:: Life on Planet Dan-E ::

:: Wednesday, June 25, 2008 ::

:: 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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