Round Two; Fight!

Last night I picked up a closing shift for my roommate. She had had a few too many celebratory birthday drinks (even though I was only a few behind, if even that), so I helped her out and went in to work for her. I was happy to know that I was in the closing section that got to go home first, and spent the slow-ass night standing around while I waited on one or two tables at a time.

At the end of the night I did my closing sidework and left. I got gas, cigarettes, and then chain-smoked my way back into happiness on the drive home. After getting out of my uniform and into normal clothes I looked at my phone, which had been on silent. This is the text I received from one of the other closers:

"Hey kara about u come back in...pick UR Shit up off table 30 and to bev like its suppose to be done...thanks"

Um...Hey 'name rhymes with Shmam', why don't you learn how to use grammar, capitalization, and punctuation properly. Also UR is not a real word. Maybe if it stands for 'underlying reason', or I have a stick stuck 'Up my Rectum'. I think the last one makes more sense.

After arguing with my manager over text for a little bit, I had the bartender put my pitcher of delicious and well-needed beer in the fridge and skipped my ass back to Shmupplebees. He had made it sound like such a big deal; like I had lit my section on fire and called it good for the night.

I got there and this is what I essentially did; I filled ONE salt shaker, ONE pepper shaker, and dumped ONE pot of coffee.....  I also had apparently left a broom in my section, which Shmam huffily informed me. I went to my section, looked around for a minute, and became thoroughly confused because I didn't see anything that resembled a broom, except for maybe the fact that the furniture was made out of wood as well. I asked another server where it was, and she pointed to it. It was now in another section, pretty sure it was being used to clean said section up, but still not in my section anymore. Whatever. I was told to put the broom away. I walked over to it, picked it up, and took it all the way to the back so the server would have to go get it again.

Oh, I also took my TWO plates that I had completely forgotten about to the back as well.

When I was done, my manager got off his phone, actually got off his ass and came out of the office. He looked at me sheepishly, grimaced/apologetically smiled, and said 'sorry', I wasn't the one that was mad about it.

Whatever Shmony. You're the manager. Grow some balls.

How To Piss Off Your Manager

The other day I was running around like a chicken with my head cut off at the locally corporate owned restaurant I work at. We'll just call it shmupplebees. Or maybe orangehornet. I don't know, I'm bad at making up names. Anyhoo, I had a couple credit cards in my hands because one of my tables wanted to pay, and that's generally what they do when they want to pay; they give me money. It's pretty common-practice. I also had in my possession some dirty plates. Again, this is a corporate restaurant so there are certain rules we have to follow that I'm sure were made up solely for the convenience of the workers. I took them to the back because "Under no circumstances are you supposed to plate park, Ms. Hoag. Feeling like you're going to gouge your eyes out because you're so busy is no excuse!". (Plate parking is setting dirty dishes on the side station for an hour minute because you're too lazy busy to take them to the back)

I decided to be a good employee for a minute, and take the plates to the back before I ran the cards. I ended up being the only server back there and there was food to be ran. The expo called for a runner and I politely shouted at her that I couldn't because I had someone's money in my hand. I ran out of the kitchen and ran the cards so that my table could leave. Now I've been told time and time again that if you have someone's money it is your first priority to get said money back to them. This is one of the rules that I whole-heartedly agree with.

After a few minutes, my manager, shmjason, came up to me and began reprimanding me for my actions. He informed me that having someone's credit card is no excuse to not run food.

"But I've been told that getting a table their money back as soon as possible is first priority," I..politely..said.
"It's always hot before anything!" he snarkily remarked.
"I'm not going to make people wait for their money to run food!" I politely retorted. "I've been told over and over that this is the right way to do it."
"Are you seriously going to argue this with me?!?!" he replied, his face becoming a bit purple in the cheek and everywhere area.

Now, I understand I'm not a manager. In fact, I thank God every night before I drink large amounts of beer go to sleep so that I can wake up bright and early and be a productive member of society. But come on! This feels like it should be common sense!

Just because you're a manager doesn't meant that
1.) You get to treat and talk to me like I am in kindergarten
2.) Expect me to go with every decision you make without question like I do not have a mind of my own (I believe this is kind of what happened when Hitler took over Germany. Are you a Nazi shmjason? Are you?!?!)

Over all, though, lesson learned in my book. I hereby promise not to bypass food that needs to be ran in order to get customers back their money. I will simply plate park and run the cards before taking the dishes back to the kitchen instead.