Breathing easier now
So, I've calmed down, mostly in part to my getting off just after 8 last night and because I don't have to be back to work until Wednesday morning.
But oh did we get our asses kicked yesterday morning. Apparently a squirrel got into some electrical box or something across town and took out power in the process of frying itself around 11:45am. The mall closed. The mall only closes when we have at least six inches of snow or tons of ice; there has to be a state of emergency. Or it's 9pm. There's a road over that way that might as well be called Restaurant Road because there's well over a dozen (if not 2 dozen) restaurants, both fast food and sit down box restaurants, that didn't have power. Guess where everyone decided to go?
Now, we open at 11am; when I got in at 11:30 there was a table in the bar and none in the dining room. We had one bartender, six servers, six cooks (one of which was also acting as dishwasher), and two hostesses, including myself. Around 12, there were 3 tables in the bar and we were almost through rotation in the dining room. In the main dining room (the front cafes were closed since nobody was schedule to work them) there are 27 tables/booths whatever, one of which is the party table. By 12:37 the only table that wasn't sat was the party table and we had to go on a wait. We didn't go completely off the wait until almost 3. We even had to put the bar on a wait. We were slammed! I spent a good 2 - 2 1/2 hours doing nothing but bussing tables and running food. It was insane.
The worst thing was hearing people's little comments like, "They seem short staffed." Ya think? We weren't expecting to be the only place in town open. People stayed and waited because it was that or, God forbid, go home and fix their own damn food. And then, "I'd like to get out of here sometime today." What? You were on the wait. I know you see every person that works in the front of the house frantically running around, including your server who has three other tables to take care of besides yours at the moment and is about to be sat again -- you don't want to wait: go home and make your own damn lunch you lazy impatient punk! And then, "I didn't think they'd be this busy Saturday lunch." Normally we're not but what the hell? Are you the only people who don't know that half the restaurants in town either don't have power or closed down until they were able to find out what was wrong? We weren't most of these peoples first choice, we were their last resort aside from going home and making their own damn food. I have worked in this restaurant since it opened in August 2004; I've worked a lot. I recoginze people that come in there. Most of the people I have never seen before in my life and from their body language and from some of their comments, I know for a fact that probably at least half of the tables we had yesterday morning had never come to eat in our restaurant before.
When we finally slowed down around 3 - 3:30 we all breathed a huge sigh of relief. And all 6 of us who were doubles (myself and 5 of the 6 servers that were on the floor) prayed that it would be slow last night -- especially considering that we were two short for the night and that meant that half the servers for the night were doubles. Luckily it was only kind of steady and I got off around 8ish and some of the servers got cut around 8:30.
But oh did we get our asses kicked yesterday morning. Apparently a squirrel got into some electrical box or something across town and took out power in the process of frying itself around 11:45am. The mall closed. The mall only closes when we have at least six inches of snow or tons of ice; there has to be a state of emergency. Or it's 9pm. There's a road over that way that might as well be called Restaurant Road because there's well over a dozen (if not 2 dozen) restaurants, both fast food and sit down box restaurants, that didn't have power. Guess where everyone decided to go?
Now, we open at 11am; when I got in at 11:30 there was a table in the bar and none in the dining room. We had one bartender, six servers, six cooks (one of which was also acting as dishwasher), and two hostesses, including myself. Around 12, there were 3 tables in the bar and we were almost through rotation in the dining room. In the main dining room (the front cafes were closed since nobody was schedule to work them) there are 27 tables/booths whatever, one of which is the party table. By 12:37 the only table that wasn't sat was the party table and we had to go on a wait. We didn't go completely off the wait until almost 3. We even had to put the bar on a wait. We were slammed! I spent a good 2 - 2 1/2 hours doing nothing but bussing tables and running food. It was insane.
The worst thing was hearing people's little comments like, "They seem short staffed." Ya think? We weren't expecting to be the only place in town open. People stayed and waited because it was that or, God forbid, go home and fix their own damn food. And then, "I'd like to get out of here sometime today." What? You were on the wait. I know you see every person that works in the front of the house frantically running around, including your server who has three other tables to take care of besides yours at the moment and is about to be sat again -- you don't want to wait: go home and make your own damn lunch you lazy impatient punk! And then, "I didn't think they'd be this busy Saturday lunch." Normally we're not but what the hell? Are you the only people who don't know that half the restaurants in town either don't have power or closed down until they were able to find out what was wrong? We weren't most of these peoples first choice, we were their last resort aside from going home and making their own damn food. I have worked in this restaurant since it opened in August 2004; I've worked a lot. I recoginze people that come in there. Most of the people I have never seen before in my life and from their body language and from some of their comments, I know for a fact that probably at least half of the tables we had yesterday morning had never come to eat in our restaurant before.
When we finally slowed down around 3 - 3:30 we all breathed a huge sigh of relief. And all 6 of us who were doubles (myself and 5 of the 6 servers that were on the floor) prayed that it would be slow last night -- especially considering that we were two short for the night and that meant that half the servers for the night were doubles. Luckily it was only kind of steady and I got off around 8ish and some of the servers got cut around 8:30.