Have you ever had one of those days where freebasing calgon while attached to a central I.V. of vodka just wouldn’t quite do the trick?
Today began innocently enough but soon turned into a cluster fuck nightmare – and remained so up until I was walking out of work.
I was in a large station (actually two stations made into one) by myself with no one to drain my resources (steal my full water pitchers). My station was almost full when I got sat a party of 7 women who were in a hurry because one of them was headed to the airport. Just as I finished putting their order into the computer a dreadful message appeared on the screen – “Kitchen printer error: Could not print to kitchen. Print Locally? Retry?” Shit. Maybe one of the printers in the back is offline, so I hit retry. Just as I do I notice that the normally green button in the top left hand corner of the screen turns red. FUCK. The computers are down. My easy & stress free day is about to turn into a chaotic mess filled with people yelling and screaming at each other over dumb shit that no one has any control over. I have no choice but to brace myself and prepare for the worst.
The first thing I must do is tell the party of 7 twats (who were already impatient to begin with) that it will take a bit longer because now I must hand write their check and turn it in to the kitchen. The hostesses haven’t been told to stop seating yet so in the meantime they seat me two new tables as four of my tables want to pay right this very second. I have to greet the new tables, write their orders out, and then hand them into the kitchen. Then I have to figure out what the hell the tables that want to pay ordered and manually write their checks out, total them up, and collect payment. It sounds simple enough, right? While I am doing this a woman from the party of 7 comes up and says “Are you seriously still writing our order down, it’s been like 10 minutes?” To which I say “No, your order was turned in a while ago and they are preparing your food now.” The twat rolls her eyes at me and sits back down. I decide to go to the back to finish writing out the checks because the glares from all my tables are burning a hole through my skin. I run through my station refilling sodas & waters and then I drop off the four checks – reviewing the items listed and telling everyone their totals. I also make a point to tell everyone that I can accept credit cards but it will take at least 20-30 minutes since the cashier has to call each credit card company individually to get an authorization code. The wait is due to the number of people with credit cards. I swing by the table of 7 difficult ladies to tell them I will be in the back for a couple of minutes.
One of the 4 tables happened to be 6 people who now inform me that they want four separate checks. GRRRR… Why are people so fucking annoying and inconsiderate? I stop by the 7 ladies to tell them that their food is coming out next and to check and see if they need more refills. One lady at the table said “Um… our friend left, we couldn’t find you and tell you until now because you disappeared and were no where to be found.” I replied “No problem, I will cancel her food.” Her reply “You do that.” Bitches. But I do just that. I finishing writing the 4 separate checks for the 6 guests and give them their checks – everyone pays in cash except one lady whose check is $15 – the entire table now sits and waits while her credit card takes 25 minutes to get processed. Seriously people – Can you not loan your fucking friend $15 plus $3 for a tip instead of sitting for 25 minutes to wait for a credit card to be processed? Fucking losers. While I was taking her credit card to the back a table of 3 cholos donning wife beaters and low riding jeans gets sat in my station. I ask my manager to greet them and get their order if possible, which she does. I swing by the other 3 tables – 2 insist on paying with credit cards and the other gives me exact change. I drop the credit cards off in the back (the poor cashier was on the phone her entire shift with credit card companies). There are about 15 cards in front of theirs – I advise them it will take even longer because of this. One of the tables yells at me because apparently all the computers in the entire hotel are down – including the front desk. This means they were not able to check in. She says “What am I supposed to do? sleep in the street?” My reply is “It’s only 1:30, I’m sure by the time you go to sleep the problem will be cleared up.” She didn’t find this amusing.
The table that my manager took the order from was pretty low maintenance other than needing three refills of water and soda each. I offered to get them more beer but they declined. I also tried to pre-bus their table but they insisted they weren’t finished. As they finished their meals they signaled for my manager to come over and told her that after her taking their order no one had ever been by the table again. She asked me if I had checked on them and I loudly said that I had and said “They are just riff raff trying to get something for free – DO NOT give them anything because I have been over there at least 7 times.” She ignores their complaint. I give them their check, stand there to collect their cash, & send the cholos on their way. The ladies who were in a rush wound up having a leisurely lunch. Another lady joined them and ordered also. When the new lady arrived the conversation I overheard went something like this “Oh my god, it was a fucking nightmare in here. Like, it took 40 minutes for the server to put our order in. I went over and asked if she was still writing it out and she said no but I know she was. She also disappeared for a long time and we have no clue where she went. You would have just lost it. We almost died.” Not only were those bitches liars but they were also drama queens. They eventually left, almost 1 1/2 hours after their food intially arrived. At least the twats had the decency to leave 20%.
Once the first round of tables left the new tables were much easier to take care of – knowing you don’t have a computer to rely on before beginning a table is fine. Starting a table, ringing everything into a computer, and then later trying to recall what people ordered from memory really sucks. Needless to say a lot of people got a lot of free shit today.
