How Much Time Do you Have ??

Thank the Lord I am off tomorrow...today almost did me in at work.

I go in at 3PM and work until closing. I come in at the tail end of lunch when the whole restaurant is a wreck and the day shift is scrambling to get out of there. I can't much blame them. Sunday lunch (The attack of the Christians as I like to call it) can be crazy to say the least.

It started out well enough and quickly turned into "Restaurant Riot". The kitchen kept up for a while, but buckled under the pressure of so many orders being sent back at once.

They finally recovered, only for me to fall into the quicksand of customer stupidity. I had a table of eight. When it came time to split up the tab..this is what I heard:

"He'll pay for the two strawberry lemonades and the dessert. Put THESE two dinners on one check and she... (pointing at another) will get the appetizer. Split my parents meals between us three and he and I will split half of her meal and you can take off the sweet tea because it wasn't sweet enough".
It was almost like they were speaking a foreign language or just filming me with a hidden camera for a TV show.

After several attempts I split the check correctly and reaped the reward of another ten percent tip.

JUST MOVE ON!

My last table came in ten minutes before closing. They were nice enough...slow to order (the cooks LOVE THAT ten minutes before closing). The food came out and I asked if everything was alright (stupid question at closing).

The only guy at the table remarked that his ribeye was fatty. Let me insert here that a ribeye is the steak with the most fat of all...marbling all throughout the steak, just like a tiny pot roast. He said there just wasn't enough char seasoning on it and it was under cooked. Back to the kitchen I went to have it cooked up for him (to the hiss and boos from the cook).

When I took it back, he said it was cooked fine and continued to chow down. On my next round by the table, he lamented that it just didn't have ENOUGH seasoning on it. I told him I could bring him a small ramekin of char seasoning for him to dip every bite into. He shook his head and told me it just wasn't the same as having it "Cooked" in it.

Then I guess an alien took over my body because I cannot believe I said (ten minutes after closing) "Would you like for us to cook you another steak"?

And what in the world do you think HIS reply was??

Back to the kitchen I went, apologizing like crazy, promising new sombreros to the Latinos and a cold diet coke for our diabetic cook if they could do me this one last favor (Por Favor).

They dutifully cooked another ribeye..adding enough seasoning to choke a horse and I walked it back to the table, waiting right by the table until he tasted it. Whadda ya know..."PERFECT" was the reply.

By this time every other server had left, the cleaning guy was there to do the floors and I was left to wait for this guy to finish his second steak. I chatted them all up , apologizing for "OUR" mistake and packing all the other's leftovers into to go boxes.

My manager came out and took the ribeye (both that he had eaten) off the check and I got to finally take them a bill.

Here's what I heard for the second time tonight...

"Put Mom's and hers on one bill and SHE will pay for those and these other three, minus the ribeye will go on another".

When I came back to the table, they had everything in one stack. "Just run both of these on my discover card, but run them separately".

I did just as instructed, bringing back more paperwork than it takes to close on a house.

As they puttered their way out of the restaurant an hour after closing, I thanked them all for coming in and once again apologized for the steak.

As I cleaned up their table I realized that one credit card slip was missing, since they had made me split it in two. I had one slip for $67.00 with a generous five dollar tip and the one for $70.00 was missing completely.

I went to the front door where thankfully they were still talking , and mentioned to the woman who had paid that I was missing one of the credit card receipts. Oh she dug and dug in her purse before she could find me a copy. On it was written another five dollar tip.

You know what? They thought they would get two steaks for free and take the copy of the other charge slip and leave me a five dollar tip for a $137.00 tab. Granted I only got ten dollars as a tip, but calling their bluff (if you could call it that) made me feel better..hey!! Ten is better than five, that is better than NOTHING.

I am a firm believer in KARMA.

What comes around goes around.

I'm no slouch as a server although I seem to be waiting on more and more slouches as customers as this economy struggles along.

At least I got my ten bucks out of them, and know that I did everything in my power to give them a positive experience in our store.

Stinkin Grifters!! As I said, Thank the Lord I am off tomorrow!