Eh...all in a day.

Happy Freakin New Years!

I'm not saying certain online job websites have my resume, but they might.

Highlights of Brent's schedule:

Dec 24 : Closer, 4 pm - 11:45 pm
Dec 26 : Closer, 4 pm - 11:30 pm

Dec 31 : Backup Closer, 3 pm - 12:30 am
Jan 1 : 3:30 pm - 11:30 pm

Granted, closing on Christmas Eve was my idea, mostly because Dan's family was in town and I was, well, sans plans. And, I guess I'm now a closer on Mondays.

New Years Eve was a mixed blessing. Customers were unusually polite and well-mannered so that offset most of the fact that I celebrated the New Year with a papercut from a placemat and mashed potato in my shoe. Still not sure how the mashed potato got into my shoe, but eh...all in a day.

The kickers have been:

(1) An older male customer whose party spent a mere $11/person yelling, "Sonny, was that too difficult for you to understand? Or do I have to explain it to you AGAIN?" This was preceded by another older male customer from the same party tapping me on the shoulder as I was talking and clearing dishes from another table with actually couth customers. He asked for ginger ale in a tall thin glass. We have neither. He started to ask to see a manager. Turns out he had already yelled at the only manager I could find. I discovered he was upset because he was seated later than his reservation time...by two minutes...on a Friday night.

I guess this doesn't sound so bad, but he also complained that there weren't enough settings on the table when in fact there were, minus one chair that a nearby party had swiped and put at their table. The salads weren't set out when his family sat down, which we don't do unless you actually tell someone that works at our restaurant that you want it that way. The wine he ordered (the $15/1.5 liter wine from a fucking tap) took 5 minutes to get to his table. And the cans we put on the table to place the pizzas-as-the-only-entree on top of were detracting from the decor...as if the Christmas lights on the wall and his own Walmart-designer-clothes-on-a-budget-wearing group hadn't already accomplished that. And, he spoke with an east-coast-Ivy-professor accent.

I guess it was the accent that pissed me off the most.

(2) Party of 25 Russians. 45 minutes late for a 7:30 reservation. Of course, the first person to show up doesn't speak enough English to explain to me the problem. The only thing I understood was, "No." Turns out Grandma likes the flowers on the ceiling in a room we keep closed on Monday nights. But, nobody bothered to tell any of the restaurant staff.

Fast forward past the point where several women invaded the work station and claimed it for mother Russia, planted a flag and...well I guess that's all you have to do. Thanks a lot Eddie Izzard. Past the parts where barely-English-speaking woman tells me not to order the next course until she says so. Past the part where she yells at me that her next course is taking to long...exactly 3 minutes after she tells me to order it. Past the part where she yells that we don't carry Russian vodka. Past the part where she yells at me to get out of the room as I'm filling water glasses.

And now to my favorite part of the evening. An older Russian man holds out his full water glass and speaks to me in Russian. I take the water glass and look at it, thinking there's a crack in the glass. Nope. I put it in the workstation, sidestepping the flag, and place it on the counter. Nothing's wrong. I walk out of the workstation and the man starts gesturing wildly at me and starting in on that Russian I'm a little rusty on, seeing as how I never took Russian. He starts to yell. Well, at least we're back in a familiar place.

Older Russian woman: "Fucking water."
Me: "Excuse me? Did he want that water, ma'am?"
Older Russian woman: (A little bit louder now, a little bit louder now) "Fucking water. Fucking water. Fucking no ice."
Me: "Oh."
Older Russian woman: "FUCKING WATER NO ICE."
Me: (on my cell phone in the work station) "...Immigration please. Yes, I'll hold."
Me: "Here you are sir. Enjoy your meal."

I understand that waitering is a job that I chose and that certain downsides come with every job. I get it. I really do. Every job has a shitty side. There's, 99% of the time, some loss of dignity and blows to the ego. There's the occasional contractual obligation to occasionally cover up the occasional child molestation in Neverland. There's the lung cancer that comes from chain smoking the day away holding that "SLOW" sign on the interstates.

And by the way, if anyone can get me that job, I'd do just about anything. Well, almost anything. I don't like wearing white after Labor Day. But, other than that, I'm game.

Seriously. Anything.

I did a little looking online and there are a lot of jobs out there in Milwaukee for someone with my qualifications and experience. Let's see, I've been an administrative assistant, cashier, teaching assistant, barrista, waiter, actor, writer, director, sound editor, nuclear engineer (I assume that's what breaking up a fight at a gay bar is), barback (I said bar people. sheesh), bartender, security guard (you try keeping the liquor away from unwelcome visitors at a homo house party), customer service peon, receptionist and the like.

And, I'm totally in a right place in my life and state of mind to do a little hooking if the situation presented itself.

How hard could it be for me to find a job that I can really like?