He likes me! He really likes me!

There's one manager everyone seems to love....but he seems to hate ME!
I know you're shocked. How could anyone hate her?? ;)

Well, I don't know what I did to make this happen, but one manager is always on my back. He checks my tables constantly, he gives me the "are you okay??" on most shifts, and just won't joke around with me like he does with the other servers. I don't get it!
One time, I waited for him while he did a cocktail server's checkout and when he finished I politely asked if he could discount my employee meal for me when he had a chance.

Blank stare.

"I'm going to go lock the door because we're closed. Don't you think THAT is more important, Lindsay?"

Oh. yeah. Of course. Whenever you have time.
Gulp.

To make matters worse, I had a night where he as following me around like I suck, and then I made a mistake. Shit. I blame him. I forgot to bring a cup of soup and the entrées came out. The dad who ordered it told me he completely forgot about it, so he didn't need it. I need to void it. Of course, this manager is the only one in sight. So I made another mistake. I told him a little white lie that the guest didn't like it. It's just a $2.50 cup of soup. It'll be fine. Well... he caught my white lie. I saw him approach the table and my heart dropped. He's asking the guest. Shit shit shit. I thought I'd get fired for sure when he came over to ask me about it. Said he looked stupid for asking the guest what he didn't like about the soup only to find out he never got it. He's right. I was mortified. Now, he hates me....and thinks I'm a liar.

Weeks later, I've finally broken though his shell. After discovering that I will laugh at just about ANYTHING, he's on Team Lindsay. He points at me at any awkward moment during the shift, and boom...laughter.
Last night was big:
"You're fun. I like you."

YUP. You heard that right! After that, we threw a paper airplane around the back room when it was slowing down. I'm so in. If I knew I could make inappropriate jokes around him and laugh at nothing to win him over, I'd have done that right away. That's the last time I'm quiet and shy at this place.

Did I say that out loud?

Sometimes, I lose my filter.
I forget to be polite.
I snap from all the cheap people in this world.

This particularly cheap couple opted for the "waters only, and we'll split a buy one, take one pasta" route.

Awesomesauce.

Oh. Did I mention that they had a $10 off when you spend $30 coupon? So I tell them they haven't spent $30...the pasta deal is $12.95. They order a Rigatoni D, and a Diet Coke.

Their bill?

$32
...which became $22

When I brought out their take-home lasagna he says, "This looks like half a lasagna."

Word Vomit....
"Well, sir. It's a FREE lasagna."
::Big Smile::

Obviously, he tipped me off the $22, and not the originally $32 total:

$3.

You guard the door!

Ever since my first walk-out with these assholes:
I Remember What You Look Like!!!

I'm always hesitant when I sense a weird table that might not pay, pull a "hair in the cake" maneuver, or yell at me over nothing to get a free meal.

As soon as I walked past this table at 3:30pm, I knew I was in for trouble. Crazy Lady #1 looked homeless, which is fine with me as long as she can pay for her meal, "Derek" the guy in the middle was mentally challenged, which is also fine, but "Linda," who was in charge of the group freaked me out the most. She started our interaction making it clear that Jesus Loves Me, and proceeded to say my name repeatedly..."It's so beautiful!"

I got the OK for them to do light Family Style, even with only 3 guests. But I was already nervous.

My heart jumped a bit when Crazy told me she was going to the bathroom, but put her napkin over her food and told me not to take it away while she was gone. ...kinda sad, right?

I started to sweat when Derek threw a mini tantrum, and Linda fled the scene on her phone. Umm....Linda??

Then Derek went to the restroom.

OMG they're going to leaveeee! And I'm going to get in trouble!
Linda was gone for about 15 minutes when Crazy started to cry at the table because she had an eyelash in her eye.

Omg. Omg. Omg.... Where's Linda?!?

I run to our Maitre D, who was with me on my first instincts about the table. We get the Asst. Manager who tells us to "guard the door" to make sure they aren't going anywhere without paying.

Ok, now I'm panicking.

After 25 minutes, Linda returns, asking for the bill quickly. I'm not gonna lie, I was wondering if the credit card would go through.

But it did. And she actually left me a huge tip.

My nervous breakdown may not have been worth the $20.

I broke a chair.

Guess I shouldn't have eaten so much during the holidays.

I went to fold my napkins at the beginning of a shift, pulled out my chair and went to sit....BOOM.
It broke.

Everyone laughed. My manager joked about my weight. I had flashbacks of breaking my dorm bed in college freshman year. Not the fun way. 

At least it wasn't a guest.

At Bloggiano's: Quality comes first.

Is it January yet??

Oh.My.God.

I am exhausted.

I've been working five shifts a week for the month of December, and I'm about to lose it. Yes, I know full-time people work five days a week, but I'm pretty sure you get to sit down and stare at Facebook (or hopefully this blog) all day for at least a little bit of your day. And you probably don't end up with marinara sauce all over your clothes...unless you're a really messy eater.

Being a server during the holidays is TOUGH. Guests are on edge being with their families, and stressing over money they have to spend on gifts. And the restaurant staff? We're all just barely hanging on... there was even a big argument at my server meeting tonight, which never happens.

Oh, and have I mentioned my schedule for New Year's? Don't worry, I'm working the dinner shift on NYE starting at 3:30pm and definitely not getting out before midnight...and that's fine. But wait. I'm right back in to work the lunch shift on New Year's Day...at 9:30am! Kill me now.


P.S. I know I'm going to be wishing it was December again when it's January and I'm only making $200 a week. 


I need a drink.

That's just creepy.

I heard a rumor (Oh, how I LOVE work rumors) that one of the girls from my training class had a crush on one of the dinner servers. Apparently he told her she looks like Lucy Liu, and now she's smitten. I ALSO heard he'd flirt with a cardboard box.

I had a weird encounter with him during my dinner training. He came up to me to introduce himself and said, "You're the girl who sent a message out about Hanukkah."

Oh, yeah. I needed the day off to celebrate with my family.

End of conversation. 

I brushed it off until my most recent interaction with him on another dinner shift. I was eating on my break and after 10 minutes of not speaking to me (but sitting next to me) he asked,
"So do you speak Hebrew?"

Shortly after, he told me he loved me...in Hebrew.

Next awkward moment happened while sitting across the table from him on a different shift break. After another 10 minutes of not speaking he asked,
"Do you want to have kids?"

That's just creepy. This guy needs to learn to lead into his conversations. But now I definitely get what everyone was talking about. He must like to have a LOT of  "Work Flirts."

Laila loves Subway

We have 5 managers at Bloggiano's. Excluding our GM, only one is female. During training, we didn't have much interaction with the managers beyond asking them questions on the floor. My initial impression of Laila was that I wasn't sure I'd like her. She seemed to talk a lot, and almost seemed to question our skills to serve at all.

Boy, was I wrong.

Laila (pronounced LIE-la, or she'll be pissed) is from Spain, I think, so she has this awesome accent that makes everything she says sound funny. I love when she holds shift meetings, because usually she just wants to drink wine and taste the food. I find that I relate to her management style (remember I was a manager at Mama D's) because generally the servers go to her when they don't want to be lectured and need a simple solution. It's not to say she doesn't follow the rules. She just gets things done without making you feel like a child for having to ask permission to do something. 

Anyway, recently she's been cracking me up at break-time. I've mentioned our family meal for Sunday morning, but the other week they forgot to make it for us. Laila, just as upset as we were, sent a couple of the servers on a mission to get her food. Originally she wanted McDonald's breakfast, but then the bartender told her about Subway's breakfast sandwiches. We all laughed as she gathered her money for the bartender, and ended up giving him $7.89 exactly. What??? Now that she's tried Subway breakfast, it's all she can talk about....

Imagine this in a Spanish accent:

"Leeeeensay, have you had dis Subway breakfast-time?? You should really do it like O'Ryan does...you have to get di egg, an' di cheese, an' di spiiiinach, and tomayyytoes! It is really very tasty, ok?" 

....I hope you rolled your "r's" when you read that. 

Laila loves Subway. And I love Laila.

Damn Yams

While most of America spent Thanksgiving in a tryptophan coma with family and friends, the employees at Bloggiano's were working. Every year, they provide a special Thanksgiving Family Style Menu for a whopping $35 per person for the people who don't want to cook.

I was scheduled to work the AM shift, and to be honest, I was okay with working because I need the money. On Wednesday morning, my general manager called to ask if I'd be able to work the PM shift instead. Ummmm yes please! As I've mentioned before, the new servers are only working lunch shifts right now, so it meant a lot that she trusted me to work the dinner shift (even though it was the same menu all day). It also meant potentially a lot more money, so I said sorry to the fam and accepted.

I'd be lying if I said I wasn't nervous on Thursday before I walked into my 2:30 call time. I knew how I did on this day could mean impressing the managers enough to move up to dinners, but I was also nervous that I wouldn't know any of the PM servers. Right when I walked into the room where we meet, everyone asked, "Are you Lindsay???" But I felt comfortable and was ready to kick some butt....that is, AFTER we ate our own mini turkey day dinner in the middle of the empty mall. At least I got to work off those calories after I ate!
Thanks Bloggiano's for at least providing your employees with some yummy food! 


My "section buddy" and I decided it would be best to pool our tips today in order to provide great service to everyone at our tables. It worked out pretty well, and in general, I had great guests who were happy to celebrate the holiday.

I don't know why it's always the last table that gives the most trouble, but I nearly lost it this time. A party of 6, they were totally indecisive about EVERYTHING. People, it's not that hard. It's basically a multiple choice test...but with food. You can't fail. After an hour of delaying their entrees, the turkey and sides all come out and look great. I go to do my check-back, and they complain about the sweet potatoes. Oh boy. You see, this year Bloggiano's decided to use pale yellow sweet potatoes to make their side, so the color was different than the typical orange sweet potatoes with marshmallows on top. Mind you, they still taste sweet...but THIS table started going nuts over the color. They kept asking me for regular sweet potatoes, not understanding we didn't have those....

"These aren't sweet potatoes. We wanted sweet potatoes."

Well Ma'am, these are yellow sweet potatoes but I assure you they are still 'sweet potatoes.'

"Yes, but we want the sweet potatoes. These aren't sweet potatoes."

Ok, well this is our only option for sweet potatoes. Would you prefer our garlic mashed potatoes instead?

"No we want sweet potatoes."

Yes, and I would love to mash them right in your face!!
Let me see what the chef can do for you...

UGH. Then, I snapped a little bit when it came to the cranberry sauce. Every time I went out there, they asked for more cranberry. And there was always some on the table. Food runners laughed as I'd come in for yet another container. The last time I brought out a bigger bowl, and as soon as I set it down, I was asked for more. I just had to say it....
"Welllllll....HERE is a brand new bowl. And if you need more after that, just let me know." 


I have tons to be thankful for. Aside from my wonderful family and friends, I am extremely thankful for my job in these hard times....even when I want to "accidentally" drop a bowl of cranberry sauce on a guest's lap. :)

Happy Thanksgiving, Everyone!! 

Oh, and here's some info on sweet potatoes and the color varieties...Educate yourself! 

V.I.P Family Style for FREE!

I decided to cash in my free Family Style for 4 last week. As mentioned before, I'd already promised two seats to my friends Ryan and Kyle, and rounded out the group with my friend Jenny who's also been a slave to the restaurant world for years.

We met at the restaurant at 8, thinking it would be late enough on a weeknight to not interrupt their dinner rush. I got a little nervous to bring my friends... At my previous serving job, if I walked in my guests and I were treated like kings and queens, but I'm still a newbie at Bloggiano's. No one on the night shifts know me. One of our assistant managers walked by as I stood by the host stand. He saw me smiling, but had no idea who I was. See! I told you that stupid uniform hides that I can look attractive! Anyway, we were seated to one of the booths and I was excited to see a familiar face come up to serve us, one of the guys who closes with me on most lunch shifts. We got our order in and got ready for the feast with a bottle of Pinot Noir...

Our Family Style Dinner Menu Choices

Two Appetizers: Zucchini Fritte and Stuffed Mushrooms
Two Salads: Chopped Salad and Spinach Salad
Four Entrées: Rigatoni D, Mom's Favorite Lasagna, Chicken Parmesan, and Chicken Saltimbocca
Two Desserts: Apple Crostada and Pumpkin Cheesecake

If you remember correctly, Family Style is normally a flat rate per person, and you make choices from the categories I listed above and it comes out in three courses, with portions made for the amount in your party. It's a LOT of food!

After the first course came out (the apps and salads), I warned my friends not to eat too much too soon....there's a ton of food coming! Normally, Family Style is replenish-able by course, but you have to ask for more of what you want, and you have to eat some of it! You can't just order it, simply to have it boxed up for later. (People always try to cheat the system.) My jaw dropped when Danny, our server, came out with the mushrooms and shrugged, "I figured...why not?" 


When the second course came out, I HAD to get a pic for the blog. It's just too good.

Oh yeah. At 6 o'clock, you'll see the Famous Rigatoni D....the dish that made Ryan and Kyle want to drive over the hill to the Valley.

Thank goodness my friends are good eaters, because we powered through the second course until we felt completely stuffed. (I'm glad I purposely wore my stretchy pants and a top that hid my food baby!) Just when I was ordering the boys to eat more..."I worked hard for this dinner, dammit!!"... Danny walked up with refires of the Rigatoni D and Chicken Parm.

"I figured....hey, why not?!?"


A second bottle of Pinot later, and we were packing up 10 to-go boxes of food to take home and praying we'd be able to eat the dessert. What an intense amount of food...I swear I started to get the food sweats, Jersey Shore-style. But I held strong for my favorite: Apple Crostada! For a party of four, we SHOULD have gotten one of each dessert, but Danny (who I am now realizing wants me to be a fatty) brought us TWO of each! The crostada was just as amazing as I hoped, but I felt like I'd never eat again afterward.

A bill that should have been $206 without tip turned out to be $85 with the free Family Style! Even though it wasn't a totally "free" dinner, it was an amazing experience and I'm so glad I could share it with my friends! Thanks so much you guys!!! Of course, we left Danny a huge tip for hooking us up and making it fun!

I didn't eat for a whole day after. And I'm pretty sure my friends ate Bloggiano's leftovers the rest of the week!

Pat-i-oooooooo!

I hope you got that Hook reference.

So I know I've been M.I.A. Sadly, it's because I hadn't really worked. Since Bloggiano's hired a million servers in anticipation of the busy holiday season, right now there's just too many of us for the amount of business we're getting. That means I had two shifts last week. And I was scheduled three this week (thank goodness I picked up a fourth). 


Today I got to work the patio at lunch. Gotta love November weather in California. I heard from one of the veteran servers that working the patio is a sign of being one of the better newbies. Even more exciting is that I got to share it with another newbie, instead of an oldie who'd probably take more tables than me.

For the first time, I felt like a server again. There's nothing like the rush of having 5 tables at once. Let's see, I need drinks on table 401, table 403's kids want ice cream to go, and 402, 404, and 503 are all leaving at the same time!! Where the heck is my busser?? Ahh! 


I also really enjoyed the patio because everyone on staff leaves you alone. I pretty much never saw another server unless I went to the kitchen, and I didn't need to clean everyone else's tables (and not benefit from it). I was back in the zone, and loving it. I even figured out that most people get confused walking into the restaurant and seeing the patio station before the host stand...which means I enticed a number of tables to the patio before they even had a shot with another server. Muahahaha! (That's my evil laugh. It sounds cooler in person, I swear.)

Sadly, the tips still kinda blow....I can't believe people can rationalize a $5 tip on $40, when they claim everything was perfect and amazing. I know it's not just me because everyone I've talked to says the same thing.

Happy Weekend to all my restaurant folk out there! 
Make that weekend cash! 

OMG I made tips!

Are you ready for how much I walked with on my first day making my own tips?

$5.

Oh wait...it was actually $6 because my busser felt sorry for me and wouldn't let me tip him out.

At least my PPA (per person average) was $23, and ya know what, I treated all THREE of my guests like kings and queens.

I rule.
(cue sarcasm)


Oh crap, I just spent my tips and then some on a halloween costume. Ugh. Tomorrow's a new day.

What's up, Abe? 

Controlled Chaos

I think my brain turned to pasta last Friday....

I had the WORST day of training. They stuck me with this guy, Homer (I didn't even have to change that name) who I was originally excited about following. I had heard he's the guy who makes everyone laugh and is great with guests, often singing 'Happy Birthday' in a James Brown style. However, once I started following him, I felt my brain hurt.

I'm sure as a server, he has a rhythm that works for him. But, with three trainees, he's a mess! There were a number of times we had to correct him on proper steps of service, and I really feel like he does things the hard and inefficient way. For example, I needed to put in an order for a two-top (a table for two, for all the restaurant newbs) but he made me stand there and wait while another trainee put her order for 5 in, which took FOREVER because they had fancy drinks and appetizers as well as entrees. After she was done, he criticized me for waiting so long to put in the order that had no apps or salads. What?!?


I was already feeling more stressed than ever when someone handed me the pitcher of decaf coffee to refill my table's cup. See, I like to think of the best servers as having "Controlled Chaos." We're thinking of a million different tasks on the inside... table 2 needs a coffee refill, pay out table 5, table 10 wants more butter, when will this shift be over?? .... but on the outside, we're all smiles, floating around the restaurant like everything's a piece of cake. Homer functions by running around like a chicken with its head caught off, and it totally messed with my chi. I started messing stupid things up, just like him!

So anyway, someone hands me the coffee pitcher, I bring the cup to me in effort not to chance spilling on a guest, and as I pour....coffee starts coming from nowhere! I must have had a look of horror! In slow motion, I saw the white tablecloths become soaked with coffee and I kept pouring because I couldn't even figure out where it was coming from! The damn thing was broken on the bottom!

Thankfully I saved myself by joking with the two old men at my table about the staff trying to sabotage me on my first week of training and they laughed.....but I was serious!


I hate those coffee pitchers now.

Rose

Regulars.

Every restaurant has them.

Rose is an 81 year old Jewish woman who comes in to eat minestrone soup at Bloggiano's about three times a week. I know she's 81 because she pulled me over on my first day of training to say, "You're new" on my first day of training and told me her life story.

I've been informed by some of the other employees on how to deal with Rose.

1) Never joke with her when she doesn't know your name, no matter how many times she's met you. Her response: "I'm 81. I'm not supposed to remember. You're supposed to remember." (I hope you're doing a Jewish New Yorker voice in your head, because that's how she sounds.)

2) Never respond with, "We don't serve minestrone soup anymore" when she orders it. We keep some frozen for the people like her who still come in to get it after it was removed from the menu.

3) Never walk by her table without smiling, or stand around doing nothing where she can see you. She'll claim she's the boss and send you home.

4) If she asks you to sit with her, DO IT. But if you get stuck there, just pull another server into the conversation and sneak away.

In my first experience with Rose, she told me how old her children were and then said she has a granddaughter who has, "a better job than any of you!" Thanks Lady.
While some servers try to avoid her all together, I took another route. I told her I am Jewish and that I lived in Israel last year. Now she loves me.

I choose to be on her good side, just in case.

Peace Out, Idiot Guy!

....Sorry about your Grandma??

Well, it's sad either way. Either Idiot Guy's Grandma actually passed away and he headed to Arizona for awhile...

OR

He realized he was the Idiot Guy and didn't want to wake up at 6am anymore, thus lying about his Grandma's health.

My Guess: He's sitting at home playing online poker as I type this entry. But who will make awkward jokes towards our Vice President of Human Resources now?!?

What's the worst lie you ever told to quit or call out from work?
Show me yours and I'll show you mine!

Servers should never be awake at 6 in the A.M.

My eyes are getting heavy and it's only 6:30 pm. This is ridiculous.

So you guessed it. I'm in training. Woo hoo? Now that the gods of Bloggiano's have decided I'm one of the "Best People" (Damn, their verbiage is already brainwashed into me) I am one of 13 new trainees. Seems like a ton, but it's actually in their best interest: they hire a big group every 3-4 months, train them all at once in a classroom setting (to save money), and then send us into the jungle of the upcoming holiday season as fresh meat.

The newbies consist of the usual suspects on any restaurant staff. We have the Old Lady, the Idiot Guy who will always be the fuck up, the Jailbait Girl, two girls repping the Ethnic Diversity, the Fat Flirty Girl, the Cool Guy, the Small Town Actress, the Nerdy Sweet Guy, the Small Town Guy, the guy moving up from Busser, and the girl who's worked in Carryout for the past six years that FINALLY gets to move up.

The Good News about training is definitely all the free food! At the end of the day, we have a feast trying the items on the menu in order to sell them well. I've learned that pretty much every item on the menu is over 1,000 calories! I might as well go up to the table and say,

"Hi! Welcome to Bloggiano's! My name is Lindsay, 

and I'll be making your ass fatter today!"

The Bad News is our class starts at 7:30am every day this week. Don't they know servers aren't pleasant to be around until 11?!? To top it off, first thing we do is take an enormous test every morning on the food we ate the day before. There are 7 tests we have to pass with a 90% or better in order to get certified to serve on our own.

**Bonus** If we get 100% on all of our tests, we get a free dinner for us and 3 friends...so you KNOW after being unemployed for awhile, I'm ALL about the free dinner. A couple of my friends already called "Dibs" on being my +3, so I better make it happen!


So far I've gotten 100% on the first 3 tests, and I'm pretty sure Idiot Guy is the only one who needs to do a re-take so far...Shocker.

Ugh. Time to make flashcards. I thought I was done with school!