Breaking Plates like it's a Bar Mitvah

Life.  What a crazy/funny/awesome thing it is.

I'm not going to go into any detail, but my life has sure thrown me a lot of lemons lately.  And i ain't so good at making lemonade.  I've found myself at the end of a lot of sleepless nights, often times under the influence of my little 12 oz aluminum comrades, wondering why these things always seem to happen to me.  But there's always that one thing that remains: I have to work in the morning.

I often wake up to look in the mirror and think to myself "kid, you should have called it a night after the first few or before your mind took over and left you stranded."  I then shake my head, doll myself up (to what little extent i actually do that), throw my uniform on, and hope to make it there in time to get my day started.  Those of you who work with me know i have been pretty shitty at that lately too, which i am now willingly apologizing for and am vowing that those days are over.

I typically walk in and go straight for the coffee machine, hoping that with enough hope, wishes (and eventually cream and sugar) that i can make that muddy excuse for "coffee" taste somewhat like...coffee.  I run around trying to tie up all the loose ends i need to in order to get things ready for the lunch crowd, and then i patiently await my first table to saunter in the door.

We all know that we are here to entertain: we are casual dining jesters - singing, dancing and serving all these so called kings and queens for thirty minutes at a time until they've had their fill and are ready to go back out into the world.

One of the worst things about this job is the "act" that i have to put on every day.  I'm generally pretty good at just being myself.  I joke, i laugh, i smile, and all because that's how i generally am.  I am a happy-go-lucky, shit-eating-grin-wearing lady who doesn't have "boo" to say about anything.

Not lately.

"Oh, you're in a hurry?  Chick-Fil-A's right there."

"You're food's cold?  Yeah, it sat around for a good ten minutes before anyone decided to bring it out here."

"Are we short staffed? No, it's just that assholes like you and everyone else are making my job ten times harder than it needs to be."

"Am i stupid?  Lady, i bet i have more education in my pinky finger than you have in your entire family line."

"You have a wheat allergy and can't have ANYTHING touching wheat related items?  Hey (insert cooks name here), two buns on that burger please."

"Your service was horrible? Go fuck yourself."

What these people don't know is that they're just fueling the fire inside of me.  They're making my mood even worse and making my mind float even further into oblivion, leaving their demanding and ridiculous needs by the wayside.  Of course i slap on my big fake grin, belt out my dumb fake laugh (which my coworkers love oh-so-much), and apologize for each and every unimportant mistake i make.  I take my mediocre tip, thank them "SO MUCH", and tell them to have a good day.

The second the coast is clear, i stand at the computer and mutter every explicative in the book, mock their tone, condemn them to Hell, and move on to the next ill prepared guest.

And they NEVER know.  How, i shall never be able to guess, they just don't.

I've been doing this for so long that i guess i actually wear it well.  I can change at the drop of a hat (or a ten percent tip) when i have to.  I do what i need to do to make money, to pay my bills so i can live a life outside of the world of burgers and beer (well, maybe not beer, but you get the gist.)

We all do this.  It's probably what (most of us) do best.

When i enter that building each morning, the baggage gets left at the back door until i clock out and make my exit back into "my" life.

 Work has recently become an escape for me: a place where everything else taking place in my life doesn't matter, where it CAN'T matter.  A place where i have to suck it up and do what i should actually be doing in my REAL life....

carrying on.

*i would like to note that one thing i have never done and WILL NEVER DO is fuck with people's food.  (Just in case anyone was worried.)

Gimme some sugar

Stereotypes are a common thing in this business.  I guess the same could be said for life in general, but trust me, there are some serious common threads in the stereotypes we hold as indentured food servants.  

We've all rolled our eyes at the group of teenagers who sit down at our table.  We've all watched people walk to their table, all the while praying in our heads "please don't seat me with them, please don't seat me with them."  There's the whole racist aspect of this business which i vow not to come anywhere near, but we ALL know it's there.  

There's the elderly couple most avoid (but i personally love to chat it up with), the not-so-well-to-do family, the mall moms who need at least three high chairs and a couple booster seats to add insult to injury, the folks who oh so obviously just spent the last twenty minutes hot boxing in their car before they decided to indulge in some fried goodness.  There are so many more that i don't have the time to list, but they're all customers and consumers that we must entertain.  They're just a part of this big old melting pot of people i encounter every day.  

But, there is one who stands above the rest for some reason:  

The Diet Coke drinker.  

Those of you who have never had the experience of waiting on a diet coke drinker have no clue what i am talking about.  And those of you who drink diet coke are probably about to get really pissed at me.  Sorry. 

I don't know what ingredient in Diet Coke causes its drinkers to mutate into some "outside the bounds of a normal human being" mode, but there just HAS to be something.  Maybe i'll get a research grant for it someday.

Diet Coke drinkers are some other kind of asshole.  I might just hold some inert animosity because i am an AVID Coca Cola Classic fan, and the taste of Diet Coke makes me want to write Coke a personal testament as to why that crap should be taken off the market and is a disgrace to all things Soda.  Maybe I'm just being a total jerk about it, but seriously...

"I'll have a Diet Coke" (please note that there is no 'please' following this statement.)  This is usually the point where i roll my eyes and walk to the back to prepare myself for the first of MANY more Diet Cokes to come.  By the time i set the first one down, it's typically only moments before I am sent right back to my CO2 foxhole to retrieve another.  

It's kind of like exercise when it comes to how many reps i need to do in the usual twenty minute to an hour long dining experience.  It's usually somewhere around DC number three or four when i start to ration out ice like it's a hot commodity.  Anything to give my artificial sweetener fiends another sip or two before i have to do more work.  

Maybe they're trying to drink enough to equal a "real" Coke.  Maybe they were trying to impress everyone by ordering something "diet", and upon realizing what a bad idea it was, they figured that maybe they could get drunk off of that horrible tasting shit if they just went over the brink and drank way too many.  Most likely, they're just trying to make my life even more of a living Hell than it already is, and with each mug of "carbonated asshole drink" i set down on their table, they look to their friends and giggle with delight at my suffering.   

My favorite thing about DC drinkers?  They almost ALWAYS order the worst item on the menu (if we're talking nutritional value here.)  "Country Fried Steak, huh?  Oh, extra gravy and garlic bread?  Lemme guess, Diet Coke?  Awww, yup.  Be right back."  I promise you that Diet Coke is not going to counterbalance the 2,300 calories that you just lapped off your plate, big fella, so yeah, go ahead and drink eight of 'em.  

I feel some kind of satisfaction when i walk by a table that's not mine with an empty mug of dark-colored soda, and have the satisfaction of doing the old "finger guns" in the direction of their little ice mausoleum and say "Diet Coke, right?"  

And ninety-nine times out of one hundred....

BAM!  You are officially deemed "one of them" in my eyes.  

Coke Zero?  Whole other ball game to be played a different day.  

I will not be a "lifer"

You know, i never imagined myself to be a twenty-seven year old waitress.

I always laugh because i started waiting tables the year i started college.  you know, to get me through school and all.  I never in my life would have thought that i'd be working for the same stupid big name casual dining restaurant three years out of school.

I'm not mad per se, i just think i'm now at the point where it's getting old.  There's nothing new or exciting for me to bring to the table.  This isn't a career.  This isn't what i'm meant to be doing with my life.  This is kinda bullshit.

Every day there's something different to talk about, some new customer who graces my life (or wastes my valuable time) with their presence, there's always something i carry home with me....always SOMETHING that sticks.

Anyone who has worked in the "service" industry long enough knows what i'm talking about.  Shit, you could have walked in to train for a position in servitude land and learned enough about how this business works.

The one thing that i honestly don't mind about my job (aside from being super fast cash and being ultimately one of the most laid back jobs on the planet) is that it's ALWAYS good for a story.  Whether it be old woman who tells me that she makes spaghetti for the deer in her yard every night or the party of thirty for a twenty-first birthday party who run me ragged for hours to stiff me....

There is ALWAYS a story.

That's what this here blog is for.  I need a place to let out my frustration, humor, and all around (way too much) wealth of knowledge on this subject.

It might get a little too real, it might get a little sad, and it might just get downright stupid, but this has been my job and basically my life for long enough...

and i'm done keeping my thoughts to myself.

So, here's to you, all my friends in the good old industry.  Enjoy.