The Sandlot

I've worked at the restaurant since July 1, 1999. In those 6 years I've worked with countless people, more than i care to remember. As with any job, sometimes co-workers dont get along and they have arguements, fights or blowouts. I've seen cooks just verbally assult waitresses. I've seen waitresses get pissy and yell at the bar staff. Whatever the combo you can think of I've witnessed it. However, I have never personally had such an incident.

Part of the reason is that i'm the bosses kid so i have to be nice to everyone etc etc. The other reason is that i'm very laid back and you really have to either do something astounding or be a complete moron non-stop to evoke any sort of anger, annoyance or frustration out of me.

But thats all about to change. For a couple years now, 3 maybe 4, we've had a waitress named Sally. She's nice and all, not what you would call a bitch. She just kinda sucks at her job but i guess she tries. I don't know what it is but she has this ability to get under my skin and just annoy me to no end with relative ease. I think its mainly her voice. 90% of the time at work she sounds like shes talking to an infant, you know how people talk to little kids, well she does that to pretty much all her tables. The other 10% of the time is when shes in the kitchen asking me for something that she should be getting herself. Or shes asking me some stupid question she should already know the answer too. If you know me at all you know how much i detest people asking me stuff. Especially when its the same stupid shit over and over.

Take tonight for example. It was Ash Wednesday. Meaning if your catholic or christian or whatever you're not suposed to eat meat. What it also means is that a lot of people go out for fish and shit. It was just me and the new cook mike working tonight. We got a decent dinner rush around 7 or so. Being that it was just 2 of us and mikes only in his 2nd week, things werent happening lighting fast. So apparently mike forgets an order of toast for one of sally's tables. No biggie, it takes like 1 min and a half tops to toast off an order. Sally comes back and says shes missing an order of toast, directing it to Mike. Mike was over in the store room and i happened to be behind the line so i try up an order and toss it under the broiler. Sally is sitting there watching me do all this (its a move we like to call the hover and it has many variations). She then proceeds to reiterate her need for toast to mike. 5 seconds later shes asking me if thats jer toast up in the broiler. Then she said something else and by this point I was a little irked by her so i flatly said your toast is toasting, i'll put it up when its done. She didnt look thrilled with my tone so she walked out of the kitchen. I put the order up about 15 seconds later. It took her about another minute to come get it. Now you see what i'm dealing with.

Earlier in the shift she asked me if we had cheesecake. We havent offered plain cheesecake in about 3 years ever since chef attitude hooked us up with the old lady from lewiston who does most of our desserts. She knows this, yet still asks me. I told her no, we havent had that in a long time. She babbled something about cherries and strawberries and i said yea we used to get premade ones from the lewiston shop but havent in some time and that its not like things change that fast around the restaurant that for years we dont have an item but then suddenly we would.

To top it all off, for her own dinner she made mike cook her some bullshit whole grain pasta or something that was laying around in the store room. Like health pasta or something. (shes got a weight problem). Anyways, she then went on to say how she would offer this alternative pasta to customers of her own accord if she knew we had it. Which is fucking hilarious because she thinks she can do this extra thing when she cant even remeber to offer the shit we tell her to or do various other aspects of her job properly.

At the current pace, I think im just gonna end up snapping on her by the end of the month. Which should be interesting to say the least. I've got a lot of bottled up emotions about this and i swear to god if she keeps it up Im gonna unload it all on her on a busy weekend night and it wont be pretty.