Hey you! Give me my food!

Last night work was more hectic than usual. Within about fifteen minutes of opening, every table in the place was full. Needless to say everyone was a bit overwhelmed, so nothing was running smoothly.

Not too long after opening one of my fellow co-workers ran up to me and asked if I could take one of her tables. She claimed there was no way she could get to them anytime soon, since her whole section was full. I guess she failed to notice that everyone’s section was full, but needing the money I agreed to take it. This was one of the worst mistakes of my entire life.

I went up to the table with my usually cheery (but fake) smile. I introduced myself, and asked if they wanted anything to drink while they were looking over the menu. The man at the table looked at me like I was insane, and said “Of course I want something to drink. Get me an Abita Amber, and it better be cold”!

When I returned with the drinks, they placed their order, then basically threw the menus at me. They had ordered an appetizer, that I knew was going to take awhile, so I decided to bring their salads first.

Again the man looks at me like I didn’t know what I was doing and said, “I ordered an appetizer! Why would you bring my salad now? What kind of place is this”?

I told the owner of the restaurant what was going on at the table, and she quickly went over there. She took the salads from the table, and told them that if they were going to treat one of her employees that way, they could just leave (I really love the owners of my restaurant).

Unfortunately they opted for staying, and getting their food. Needless to say, I did not fill their drinks once, or ever bring back the salads they so detested.

Later on, when the man went to the restroom, his wife flagged me over and told me that she had never seen him act that way, and that she was really sorry. She told me that he had just gone through surgery and he was on a lot of medication at the time. I told her it was okay, but I could not help but wonder why, if he was so doped out on pills, they would go out to eat in the first place.

Moral of the story is this: Don’t treat your server badly, if you do, you will get the service you deserve. I never go out my way for people who come in with a chip on their shoulder. No amount of money is worth being treated like scum.

LET ME IN!!!!!

The restaurant that I work at is in a small town in Southeastern Louisiana, called French Settlement. In my grandmother’s day, people from other towns considered French Settlement as the inbreeding capital of the state, and I don’t think that they were wrong in this assumption.

My place of business opens at five o’clock in the afternoon. We usually have people waiting patiently outside for us to open. Sometimes they will peek through the windows, or pull once or twice on the front doors, but this was not the case Thursday night.

At about 4:45 the restaurant phone starts to ring. I answer it, and hear:
“Hey baby. Ya’ll got cold beer?’
I respond, “Yes sir.”
“Ya’ll got hot food?’
Again I respond, “Yes”.
“Well let me in!”

I then told him that we did not open for the next fifteen minutes. Then he got angry. He actually said, “You are really going to make my wait even though I am outside?” I told him that he had to wait because we were preparing for the evening, and would open very soon, and hung up.

I have never thought that I had the right to be admitted into any establishment that was either not yet opened, or closed. To be brutally honest, he is really luck I did not have to wait on him: his beer would have been at least room temperature, and his food cold. I really hate self-righteous people.

Hello New World

First and foremost I would like to thank Jeremy for his very heartfelt and warm introduction. This is the very first blog that I have ever written, so I hope that this entry does not disappoint.

I would like to begin by introducing myself to this new world. I am a 22 year old college student majoring in English. I still have no idea what I want to do with my life, or what I can do with my degree, which I will be receiving much sooner than I would like. My one true love would be history. I pride myself on my knowledge of it, especially ancient history. I hope I do not bore too many people in my later posts since I tend to ramble on about the past a lot.

Being a college student, I also happen to hold the stereotypical college job, waiting tables in a mid priced local restaurant. I have been waiting on people for at least four years now, so naturally I have slowly grown a small hatred for people in general. Now before I am labeled as one of those ‘angry women’ let me explain. For some reason when some people enter a restaurant, they automatically assume that the waitress is their personal slave for an hour. Since becoming a server I have been yelled at, called stupid, had my ass grabbed and been offered money for sex. My favorite would be being snapped at and called “hey you”. Unfortunately the side effect of this has been an all around negative view on the human race.

As for my view on people being stupid, I think that it is due to a lack of knowledge of their surroundings, and not so much with a low i.q. Living in a small town in southern Louisiana, I see this all the time. Some people fail to educate themselves about the world around them, and because of this they do not think for themselves. In the story I am about to tell this is exactly the case.

When I was in the 11th grade I sat right in front of the salutorian in my English class. She was smart in the sense that she was good at cheating in high school; she had no real knowledge of anything.
For two days that spring my class had to take the GRE, a standardized test that scores your basic knowledge of subjects like history, English, and math. The test is not that hard, and the questions tend to be rather simple.
After the history portion of the test on the second day we received a 15-minute break, but had to stay in the room so we did not interrupt the other classes.
During this break I turned around and started talking with the salutorian behind me. As expected the conversation was about the test we had just taken. We were both agreeing that the test was very easy and we both thought that we did really well.
I then brought up one of the questions on the test:
In what war was Pearl Harbor attacked?
A. WWI
B. Korean
C. WWII
D. Vietnam
I said that I could not believe anyone could get that wrong, everyone knows it was during WWII. She then told me that I was wrong, she answered that it was during the Korean War. Needless to say we then started arguing about the topic.
The teacher then stepped into the conversation, since we sat right next to her desk. She looked at the salutorian like she was dumber than a rock, and told her that she was wrong. To this she said “Oh well, it doesn’t really matter that much”.

I find this story very sad. The school that I attended happens to be one of the top public schools in the state, and someone like that was the salutorian in 2003.
Now I know what some of you are thinking. If I am so much better why were her grades better than mine? The answer is that I am just really lazy.

I hope that everyone enjoyed my entry, and I hope that I will be writing many more in the future.

"Are you stupid, this isn't what I ordered!"

It is inevitable employees everywhere, will at some time, screw something up. Sometimes these mistakes lead to over crisped fries, a wet blouse, a dangerous chemical leak, or even nuclear war. As we can see, not all mistakes are created equal. Some will cause an inconvenience, while others will cause the end to the Reign of Man. Let the scales of consequence be the judge...

Clearly the anger and frustration one feels when someone messes up his order should not be equal to the amount of anger and frustration one feels when some jackass "accidentally" causes a nuclear war. At least you would think...

Here is the story:

I was working the day shift at a lovely little diner known as Waffle House. In case you aren't familiar with with the restaurant I'm speaking of, let me explain. It is a cheap chain diner that can usually be found throughout the South/Southeast portion of the United states. They have amazing hash browns, cheap steaks, and nearly all have roach problems. The floors are almost always torn up and dirty, and the grill is located in front of the to go bar so customers can watch as their pill popping grill cook makes their food. In other words, you should not enter a Waffle House and expect 4-star dining.

I was sitting at the low counter, enjoying a cigarette and a hot cup a coffee when I first saw the car pulling into the parking lot. As I usually did, I prayed to myself that he was only using our parking lot to cut onto the on ramp. My heart sank a little when I saw him park. He came in, sat down, and picked up the menu.

I put his order in, made his drink and went and sat back down. After about 5 minutes his CHOP STEAK was ready, so I valiantly took it from the grill cook and placed it in front of my beaming, salivating customer.

The conversation that ensued went something like this:

Angry Customer: Are you stupid, this isn't what I ordered!
JaggedEdge: Yes it is.
Angry Customer: No it isn't, this isn't a steak!
JaggedEdge: I know, that's because you didn't order a steak, you ordered a chop steak, which is what I placed in front of you.
Angry Customer: Well how the hell was I supposed to know that?
JaggedEdge: By looking at the picture of the chop steak on the menu in front of you.

I than proceeded to point to the picture which was placed on the menu for his convenience, and strategically placed directly next to the words "Chop Steak Dinner." If you look at the picture, you will see the chop steak on the bottom right side of the plate. If you are looking at the hamburger patty with a bunch of onions on top, you are looking at the right thing.

After this little encounter, which he caused, he only seemed to get angrier. I was more than happy to take his money for a meal the idiot never touched and watch as he peeled out the parking lot.

The moral of the story is this, if you are going to go out and eat, know and remember what the hell you ordered. There are few things worse than having to argue with some undereducated and narcissistic asshole about what he ordered, while knowing the whole time I'm right.

Needless to say, he stiffed me on the tip.