:: Life on Planet Dan-E ::

:: Server Stories: High Sales ::

I mentioned in the last post about how my job security has been threatened over stupid shit just because the GM was on a power trip. That was about two or three weeks ago since the last incident where he told me, "you have potential but you've had more than enough time to prove yourself and you're hanging by a very thin rope." And the only reason for this conversation was because I walked through the kitchen with my hair down and the salad cook, who's a major drama queen, complained about getting hair in her food. I never actually went into her station; all I was doing was getting plates to use as marking trays.

Since then? I've done nothing different other than show up at work with a ponytail. But I went through a three day stretch where I sold almost a grand in wine bottles and suddenly, the GM is "proud" of me. Whatever. As long as I'm making regular contributions to his wine commission, I'm not on his shit-list. And if I'm not on his shit-list, Antonio treats me like gold.

This is the only place I've worked where I could have net sales of $3000 on a Saturday night but the managers bitch at me because I only sold two $70 bottles of Pinot Grigio. Forget the high sales, or the $600 worth of liquors (Mojitos, vodkas, and gin drinks are huge in Miami, especially on weekends, and the average price of a drink is $12), the specials, or wines by the glass; I only sold two bottles of wine because by luck of the draw, I get seated the people who'd rather get drunk on Belvedere, Bombay Sapphire, or Bacardi.

One case that got me off the shit-list was where I somehow talked a table into buying a $500 bottle of Cristal. Once the table left I grabbed the cork, walked up to the GM and said "hey [GM], I have something for you." "What's that?" I hand him the cork, "this is from the bottle of Cristal that I just sold." His face lights up and he replies, "really? Way to go my man." Later that night, he tells me "you're doing an excellent job. Keep this up and I'm going to train you to be a Captain and take charge of private parties." I simply smiled, nodded and said "thank you, sir" but I felt a need to wash my hands before I went home. This occurred just three days after my last reprimand.

Whatever, I'm off the shit-list, Jed speaks highly of me because I show up on time everyday, and Antonio likes me because my mellow personality usually means I don't cause any drama with customers. (A co-worker from Brooklyn, who's a service lifer, is in most respects a better waiter than me, but he has some New York attitude that doesn't sit well with a few of our customers. From my perspective, his problems are customers that can be best described as human garbage, but all management sees is an unhappy table, and their opinion is all that matters.) Jed's another lifer that's worked at more restaurants than I've eaten at, and despite his drug habit, he's exceedingly competent at work. He's been working here for five seasons and he's unofficially our senior waiter, so for him to have my back is no small thing.

While I appreciate Jed's support, every time the GM or Antonio says something complimentary during my check-out, I can't help but feel like I'm just an indigested corn in a pile of shit. We have competent servers here but the nature South Beach being what it is, truly professional servers are hard to find it seems some of the other guys have faults more glaring than mine. And for no other reason that I show up on time every day, I'm one of two waiters that don't have a drug habit, and I have the occasionally ability to upsell a customer from a bottle of Clos du Bois to a Rubicon.

Manager's favor aside, i still feel drained working here. I haven't had a day off since last Wednesday, and trying to manage the managers in addition to just doing my job takes its toll. As much as I hated the environment at my last job, I miss just being able to show up, do my job, and go home. I didn't have to worry about meeting some invisible quota for wine sales, the managers where idiots but at least they were oblivious to everything except irrelevant details, no one care if I showed up at work with my hair down.

Even though it's not my future (I keep telling myself that), I do take pride in doing my job well. But I shouldn't have to meet quotas or brown-nose management to know that.

Labels: rants, server stories, waiting, wines

:: Miscellaneous Ramblings by Dan-E at 1:12 AM [+] :: | 0 comments
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:: Server Stories: Restless ::

Work has been taxing lately. I find myself getting irritated at things that I would normally brush off. I’ve snapped at co-others when even if they've erred, it's not my place to say so. I've fallen back into my old habit of waking up well into the afternoon not long before I have to be at work. After going steady for about two and a half months, I've stopped running... again. (I still manage to play tennis twice a week, including Saturday mornings at 10:30, which isn't as easy as it may seem since my co-workers and I usually have drinks after work on Friday nights and I seem favor whiskey over beer on weekends.)

It's several things: I've been working six nights a week every week since I got hired, and there's been a couple where I worked straight through. Conditions at work are often needlessly complicated. My co-workers and I get along great but we commiserate over drinks about what complete douchebags our managers are.

The GM, while competent, runs the floor like a communist dictator, micromanaging even insignificant details, freaking out over minutia, and pressuring the waiters into increasing our wine sales as if our lives depended on peddling an extra bottle of cabernet each night (not surprising since he's paid a wine commission). He's threatened to fire me so many times over stupid shit that has absolutely nothing to do with my performance as a waiter. They're empty threats and has more do to with him asserting his authority, but it's still annoyed me to the point that I've contemplated toilet-papering his office and his car. And while he's freaking out trying to find the culprit, I casually walk up, toss an empty roll at him and say, "here’s your reason to fire me. Oh by the way, go fuck yourself. I quit."

Antonio on the other hand, is a moron. He barely knows how to run the floor on a busy weekend, and his knowledge of the menu is pathetic. Not only did he not know what haricot vert is until I explained it to him, I overheard him explain to a customer that "Prime Black Angus" is the sauce we use on our tenderloin steak. (Thank God it wasn't my table since I would have flat out told the customers that he was wrong, making him look like an idiot... something he does nightly, whether he realizes it or not.) Every time a customer returns an item, he types it into the computer as "DINT LIKE." Now, I realize that English isn't his first language but he continues to do this despite the fact that several people have tactfully tried to explain to him that he’s spelling "didn't" wrong.

Everyone else talks even worse shit about those guys. Jed, who has worked at Swanky Trendy Restaurant for five years, knows the operation inside out, and is privy to and shares with us information that us mere peons normally wouldn't know. And I'd be lying if I wasn't a bit amused at Jed's drunken plotting to somehow get Antonio fired (amusing because if he ever stopped drinking and smoking pot, he might actually pull it off).

But this is temporary for me (of course I said that over two years ago when I started working at Seafood Grill and look where I am now) since I know for a fact that the owners plan on closing Swank to focus their efforts on a new, super fine dining steakhouse. A few want to make the transition. A few have grown weary of management and have already left or are planning their exits. I want no part of it. I'm just working my way towards leaving the business altogether.

Labels: career, introspective, waiting

:: Miscellaneous Ramblings by Dan-E at 1:55 AM [+] :: | 0 comments
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:: That Really Sucked ::

A part of me just died.

There's always next year though. We have a solid foundation, the young players will have another year of experience under their belt, and... who are we kidding. I'm drinking myself into a stupor tonight.

Labels: anger, baseball, lakers, please just shoot me, sports

:: Miscellaneous Ramblings by Dan-E at 1:06 AM [+] :: | 0 comments
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:: That Sucked ::

After suffering through mediocre seasons from my Dodgers and abject misery from my 49ers, my Lakers gave me some hope this season that I'll finally witness something that won't make bitter and depressed.

We started strong.

We made a ridiculously one-sided trade in the real, professional sports world that made every wonder how the hell we pulled that off. (If someone even attempted this in a Fantasy League it would be automatically rejected and cause profanity-laced diatribes on the message boards for weeks)

Kobe finally won his MVP.

The Lakers cruised through the playoffs into a finals bout with the Celtics that revitalized the historic feud that peaked and died in the 80s.

The Celtics won the first two games, which was okay because good teams are supposed to win their home games. The Lakers did so in Game 3. We were going to have a good series.

And then THIS happened.

Good thing I was working tonight because even though it was deader than the nerve endings on Briana Bank's vulva, it was less painful than watching this game. If I watched this at a sports bar, I'd have been kicked out for unruly behavior including - but not limited to - excessive shouting, breaking stuff, hurling glasses, and punching anyone wearing green. (And this is the kind of place where coke deals go down in the patio, so you have to really do some dumb shit to get booted.)

If I watched this at home, my TV, tennis racket, various glasses, and several empty bottles of beer would be broken (kinda like my will to live at this point) and the relatively new bottle of Jameson's (1.75) would be drained.

I'm only slightly exaggerating.

As it is now, I'm going to finish my (pint)glass of whisky and stop typing before I really write something I'll regret. If my Lakers lose this series, I'm going to punch myself in the stomach, slam my head against the stove while it's lit, and then hurl my body in front of a bus after I light it on fire. Then once my soul leaves my battered corpse, I'm going to reach out, grab that soul, pull it back down, rip off my charred arm and beat the soul to death with that arm.

If you think I'm being melodramatic, you need to know that we were up by TWENTY FOUR POINTS.

Labels: anger, basketball, drinking, lakers, please just shoot me, sports, threw up in my mouth, whiskey

:: Miscellaneous Ramblings by Dan-E at 2:13 AM [+] :: | 0 comments
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:: Server Stories: Pothead ::

If there's one thing that every restaurant I've worked at in Miami has in common, it's that the majority of people who work there think I like to smoke. And I'm not talking cigarettes. (Or salmon.) People at my last job thought this, and people at my current job thought (think) this. Lou, the wasabi guy, is a major pothead and when he got settled into South Beach, asked me of all people, if I knew any connections to get some good weed.

"No" was my simple answer, to which his reply was something along the lines of "come on, don't hold out" and "I haven't gotten high since I moved." "I don't smoke that shit, dude." He came back with a very surprised "REALLY?"

Stuff like this happens every now and then. During a poker night at Lou's, a few of my buddies take a smoke break, and Lou decides to take a, um, smoke break. He passes his joint around and the cigarette smokers decline, and being content with my beer, also decline. One of them is surprised that I passed on a perfectly good joint, again thinking I was a major pothead.

The real story? I've tried it maybe five times my entire life, and I've been high only once. That one time was with a friend's glass bong that looked big enough to transport oil. He took the liberty of loading it up for me, after which I inhaled, held it, and proceeded to cough up my lung and part of my large intestine. Fifteen minutes later, I wanted to get up off the couch and get another beer, except I couldn't because my legs got up and went to the next room under their own power. Everything suddenly slooowwed doowwwn. Talking in complete sentences became difficult. I had revelations about life. I found the carpet incredibly fascinating.

He said your first high is usually your greatest. Oh okay. (Wait, you guys actually go to work like this?) I didn't care for it. It was kinda like being drunk (which I don't care for either... however I do enjoy a good buzz once in a while) but with a lot more numbness. I haven't done it since and that was over a year ago.

This misperception of me is more amusing than anything. I have similar stories from places I worked, people from school, and random people I meet in Miami. I was curious about why people would think this and these are some of the more popular reasons:

• I'm very laid-back and relaxed. It takes a lot to get my flustered or angry. And if we're trying to decide where to go drink or eat, my response is usually, "dude I'm okay with anything."

• I say "dude" a lot.

• The long hair. People think I'm a hippie. (Dude, that's like, so way off.)

• I'm always hungry.

• I know the significance of 4/20.

• I'm very caffiene-dependent and if I don't get my morning fix, I can sometimes be sluggish and absent-minded.

There a few other things as well but I think you get the point, dude.

Labels: drugs, dude, pot, server stories

:: Miscellaneous Ramblings by Dan-E at 12:33 AM [+] :: | 0 comments
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:: Weirdest Compliment Ever ::

I was hanging out The Abby the other night and ran into some friends I hadn't seen in a while. They already had a few by the time I got there so at least for them, conversation flowed easily while I just sat and listened, nodded, commented and laughed when appropriate. I had a long night at work and needed a moment to wind down.

After my first beer, I finally decided to let my hair down. Literally. (Work requires me to pull my hair back in a tight bun; a ponytail won't suffice since it's about two feet long.) One of the girls says "oh my gawd, I didn't know your hair was so long" and starts running her fingers through it. (If a decent looking chick wants touch me, I usually don't put up a fight.) "Can I braid your hair?"

I simply nod and turn my attention back to my buddy and talk baseball while watching SportsCenter. Meanwhile the girl is drunk and keeps losing her place while trying to give me something called a "fishbone braid." She gives up after a few minutes and sits back down and says this:

"Dan-E, if I ever get cancer and lose my hair I want you to donate yours so I can wear it."

We laughed. Did I mention she was drunk?

Labels: Abby, drunk, hair, unintentional comedy, wtf

:: Miscellaneous Ramblings by Dan-E at 11:21 PM [+] :: | 0 comments
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