Hey. It’s me. Your girl. Writing from my familiar seat in rock bottom which last night took the form of running out of Pino Noir and drinking an old champagne split from my cousins wedding two years ago. The perfect end to a perfect weekend. For those who remain blissfully unaware, after many many years I have somehow managed to remain a waitress with a weight problem and wine dependency. Not moving forwards, not moving backwards, just stagnant. It’s time for a change.
As I believe I’ve mentioned in past posts, I have fruitlessly attempted to apply to every job you can imagine and I am about one failed cover letter away from joining the employee roster at my local Boston Market. Honestly, if I got a discount on their Mac n Cheese and the title of head cashier I would do it in a heart beat at this point. I’m not quite sure what it is that results in every application I complete either being swiftly denied or ignored altogether because my resume is filled with.. well let’s say that they’re not so much exaggerations as they are complete and total lies, but I digress.
Anyhoo, I have always wondered what my last straw would be. Would it be someone demanding something from me and justifying it by claiming they’re really close with the GM, despite the fact I dated him for 7 years and have never heard of them? Nope. Would it be being expected to simultaneously take a private party of 30 upstairs, bartend for a full dining room downstairs, and serve tables outside in a short sleeve polo in subarctic temperatures? Nope. Would it be me bussing my own tables, making my own cappuccinos, only to have the underaged busboy lifelessly look at me without response when I ask him to pour my table water? Close, but no cigar.
As it turns out, my last straw being snapped in fucking half was a result of the ever elusive and calamitous Sunday brunch shift. I want you to understand one thing about me. I’m not a morning person. I have never been, and will never be a morning person. If someone so much as glances at me before the clock strikes noon, it could be the last thing they ever do. It’s called having the nocturnal schedule of a genius and entrepreneur. Look it up. That being said, imagine me having to go into work at the crack of dawn (otherwise known as 10 a.m.,) running on nothing but 7 glasses of red wine, 4 menthol free cigarettes, and 3 hits of a weed pen from the night before. Then imagine me being thrusted into a dining room filled with people demanding an eggs benedict with no meat, eggs scrambled instead of poached, with the bread on the side? It’s a recipe for disaster.
This past Sunday, however, was far worse. In the perplexing albeit routine absence of a manager during the restaurants busiest shift, I was forced to personally deal with a host of complaints from customers. Sure, I could deal with a large gay man literally threatening my life if I didn’t get the DJ to turn the music down. I feel you boo, I don’t want my eggs with a side of house music either. But what I could not, would not, and WILL NOT deal with is being verbally assaulted because a girl with acrylics and a People’s Bank card could not seem to grasp how much a Casamigos Reposado costs.
“This isn’t what I ordered! I showed you what I wanted on my phone. There are cameras here, aren’t there? Where are the cameras? I wanna look at the footage! This was supposed to be ten dollars. I’m only paying ten dollars!!!!!!” Mind you, at this point she was screaming so loud I thought she was either going to burst into tears or her head was going to start spinning around like the exorcist.
“Okay, calm down. I’ll fix the price for you.” Alcohol was literally seeping out of my pores at this point, and I could not care less that the reason for the tantrum was most likely that her bank balance was $11.50. Apparently, I should have chose my words a little more wisely.
“Don’t you EVER in your FUCKING life tell me to calm down. Who the fuck do you think you are?”
“Ma’am, you’re screaming and everyone’s staring. If you just-” (It’s one of my favorite things to passive aggressively call customers ma’am)
“I’ll TALK TO YOU ANY WAY THAT I WANT. YOU’RE A WAITER. YOU KNOW WHAT LET ME SPEAK TO YOUR SUPERVISOR.”
When I calmly and rationally explained to her that this isn’t her local T-mobile and we don’t have “supervisors” she responded, “GO SUCK A DICK YOU STUPID FUCKING BITCH”.
I sighed deeply, wondering where exactly I had gone wrong in my life that allowed me to get to this point. And as I was telling her it was time for her to go, I realized. It wasn’t just time for her to go. It was time for me to go as well.
#brunch #server #serverlife #waitress #restaurant #customer #customerservice #wine #weed #hungover #newblog #fromzerotohero #wedding #hashtag #whatisthepointofthesehashtags #unemployed #jobsearch #2021
Wine and Zoloft 