[Manager] would want me to have this.
Nov. 10th, 2006 11:13 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dragonlady7So the other day at work, [Manager] sees Senior Cocktail Waitress standing in a nook in the hallway making a phone call on her cellphone. He yells at her: "You're not supposed to have your cellphone here!"
"I'm on break," she explains patiently. "I know we shouldn't use our cellphones on our units, which is why I'm in the hall, and I'm on break so you can't tell me what to do with my time."
But he yells at her anyway, and she comes back from her break absolutely fuming. What a bastard! Why would you start trouble like that?
Miffed, she goes into the kitchen and helps herself to an order of our new menu item, the loaded fries. "[Manager] would want me to have these," she explains, "to soothe my hurt feelings and make me a better worker. He's sorry he yelled at me like that, because he was wrong."
So we all eat a few bites of the dish, and we all feel better, and we do better work.
[Manager] never knows that he has made such peace possible.
So last night at around 6:30 there's this insane rush of people who come in. Bartender came in three hours early because the morning bartender had to go to the doctor: he's exhausted, cranky, and needs a cigarette bad. SCW's shift is about to end so she's not taking more tables. So who's left to take care of everyone?
Me.
And meanwhile, [Manager] is standing in the hallway making frantic notes on a napkin. Obviously he is evaluating something, or someone. There isn't time to kiss ass to impress him; I'm just trying to make sure everyone in the bar has a drink. And I am doing damn well, thank you: I am cracking jokes, making drinks like a mofo, and actually managing to be good-natured about it all, and I am not forgetting one blessed thing. People are really impressed with me: I'm really impressed with me.
A couple of women are sitting at a table. They've ordered food already from the takeout counter, but one stops me and asks if she can have a drink. "Well," I say, "actually there's no more waitress service in this section, but if you need a drink, I can get you one if you tell me right now what it is. I'll bring it out in about five or ten minutes when I get a second. If you need it faster than that, you can go get it at the bar, but if you're not in a huge hurry, I'm happy to get it for you."
And that right there is the level of service I'm providing. It's not Guestpath, but it's serving fifty people at once, and nobody is unhappy. The woman says that sounds just ducky, thanks me, and orders a Southern Comfort manhattan straight up with a side of ice and two cherries in it.
So I bring the woman her drink, and an extra glass of ice for her friend who ordered a pop from the takeout people and was too retarded to think to ask them for ice. Because i am superman. (Usually I say, "You go ask the people you bought that from for help; I don't have anything to do with them." Because takeout customers who only want to harass the waitress for freebies are a pain in THE ASS and Guestpath can fuck itself where they're concerned.)
I have my period. I am not allowed to bring a purse through security. I have to find time in there somewhere to run to my locker and get a sanitary napkin, as my purse is in my locker with the necessary items. This is difficult, but I manage to seize two and a half minutes to literally sprint down the hall, and then I come back and do about five more minutes of work before seizing the minute-forty-five I need to get into the ladies' room and do the necessary things there.
Another couple sits down beside the women, but by the time I even see them sitting there, they've got food from the takeout and the man is standing at the bar ordering beers from the bartender. Cool, they're taken care of: and I go and wait on six more tables who are sitting and waiting.
I go to clock out at the end of my shift. My timecard's not there. [Manager] has it. He wants to talk to me.
He was doing an evaluation of my service.
Oh good, I think: I was on fire out there, and did a whole lot for a whole lot of people. "Which table did you evaluate?" I ask, curious.
He evaluated the table that I did not wait on.
The table that got the food they wanted, and the drinks they wanted, and left happy, but also left without having spoken to me even once.
So I got a 15 out of 100, because I was in uniform and well-presented, but since I didn't greet them, didn't take their order, didn't offer them water, didn't call them by the name on their credit card, didn't bid them a warm and sincere farewell wish, etc. etc. etc, I get zeroes on every other item. Not N/A: 0.
Thanks, you fucking dick.
"I wanted to make a point to the other managers," [Manager] says. "There's a problem in the way the unit is set up. You've never gotten below an 80 before, and indeed you usually score in the high 90s on your evaluations-- once you even got 100. I know this. Everyone knows this. But if we'd been secret-shopped, they could well have chosen to evaluate you on the service you didn't provide. So I want you to write your response to this report and explain why you never waited on them, and I'm going to discuss it at the manager's meeting on Monday, and I'll discuss it with you again."
He actually listened to my answer, wherein I explained that it's impossible to differentiate between people who want service and people who will get offended if you, by asking if they need anything, seem to imply that there's something wrong with going to the takeout window themselves. And when the bartender and the other waitress are both in the midst of closing out their tabs, that leaves only one person to do the whole floor, and so the only possible thing is to start telling people to go to the takeout window.
But I forgot to mention the thing about having to run to my locker for menstrual supplies, and I wish I had because we're currently grieving the lack of purses with the union, and I'm so MAD that I forgot that singularly uncomfortable but Gospel-true detail. I am so mad.
But anyway. He closed the overly-long encounter with a really stupid anecdote about how back when he was a server for a year when he was a teenager in the seventies he always liked taking tables after his shift was over because he was there to make money, and I had to grit my teeth to keep from pointing out that 1) you can't do that kind of shit here because we're required to work five days and if you clock in overtime on, say, your second day, you'll never make it through the week; you can't recover from that kind of exhaustion and keep going; 2) we ARE NOT REQUIRED to stay beyond the end of our shifts and in fact some of us have been disciplined for accruing overtime, and 3) I'm NOT here to make money, I'm here to qualify for health insurance: the brutal truth.
But I didn't say those things, because it was now well past the end of my shift and I had to get home.
My point?
I've called in sick today. [Manager] would want me to have this, to make up for the fact that an evaluation of 15 has actually gone into my record, and fuck my 90+ average because he's making a point. Asshole. I am going to lie in bed with a heating pad on my World-Destroying Uterus Of Doom, and I am going to write a novel instead of waiting your tables, you fucking jerk.
Thbbbbppppt. Thank you, [Manager], I feel much better now.
"I'm on break," she explains patiently. "I know we shouldn't use our cellphones on our units, which is why I'm in the hall, and I'm on break so you can't tell me what to do with my time."
But he yells at her anyway, and she comes back from her break absolutely fuming. What a bastard! Why would you start trouble like that?
Miffed, she goes into the kitchen and helps herself to an order of our new menu item, the loaded fries. "[Manager] would want me to have these," she explains, "to soothe my hurt feelings and make me a better worker. He's sorry he yelled at me like that, because he was wrong."
So we all eat a few bites of the dish, and we all feel better, and we do better work.
[Manager] never knows that he has made such peace possible.
So last night at around 6:30 there's this insane rush of people who come in. Bartender came in three hours early because the morning bartender had to go to the doctor: he's exhausted, cranky, and needs a cigarette bad. SCW's shift is about to end so she's not taking more tables. So who's left to take care of everyone?
Me.
And meanwhile, [Manager] is standing in the hallway making frantic notes on a napkin. Obviously he is evaluating something, or someone. There isn't time to kiss ass to impress him; I'm just trying to make sure everyone in the bar has a drink. And I am doing damn well, thank you: I am cracking jokes, making drinks like a mofo, and actually managing to be good-natured about it all, and I am not forgetting one blessed thing. People are really impressed with me: I'm really impressed with me.
A couple of women are sitting at a table. They've ordered food already from the takeout counter, but one stops me and asks if she can have a drink. "Well," I say, "actually there's no more waitress service in this section, but if you need a drink, I can get you one if you tell me right now what it is. I'll bring it out in about five or ten minutes when I get a second. If you need it faster than that, you can go get it at the bar, but if you're not in a huge hurry, I'm happy to get it for you."
And that right there is the level of service I'm providing. It's not Guestpath, but it's serving fifty people at once, and nobody is unhappy. The woman says that sounds just ducky, thanks me, and orders a Southern Comfort manhattan straight up with a side of ice and two cherries in it.
So I bring the woman her drink, and an extra glass of ice for her friend who ordered a pop from the takeout people and was too retarded to think to ask them for ice. Because i am superman. (Usually I say, "You go ask the people you bought that from for help; I don't have anything to do with them." Because takeout customers who only want to harass the waitress for freebies are a pain in THE ASS and Guestpath can fuck itself where they're concerned.)
I have my period. I am not allowed to bring a purse through security. I have to find time in there somewhere to run to my locker and get a sanitary napkin, as my purse is in my locker with the necessary items. This is difficult, but I manage to seize two and a half minutes to literally sprint down the hall, and then I come back and do about five more minutes of work before seizing the minute-forty-five I need to get into the ladies' room and do the necessary things there.
Another couple sits down beside the women, but by the time I even see them sitting there, they've got food from the takeout and the man is standing at the bar ordering beers from the bartender. Cool, they're taken care of: and I go and wait on six more tables who are sitting and waiting.
I go to clock out at the end of my shift. My timecard's not there. [Manager] has it. He wants to talk to me.
He was doing an evaluation of my service.
Oh good, I think: I was on fire out there, and did a whole lot for a whole lot of people. "Which table did you evaluate?" I ask, curious.
He evaluated the table that I did not wait on.
The table that got the food they wanted, and the drinks they wanted, and left happy, but also left without having spoken to me even once.
So I got a 15 out of 100, because I was in uniform and well-presented, but since I didn't greet them, didn't take their order, didn't offer them water, didn't call them by the name on their credit card, didn't bid them a warm and sincere farewell wish, etc. etc. etc, I get zeroes on every other item. Not N/A: 0.
Thanks, you fucking dick.
"I wanted to make a point to the other managers," [Manager] says. "There's a problem in the way the unit is set up. You've never gotten below an 80 before, and indeed you usually score in the high 90s on your evaluations-- once you even got 100. I know this. Everyone knows this. But if we'd been secret-shopped, they could well have chosen to evaluate you on the service you didn't provide. So I want you to write your response to this report and explain why you never waited on them, and I'm going to discuss it at the manager's meeting on Monday, and I'll discuss it with you again."
He actually listened to my answer, wherein I explained that it's impossible to differentiate between people who want service and people who will get offended if you, by asking if they need anything, seem to imply that there's something wrong with going to the takeout window themselves. And when the bartender and the other waitress are both in the midst of closing out their tabs, that leaves only one person to do the whole floor, and so the only possible thing is to start telling people to go to the takeout window.
But I forgot to mention the thing about having to run to my locker for menstrual supplies, and I wish I had because we're currently grieving the lack of purses with the union, and I'm so MAD that I forgot that singularly uncomfortable but Gospel-true detail. I am so mad.
But anyway. He closed the overly-long encounter with a really stupid anecdote about how back when he was a server for a year when he was a teenager in the seventies he always liked taking tables after his shift was over because he was there to make money, and I had to grit my teeth to keep from pointing out that 1) you can't do that kind of shit here because we're required to work five days and if you clock in overtime on, say, your second day, you'll never make it through the week; you can't recover from that kind of exhaustion and keep going; 2) we ARE NOT REQUIRED to stay beyond the end of our shifts and in fact some of us have been disciplined for accruing overtime, and 3) I'm NOT here to make money, I'm here to qualify for health insurance: the brutal truth.
But I didn't say those things, because it was now well past the end of my shift and I had to get home.
My point?
I've called in sick today. [Manager] would want me to have this, to make up for the fact that an evaluation of 15 has actually gone into my record, and fuck my 90+ average because he's making a point. Asshole. I am going to lie in bed with a heating pad on my World-Destroying Uterus Of Doom, and I am going to write a novel instead of waiting your tables, you fucking jerk.
Thbbbbppppt. Thank you, [Manager], I feel much better now.
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Asshole, indeed!
Date: 2006-11-10 04:39 pm (UTC)Good for you!!! I strongly support you in your decision to stay home and write today.
The other day, I came across this article (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15609623) and laughed when I came to this section:
“They’re generally a desperate, upset bunch, writers. Stephen Kings and Danielle Steeles aside, the overwhelming majority of them do not earn their living from writing alone. Most have to teach or work at day jobs they despise, take journalism assignments they have no feeling for, or write copy for the back of DVD or cereal boxes.”
So sad, but so true. (I'm really hoping the part about working at a job I despise doesn't mean forever, though.)
Re: Asshole, indeed!
Date: 2006-11-10 04:50 pm (UTC)It's also a hell of a lot of trouble, but believe me, I've been happier doing this than anything else.
And also, it has nothing whatosever to do with writing, which means i don't have carpal tunnel, don't have Computer-Chair-Ass, and when I get home I'm actually excited to sit at the computer and think about other things.
But... yeah, I need to do a lot less of the waitressing and more of the writing. I could deal with having to keep waitressing part-time to fill in the gaps from not becoming rich and famous as an author, but I can't do this full-time waitressing forever.
no subject
Date: 2006-11-12 03:12 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-11-12 04:02 am (UTC)Yes, it's just a shame he doesn't know how nice he is.