Stormin "NORMAN" to the Rescue

On Tuesdays I open the restaurant with two other waitresses. It usually isn't too busy right off the bat so we are okay until around 11:45 when the other servers come in. On this particular day, at 10:55, five minutes before we open...a group of 115 came streaming in the front door. It was an immediate "INVASION". Frantic calls to servers for them to come early were made, the kitchen...headed up by our "Stormin Norman" was alerted to the fact that the "ENEMY HAS LANDED!! BATTLE STATIONS"!!! It was a company bringing the entire office out for Secretary's Day. Obviously everyone in their office knew about it, and our Troops were TOTALLY taken by surprise. The cooks had no one to call in ..they were all we had. "Bring the Latinos up front"!! Give the manager an apron..load up the bread oven...start filling glasses with ice...GO GO GO...NOW"!!! One of us three servers started taking drink orders, the other started taking food orders, and the third began ringing them into the kitchen. I cannot even begin to imagine how it must feel to the cooks to receive 115 orders one immediately after another, but it must feel like having a M-16 spraying around your head with nowhere to run or hide. When we asked Norman if he wanted us to stagger out the orders or send them all at once..the reply from their battle station was "BRING IT"!!! Thus began our normally quiet Tuesday lunch! By this point another server that is an "Ole Timer" like us had walked into the chaos. She immediately started going to the tables that we had not been able to get yet, and started firing orders back to our troops in the kitchen as well. It was 24 tables in total that we rang into the kitchen in a matter of about ten or fifteen minutes. Steaks, chicken, ribs, special orders, special instructions...and it didn't faze our "Stormin Norman" one bit! I can honestly say that we had a harder time of just getting drinks refilled and salads out before he was sending out the lunches...how can two cooks beat four servers to the punch, considering they had a lot tougher job to do than us? I can honestly say that I do not remember one person sending their food back or complaining about their lunch. Out of 24 tables, one table had to wait for their food...but HEY!! someone has to get served last! Let me add that while all this was taking place, the kitchen was still filling orders from the rest of the restaurant that was filling up very quickly with our regular customers. Believe it or not, it went AMAZINGLY smooth. Our manager that day was on the ball, shouting out his commands, and we were listening to him. The host staff did a great job, the other servers that walked into a mine field when they arrived for their shift did an amazing job. It was truly a team effort...but one that I give the kitchen staff of "Stormin Norman" all the credit for. We are a family at our store..granted a sometimes dysfunctional family, but one that pulls together when the bombs are dropping and there is no place to hide. The public is a tough crowd to please. I have learned this over my 30 years in the business. But on this particular day, in this particular restaurant, this particular crowd had a particularly amazing man shooting out their lunches like mortar fire coming out of a tank. My hat goes out to this amazing feat the "Stormin Norman" pulled off with the grace and ease of a trapeze artist..Although he is one person that I don't think would ever be caught dead in a pair of tights...But tight spots are his FORTE, and he did an outstanding job in one of the tightest spots we have ever been thrown into, and saved our butts from what could have been a tragedy...but ended up to be a success...Thanks to "STORMIN NORMAN". Take a bow my friend...you deserve it. What impressed me even more was the fact that he acted like he had done nothing exceptional, just had done his job. I swear I work with the greatest people in the world... At least a lot of great people, that make working with some of the others that aren't as great, an OK thing. Maybe they will look at us and say "I could do that too if I tried". YOU NEVER KNOW!!! But a HUGE, FAT "THANK YOU" and my total admiration for a "Job well done, Soldier". Till next time...COTTON