I go first!!
My owners are nice people...they can't run a business for shit. They aren't clueless, but the economy took a toll on the bistro last year, and since then we have been going downhill. We had to go into receivership to make sure the bills were paid, and were taken to court by our landlord. Yeaaahhh..
Anyways, last night the chef walked out because after almost a month, the new dishwasher that we were told has not come in. I was told it was the receiver's fault because he didn't sign off on it, but it wouldn't surprise me if it wasn't ordered either. So the chef was sick and tired of having to tell our Guatamalan dishwasher that he had to keep scrubbing by hand. Soooo...The owner stepped up to cook. She even walked right in with a chef's coat.
(Please note this women worked for Julia Child, and for some reason learned NOTHING. Her skills with a knife scare the FUCK out of me, and I'm pretty bad with a knife.)
So when I walk in, my manager pulls me into the corner and goes, "Just a heads up...Ray walked out and Talli (bartender) is in the hospital. Julie is in the kitchen...DON'T YOU WALK OUT ON ME TOO."
We devise a cunning plan that will put her on the bar and me on the floor and finish up the necessary sidework which unfortunately means I have to bring 4 buckets of ice up the stairs because she won't do it. Anyways...My first table was a mother and her teenage son. It was an easy order...a caesar salad and a couple of med-rare burgers. Piece of cake.
:horrormirth:
The woman...can't even make a proper Caesar salad. She didn't dry the lettuce, she didn't toast the croutons, and she forgot to add Parmesan cheese. Naturally the customer complained, although she was nice about it. Then the burgers came out, what a fucking nightmare. Julie put them on the grill too early after I told her not to (the other cook was in now and was too busy trying to get the kitchen actually set up...did I mention the kitchen wasn't set up?!). So I had to bring one of the burgers back and have the other cook remake it.
By this time, The owner's family, and by family I mean the husband, 2 kids, sister, and 2 nephews walk in and want dinner. They seat themselves and I make the kids set the damn table for me because I'm too busy with another table now and dealing with my recook. Julie walks out the recook for me and then proceeds to join her family for dinner instead of going back into the kitchen and helping Julio the cook, who is a surf bum from Hawaii but works really hard. He hasn't been there long enough to know how to make difficult stuff yet, so the manager jumps back on the line to help him, leaving me the entire dining room and the entire bar. Fortunately, it was pretty slow and all the tables (except the owners) were low maintenance.
My first table was offered free dessert because of the mess ups, and still left me a nice tip, but when the boss sat down with her family with wine, they sort of looked at me like, "You've gotta be kidding me, right?"
The owners' kids are 11 and 14. They aren't too young to know better or autistic like the oldest nephew who made quite the mess. But the 11 year old, the little spoiled fucking prince, kept going up to the fruit tray and getting more cherries for his cousin, who was already bouncing off the walls. We had to YELL at him to stop it, and then he made a huge mess of calamari and fries on the floor (this is, again, the 11 year old peewee do-no-wrong football star, not the 5 year old hyper autistic boy). The 11 year old also decided to yell at me from across the restaurant and snap his fingers at me...but his father thinks it's funny. I told him that if he did it again, he would have to vacuum my whole floor. I also made him ask me for another drink using the grammatically correct "May I have another Coke, please?"
The 14 year old is better, she can be whiny, but for the most part she's helpful and I asked her to clear the table when they were through, so her and her aunt (boss's waitress sister, who knew she had to get the owners out of there ASAP before the manager and I killed them) bussed and reset the entire table. So after they successfully left me with a floor of moosh, I finished up with my last 2 tables and bar customers. As soon as everyone left, we locked the doors an hour early, blasted the Pogues, mixed margaritas and starting scrubbing the fuck out of the kitchen and cleaning the carpet. They had left their own restaurant in a disaster. Oh and of course, didn't pay their bill, which had to be voided off and my tip be paid out, which we're not supposed to do because of the receiver.
I just don't even want to go back there today. If it wasn't for the fact that my W-2 will be in, I'd probably call out. (And the manager would probably kill me.)
Holy shit.
Our new boss can cook...just not very fast at all. He took 20 minutes to do a single smothered chicken, while this poor woman had to wait and watch the rest of her friends digging in (yes, he didn't even send them all out at the same time). He also tends to set the garlic bread on fire. For the past week, we've been taking it in shifts to run down to the nearest store and buy as much tartare sauce, tomato sauce, mayonnaise and the rest as possible, because they never put the goddamn orders in. Our chef actually spent half an hour on the phone this morning, trying to sort out getting something, while I was upstairs, attempting to break into the company safe so I could pay for the few deliveries that had turned up.
They're going to try and do a new thing with our pay too...which is needlessly complicated. Instead of getting paid every week, they are going to look at paying us monthly, to make it cheaper (they get an accountant to do the payroll). Only, we are still going to be paid weekly. Confused yet? Supposedly we will get what we would normally earn every week, and then any extra as a lump sum at the end of the month...only that is going to be a nightmare when you consider the days people take off, when we close early, when snowstorms bring the country to a standstill and so on and so forth.
Our bosses wife cant actually remember her own shifts. Last week, she down twenty minutes late and was like, "oh, I'm meant to be on the bar today, aren't I?" This week, she decided to go off to the brewery, and didn't get back until the last 10 minutes of the shift, leaving three of us to run the entire pub (you really need four at least, hence why I was hired).
Their lax standards already seem to be having an effect. We got off to a bad start in January anyway, business wise, but...well, we had one customer on Monday. One last night. A few more on other times, but the busiest it has been this week is 20 people on Monday night, which is not very good at all. This business will probaby go under in March, when the brewery demand their first payment.
I think last night we did maybe 18 covers, not counting the owners' 6 top. This is common for January though. RISD Winter Session just ended and Brown doesn't start again until next week. But college students can suck a fart out of my ass anyway.
Summer is TERRIBLE. I need to be out of there by the end of April if I intend to do any traveling this summer as planned. If they reopen for lunch, I'll be totally fucked, because I know I'm one if not the only one with lunch availability, which means I'll lose night shifts. $30-$40 for a Tuesday and Wednesday night SUCK, but it's better than nothing.
Yeah, I mostly work lunches and, well...the last time I went home with above £10 in tips was New Year. Admittedly, UK, but that is pretty poor. I used to average out at about £16 a week, which was a nice bonus, but with our bosses apparently scaring everyone away, I'm taking a real hit.
Hopefully the brewery will throw them out in March and find someone competent to take over. But our brewery is both stupid and malevonent, so I'm not betting on it.
So is this like a microbrew pub then?
We should swap jobs for a week...make a reality show of it. :lulz: The difference in tipping customs alone would make for a lot of laughs.
Sort of, yeah. We're with Hall & Woodhouse, who admittedly produce some fairly good beers, even if they are run by utter pricks.
That'd probably be fun. Most of our customers are old farts, so they're never a problem beyond indecision and small appetites. But that makes it boring, for those days you really want to take out some frustration on a difficult bastard.
Yeah, you would hate the people I get. Rhode Islanders are notoriously cruel as is, so it was hard for me to not want to snap the neck of the woman I had the other night who, after I dropped the check and asked if they needed anything else, decided to look at her husband and say, audibly, "Why don't you ask her for a blowjob?"
Quote from: Suu on January 28, 2010, 07:17:22 PM
Yeah, you would hate the people I get. Rhode Islanders are notoriously cruel as is, so it was hard for me to not want to snap the neck of the woman I had the other night who, after I dropped the check and asked if they needed anything else, decided to look at her husband and say, audibly, "Why don't you ask her for a blowjob?"
I bet that was a barb at him, and you were just collateral damage.
Quote from: The Good Reverend Roger on January 28, 2010, 07:22:42 PM
Quote from: Suu on January 28, 2010, 07:17:22 PM
Yeah, you would hate the people I get. Rhode Islanders are notoriously cruel as is, so it was hard for me to not want to snap the neck of the woman I had the other night who, after I dropped the check and asked if they needed anything else, decided to look at her husband and say, audibly, "Why don't you ask her for a blowjob?"
I bet that was a barb at him, and you were just collateral damage.
It was. They were fighting all night, because in RI it's customary to take your domestic arguments to restaurants instead of at home. I should start scoring them or something.
Quote from: Suu on January 28, 2010, 07:24:07 PM
Quote from: The Good Reverend Roger on January 28, 2010, 07:22:42 PM
Quote from: Suu on January 28, 2010, 07:17:22 PM
Yeah, you would hate the people I get. Rhode Islanders are notoriously cruel as is, so it was hard for me to not want to snap the neck of the woman I had the other night who, after I dropped the check and asked if they needed anything else, decided to look at her husband and say, audibly, "Why don't you ask her for a blowjob?"
I bet that was a barb at him, and you were just collateral damage.
It was. They were fighting all night, because in RI it's customary to take your domestic arguments to restaurants instead of at home. I should start scoring them or something.
Sure. She caught him fucking around, and she's making him pay for it publicly.
I can see why it would piss you off, but I'd have been fired for laughing out loud.
Isn't that soliciting for prostitution?
Quote from: Richter on January 28, 2010, 08:15:40 PM
Isn't that soliciting for prostitution?
Only if there was money involved.
does tipping count? :)
This IS RI. Prostitution is legal.
Quote from: Suu on January 28, 2010, 09:50:17 PM
This IS RI. Prostitution is legal.
I thought that only applied to your politicians.
Nope. We have "spas".
So tonight was 10% night at the bistro. That means that every "mathematically challenged" hipster art student from the neighboring overpriced art school will tip you 10% or less and set the trend for the rest of the evening.
I swear, no RISD student should be allowed to function on their own without the help of a Brown accounting student.
Why do people pick on FL so much when your state looks like a giant bucket full of hard smelly turds with flies and everything??
:lulz: :lulz: :lulz:
Quote from: Turdley Burgleson on January 29, 2010, 06:46:39 AM
Why do people pick on FL so much when your state looks like a giant bucket full of hard smelly turds with flies and everything??
:lulz: :lulz: :lulz:
Because between the organized crime, political corruption, indoor prostitution laws, teenage strippers, burnt down nightclubs, illegal gambling rings, abused Indian tribes, failing casinos, Swamp Yankees, AND Red Sox/Patriots fans, we still don't cover enough square mileage for the rest of the country to give a fuck.
AND we're also just out of range if Boston and New York were to get nuked. Rhode Island is strategically placed to breed evil.
Florida is just the scapegoat for the rest of the country's idiocy.
Top 100 US Cities with Largest Land Areas: http://www.city-data.com/top8.html
If Rhode Island was a city it would be 91st. :lol:
(Granted, most of those "cities" have a population density somewhere around 2 people/sq mile but it's still funny, dammit!)
So, the jig is up.
I've been keeping up a facade of obsfucating stupidity at work, my actual job requirements aside, because...well, there is no point in just giving my bosses information for free. Plus if they were genuinely bad as I suspected, I wanted to have a plausible cover for when I started throwing sand in gears.
Unfortunately, today, my boss' wife was in the middle of asking me for some information, needed for taxes or something, when someone else on the bar pointed out that our old bosses left our CV's behind when they left, and those would have all the information she needed. So by the time I go back to work on Monday they'll not only know they have a virtual irregular warfare expert working for them, but that I was trying to keep them from finding out.
:argh!:
With any luck, they won't know what the hell any of that means.
I dunno. I wrote out my individual module choices, with such clarity inducing names as "Irregular Warfare, Insurgency and Guerrilla Warfare"
Not to mention the internship where I studied critical infrastructure protection, which five minutes with Google will tell you is basically white-hat sabotage studies.
yeah, but our "5 minutes with google" is most peoples' "never gonna find THAT out".
also, screw you both. MY restaurant (I use the term loosely) doesn't know what a roux is. They literally thicken EVERYTHING with cornstarch, except in the instances where they just use prepackaged gravy mix. And all of our proteins except for our burger patties come out of a freezer.
OH AND DID I FUCKING MENTION THAT THEY PUT OIL IN THE PASTA WATER? DID I? FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFUCK!!!!!!
I hate my new job. Badly.
Quote from: Emerald City Hustle on January 29, 2010, 10:08:40 PM
also, screw you both. MY restaurant (I use the term loosely) doesn't know what a roux is. They literally thicken EVERYTHING with cornstarch, except in the instances where they just use prepackaged gravy mix. And all of our proteins except for our burger patties come out of a freezer.
OH AND DID I FUCKING MENTION THAT THEY PUT OIL IN THE PASTA WATER? DID I? FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFUCK!!!!!!
I hate my new job. Badly.
Wait. You got a job? I can't decide whether to congratulate you or commiserate with you, based on this post.
Actually, wait. Oil in the pasta water? :crankey:
Kill them, ECH. There's isn't a jury that would convict you.
Quote from: Cain on January 29, 2010, 08:58:21 PM
I dunno. I wrote out my individual module choices, with such clarity inducing names as "Irregular Warfare, Insurgency and Guerrilla Warfare"
Not to mention the internship where I studied critical infrastructure protection, which five minutes with Google will tell you is basically white-hat sabotage studies.
going by your previous descriptions, that still leaves a fairly good chance that all of that information will just zoom past their heads.
and that they will just look up that information they need (social security number, birthdate, etc I assume) glance at the rest, think "oh, boring political college-y stuff" and ignore it, let alone type it into Google.
regardless, playing it as if there is nothing odd to notice about your CV would be the proper way to handle this whether they understand what it says or not, right?
My owner is now executive chef... SOMEBODY HELP ME!
Quote from: Triple Zero on January 29, 2010, 10:19:48 PM
Quote from: Cain on January 29, 2010, 08:58:21 PM
I dunno. I wrote out my individual module choices, with such clarity inducing names as "Irregular Warfare, Insurgency and Guerrilla Warfare"
Not to mention the internship where I studied critical infrastructure protection, which five minutes with Google will tell you is basically white-hat sabotage studies.
going by your previous descriptions, that still leaves a fairly good chance that all of that information will just zoom past their heads.
and that they will just look up that information they need (social security number, birthdate, etc I assume) glance at the rest, think "oh, boring political college-y stuff" and ignore it, let alone type it into Google.
regardless, playing it as if there is nothing odd to notice about your CV would be the proper way to handle this whether they understand what it says or not, right?
Maybe, maybe not. The fact I went to some length to downplay or not mention it will certainly be noticed...plus this is the guy who goes everywhere with a bodyguard. He
may be slightly paranoid.
Quote from: Emerald City Hustle on January 29, 2010, 10:08:40 PM
also, screw you both. MY restaurant (I use the term loosely) doesn't know what a roux is. They literally thicken EVERYTHING with cornstarch, except in the instances where they just use prepackaged gravy mix. And all of our proteins except for our burger patties come out of a freezer.
OH AND DID I FUCKING MENTION THAT THEY PUT OIL IN THE PASTA WATER? DID I? FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFUCK!!!!!!
I hate my new job. Badly.
Although, my boss is still preferable to this. There are no excuses for any of that shit. I thought we were somewhat overreliant on prepped and frozen food, but we make fresh pie fillings, curries and several other things every few days. As for the other stuff...don't even go there.
Quote from: Suu on January 29, 2010, 10:38:42 PM
My owner is now executive chef... SOMEBODY HELP ME!
Saucepan to the temple and put his body in the large bins out the back. No-one need ever know.
Fortunately for my sanity it's so cold out not a lot of people will be going out. Unfortunate for my wallet though.
I kinda see the problem, Cain, but can they really fire you for having those qualifications?
Come to America, people will treat you like James Bond.
Oh, they can't fire me. The way things are going here, everyone has job security for life. I'm just annoyed because now my boss knows not to trust me, and I cannot carry out any acts of sabotage with anonymity. He also has something of a dodgy set of friends, which could complicate matters.
Mm. Bother. If you can't sabotage him because he has the clue, you might as well see if he's interested in employing your talents.
Quote from: The Good Reverend Roger on January 29, 2010, 10:10:21 PM
Quote from: Emerald City Hustle on January 29, 2010, 10:08:40 PM
also, screw you both. MY restaurant (I use the term loosely) doesn't know what a roux is. They literally thicken EVERYTHING with cornstarch, except in the instances where they just use prepackaged gravy mix. And all of our proteins except for our burger patties come out of a freezer.
OH AND DID I FUCKING MENTION THAT THEY PUT OIL IN THE PASTA WATER? DID I? FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFUCK!!!!!!
I hate my new job. Badly.
Wait. You got a job? I can't decide whether to congratulate you or commiserate with you, based on this post.
Actually, wait. Oil in the pasta water? :crankey:
Kill them, ECH. There's isn't a jury that would convict you.
yeah, they hired me to be some sort of sous chef/lead line position with the explicit understanding that I was their preferred candidate for the job because I would be able to shore up the weaknesses of the head chef and the rest of the crew (IOW, they want me to be the badass Staff Sergeant to his inept Lieutenant). The head chef works hard and has a good grasp of the administrative and organizational stuff, but he seems to think he knows how to cook and every time I've tried to gently correct him about something or impart some knowledge, I've been rebuffed with the "well, this is how the owners want it done" line, even though the owners supposedly want ME to show HIM how stuff is supposed to be done.
Also, they screwed up setting up direct deposit for me. No idea when or even if I'll see my first paycheck, they seem to take the attitude that if the money ends up in someone else's account it's my problem, not theirs. If this indeed proves to be the case, it will not go well for them as I will be forced to work there long enough to collect at least one more full paycheck, during which period of time I can wreak havoc and sabotage things they don't even know exist, let alone know how to fix.
AND THEN...
So I'm headed in to work at 8:30 on a friday night, to work until a little after midnight. I'm doing this so I can learn the late-nite menu, which we only do on friday and saturday nights between 10pm and midnight. Starting next week, friday and saturday are my regular nights off. FML. I'd burn this place down, but I'd probably be charged with a hate crime. I can see it now...
"No, officer, the gay clientele had nothing to do with this. It was mostly because they put oil in the pasta water. I couldn't let them test like that."
Shiiiiiit. I thought my bosses were incompetent, I have seen nothing.
Quote from: Cain on January 29, 2010, 11:19:02 PM
Maybe, maybe not. The fact I went to some length to downplay or not mention it will certainly be noticed...plus this is the guy who goes everywhere with a bodyguard. He may be slightly paranoid.
Or, maybe he's smart enough to go, hmmm, this is a guy I could use on my side.
Quote from: Emerald City Hustle on January 29, 2010, 10:08:40 PM
also, screw you both. MY restaurant (I use the term loosely) doesn't know what a roux is. They literally thicken EVERYTHING with cornstarch, except in the instances where they just use prepackaged gravy mix. And all of our proteins except for our burger patties come out of a freezer.
OH AND DID I FUCKING MENTION THAT THEY PUT OIL IN THE PASTA WATER? DID I? FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFUCK!!!!!!
I hate my new job. Badly.
:x :x :x :x :x