Nights Can Get Better

Last night I was expecting work to just really suck, so I didn't want to go. I was tired and already having a bad day after a run-in with my obstinant template, which is now fubared but at least has a site metre. Wait, now it works again (Lioness is sending me multiple options of edited templates as we speak.) She told me to just do the Zen thing and control my mind to like it. I thought, what the hell? But the effects wouldn't rub off immediately, my being was still looking for things to get frustrated at.

So I went into work and the first thing I do is take a little sweep of the place, just making sure all my little customers are happy as can be. It's not too busy but I appear to be the only busser on. So, since I clean up for everyone else, I investigate where they are making a mess.

The bar-runners job is to clean up the bar, and cut limes and stuff. In their minds however, they own the entire back room, which is in a constant state of what they're getting around to doing. So for example, (and this always happens) I go in the back room, and of course: there's bottles piled up to high heaven, and no one bothered to bring in a recycle bin! It's as if they thought the bottles would just dispose of themselves somehow. I put on my coat and trudge out to find another recycle bin.

One of the men who works in the kitchen isn't really a waiter and isn't really a cook. The fact that every other employee is wearing a black dress shirt and he is always wearing a different plaid flannel shirt should tell you something, but I haven't figured out what. He prepares meals and generally bosses others around, busy standing talking to the cooks or yelling at a waitress to speed it up.

So, after I cleared the waitresses bottles, cleaned the bar-runners garbage, gotten a recycle bin, I am wheeling it through the kitchen, banging into things because it's not designed for this and the flannel shirt guy starts yelling at me. By this point I'm already frustrated enough not to care if he's mad. I simply explain the situation to him, "There's no recycle bin in the back room, and we need a recycle bin. I can't take this through the restaurant so the only place to do this is here."
He looks stumped but still tries to save his ego by muttering something about how I shouldn't be doing it now or something and then becoming frantic and waving his hand: "ok, just go quick then!"

I rolled into the back room to find that of course, the bar-runners had piled boxes of water right where the recycle bin was to go. Since I didn't have keys for the fridge I would have to pile them right in front of where I sorted glasses, to be repiled again later. That's precisely what I did. The night was frustrating, and I was feeling dangerously clumsy with a tray in my hand. Everyone just seemed off, like the waiter. I saw a empty dessert plate so I cleared it. The waiter was right at my back. I noticed him pacing beside me as if I had done a terrible thing. Apparently I had. "Don't ever clear my tables unless I ask you to." I thought he was joking but no. "Ok..." I said, thinking "why???" Soon my question was satisfied, but not with a dignified answer: "the reason is," he began, having an air of overconfidence in what he was about to say "that if you take the man's plate away, the woman feels fat, and she stops eating."

So boys and girls: If you're ever hosting a dinner at your house, never clear any plates until all the men are done eating because otherwise the women "will feel fat." Women apparently think that men can be distracted enough by their own plates not to notice that they're still eating. Nevermind that if they were fat they probably never felt the fat before until you so rudely snatched someone's plate away and left her still picking away at her cheesecake. Maybe there's some truth to this, but how was I ever to consider it? I was just doing my job the simple way which is clearing plates that need clearing.

But then the night got better. I had a meeting where I ratted out the guy who held me up in the kitchen and then got in MY way later on. There was a new dish-washer who was like speedy-gonzales compared to the old. It wasn't busy, there were no freaks. We got out early. I went home and slept. Ah!