- Details
- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Miscellany
- Hits: 2153
Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more: it is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.
Gangly, loping, forever apologizing for shit he knows better, nervous and stuttering, while talking to tables he fidgets, flails a napkin in his hand like a cheerleader having a seizure, talking over-loudly to the customers, (talking loudly the Italian answer to reason...), interrupting you while you speak to your tables, taking orders, telling them the specials, he's a mixed blessing or none at all, our income dropped now by a third and our workload just doubled, braying like a donkey, he's loud, about how hard he's working (he's seated while he tells you this, having a coffee and a cigarette...), instigating inappropriate conversations in front of customers, about the double ended dildo he and his girlfriend just bought, about his membership in the underground political parties of Berlin, about every minority he would like to see exterminated, about how lucky we are to have him...to come here he had to leave a job in Germany, 16 Euros an hour, through connections (the current girlfriend's parents, always, the chance of him finding work without someone calling in a favor are next to none), soon it will be that he was the head of VolksWagon, Vice President, CEO, Chief, Mercedes Benz,
The Owner, he shows me a text message:
"When you are dead, you don't know that you are dead. It is difficult only for the others. It is the same when you are Stupid"
This is everyone that works here, that comes here to eat, this is everyone in the world, but, at the moment, this is the Nephew.
Tonight, needing a glass of Prosecco for a customer, we catch him trying to open a bottle of Dom Perignon...truly a fucking idiot...
...I've come to the conclusion, from his anecdotes, from the too many Italian emigre's that I've met, that Italy is not a country, it's a pasture, an island, surrounded by Donkeys or Goats, filled with people trying to escape, or in the Nephew's case, not trying to escape, merely procreate...
Completely without filters or unifying field of consciousness, merely the percolating well of unconscious thoughts that shouldn't be voiced, certainly not in front of customers...the too quick utterance of every untutored opinion, mental hiccup, burp, fart, every vulgar trope culled from his favorite pornographic movies...sooo offensive, you have to laugh, he mocks, ridicules every customer, a few short feet from their table, their every disability, none too traumatic, strokes, hear attacks, cripples, no disfigurement of color, ethnicity, religion, country not parodied and pantomimed for our obvious discomfort...
Work, well, same as always, it's like paying someone to do it ourselves...
It's almost good to have him back...
- Details
- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Miscellany
- Hits: 2689
J**, the hostess, is mobilizing the support crew, with G*** gone she feels it's time to bring some fairness to the tip-out procedure. She doesn't feel well treated. I inquire what she would consider fair. "AN Even Split" she tells me, without hesitation, despite the obvious facts that she's lacking considerable of the skills to do our jobs, and all of us our possessed of the skills to do hers, that she starts 2 or three hours later than the rest of the staff, and leaves 2 or three hours earlier, despite the fact that she gets the same shift pay for a 4, 5, 6 hour shift that I get paid for a 12 hour shift...
I laugh. "Not gonna happen..." I tell her. She's a fucking idiot. She's given this shit to G***, I've heard all about it, she works in a hospital, for fucks sake, as a clerk, there's no way she'd walk in and demand the same salary as a nurse, or a doctor, yet her skills are roughly equivalent here, and yet she's asking the same.
I let the staff know she's forming the union. The other waiters, whom we split with. They're of the same mind, one, reasonably, the other (the Bosses Nephew, himself overpaid) as reasonable as she. I fume over this the entire night.
She's on crack, a fucking lunatic, I've been on every side of this, having worked every role in restaurants, when I started here I was a busboy with 30 years serving experience, didn't question the tip outs, appreciated there was more going on than I knew.
The next night I hold a meeting with her and the expediter.
To clarify, for those of you unfamiliar with the service industry, Hostesses, Expediters, Busboys, these are all support roles for the service staff. They are tipped, but seldom at the same level as the servers, they have less competence, responsibility, accountability. The servers tip them out. Generally it works out pretty fairly, just as it works out pretty fairly that customers tip what they think is appropriate. The whole system is flawed, this is the best we can do.
I confront her with the previous nights work - 5 hours, we tipped her $125.00, her shift pay of $70.00, this works out to almost $40.00 per hour, she thinks this is inadequate? I've made this - as an hourly rate - at this restaurant 1 day in the past 6 years. She thinks we're being stingy, cheating her? She made this on one of the slowest nights we've ever had here, let alone what she took in at the coat check, her business, we don't ask, yet I seriously doubt she's been so well treated here ever, even when we've been twice as busy, and her queries are creating offense...
She backpedals, defensive, bloody hell but I'm mad, I hate this, the vulgar discussions of money, I've always taken-or-left jobs based on what I perceived the fairness to be, that's the rule, if you can do better, than please do, she just wants to know what she can expect to make before she decides whether to come in to work or not...
Fuck that. This is a luxury the part-timers have, they feel sick, hungover, they're not so indispensable they can't take a night off. I've never been sick a single shift in 6 years there, she just finished up 2 weeks off, malingering at home with a sore throat...I'd love to take a night off, fuck what I'll make, I just want a Friday or Saturday night off to go out and party, maybe even on a fucking date. She's not helping her cause...
"No, no, no, I misunderstand..." she assures me... Actually, I don't at all. Not even a little bit. And while she hates it when I say that a certain portion of it's "discretionary" - meaning we - the others - decide how hard we think each other worked (because every one is a shitty judge of their own performance...) she argues this again, who am I - or anybody else - to judge her? Yet our very livelihoods in this place our discretionary, this is hospitality, if it's not coming together for you maybe you need to find another job... And I want to tell her, in our own view, we are all the hardest, most competent workers, but it's only in the eyes of others that we acquire any value...
I offer her the ability to switch roles - all of us, the other waiters, the Nephew, A*****, myself, we'll do their jobs, they can decide the tip outs, what's fair, we'll leave early every weekend night and come in if we feel fairly treated and think the money's worthwhile...they don't like this, I'm being ridiculous, there's no way they can be expected (the expediter, after 20 years here...) to do our jobs...
This says it all, really...
But she's too fucking stupid, and tempers are hot, and there are a variety of moot points now being argued, the expediter arguing that her shorter shifts shouldn't be reflected in her tips (and every waiter knows that the longer you work, the more tables you serve, the more money you make), but these are things that the simpletons will never understand...despite knowing we're salaried and that the longer the hours, the less we make, they're still convinced we should happily stay there 14 hours a day and share the spoils with the 5, 6, and 7 hour part-timers 50-50...
We bring back Stella, a Gypsy, another squeaky wheel soon to be replaced, but the Nephew has some hopes there...And so the Union is busted, for a time, to be shortly formed again.
- Details
- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Miscellany
- Hits: 2291
And it's begun, the quartering of G***. Some of the customers, a lot of them, they're going to miss him. Not so much that they'd boycott the place, after all, why confuse ethics with good food? But still, they liked him.
Others are a little less kind. They're the sycophants that declare to the owner they never liked his style of service, found him rude, abrupt, ill-timed, too aggressive, all of which can be forgiven if you know where he worked. They're shitbags, we keep our mouths shut, but they're not our favorite customers...
The owner, he's rejoicing, these post-mortem testimonials, they're all he needed to indict, condemn, him, meanwhile he'd tolerated S** and Z** for years, servers who'd polarized the customers far more than G***, a lot of our customers liked G***, the Nephew, his replacement, is easily more despised by a long shot, but nobody's complaining about him...
...and lets be real, if everybody likes you, we've a thousand regulars, well, if everybody likes you, well, something's wrong...
And G***, he's calling A******, wants to talk, about the restaurant, about nothing, he's in despair, and I can't help but think how fucked up do you gotta be to miss this place? Really?
- Details
- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Miscellany
- Hits: 1700
"There is always something infinitely mean about other people's tragedies" - Oscar Wilde.
And the tales of the tragedies wrought by the recession are legion...
"I had to lay off 64 people" begins one regular, no word as to the fate of those he laid off, merely that we should somehow feel for him, empathize that his profits are almost entirely reduced to the work of his own hands. Another has had to sell his car, buy a cheaper model, yet another cancelled his annual trophy hunt in Europe. The best, a customer complaining about the cost of a new windshield for his Bentley - "Guess how much" he asks us, "$1500" guesses one, "$5000" I guess, "$7000" he tells us, "Use my car" I generously suggest, offering the keys, "Once around the block and you'll return to your world a changed man...".
These people, other peoples tragedies, they haven't got a clue...
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Miscellany
- Hits: 1830
Every day another miraculous resurrection, it starts, I'm amazed, but not nearly as amazed as I am when it goes...
20 below outside, 19 below in the car, the snow never melts inside, never enough antifreeze to stop me from freezing, but it''s quicker than walking...
It's been over 2 months since my last prospecting adventure, 2 torturous months trapped in Calgary, the car, it isn't going to make it, I know this, every trip to work that I arrive safely and in a single piece, that's another miracle, soooo many miracles, my cars' a veritable Jesus on wheels....
The noise, even louder than before, deafening, it's like a Jet engine or 747 taking off right over your head, at intersections people check the car out, think that I've customized it this way, pimped my ride, I'm a street racer, hot-rod enthusiast, nahhh, it's just the car, lacking an entire exhaust system, muffler, look at it, really, who would spend money to customize this?
It's depleted on every fluid, antifreeze twice a day, oil, gas, I complain to the other waiters at work, if they win the lottery they'll get me my jeep, "Still..." warn's A*****, "you might have to put gas in the next car too you know..."...I know, I know, I just don't want to be over-committed to this, with every trip quite likely, almost certainly it's last I don't want to risk losing a full tank of gas in the bargain...I have to watch the gauges like a pilot, exhaust, fumes, the restaurant is about the outer limit of it's reach, the temperature starts to climb when I reach the first shoulder of the hill, every red light thereafter is a torturous wait, watching the temperature fluctuate, Will it make it? Will it not?...
It's done, done, done, 4 liters of antifreeze a day, more antifreeze than gasoline, I've been using water, it's too much, this hand-mixing of the artisnal antifreeze, guessing at the temperature, I don't want to crack the engine block, maybe it's already cracked, there are the sounds for sure, the rattles from every direction as I drive, engine rods, ball joints, the junk in the trunk, shocks that jar and jolt over every protruding manhole, idiot lights all ablaze, bare tires make the hill down an easy thing, but by the time I start heading up the next hill the fumes in the cockpit are overwhelming, exhaust pours in through the passenger floor, the fumes of burning antifreeze and oil, every cylinder and head gasket straining against the pressure, looking over the storm clouds billowing over the hood, I gotta drive faster if I'm gonna escape, the temperature warning gauge is climbing, the windshield wipers won't clear the smoke...I'm a WWI pilot going down in flames, "I'm the Red Baron!" I scream, but no one can hear me over the galloping of the engine...
...If it'd just survive until the daughter arrives and gets her learners license we could wreck it together, tenacious, this shuddering, smoldering, wreck of a car, i have to grudgingly admire it, it's served me well, no Volvo for sure, but it's done it's best, the daughter and I, we'll lay it to rest, give it a proper funeral and explosion before resigning ourselves to the bus...