Friday, September 25, 2009

Really?

"I'll have the fish 'n' chips."
"Uhh...*goes to look at the menu*"
"...I hope they still have that."

You mean in the 20 minutes I waited to take your order because you were the FIRST one there waiting on the rest of your group, you didn't even open the menu?!

Rule #38262: Don't play guessing games. LOOK AT THE MENU. That's why it's there!

Sunday, September 20, 2009

Eff. UFC.

I had the worst night yet last night. It was UFC, but it wasn't a very important fight (so I hear), so it was busy, but no lines out the door or anything. I had the worst section on the floor because I had second to last pick, but my manager had already put me down for that one so I just said I'd take it. I didn't really care.

My first two tables were nice enough. Two guys who bought a shirt, and an older couple who left me a 50% tip. It all went downhill from there though.

At some point, I had a younger couple who were very nice. The woman told me about how she knows what it's like to live off tips because she was a server, blah blah blah. Then they left a crappy tip. Thanks, dbags!

It didn't get busy until later, but once it did, I wanted to kill myself (and my tables). I had an 8-top that just wanted to throw back drinks, and got mad when I cut one of them off (He TOLD me he was drunk. Moron). Plus, after cuts, four girls were gone and I had twice as many tables as I started with, all of whom had been there drinking who knows how much for who knows how long and I pretty much ignored them. I had a table of regulars I didn't get to spend a lot of time with because they weren't even in my section, but their waitress was puking her brains out in the bathroom because she's preggo. I took over another girl's table too after she was taking forever to greet them and they found me first. Even after I put in their drinks, one of them actually TAPPED ME ON THE SHOULDER WHILE I WAS TAKING SOMEONE'S ORDER AT ANOTHER TABLE. How. Rude.

None of those were the worst table of the night though, not by a long shot. The worst was this group who came straight from the Hillbilly Parade, and they showed up about half an hour before closing. Ugh. They were complaining from the very beginning. They wanted to sit at a table that was already sat, the people were playing pool though. Complain some more. They sat across from it (they wanted to be there to be by their friends they never even interacted with - and the friends were jerks too). I pretty much let one of the other girls run the table, because I could tell they were going to be irritating (my manager confirmed it later, they come in whining on the regular). I put in their drinks after she took the order, and I took the food order. They ordered 50 wings. Plus the women ordered all sorts of crap they weren't going to touch. 50 wings 30 minutes to close. Eff them in the mouth.

After all the food was delivered, I mostly ignored them. I was dealing with the table of Alcy's, who tipped surprisingly well considering the mom was shooting me death glares for cutting off her baby boy). The other waitress checked on the food, yadda yadda yadda.

Fast forward to five minutes after one. That's right, CLOSED. Guess who's still there, chatting away? Yeah, the table of 10. I go over to see how things are going and this is the exchange that followed:

"Can I get some more tea?"
"I'll check. I'll be back in just a minute" I go and see that the tea container has been moved because LAST CALL WAS 20 MINUTES AGO.
"Sorry, the tea has been brought back for the night."
"Get me a water then."
"I'm sorry, the spouts on the soda machines have been brought back, too. But I can bring you tap water if you like."
"Yeah, water. With lemon."
"The lemons have been thrown out."
"Do y'all just throw out everything as soon as you're closed?!"
"Well, yes."
(Another hick) "Well you should let somebody know!"
"We did last call 20 minutes ago."
"Well we didn't hear it!"
"We sang a song in the front of the room."
"Don't you hear how noisy it is back here?!!"

Somehow, they were the only ones who didn't hear us shout the last call song, not that it matters because we were CLOSED. They hung out until 1:30 before leaving. I went home and dreamt about throwing a pen at someone and getting fired.

Friday, September 18, 2009

I Don't Understand People.

I was pretty sure when I started that I knew at least a few of the types of people who tend not to tip well, if at all. Teenagers are the worst. If only they realized once they had to start paying their own bills what a pain it is to wait on someone hand and foot only to get 0 dollars out of them.

But that is not the group I dealt with yesterday. It was my first table of the night, and I realized from the beginning I had a few factors working against me: 1. They were more than a little redneck, and 2. They had just finished a tab with another waitress, and therefore already tipped one person.

Still, I only had the one table, so I hung out with them, put up with Billy Bob's repeated attempts to get me to go home with him, and got them refills promptly.

The total was about $55. The tip? $4.
I wish they taught how to tip at Jeff Foxworthy's School of Hicks.

Note: I realize that the only other time I've mentioned getting a lousy/nonexistent tip, I also said that I did a great job serving them. I do know when I can't devote all my time to a table and they get less-than-fabulous service. I forget things and mess up, but I know I didn't with these particular groups.

You Know You Work at Hooters

One of the girls I work with just found out she's pregnant. Yikes.

Thursday, September 17, 2009

More Drama

The girl who started the same day as me, Baby, almost got fired last weekend. She didn't show up, didn't call, and GM had a serious talk with her when she came back.

We were talking about it Monday afternoon, and I mentioned that one of the older clique-y girls didn't show up once last week either and the manager was irate.

So Baby goes on about how bullshit that is because she had a legit reason and the other girl went to get her hair done and blah blah blah.

Another one of the older girls heard this and piped up: It's seniority. Soandso has done a lot for this store so you shouldn't talk about her. When you've been here for four years you get away with more.

She was more angry than that sounded, and I ducked out of that pretty quickly. By the end of the night I was ready to kill Baby too. In an effort to suck up to the managers (I'm assuming), I found her hanging out at my tables ALL THE TIME. She even took the order of some guys who had JUST sat in my section, and I had to go over and explain that I was their server. I still saw her hanging out and taking their plates at least three more times that night. Another time, she called me out in front of my table. I had brought a new pitcher of Bud Light to them a few minutes earlier, but she caught them refilling their glass. I went over to see why she was again helping out my table, when she said "Next time, if these gentlemen have empty glasses, you need to fill them yourself."

B, please. The glasses were NOT empty when I delivered their pitcher, and I'm not about to hover over them waiting for them to swallow that last drop so I can refill it.

Plus, she started the same day as I did, and does a much worse job. She NEVER does her sidework properly, and I see curly fries littering the floor of her section at the end of every night.

I'm pleased to announce that she had to deal with a horrible table later that night. A total of $80, with about a 70 cent tip from the only one who bothered tipping her. And they laughed about it.

If she wasn't such a bad waitress, I might feel bad for her. But she needs to stay out of my section.

Tuesday, September 8, 2009

Drama, Etc.

The past few shifts have gone relatively smoothly, which is nice. As I suspected when I first applied, working in a place with (mostly) attractive girls has its downsides, namely, a ton of drama.

I haven't had any real problems. On one of my first nights, the head wait snapped at me ("Is there any reason why you just ran my drinks to 24?"), but she apologized later, saying she usually doesn't care but they'd just sat down and she didn't want to look like a bad waitress. Other than that, I've steered clear. I keep my mouth shut, and people think I'm shy, but I'll take being perceived as shy and staying out of the drama over the alternative.

Saturday morning I got my first taste of the tension between some of the other girls (Okay, that's not true, last week one of the girls told another that she was "really upset" with her because the second girl had served the first girl's fiance and he didn't like the service or some crap, but that's another story). One of our servers is a really cute girl. She, like a lot of the other girls, including myself, is in college, but unlike most of us, she's at a school about four hours away from the store. So every two weeks she drives back after her Friday morning class, works all weekend, and drives back Sunday night. I wouldn't do it, but that's just me.

Anyway, one of the really Mean Girls was complaining about it for who knows what reason as soon as she came in. The girl was a little bit late, and after Bitchy McBitchface finished going on about "blah blah blah why would you drive four hours to come in to work?" to her equally bitchy posse, we were punting paper towel rolls for section picks, in honor of the first day of college football.

Well Bitch didn't like the fact that our Head Wait wasn't making the other girl pick last since she was late. We never really adhere to that "rule", but all of a sudden it was the most important thing in the world, regardless of the fact that Bitch has come in late and drunk on occasion.

The other girl didn't even really know what to think. She offered to pick last but they just wanted something to complain about, and they continued to do so for the rest of the day.

Meanwhile, our bartender pointed out to one of the other girls in the posse that her hair "looked like a catastrophe". Not the words I would have used, but she's a corporate trainer, so if she thought she needed to point it out, that's fine and dandy. The other girl flipped out and so everyone was in a foul mood all day.

In other news...

I ended up working the rest of Labor Day weekend. I was cut on Sunday since it was so slow, and went home with only $3. Last night I did better, but I had one table that stiffed me! I guess there's a first time for everything, but I am so confused. They were one of my only tables, so I gave them good service. Their food came out quickly and nothing was wrong with it. I got them refills, and then they had the nerve to hand me $26.72 (that's right, PENNIES). Most people who don't tip usually duck out and leave the money on the table, but this woman and her husband (who was incapable of ordering for himself), straight counted her change in front of me and handed it to me. Ugh. Some people don't deserve to live. $2.13 an hour is not paying my rent, believe it or not.

So, the moral of these stories is TIP YOUR WAITRESS and don't start drama. Both are highly irritating.

Thursday, September 3, 2009

Are You Smarter Than a Hooters Girl?

I thought I was going to have a nervous breakdown last night. I did a HORRIBLE job.

I actually got first pick (after Head Wait and the doubles) last night, because I had the highest PPA of the girls working that night :) I don't even know what that is, I think it has to do with selling merch or something? But I was excited. I didn't want to step on anybody's toes though (We have some reallly f*cking catty girls), so I chose nonsmoking, expecting a busy but smooth night.

I went over to talk to one of the nicer girls once we got on the floor because it was still empty, and she was somewhat bothered about getting last pick. "Brit, will you trade sections with me?" she joked. She needed to make money that night, and with the tables she had she wasn't going to. So I said sure. I'd just paid rent, so I didn't need it too badly, and there would be other nights. She was ecstatic, and I ended up with a section of four tables. One booth, one table right under a tv, one huge table for big parties, and one little table in front of one of the waitstations where the girls tend to hang out and leave their shit. So, 3/4 were not going to stay full.

Or so I thought. Four tables isn't a lot to manage, but those big groups are like two tables on their own. They interrupt each other to ask for things, they all want separate checks that I suck at keeping track of, and I had two groups like that. One 21st birthday and one group of guys. Plus my other tables. By the end of the night I had one table of three leave because a girl's Bloody Mary was taking so long and I hadn't been able to get their order because I was taking the orders of 10 guys at the big table. And I heard mutters from the birthday group about not coming back. Ugh.

I will say that once trivia was done (every Wednesday we have it...except last night was the last one), things went smoothly. I had small tables that were happy with their food, drinks were going out faster, and I ended up making about fifteen dollars more than the girl with whom I traded sections.

Tuesday, September 1, 2009

First Week on the Floor

Last week I worked Tuesday, Wednesday, and Saturday nights. I was terrified. Wednesday night is our Trivia night, and Saturday was UFC night, so we were packed. I had five tables in my sections, and with the exception of taking home $18 in tips Tuesday night, I did pretty well. Over 100 Wednesday and Saturday (thank goodness, rent is due today), and I did okay managing everything. I forgot to bring ashtrays a couple times, and had to be reminded by my customers (oops), and one of my managers snapped at me for not getting my drinks from the bar fast enough my first night. Sigh.

I have a similar schedule this week. Tonight and tomorrow night, + Saturday and Sunday afternoons. I have an old friend visiting this weekend too, so it's going to be stressful.

I will have more detailed/interesting stories to come, I promise! I'm still getting used to the school and work thing, I've never had a job while I was in school before.