no, i will not call in sick

[dragonlady7]

My foot hates me but in too nonspecific a way for me to justify taking a sick day. We have these elaborate procedures we have to follow, now, if we want to take a sick day, and I think the messages are like recorded or something, and it's just totally weird. And my foot is actually kind of okay today. I didn't get a break until the end of the night yesterday, and I wouldn't have gotten one at all except I remembered at 6, just as my foot was just about to give out. I said I really had to sit down, and went and sat down, and it was just pleasant and a nice way to end the night. I wish they'd let me do that all the time, but that's not really how it's supposed to be-- we're supposed to take them at least an hour and a half from the beginning or end of our shifts.
Eh well.

Shift bids are out, and I'm wondering how on earth they're ever going to work out. They're putting out 13 full-time shifts for the 20 bartenders to bid on, and then somehow they're going to 'take what's left' and make up the part-time shifts out of them. Er, well, there are part-timers who've been there for ten years, and the shifts they've worked for most of that decade are being offered up as part of the full-time bids. What will be left over? Nothing. There aren't enough hours for the people they've hired. And so the new guy, who started last week and who still doesn't even have a badge (remind me: I'm calling in sick on Monday morning, because he's still not badged and I'm not going to work All-Stars for him; that's largely why I'm not calling in today even though I have so much I want to do and it is so totally going to be a waste of my time. Mm, wasted time. Yes. Great.) will get better shifts than people who've worked here 30 hours a week for 10 years.

Like that's gonna fly with the union...

But anyway. I'll probably do OK; I prefer the serving shifts and a lot of other people think that bartending is just so great even though you don't make any money unless you're bartending at the big bar. So maybe that'll work out all right. But at any rate, I'll have the same schedule week-to-week... and that will be mind-numbingly boring.

I spent yesterday evening reading a website of humorous essays by an American teaching assistant in Japan-- reverend_dave sent me the link to alert me to the phenomenon of Kancho, which is indeed disturbing.

I dunno, I'm just stuck and don't know what to do with my life, and being a union waitress in a shop where the management hates us with unbridled bastardry doesn't strike me as a good career plan, particularly not when I'm about to be locked into a schedule that guarantees I will never have another weekend off, and yet also doesn't guarantee I'll ever have a holiday off even if it falls on one of the days I'm supposed to have off. And oh yes, also when the management seems to think it a delightful sport to see how thoroughly they can overstaff the bars just so we don't make too much money.

Oh, I didn't share this one: one of the cooks has informed us that she's not speaking to anyone in the bar anymore. We thought she was joking, but two weeks later, she still won't speak to us, not even when we ask her a question directly work-related, and not when we try to make friendly conversation. We didn't know why, until the porter went by and said "Oh she's mad because the HR manager told us all that we had no idea how much those bartenders make, that you guys make so much money."

Now that's just great. Disclosure: I did the math and, before taxes, I can safely estimate I will make about $21,000 this year.
But for the record, the HR manager has no idea either. Maybe she distributes the paychecks, but we do not disclose our cash tips to anyone, often not even to each other. (Most of us would tell if asked, but some of us don't even really count. How we're supposed to do taxes I've no idea.) The HR manager has absolutely no idea how much we make. I could, from my position of sharing a register with her, guess that the seniormost cocktail waitress makes something over $40k a year, given that she's the union steward and so makes $.25 more an hour than anyone else, and given that she does around $800 in sales on a slow day. I've seen a couple of her paychecks, and watched her count out her tip jar at the end of the night. And I would say, she's probably at about $35-40k a year. Working 40-45 hours a week, on her feet all the time, running, in a job she's held nonstop without significant breaks since 1982.
And she makes the most of any of us.

Aside from that: what business does the HR manager have discussing this with other employees? And what business do other employees have even caring about it? This is stupid, and pointless. And infuriated me.

The other thing that infuriated me yesterday, that infuriated me so much I have to share it here despite how I have been not whining about work, was this:
Couple sits at a table of mine. I give them menus, they order 2 plates of wings, I ask if they want anything to drink, they order a glass of water and a Diet Coke. I bring them their drinks, bring them their napkins, go take care of other customers, bring out mixed drinks and beers etc. to the tables around them, and then come back with their wings. And the man at the table has a martini. He has gone up to the bar and ordered himself a martini.
Let me make plain to you that I cannot have been away from their table for more than ten minutes. I don't even think it was that, as I told them the wings would take ten and when I came back they exclaimed over how quick the food had been. And the man had a martini.

Would you do that? Would you, if you had a waitress waiting on you, who had a picture of a martini glass on her vest, who was bringing alcoholic drinks to all her other tables around you, if you had a tab with her and were drinking Diet Coke, would you then proceed to go up to the bar to get yourself a drink which you then had to pay for separately from your dinner? ???
WHO WOULD DO THAT. I ASK YOU.

I was so angry I stood there absolutely dumbfounded at their table. "Well," I said finally, "I was going to ask if you needed anything else, but obviously you're quite self-sufficient," and I was so angry I had to just walk away.

I lose enough of my business to the takeout counter that cheerfully asks "for here or to go?" even when all my tables are already full, and then is mad when people come back to get to-go boxes because there are no tables. (This happens, and they dare to whine to me about it.) I had seven parties yesterday (I counted) exclaim "Oh! There's waitress service?" in disappointment when I came to ask if they needed anything-- all had already bought their food from the takeout window. I lose enough business to people helping themselves at the bar and then taking up two tables so they can put their luggage up on chairs. I spent most of my shift yesterday roaming around desperately looking for someone who might possibly be a customer before they get whatever it is for themselves. I have had a number of terrible shifts in a row, and my weekly total income will be pretty shitty this week. Why? Because Management won't put up a fucking sign that says "server on duty"-- apparently it would ... well, actually, they don't have any justification, they just won't do it.

So I was really totally pissed off by this fellow who somehow just couldn't bring himself to order a martini from me. I mean really. What the fuck. What the fuck. I bow and scrape and bring napkins and ketchup and run around for him and he fucking gets his own.
They left a reasonable tip (well, reasonable as a percentage of what they bought from me-- of course the tip for the drink, which cost as much as their food, went to the bartender), when I could bring myself to bring out the bill without tearing anyone's head off, but it really blackened my afternoon. I can't even wait a table. Jesus.

I need to get a job that won't dehumanize me to this extent, but I can't handily think of one. I've really never had a boss that respected me whatsoever, and I suppose it would be stupid to hold that up as a goal since I've no idea how to reach it, but I don't know how anyone is supposed to live a fulfilling life without it.

Comments

[reverend-dave.livejournal.com]

You should know that I wasn't really trying to dissuade from the Japan idea, if that's really something you want to try. I just thought the guys journal was amusing.