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- Written by: Rod Boyle
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They're both good, in their separate (and similar) ways - each knows by name half our regular customers. They schmooze them, appease them, somehow make them feel comfortable. They're each about 10 years older than me. Old, very old, by waiter standards, but I think that it pleases our customers to get better than Earl's
But they don't get along. We've separated them, different sides of the restaurant, still there's the minor, petty feuds.
They're not so quick, but it's good to work with different people.
They know what they're doing. Slow, but they don't have to be told.
But as they dicker and feud, about trivial things, like who's been waitering longer (and where, what restaurants, etc) - I can't help but imagine them working together.....
It's a bizarre tableau.
The one, Z, pushes the other, M, in a wheelchair. This is a first for a waiter, I imagine. They argue the whole way about who's been waitering longer.
When they come to the table they're silent. M holds up a card. It tells them that his name is M and he'll be their waiter this evening.
HE doesn't speak, because - truth be told - our customers don't want to be spoken to.
Instead, the cards he holds up indicate whether they're ready to order drinks, wine, food, etc.
Customers can sign (thumbs up, down, etc) according to the illustrations on the placard that M holds up.
They're not in the least bit curious as to why M doesn't speak, or why Z doesn't either, they're secretly glad to be able to not speak to their waiter.
Maybe, as M writes things down, Z can argue with him about whether he heard things right.
And when he wheels away, with their drink or food order, they can see/hear him feuding with Z about small and trivial things.
This would put us on the map. The wheelchair waiters.
I want to push one of them, push M, or Z...
They fight, feud, I don't hear of it but know because they can't work together, one always has to work with me, and I have this bizarre vision of them working together in some sort of waiter hell, the wheelchair waiters.....
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: People
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Finally, notes left telling me they've gone down east (final cheque always used to get out of town, the mental image I have not at all surprising) - the job done, well, but not great, requests for revisions ignored (excuses, excuses, transparent...), the request for quotes on future projects postponed until they are less drunk or unavailable, 3 weeks total time but now I can move back in....
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: People
- Hits: 1862
They're in to do the bathroom, at the behest of the landlord.
It's a small bathroom, easily improved with some cupboards and designer fixtures and maybe some tile, not a big job, 2 or three days at most I think.
Ha.
24 square feet, and they've now been in 4 days. Days off I leave the house to give them access, those rarest days off and I'm not home, an orphan on the street in the hopes they'll hurry up and finish and I can begin the long cleanup that will accompany their departure.
Friday they were in the entire day - I worked 11:00 - to 11:00, changed the faucets on the shower.
Saturday they cut a 36"X18" hole in the drywall.
Today they installed a 2X4 in the former cupboard behind the bathtub.
There is no measurable progress, and I need to compare the state of the bathroom each day to the photos I took the day before to see just what got done. This is fast becoming the job from hell.
I survey the work, I have no sink, have to shave, brush teeth downstairs in the kitchen, there's no electricity in the bathroom, just a spot lamp connected to the towel rack, and everywhere there's an increasingly thick film of dust, a few hours laundry, swiffer, dusting will be needed to make the house livable again. I'd shut the doors, but the cats would be creating their own mess. Another day off gone to rot.
Still they're working, when not here they're calling to see when they can next have access, I've given them my schedule, they wrote it on a pack of cigarettes and threw it away, they need to know it again. They have an unerring knack for knowing when I'm napping.
I've heard the stories, contractors from hell, thought they were making them up, they can't all be that bad, but I'm now living the dream and can say without qualification that if you can turn on a drill or saw you're now worth $45 or $50 an hour in the trades and can officially call yourself a contractor.
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: People
- Hits: 1734
J is starting to lose my sympathy fast.
Despite our numerous chats about his treacherous ex he's still texting her dopy things like "I'll miss you more than you'll ever know" and other such drivel.
"No, no" she texts back: "I'll miss you more...."
Now J's a good little churchgoer but somehow he can't shake off this little vindictive, petty fantasy he has, and insists upon sharing it with me:
"Maybe she'll end up getting married to a wife beater..."
I find these conversations, speculations painful to bear, not that I particularly care but they don't particularly suggest the enlightened spiritual view that churchgoers are supposed to have. He's starting to sense my disinterest, walking away before he finishes his sentence is one such cue, and now I'm limited to overhearing the failure of his great love (???) as he narrates it to the female staff.
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: People
- Hits: 1708
The owner has seated himself after lunch with a couple of older women in the restaurant.
One, perhaps mid 50's, looks like a realtor and somehow they have a prior acquaintance. The second, a tall, statuesque blonde in her 40's, is new, and the owner seizes upon the introduction to display his many charms.
And somehow, as they're sitting there chatting he discovers that she's single, and so decides that she might be a good match for a newly single friend of his, T.
Now T, he's in his mid 60's, short - in the area of five feet, bald, not exactly overloaded with charm but solvent, wealthy even.
This blonde, she's close to 6 feet.
It's not going to work, but I admire the owner's loyalty in trying to set her up with his friend. She asks me - "What do you think? Do you know him? Is he a gentleman?". I'm stuck, can't say anything, the owner saves me by cutting me off "Of course he is...put them in the book for Saturday night....".
She's been set up. The nephew and I are having a laugh, "She needs a bull, not a goat" he tells me, and I have to admire his phrasing, he's right, nailed it precisely on the head, but we'll see on Saturday night how the date goes....