at. And a huge basket of reading material.  It smelled nice and had candles. And artwork. And a sink that wasn’t wet all the time.  I was amazed.

The next day I had to find out more.

“How come there are two bathrooms”, I asked Jane, the head decorator. She had known Liam and Rex for a few years and had worked with them the longest.

“Well, Rex and Liam don’t like to share their bathrooms. Both of the bathrooms were completely redone before we came here. They think used bathrooms are disgusting”.

“But they can clean them, right?”

“Well yes, but they won’t use a bathroom in their home or in their business unless it is new”.

“How old was the bathroom here?” I asked.

“I think it was a year old”.

“So they threw out everything? Why not just get a new toilet seat?”

“They don’t do things like that. They just buy new”. Jane said, exchanging a look of annoyance with me.

I noticed pretty quickly that Liam had the habit of licking the spatulas and then putting them back into whatever container they were in. If the butter cream was tasty, he would take its spatula, give it a good lick, and put it back in the butter cream. “I’m just taste testing” he would exclaim if anyone would catch him in the act. After watching him do this three times in under an hour, I finally explained to him that that wasn’t food safe.

“What? You mean, it’s not like at home where you can lick the bowl?” He looked at me like I told him the Easter Bunny wasn’t real.

“No, you could get shut down for that. If you were sick and you got everyone else sick it would be a disaster”.

“Oh, okay, I get it now”.

“Did you ever have to take a food safety class to start this business?”

“No, do you think that I should?

I think my eyes rolled out of my head at that point.

I thought Liam had gotten the message until one night where he let two of the counter girls each take turns licking the icing bowl. They took the bowl out in the front in view of about 3 customers. Then a customer came in and asked us about what was in our butter cream.  Liam brought out a used spatula that hadn’t been cleaned with a giant dollop of icing on it for her to taste. She licked it completely clean. I wanted to gag. Instead I threw out the butter cream when he wasn’t looking.

Wonderful, I thought. It can only get better.

Looking back, I should have known better. When I asked what my job schedule and requirements would be, I was told, “We don’t even know what we are doing, we are kind of learning as we go”.

Right away I was given the back-story of the bakery, in which the new owners revealed way too much information and badmouthed the previous owners, which I found to be odd.  I was also given the background of the owners. Rex was the taller, once handsome but now slightly pudgy one. He was strictly business and would take care of the numbers. Liam was the chef, or at least he claimed to be one. All of the pastries were his ideas, and he was a genius when it came to whipping up flavor combinations.

I was given a tour of the kitchen right away. I knew that my references wouldn’t be checked. Their desperation was starting to show.  They asked me if I liked the set up. I smiled and nodded.  I was never asked to bake anything for them, which struck me as odd. A lot of bakeries or restaurants ask you to bake something that you are known for or to follow a recipe, just to make sure that you are what they are looking for.

After leaving the bakery, I was very excited. This was going to be an opportunity to grow. My excitement didn’t last that long. It actually didn’t last past my first night.

I guess the first time I realized that my boss had little kitchen experience was when I asked where the sanitizer was. At my previous places of employment, the sanitizer was always kept with the dishwashing supplies. It was common to sanitize your workstation at the end of the shift and if you had been working with raw materials, like eggs or batters. Fred looked back at me as though I was speaking a foreign language. “What’s that?” “Why would we need that?” It was put on the list of things to order, but I have given up on trying to get him to get it in. I do try to sanitize my workstation as often as I can, but there can be other person working at it, so who knows what they do? A lot of times we run out of cleaning products anyway, which is just disgusting.

The other reason I knew Liam wasn’t a baker was that he had no idea how to use the ovens. He would fiddle around with the temperatures, which made me want to scream. So for the first few weeks that I was there, nothing came out right. I would set the ovens to the temperature that was listed on the recipe; he would sneak behind my back and drop it down 25 degrees. The oven that he purchased, he only purchased it because it was “new and pretty”. You can’t turn the fan down in it, so when making small cupcakes, the batter can get blown around and make for some very interesting shapes.

When I asked him where he had worked before and how long he had been baking, he said, “I have been baking since I was a child who would barely reach to my mother’s knee”. That’s a red flag. A professional baker would have a list of restaurants or bakeries that they worked at. They would also know how to work a scale. Basically Fred was just putting on a chef’s jacket and playing in the kitchen. I am not knocking the home bakers at all, but one has to realize that time is money in the professional baking world.

The other huge red flag was the design of the kitchen. It was all about being pleasing to the eye and not being functional.  Liam enjoyed puttering around, and steps that should take an hour took three. I began to feel a kind of panic setting in. He really had no idea what he was doing.

Every day, a male co-worker walks up very close to a lady standing at the coffee machine, inhales a big breath of air and tells her that
her hair smells nice.

After a week of this, she can’t stand it anymore, takes her complaint to a supervisor in the personnel department and states that she wants
to file a sexual harassment grievance against him.

The Human Resources supervisor is puzzled by this decision and asks, What’s sexually threatening about a co-worker telling you your
hair smells nice?”

The woman replies, “It’s Keith, the midget.”