Today is time for work stories and perhaps those pictures I promised you. Because I've been at work 6 days a week I've had to make my own fun and amusement, sooooo....now you get to hear about it!
On Irish Car Bomb Night, before the actual car bombing began, I pierced my coworker's lip. Don't worry; I was totally sober at the time and was extremely careful about being sanitary and precise. I'm very pleased with how it turned out and it was healing quite well until it fell out in his sleep a couple of nights ago. The plan is to wait a couple of weeks and then pierce the other side.
The freckled eyes belong to another coworker who is, coincidentally, dating the aforementioned one. I'm not sure why the phenomenon of freckles in someone's irises fascinates me so, but they were certainly fun to photograph.
On one particular day and for no readily apparent reason empty boxes just started to multiply in their spot next to the back door of the restaurant. The pile grew so large that it was a hindrance to foot traffic, so an enterprising driver, at my suggestion, constructed a tower. To put this into perspective, that broom rack you can see on the wall behind the tower is attached at a point slightly higher than 6' above the floor.
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On Tuesday night a couple came to my store to dine in and ordered, among other things, a pitcher of beer. At the time, I was nearing the end of a period of frantic kitchen activity (damn you, slow cook), but because I was the only one on premises with an OLCC permit, I had to stop midway through an order (their order!) to pour them their beer. I did so as quickly as possible, walked by, set down the beer, mumbled something to the effect of "here you go" with what little breath I had in my lungs at the moment, and hurried on to finish their order. On the way to the kitchen I was interrupted by the phone, so I stopped briefly to answer it and sell some food to the person on the other end. As I was finishing up the phone call the woman from the table I had just serviced came up to the counter and said to my back, "I don't appreciate the service you're giving us, missy."
It took a couple of seconds for my brain to realize that 1) This was the woman from that table, 2) She was talking to me, and 3) Despite the use of the word "missy," she was serious. I turned around and, trying not to totally blow off the person on the phone, replied "excuse me?"
"You slammed that beer down and walked off without saying a word. That was totally disrespectful!"
"I.....slammed.......huh? I'm sorry if I set the beer down harder than I intended to, but I was in a hurry. If you'll excuse me, I'm on the phone."
I finished up the phone order and went back to the kitchen, Halfway through The Table's pizza my waitress walked up and informed me that The Table would like a refund. I shrugged in a sort of bemused way and went up to the counter to oblige. While I was printing out a refund slip and retrieving The Table's money my waitress apologized to the people.
"It's okay, it's not your fault. Some people just don't have any respect."
Mentally sighing, I responded with "I didn't mean to set your beer down that hard-"
"Yes you did.
"
Um. "But I've been moving as quickly as I can in the kitchen for the last hour and a half and am kind of hyped up on adrenaline at the moment."
"Adrenaline. Right. More like methamphetamines!"
"Er....no, just adrenaline. Would you please fill out the four spaces that I marked?"
"Your manager's going to hear about this!" *angry scribbling*
The Table stomps out in a huff and it suddenly hits me that they just accused me of being on drugs. ME. DRUGS. Hah-. AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAA!!! (The irony of this is not totally apparent unless you know me well enough to know that I have never in my life so much as been tempted to sample an illegal substance.) OF ALL THE PEOPLE THEY COULD POSSIBLY HAHAHAHAHAAAAAAAA!!!
After my waitress and I stopped laughing like lunatics I went to put the refund slip in the till and that was when I actually looked at it.
Best. Refund slip. EVER.
Later, when I had my evening chat with my store's temporary sort-of-manager, I told him the whole sordid incident. He assured me that anyone who fills out a refund slip like that is going to receive nothing more than a cursory "fuck no" in response to any plea for compensation.
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Friday night a man came in and ordered the special that you may or may not have seen on television recently. Some bullshit about a free medium pizza that we have been strictly instructed to not promote in-store in any way because it costs our little chain's owner a crapload of money. We are to honor the special if someone comes in and asks for it, but that's IT. So one of my crew members takes this guy's order and I, being the only one with access to the till at the moment (mmm.....cash shortages), step up to cash him out. I tell him his total, he contests it, saying he got the special, so I pull up his order to see what he's talking about.
"Er.......special?"
"Yeah, the one on TV. The free medium."
"Ohhhhh."
I fix his total, apologize, and take his money. Suddenly he wants to know why I didn't automatically know what he meant by "the special." I explain that I don't have TV, have only heard about that special a couple of times in passing conversation, and was sent no documentation from the office that dealt with it. I felt that it was probably a good idea to leave out the part about deliberately not promoting it in-store. He starts chattering away about working at some hotel and hospitality industry and blah blah blah while I make polite noises of assent and edge back towards the new hire paperwork I had been filling out. He takes the hint and wanders over to the carryout bench.
Five minutes later I'm still doing paperwork when I see him out of the corner of my eye, back up at the counter. I ask him if he needs anything else and am treated to a full-blown lecture about my negativity and how he's worked in the hospitality industry for years and how he's 62 years old (in September!) and when will the manager be in and as management, I should be fully aware of all promotions that my company is running at all times etc. and so forth. Totally baffled, I just sort of stand there and say "okay" to him for several minutes until he finishes with an "OKAY? " and sits down again.
When his food is ready a couple of minutes later I walk it over to him with a perky "here you go!" and can immediately tell that he's testing me. Acting fast, I ask if he'd like any napkins or anything, get him his napkins, and hand them over. Still glaring me, he tells me that he had a soda too. I check his ticket, see that his soda was entered in as a 2 litre bottle of Pepsi, fetch one from the fridge, and hand it over.
"I wanted Cherry Pepsi. "
"Oh, sorry! Your ticket said regular Pepsi."
I pop the soda into the cooler, grab the last bottle of Cherry Pepsi, and hand it to him.
"There you go! Have a great day. ^_^"
I wander back over to my paperwork and he asks, in a conversational sort of way, if the store manager will be in the next day. I check the schedule and inform him that the manager will be in onnnnn....Tuesday. This appears to piss him off a little more and I end up writing down my sort-of-manager's name, my name, and a phone number where the manager can be reached (heh heh heh....I gave him the other location's number. Seriously though, that's where he is most of the time. Because he's actually the manager there, but has been nice enough to fill in a couple of shifts each week at my store to make sure the administrative functions don't totally fall apart until we have an actual store manager again. In July. Maybe. Or not. Fuck, I don't even care anymore.)
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Last night there was a moth in front of the store.
This thing had at least a 4" wingspan. It was so huge it looked like a tarantula with wings and short legs. It was also, for reasons that were most likely directly correlated to its size, totally comfortable with being photographed. It sat there, perfectly still, while my camera made its little beeps and clicks, didn't so much as twitch when a car started up nearby, and totally ignored my obnoxious gansta cook and his camaeraphone.
Awesome.
Now my hands are sweating from typing so much and I'm sure you're having an information overload, so I'll leave the project slut entry for another day.
On Irish Car Bomb Night, before the actual car bombing began, I pierced my coworker's lip. Don't worry; I was totally sober at the time and was extremely careful about being sanitary and precise. I'm very pleased with how it turned out and it was healing quite well until it fell out in his sleep a couple of nights ago. The plan is to wait a couple of weeks and then pierce the other side.
The freckled eyes belong to another coworker who is, coincidentally, dating the aforementioned one. I'm not sure why the phenomenon of freckles in someone's irises fascinates me so, but they were certainly fun to photograph.
On one particular day and for no readily apparent reason empty boxes just started to multiply in their spot next to the back door of the restaurant. The pile grew so large that it was a hindrance to foot traffic, so an enterprising driver, at my suggestion, constructed a tower. To put this into perspective, that broom rack you can see on the wall behind the tower is attached at a point slightly higher than 6' above the floor.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
On Tuesday night a couple came to my store to dine in and ordered, among other things, a pitcher of beer. At the time, I was nearing the end of a period of frantic kitchen activity (damn you, slow cook), but because I was the only one on premises with an OLCC permit, I had to stop midway through an order (their order!) to pour them their beer. I did so as quickly as possible, walked by, set down the beer, mumbled something to the effect of "here you go" with what little breath I had in my lungs at the moment, and hurried on to finish their order. On the way to the kitchen I was interrupted by the phone, so I stopped briefly to answer it and sell some food to the person on the other end. As I was finishing up the phone call the woman from the table I had just serviced came up to the counter and said to my back, "I don't appreciate the service you're giving us, missy."
It took a couple of seconds for my brain to realize that 1) This was the woman from that table, 2) She was talking to me, and 3) Despite the use of the word "missy," she was serious. I turned around and, trying not to totally blow off the person on the phone, replied "excuse me?"
"You slammed that beer down and walked off without saying a word. That was totally disrespectful!"
"I.....slammed.......huh? I'm sorry if I set the beer down harder than I intended to, but I was in a hurry. If you'll excuse me, I'm on the phone."
I finished up the phone order and went back to the kitchen, Halfway through The Table's pizza my waitress walked up and informed me that The Table would like a refund. I shrugged in a sort of bemused way and went up to the counter to oblige. While I was printing out a refund slip and retrieving The Table's money my waitress apologized to the people.
"It's okay, it's not your fault. Some people just don't have any respect."
Mentally sighing, I responded with "I didn't mean to set your beer down that hard-"
"Yes you did.
"Um. "But I've been moving as quickly as I can in the kitchen for the last hour and a half and am kind of hyped up on adrenaline at the moment."
"Adrenaline. Right. More like methamphetamines!"
"Er....no, just adrenaline. Would you please fill out the four spaces that I marked?"
"Your manager's going to hear about this!" *angry scribbling*
The Table stomps out in a huff and it suddenly hits me that they just accused me of being on drugs. ME. DRUGS. Hah-. AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAA!!! (The irony of this is not totally apparent unless you know me well enough to know that I have never in my life so much as been tempted to sample an illegal substance.) OF ALL THE PEOPLE THEY COULD POSSIBLY HAHAHAHAHAAAAAAAA!!!
After my waitress and I stopped laughing like lunatics I went to put the refund slip in the till and that was when I actually looked at it.
Best. Refund slip. EVER.
Later, when I had my evening chat with my store's temporary sort-of-manager, I told him the whole sordid incident. He assured me that anyone who fills out a refund slip like that is going to receive nothing more than a cursory "fuck no" in response to any plea for compensation.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Friday night a man came in and ordered the special that you may or may not have seen on television recently. Some bullshit about a free medium pizza that we have been strictly instructed to not promote in-store in any way because it costs our little chain's owner a crapload of money. We are to honor the special if someone comes in and asks for it, but that's IT. So one of my crew members takes this guy's order and I, being the only one with access to the till at the moment (mmm.....cash shortages), step up to cash him out. I tell him his total, he contests it, saying he got the special, so I pull up his order to see what he's talking about.
"Er.......special?"
"Yeah, the one on TV. The free medium."
"Ohhhhh."
I fix his total, apologize, and take his money. Suddenly he wants to know why I didn't automatically know what he meant by "the special." I explain that I don't have TV, have only heard about that special a couple of times in passing conversation, and was sent no documentation from the office that dealt with it. I felt that it was probably a good idea to leave out the part about deliberately not promoting it in-store. He starts chattering away about working at some hotel and hospitality industry and blah blah blah while I make polite noises of assent and edge back towards the new hire paperwork I had been filling out. He takes the hint and wanders over to the carryout bench.
Five minutes later I'm still doing paperwork when I see him out of the corner of my eye, back up at the counter. I ask him if he needs anything else and am treated to a full-blown lecture about my negativity and how he's worked in the hospitality industry for years and how he's 62 years old (in September!) and when will the manager be in and as management, I should be fully aware of all promotions that my company is running at all times etc. and so forth. Totally baffled, I just sort of stand there and say "okay" to him for several minutes until he finishes with an "OKAY?
" and sits down again.When his food is ready a couple of minutes later I walk it over to him with a perky "here you go!" and can immediately tell that he's testing me. Acting fast, I ask if he'd like any napkins or anything, get him his napkins, and hand them over. Still glaring me, he tells me that he had a soda too. I check his ticket, see that his soda was entered in as a 2 litre bottle of Pepsi, fetch one from the fridge, and hand it over.
"I wanted Cherry Pepsi.
""Oh, sorry! Your ticket said regular Pepsi."
I pop the soda into the cooler, grab the last bottle of Cherry Pepsi, and hand it to him.
"There you go! Have a great day. ^_^"
I wander back over to my paperwork and he asks, in a conversational sort of way, if the store manager will be in the next day. I check the schedule and inform him that the manager will be in onnnnn....Tuesday. This appears to piss him off a little more and I end up writing down my sort-of-manager's name, my name, and a phone number where the manager can be reached (heh heh heh....I gave him the other location's number. Seriously though, that's where he is most of the time. Because he's actually the manager there, but has been nice enough to fill in a couple of shifts each week at my store to make sure the administrative functions don't totally fall apart until we have an actual store manager again. In July. Maybe. Or not. Fuck, I don't even care anymore.)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Last night there was a moth in front of the store.
This thing had at least a 4" wingspan. It was so huge it looked like a tarantula with wings and short legs. It was also, for reasons that were most likely directly correlated to its size, totally comfortable with being photographed. It sat there, perfectly still, while my camera made its little beeps and clicks, didn't so much as twitch when a car started up nearby, and totally ignored my obnoxious gansta cook and his camaeraphone.
Awesome.
Now my hands are sweating from typing so much and I'm sure you're having an information overload, so I'll leave the project slut entry for another day.
VIEW 8 of 8 COMMENTS
That reminds me: I went to a Pizza Hut last month. First time in aaaaages. Nice.
Can I punch them? Please let me punch them. You can punch my customers. We'll trade. It'll be awesome.