The Classic Dine-and-Ditch

A lot of things I write about are severe annoyances to restaurant staff, but what happened to me recently really tests the limits of what most servers are trained to address with any amount of optimism.

I definitely had the worst day in the history of restaurant work on this particular day. Not only were there no English-speaking people around for me to take care of, they all conveniently used cash to pay for their checks. This means there was no possible way I could get any kind of a tip greater than two bucks and thirteen cents worth of "keep the change."

But then this gem of a human being came in to eat. Something wasn't quite right about him, but I don't think I could have decisively said what it was. He was an older bloke, not terribly perceptive, prone to conversational redundancy and verbal self-contradiction.



On second thought, I'm completely convinced he was retarded.

He asked for his bill, and I gave it to him pretty quickly. The convo happened like this;

Crazy guy; Hey, don't go anywhere sonny! I've got money for you I think.

Me; Ok. I'll wait right here.

Crazy guy; (Rifles through wallet for about two excruciatingly long minutes) ...Urmarm...I guess I don't have the money I was going to give you for the food. Oh wait, can you change this hundred dollar bill I just found?

Me; Sure can. Leaving now.

After I went and broke his hundred dollar bill, I considered my options. In any other circumstance, I would have take the cost of his food out of the change, but I thought in this particular instance that he wouldn't have quite understood what I did. Which actually could have potentially turned out in my favor, come to think of it.

Instead I did the opposite of what made sense, guided by my compassion and concern for this man's ever-weakening grasp on the world around him. I walked back with all $100 dollars of change and proceeded to count them out right in front of him. I finally concluded triumphantly with "...99, and one hundred! All there sir. I'll pick up the check in just a second."

I returned several seconds later to find that he had left three of the dollars on the table, but not any money toward the actual bill. I instantly got angry. Did he NOT see me give him back all of the change? Is he really that far gone? Why wasn't I not stupid and why didn't I just do what I would have normally done?

The worst part was, given the horrible 5-6% tipping on the other three tables I had, I now was indebted to the restaurant for this particular table. Coming into work yesterday for six hours actually COST ME MORE than if I had stayed in bed eating graham crackers and watching Maury issue paternity tests to deadbeat fathers.

In most restaurants, there is a specific policy for what happens when people ditch you on a check. In the last restaurant I worked in, the Chinese people in management made it clear that if someone leaves without paying, the waiter was charged with paying HALF of the bill out of that night's tips. If it happens again? The waiter pays the WHOLE bill. I didn't even want to imagine what the third offense was.

In a corporate chain, I imagine the rules are slightly different, but I suppose I'll find that answer out soon enough.

The Necessity of Micromanagement

The true telling factor of what life is like in any restaurant depends heavily on the competence of its management team. In privately-owned restaurants, managers are typically the friends of the head boss who can be quite demanding, but who are agreeable, sometimes fun, and actually have souls.

The managers at a chain restaurant have to adhere to codes and endless tirades of corporate propaganda in order to do things like "effectively govern" and "keep their jobs."

Due to the tier-based trickle-down effect of management wisdom implied by the latter example, many disastrous things can happen to the basic base-slave. Oops, that was a typo. I meant to say "waiter who has slightly fewer freedoms than an indentured servant with debts to the mafia."

Observe;



At this point, someone from management usually comes over to stifle your creativity and squash any impressions you have of any kind of utility by saying something non-confrontational like;



...but in reality, the manager in question has no idea what you are doing, why it is necessary, or even why he or she has to venture any form of commentary. But something needs to be managed, and at that point in time, that something is YOU.

You may even try to argue;



But in reality, no manager in a corporate chain will ever listen to a better idea, even if it would revolutionize the way the company does business. Paperwork would have to be filed, people would have to be satiated, credit would have to be due. All in all, the company's CEO would probably love the idea you had if you and the guy were face to face. The reality of the situation is that no matter what you try to do or who you try to subvert in order to create a better working environment, you'll be strangled with red tape from the lower management team to the very top of the pile of assholes running HR for the company.

So you do the only thing you know how;

You get wasted after your shift with your coworkers and bitch about how dumb everyone is. Then you wake up the next day and go right back to work.

Let's Blame the Kitchen!

Servers usually have six or seven thousand things on their minds at any given time. Throw in the fact that their performances are uniquely rewarded with gratuity. Also, throw in the happenstance that sometimes, the people servers wait on aren't the most understanding people, nor have ever had to work in a restaurant.

When these things all come together, you find that on a nightly basis, waiters, bartenders, and support staff can get very crafty when it comes to diverting the blame for their individual screw-ups.

Here's what I mean;



So naturally, the server in this picture forgot something. Harmless enough, but in order to sustain the belief that the guest has the best waiter in the whole world and would never tip that waiter less than 20%, the waiter resorts to;



The guest is then somewhat pleased that his or her order will be arriving soon, and that the waiter is now going to tear someone in the kitchen a brand new set of assholes.

In reality, this is what is usually happening;



This is a strategy I share with new people to the business. It saves you from being yelled at by irate guests, it familiarizes you with procedure in the kitchen, and it absolves you from blame coming from all directions.

Of course, there's always the possibility that you did everything right, and the kitchen actually bastardizes your order.



In that case, it's karma that rears its ugly head. You did everything right, and no matter how much you tell them that the kitchen fell right on its face when it sent out her order, you have become the restaurant Satan right at her table. You're basically out any amount of tip money, can't go back and fix anything, and may as well have someone else close it out for you.

True enough, I tell everyone that a good waiter is only a good waiter if he or she is good at damage control. If you constantly fuck up orders and are too slow, you'll do decently enough if you can make all of your guests love you and forgive you for everything. Even if the kitchen has to take one for the team every once and again.

A Breeze in the Kitchen

As funny as it could possibly be, I feel that self-inoculation should "rear" its ugly head in my disservice again. I keep "brewing" these unorthodox tales, and will gladly "expose" my problems within the restuarant's "business" at my own "expense."

Every so often, a waiter has to fart. Really badly.

It happens often enough. A waiter often requires caffeine in order to work twelve straight hours a day (every day). In order to sustain that high, an artificial supplement must be ingested. The situation usually starts like this;



After that, a caffeine binge will occur at the restaurant's expense.



The waiter begins to feel great, being extra friendly, running all needed items over to his tables, running all the needed things over to EVERYONE'S tables, explaining things on the menu without being asked, doing more work than necessary, stepping outside to do a backflip, and many other things. Most often, instead of guests saying, "Wow, that guy was very helpful, thorough, and informative," they usually say, "So. What the fuck's up with that guy?"

There's always some twatty co-worker or passerby who, without asking of course, volunteers his or her opinion about why you shouldn't be drinking taurine or yerba matte or whatever the hell is in what you just bought from CVS ten minutes ago.





The problem with caffeine is that it tends to run right the hell through you. Energy drinks cost money/are bad for you, so you avoid them. You decide to deal with the first of the two situations because although everyone seems to know that energy drinks are not only bad for you but will kill you A LOT ALL THE TIME, nobody's going to ridicule you for a somehow socially acceptable caffeine overdose.

So this tends to happen in the middle of your busy day;




But by that point, you're too busy and the employee bathroom at the restaurant is too gross and too frequented to permit you to take a generous crap. Even if you could get two or three people to cover your tables and begin to tolerate the fact that the employee bathroom looks three seagulls short of being an actual garbage dump, you would die if someone came in right after you and said "Dear God this smells. Seriously, who takes a crap at work?"

So you spend the rest of the evening finding safe places to let one rip. You quickly walk through the kitchen where there are constantly fans blowing and strongly-smelling food being concocted, hoping that #1 - Your fart doesn't suddenly become actual poop, and #2 - There are enough X factors to either disguise that you farted really hard or maybe even dissolve it completely before anyone has a chance to smell anything.



It makes the actual moment terribly climactic.

People say that waiting tables is one of the hardest jobs in the world, but I doubt that this is one of the well-known reasons. Still, remember it when a server suddenly has to leave your table while you're ordering and cites that he or she "forgot something at another table."

The Power of Tipping Generously

An odd thing occurred to me today as I went to mail my taxes in and grab a bite to eat on the corner. I walked into the pizza shop and ordered a BLT. When it came time to pay, the man behind the counter insisted I just take it. For free.

When I insisted on handing him the full fare for the delicious bacon-laden lunch, he leaned in and spoke to me in his European accent. He said;

"A few weeks back, our delivery driver dropped off an order to your house. When he didn't have enough change, you told him to keep it. Our driver recognized you when you walked in."

I saw over in the corner that same guy who earlier in the week, graciously accepted $20 bucks on a $12 dollar delivery order. He came over, gave me a quick nod, and said "I always pay back my debts."

Moved as anything, I left the store, BLT and chips in hand. As with anything, generosity is always appreciated if not reciprocated. Conversely, there's nothing you can ever gain by being overtly cheap.

As a waiter, whenever someone tips me generously, I remember that person. I look forward to serving that person again, and would do everything I could to get whatever free or coveted items to his or her table without getting into too much trouble with the management. Often times, I'd risk it anyway.

I forget what journalist wrote that short piece a few years back about his journey to New York City with a stack of twenty dollar bills. He tried to see how far he could get by slipping twenties into the hands of the right people. He was let into exclusive luncheons, ferried around to awesome places, and generally well-liked by whomever he paid.

The important thing I realized about this whole situation was not that the money itself was significant. Of course, the money is appreciated. But in retrospect, the subtraction doesn't quite work out. I left the guy eight bucks when he delivered to my house, but the cost of the sub and chips was more than that upon my return. His net gain was in the negative, but he recognized me for my generosity and future business.

My friend and I recently staked a claim on our new hangout spot, a classy restaurant/pool hall/karaoke venue. The first couple times we went, I doubt we were distinguishable from the other bros in the place. My friend and I both tipped generously each time we went, and by the third time we went, we were treated like regulars, given free beer, and generally made to feel more welcome than the average person. The man in charge gave us free tastes of exclusive and obscure tap beverages, four pints for the price of three, things of that nature.

It speaks to most things about life in general, but if you help others when times are good for you, you can often count on others when you're up the creek and down the waterfall.

The Worst...Table...Ever.

They strolled in five minutes before the venue closed. They walked up to a table they thought was theirs by default and sat themselves right down, paying no regard to anyone or anything that might have held their attention or needs. They proceeded to ask angrily for menus, assuming someone had seen them.

They were....the party from HELL.



By "Hell," I clearly mean "Eastern Europe."

It's not that people from a specific region did anything wrong, it's just that THESE specific people from this SPECIFIC region did EVERYTHING WRONG, and deserve a SPECIAL place in HELL.

I used enough capital letters in order to MAKE a POINT, and will STOP AT NOTHING in order to MAKE A CERTAIN SIX PEOPLE PAY for their CRIMES, REGARDLESS of the GRAMMATICAL FAUX PAS'S of the ENGLISH LANGUAGE. But I DIGRESS.

Imagine a group of six people, sitting down at a table right before the restaurant closes.

They order a bottle of fine wine;



...now, this ain't exactly a two-buck-chuck from the local Trader Joe's.
This might rather be an 80-dollar caviar wine designed to palate the tastes of the gentleman who wants to club a golf course manager to death who hasn't yet made the required connections with the people in charge of swaying his shot.

This guy has a chip on his shoulder.

He came to eat with his friends, and tried in vain to impress the living shit out of them. He sent back an important bottle of wine, and instructed his friends to order a new thing for every time his server reached the table, implying that a relay race was somehow afoot.

They asked for tartar sauce. They asked for lemons. They asked for cocktail sauce. The kitchen was closed, but one of them still asked for a baked meal, and complained that it wasn't prepared the way he was used to. The head honcho sent back a bottle of wine, and despite the fact that the bar had already closed, he asked that a different wine would be opened for his table because he simply "didn't like" the previous one.

This attitude would be somewhat easier to deal with if the restaurant weren't closed, but alas. The convenience of a couple of strangers will always come closer to the needs of the one person with a posse of internationally-inconsiderate dick-noses.

This man and his friends had no intention of going anywhere, and they each wanted to know why there weren't any complementary mints or dental floss.

All while the table persisted, you contemplated the very reason why you wouldn't have gotten home until 2AM, you couldn't find anyone in the kitchen to make your food, or why you couldn't possibly have pleased anyone for any reason.

And then Murphy's Law enters your mind.

...and you then wonder what it is you did to deserve it. And there is no logical answer.

Seven Words You Can't Say In A Restaurant

Hey readers. Just to curb any chance you may have thought this post would be a delightful spin off of everyone's favorite George Carlin routine, there will not officially be seven words on this list. In reality, I can't imagine there's more than three words I've ever used in any restaurant environment that have received more than a cocked eyebrow.

I guess I'm just a sucker for campy names when it comes time for a serious post.

Let's get down to brass tacks.

Despite the fact that the restaurant is the only professional forum where it is okay to talk about things like nipples, rectum massages, skullfucking, cauliflower, and Ronald Reagan, I've discovered the one topic which is completely taboo. Ironically, the only phrase you can't mention is "sexual harassment."

If someone feels "sexually harassed," the harasser's career at the restaurant is almost certainly over.



You see, in the restaurant, waiters, cooks, bartenders, and even the non-English-speaking support staff will constantly be quipping back and forth in the most perverse manner attainable. As mentioned in earlier posts, homoerotic suggestiveness and depravity are all but acceptable in the colloquial dialogue of the restaurant underbelly. This isn't to say that if someone on the staff were uncomfortable, that that person would not be accommodated. They rest of the staff would almost certainly spare the one affected person/lesbian/feminist/socially awkward malcontent/overly-conscious idealist if that individual were to publicly and knowingly isolate his or herself from the crude fracas.

If that one person decided to go to the management with his or her concerns, that person would be doing a gravely unacceptable and irreversible thing. That individual would be broaching a topic that would upset the very balance that helps keep the restaurant staff friendly, trusting, and above all, sane. That person would potentially get someone fired because he or she feels they have been SEXUALLY HARASSED.

The caveat in all of this is that the person affected doesn't necessarily have to be the subject of any of the things said or done. That would be too easy. The person can overhear a joke, read an obscure word, or even receive an incorrectly interpreted glance in order to retaliate and get someone fired. If the person accused happens to be a respected or well-liked employee at the restaurant, then the accuser will have made an enemy of everyone at the restaurant. That person will be retaliated upon in every legal manner capable by the restaurant's staff.

His or her tables will be repeatedly sat with destitute high-school students and families with screaming infants. That person's side work will become the most rigorous, often involving scrubbing toilets and counting toothpicks. Nobody will talk to that person without necessity.

The staff of the restaurant protects its own, and will quickly make enemies with those who threaten that sanctity. Forever.