gets so cold the rain turns to snow
Apr. 2nd, 2005 08:12 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dragonlady7Snowing this morning, rained some of afternoon, mercilessly pelted me with ice this evening, and turned back to snow.
Cancellations in flights abounded. Additionally, delays: JetBlue and AirTran both now have flights scheduled for departure sometime after 11. The kid who was supposed to close the bar asked if I'd stay instead and I begged him not to even ask me: I started running at 11:15 and didn't stop until 5:30. I didn't pee, I didn't eat, I didn't drink, I didn't sit down. I sat down and ate a banana and drank four glasses of water at 5:30. I was so exhausted I was retarded. It was bad.
Am at the moment eating Chee-Tos (the Wegman's generic version) as an appetizer while Dave works on making shrimp scampi and garlic mashed potatoes for dinner. He text-messaged me last night that he'd make that for dinner, and last night I had to answer that I couldn't come home until 11. So... Postpone the dinner. It will be awesome tonight, and I'm starving.
I had a pretty bad day. I did make over $100 in cash, and a bunch in credit card tips, but I had a lot of troubles, and a few who ostentatiously paid me exact change because they were displeased. (Things like, they ordered one of the premade sandwiches and insisted it was stale, even though when I poked it afterward it... really wasn't, it was just like the sandwiches from there always are, and I've served hundreds with no complaints.)
And the one table who had a $35 drink tab, and then a separate food tab of another $40, and made much of generously giving me... slightly under a dollar, and saying how great I was. That just puzzled me. They were Canadian. The table of Canadians next to them tipped me a bit over 10%, which is sort of reasonable, and I gave them slightly less attentive service (they sat down later and I was busier). I dunno. I can't figure it out. It's beyond me.
One of my co-workers attempted to involve me in drama. I was sympathetic, but I really don't want to get involved. She used to steal my customers and has ostentatiously stopped doing so now, being very conscientious about making sure people at the tables are waited on by me even if they come up to the bar. I've discovered, through conversation with others, that she's been there a bit over 7 years and has been fired twice. She's also related to one of the higher-ups, through marriage. She apparently was once fired because she was not ringing up draft beers she'd charged customers for, and was simply keeping the entire price as a tip. The other senior bartenders all hate her. I think she's sweet sometimes, but oh my is she ever a total crazie. I Do Not Want to get involved. I am so not into politics. And while I can see her point that one particular new supervisor is a bit difficult at times, and am horrified at her tale of him irrationally harassing her (I was present for the windup to the incident where he said he didn't care about something, but not for the incident wherein he bitched her out with offensive language about the issue he'd said he didn't care about), but really, I have no problem with any of the managerial staff and don't really want to star with the problems.
Oy. It's a minimum-wage job. (Well, base rate. not counting tips. So really she's probably making $30k or more a year. But anyway.) It is NOT WORTH POLITICS. In fact, no job is.
Holy shit, my ill-advised "cute" hairstyle has left me with a rat's nest the size of my fist, involving every single hair on my head. Shit.
I need one of Galadriel's nubile, nude harem of hair-combers.
The computer monitor is shaking. That's a problem. I should go.
I'm going to go mince garlic. Here's hoping I don't lose any fingers.
Cancellations in flights abounded. Additionally, delays: JetBlue and AirTran both now have flights scheduled for departure sometime after 11. The kid who was supposed to close the bar asked if I'd stay instead and I begged him not to even ask me: I started running at 11:15 and didn't stop until 5:30. I didn't pee, I didn't eat, I didn't drink, I didn't sit down. I sat down and ate a banana and drank four glasses of water at 5:30. I was so exhausted I was retarded. It was bad.
Am at the moment eating Chee-Tos (the Wegman's generic version) as an appetizer while Dave works on making shrimp scampi and garlic mashed potatoes for dinner. He text-messaged me last night that he'd make that for dinner, and last night I had to answer that I couldn't come home until 11. So... Postpone the dinner. It will be awesome tonight, and I'm starving.
I had a pretty bad day. I did make over $100 in cash, and a bunch in credit card tips, but I had a lot of troubles, and a few who ostentatiously paid me exact change because they were displeased. (Things like, they ordered one of the premade sandwiches and insisted it was stale, even though when I poked it afterward it... really wasn't, it was just like the sandwiches from there always are, and I've served hundreds with no complaints.)
And the one table who had a $35 drink tab, and then a separate food tab of another $40, and made much of generously giving me... slightly under a dollar, and saying how great I was. That just puzzled me. They were Canadian. The table of Canadians next to them tipped me a bit over 10%, which is sort of reasonable, and I gave them slightly less attentive service (they sat down later and I was busier). I dunno. I can't figure it out. It's beyond me.
One of my co-workers attempted to involve me in drama. I was sympathetic, but I really don't want to get involved. She used to steal my customers and has ostentatiously stopped doing so now, being very conscientious about making sure people at the tables are waited on by me even if they come up to the bar. I've discovered, through conversation with others, that she's been there a bit over 7 years and has been fired twice. She's also related to one of the higher-ups, through marriage. She apparently was once fired because she was not ringing up draft beers she'd charged customers for, and was simply keeping the entire price as a tip. The other senior bartenders all hate her. I think she's sweet sometimes, but oh my is she ever a total crazie. I Do Not Want to get involved. I am so not into politics. And while I can see her point that one particular new supervisor is a bit difficult at times, and am horrified at her tale of him irrationally harassing her (I was present for the windup to the incident where he said he didn't care about something, but not for the incident wherein he bitched her out with offensive language about the issue he'd said he didn't care about), but really, I have no problem with any of the managerial staff and don't really want to star with the problems.
Oy. It's a minimum-wage job. (Well, base rate. not counting tips. So really she's probably making $30k or more a year. But anyway.) It is NOT WORTH POLITICS. In fact, no job is.
Holy shit, my ill-advised "cute" hairstyle has left me with a rat's nest the size of my fist, involving every single hair on my head. Shit.
I need one of Galadriel's nubile, nude harem of hair-combers.
The computer monitor is shaking. That's a problem. I should go.
I'm going to go mince garlic. Here's hoping I don't lose any fingers.
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no subject
Date: 2005-04-03 02:12 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-04-03 03:34 am (UTC)However.
I always knew that a tip was important. So the people who leave a tiny percentage but are very pleasant? Like the elderly man who, beaming, beckoned me over to give me fifty cents for his $10 tab? He thought he was tipping me well, because he believes, as I used to, that tips are just a little something extra for the server because she was so nice and helpful.
I honestly didn't realize until I got this job that the tip is about 60-70% of the server's income, depending on the bar.
So I am tolerant of poor tippers. But it really hurts my feelings when they know they're tipping poorly and do so deliberately, and I don't know why, or it's something I have absolutely no control over. (I anticipate a great deal of this next week, as I'll be in the bar whose kitchen is on the other side of security and thus I can't go check on food that's taking a while, or quickly go fix food that's unsatisfactory. Telling someone who just found a hair in their chicken wings that it's going to take 30 minutes to get a replacement? Yeah, that I can understand them kinda taking out on me, but there really is nothing I can do.)
But yes. if I went out with someone and he tipped the adequate-or-better waitstaff very poorly, I would have words with him, and if he were ignorant, all right, I'd take that under advisement (and would think maybe the dude ain't right), but if he was perfectly aware of the whole situation and still insisted on doing it? You're right, that's indicative of other personality problems and is definitely grounds for not continuing. (And even being ignorant-- well, I was pretty damn sheltered and still had figured it out before I was economically independent, so that paints a pretty bleak picture of the person in question. But sometimes people live under rocks, or something.)
Bad tips don't really make me mad so much as just really, really sad. (I did cry today after being given the exact change check, while the other party was demanding separate checks retroactively which, for me, involves managerial intervention. Because it just made me so sad that they were upset with me that they hadn't enjoyed their sandwich. But I got my shit together really fast, which I'm proud of. This job is teaching me valuable life skills.)
no subject
Date: 2005-04-03 05:20 am (UTC)The Whole Problem with Academics
Date: 2005-04-03 01:47 pm (UTC)- Z
no subject
Date: 2005-04-03 02:34 pm (UTC)The funny thing I've discovered is that waitressing and tending bar is often *not* something done by poor people. (It's not usually a Chosen Career but sometimes, actually, it is.) A lot of my coworkers are older people (a few in their fifties, one in her sixties) who have found this to be a stable, rewarding, and reasonably lucrative job. (Gerry, nearly sixty-five, owns a Jaguar convertible and has tended bar for CA1 for 19 years.) Many of my coworkers do quite well for themselves, because they're very good at what they do and most of their customers recognize that.
I do remain of two minds about tipping. It wouldn't be necessary if the employer paid a living wage, but on the other hand, people often enjoy giving me a tip, certainly more than they'd enjoy paying an inflated bill to cover my higher wage, and while I like to think I would do my job really well even without the incentive to please tipping provides, I do know that stuffing wads of money into my little paper cup on the back of the bar makes me much more cheerful which does make me much less likely to be sullen and forgetful for the next customer. Nothing increases job satisfaction like visible monetary incentives. "I hate this job! Why am I doing this?" *busses table* *picks up $10 under dirty beer glass* "Oh right."
And, tipping means a restaurant can attract much better-quality employees than they can afford to pay.