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The Vogel Collection: thoroughly modest Medicis
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Link of the day
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Or, in short, how it's possible to do and acquire great things if you have the eye and the inclination.
Link: The Telegraph - The Vogel Collection: thoroughly modest Medicis
St. Paddy's
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Miscellany
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On Friday the owner got his new luxury car. Very nice. But hopes that it might put him in a slightly better mood were dashed when G accidentally overcharged a table the owner was sitting with, end of night the owner screaming at G at the top of his lungs in the back, he's trying to be quiet but it's still audible throughout the restaurant.
Saturday the new car is in the parking lot, a new rock-chip in the windshield, the owner's still in a foul mood. Arrive, set up, staff are muted, on eggshells, he's going to blow.
And during dinner he calls a staff meeting - "I have some things I want to say" and from here it escalates...
"If you don't a fucking want this fucking job....and I fucking don't want to see this....looks like we're robbing the customers.....fucking losers fucking shit"
Lunch is done, no one is eating, and he's fucking off his nut. Still on about the night before, various other things, I've been exempted from the diatribe, specifically and named as blameless, this to prevent me from walking out, but everyone else is guilty of running the business into the ground, loud and then screaming, looking at everyone in turn, naming the worst of our customers and telling us that we should be bending over backwards, forwards for them.
When he's done he storms out of the room. Staff sit quietly. M, who arrived drunk with an early start on St. Patrick's day, turns to look at me with a small, wry smile on his face...
"You know, when you chew ice like that in my ear it's really annoying...." .
***
The owner isn't done by a long shot, he still rants and screams in various of the corners of the restaurant, finding staff and screaming at them, the night is long, customers overhear and ask if someone is being fired, another if I like my job.
***
I'm telling the nephew about how if you catch a leprechaun you should never let it go, they'll do anything to escape, but you must hold onto them until they show you where to find the pot of gold. I'm implying, vaguely, specifically, that it might be worthwhile to grab M and demand the whereabouts of his pot of gold, the resemblance is uncanny. The nephew isn't getting it, someone explains in Italian what a leprechaun is, he has his "a-ha" moment and then tells me - "I hit one once with my truck, a 600 euro fine, they're so short, small, I couldn't see...."
Making a good impression
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Link of the day
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Wherein a meteorologist gives a lecture at an elementary school and receives this letter by way of thanks:
The drawing of a Unicorn serving the Meteorologist is here:
(image via boingboing.net)
Reaction Formation
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Miscellany
- Hits: 2683
The weekend passed, the owner's in a foul mood.
A menacing, non-speaking calm, he's not talking to anybody but the customers, this I can bear. It's better than the outbursts and tantrums.
It breaks on Monday. G, helping him with the car, breaks a tiny piece off a weathered ancient plastic level in the radiator, and the owner flips. Completely. Off his nut, one-hundred percent derailed, outside it's a beautiful spring evening and I'm hoping that perhaps tonight will be the night.
The night passes. Not tonight.
Tuesday he seems to have gotten it out of his system, but spends long hours with regulars in the back room - "trouble at home" I hear him confiding, and while we all guessed it must be bad if he's confessing.
Generally his approach is to accost the customers with pictures of his beloved wife and children, all and sundry get treated to stories of how wonderful she is, this alone for me has always been a cause for suspicion. It's reaction formation, the same underlying psychological process that sees whores describing their great romantic ideals, every rogue protesting his honor, it's the mechanism wherein the owner is denying that this marriage, like the others before it, is in deep trouble.
Of course it's in deep trouble, so seldom is he ever home, and he finds every possible excuse to stay late at the restaurant, talking with customers who would have on their own long since left. It's in trouble because he's never there, because of his temper, because - quite possibly, of the abundant cameras with which his wife can watch him watching us, there are so many reasons it's in trouble I can't think of a single reason it wouldn't be. Well, one, but that gold card and unlimited shopping can only have so much appeal, probably it's been exhausted and she's looking for more.
The nephew, nothing new there of note, on a lunch break he went home to discover his condo surrounded by a SWAT team, they were there for a neighbor, he filmed it, later regretting he didn't ask them to get his picture taken with them.
And M, not drunk but forever with the rheumy eyes of a bad hangover, I've plans to dress him up as a leprechaun for St. Patrick's day. He'd be a perfect leprechaun.
Days pass...
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