Responsibility!

I have done something rash.

Something wildly out of turn, something so bold and amazingly heavy that the reprecussions of this may go down in the history books.

I have purchased a plant.

Yes, I know--I hear all you (all six of you) gasping out there, amazed at my boldness.

It's a little jade plant--Like the one my mom used to have. (Ok, so that one isn't the best example. My mom bought a tiny jade plant starter with my stepfather in 1973 and kept feeding it and repotting it and so on until it became this huge tree-like thing that overtook part of the dining room and threatened my mother with death so she gave it away in 2006. Mine is still very small and cute in a purple and green pot. Also, it's not over thirty years old.)

I have always been able to grow things. It's weird--plants and animals like me, against all reason, as people don't so much. I just kind of bumble around with plants, and rather than dying horrible stinky deaths they become huge, and I eventually have to kill them on purpose or at least prune them a lot because they become dictator-esque and start making demands that I just cannot fill.

For instance, my mom gave me a plant basket for my 19th birthday. 5 little plants, all smashed into a 6 inch round basket. Being for a young college student, my mother selected the most hardy plants she could.

I took my plants from the dorms to my first apartment, and repotted them. This apartment had full sun, and before long, I came home from work one day and my apartment had been transformed into a jungle of vines, flowers and leaves. I then moved, as there was not enough room for all six of us in my little studio, to an apartment that got no sun at all--and still, they grew. Apartment after apartment, move after move, the plants got bigger. I started pruning.

And pruning. And pruning. Most schools of thought tell you that pruning length will make plants flower or become bushier--mine just got attitude. Finally, just before I moved out of the town I was living in, my plants were exposed to frost.

They almost died. When I left, I had to leave my plants behind, and they were making a comeback. I hope they at least put up a good fight before they were hurled into the dumpster, as I know that is where they were put, just like everything else I had to leave behind.

Anyway, so I have a tiny little jade plant. He is currently sitting out on my deck enjoying the sunshine.

I have often wondered why plants flourish under my tutalage and people do not. Perhaps plants like loud, angry music, swearing and crime shows. Or full volume techno (my new neighbors don't love that one so much), cheap red wine and dirty carpet. I have all of those things, and my plants seem pleased.

Works for me.

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Last night at work, I was so tired I wanted to cry. I haven't been sleeping--all I have been doing is working and working and working and stressing and working some more. I came home from work last night, took a shower, took a sleeping pill and proceeded to sleep the sleep of death for 11 hours. I awoke, refreshed, happy and ready to start the day. At 8 am.

Most of you that know me know this is totally weird. I am a noon-or-later sleeper. I do not, under any circimstance, go to bed at 9pm.

I spoke with several people this morning before 10am and they all were surprised and pleased to hear how happy (one person used the term "chipper") and lively I sounded.

I didn't know I sounded that shitty before, but I suppose any improvement is a good one.

So there's that.

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Still no damn spell check. This makes me so mad--I have sent about 400 emails.

First Time For Everything

If there was a holiday I hate more in the Food and Beverage business than Valentines Day, I think it would be......

Valentines Day. By far, the absolute worst fucking day of everyone's year. (Mother's day is a close second.)

And here is why.

Every single human on the planet eats out on VD. Maybe not every year, but they have done it or will do it. Single women in the process of being woo-ed by their man friends expect to be taken out and pampered. Married couples, shouldered with the burden of seeing eachother every day, taking care of their kids and house holds, want to go out and be pampered.

This usually translates into getting totally drunk.

The drunk itself is not the problem, but what the drunk doorway opens into is. The groping, the making out, the rudeness. Also, men trying to impress their dates, married or otherwise, are often tempted to treat their servers like total shit.

And the backstory.

Every server I know (myself included) has what we refer to as "server dreams", or nightmares pertaining to work. I had never had a work related nightmare until I started waiting tables. Usually, in the dream, you are totally in over your head, have more tables than you can manage. Or, you have forgotten to ring in food, everything is burned and or wrong, and your tables are all mad at you.

Tonight was a waking nightmare for me.

I cried at work. I came home from work and cried some more. I will probably cry again before I go to bed.

Also, I am turning in my two weeks notice tomorrow unless some act of God happens that changes my mind, partly because I hate my job, partly because of tonight, and partly because of some things that have been said about me that are apparently being substantiated by management when they are totally false.

As I have said over and over again on this blog, I am not a crier. Nor am I one to ask for help unless I really, really need it.

Keep those things in mind.

Also, please keep in mind some simple math.

100, divided by 4, is 25.

Anyway.

I got to work hours before we opened, for reasons I still do not totally understand other than management really wants me to quit, so I set up every table in the restaurant and one of the banquet rooms. Two hours later, everyone else arrived, and so did the customers. We had broken the restaruant into sections. Four servers, four sections, even spacing for tables and times of arrival in hopes that no one would be in the weeds, overwhelmed, or hystarical.

We figured that since most of the people dining in the restaruant would be having the 6 course tasting menu that most tables would have a 3 hour turn time, or would take three hours from start to finish. Guests also had the option of eating off the normal menu, so some of them would be quicker than others.

I had the section that also has the bar in it. I had four tables, as well as four bar stools and 2 couches.

At one time, I had ten "tables".

This is wildly unacceptable.

One of my tables was not in my section, and I will be the first to admit that they had really, really shitty service. I admitted this to them as well, but we will get to that in a moment.

Another one of my tables were a couple sitting in the bar, and they proceeded to get completly shitfaced drunk and make a huge spectacle of themselves, dropping things, knocking things over, spilling things and being loud. Another was 4 incredibly elderly people who needed assistance with EVERYTHING, a group of young newlyweds also shitfaced, a pair of men on a business trip without their wives, two local regulars who love me and talked me off the edge at one point, and the person in charge of HR and her husband. All at one time, all wanting me at once.

I was running. Literally running, and when my manager asked me if I needed help, I told her yes. I also told her that if she seated anyone else in my section I would walk out.

Did I get the help? No. All the other servers were pretty much done for the evening and were eating dinner. I asked one of them for help as well, and got no response.

The couple that were not sitting in my section--well, they were pissed. I went to them, knowing that I was in the wrong, with full intentions of apologising and trying to fix the situation. (Not to toot my own horn, but this doesn't happen to me that often. I'm usually on top of my shit, but I have learned that if you make a mistake that if you openly admit it, and attempt to make prompt restitution, people are usually receptive.) I told them that I was very, very sorry for their poor service. That I hoped that I had not ruined their valentines day, that I would be buying their dessert and coffee and discounting their dinners. (What more can you do? I mean, really?)
The wife was not having any of it. NONE OF IT. She layed into me like I had killed her child. Full volume, yelling. Telling me that this was the worst service she had ever had, that not just now but the entire evening was terrible, that she didn't want me to buy her anything, that she wanted me to serve her.

My response?

"Ma'am, I can't go back in time and do that. What I can do is throw money at the problem and apologise, which is what I am trying to do. I promise that for the rest of your time here things will be better."

She still would have none of it. I offered to bring out the executive chef, restaurant manager and general manager of the company and let her tell them, while she was still mad, with me standing there with the albatross around my neck the server sins I had committed. I offered to get telephone numbers and addresses for her to write letters and complain if she would prefer.

She swore at me. She insulted me. I accepted all of it, while all of my other tables stared on. (Her husband was mortified.) They ordered coffee and dessert, which I went and got. While I was in the back station, one of the other servers (I love this person) had heard the yelling and asked me if I needed help. I told him that I needed drinks to four tables, plates cleared on two and checks to the couple at the bar. That I had needed this help for at least an hour, and if he could do this for me I would be forever indebted. He was horrified that no one had helped me previously. I then told my manager what had happened, what I had done. She shrugged.

After delivering the coffee, which the wife also hated and then swore at me some more about, I walked back into the bar where the couple of locals flagged me over. I am near tears at this point. The husband of the two grabs my hands and said, "Sweetie. Don't let her get to you. We love you, everyone in this room loves you. Think of all the people you have waited on today--one of them isn't happy. That's a good average. Think of all the people you have ever waited on, and how many of them weren't happy. You are a good server, and a good girl. You can't make everyone happy all the time. If she is too blind to see how hard you are working, and accept the apologies you have given her, she can go straight to hell!" I felt a little better.

I delivered the free dessert, and then the discounted check. The woman made some more grumbles in my general direction, and I thanked her profusely for her patience and understanding.

They left.

I then went into the kitchen, where I told the chef that I would be going outside to cry for ten minutes. He thought I was kidding until I did.

Oh, and that simple math?

I did 38% of the business. That, in my opinion, is a tad more than 25%, but what do I know.

I finally got to leave work at close to midnight. I came home, tired, and called T (who is also at work) per our usual schedule. I then got mildy hystarical. Cried, and cried, and cried. Seriously--to be in a position where you really need help, and ask for it, and not get it over and over again is so frustrating. I constatly feel like I don't matter to anyone at work, that no one cares if I sink or swim. If this woman writes a letter, I can be fired. If she tells all her friends how terrible we are, we will lose business. If they don't care if I get fired, they should care that they might lose money. Plus, I don't think you should treat your employees like garbage.

Anyway, Happy Valentines day. I hope none of you lived your nightmares or sobbed while working a job you detest.

(But I did make really, really good money. That's the only part that made it almost ok.)

Numbers mean nothing!

Today would be my stepfathers 60th birthday, were he still living.

This man was terrified of growing old. He professed at the age of 25 that he didn't think that he would live to see 30, nor did he want to. He stunned the world by living to just over two weeks from 57.

I am glad that he did.

I was closer with my stepdad than I was (am) with my biological parents. He and my mom dated when they were young, (met while working for my dad, isn't that weird?) were supposed to get married, and then broke up in a huge explosion of heartbreak. They didn't speak for 18 years--My stepdad worked his way up through the company and finally got my dads old job, got married, had a baby girl (four months and two days younger than me). He heard throught the grapevine that my mom and dad were getting divorced (something he was doing as well), and called my mom out of the blue to tell her that he had thought about her every day that they had been apart, and that he needed to hear that she had never once thought about him.

She asked him to lunch, and then they got married. (Well, not immediatly after lunch.)

They were married for almost 11 years when he died.

I hear all the time about how much people hate their step parents, and I can understand. It just makes me feel all the more blessed to have had a good one--Hell, I had thee parents, I'm glad at least one of them didn't suck.

He reminded me constantly of how smart I am. How beautiful, how talented. He taught me to drive, helped me fill out college applications and write essays. He drove me to all 4000 of my after school activities, encouraged me to want more out of life, and not take the easy road all the time. He was a constant buffer between my mother and I. He protected me from her rage and insanity a good portion of the time--would make sure that he was the target rather than me.

Not to say that this man was perfect--far from it. He had a drinking problem, and was haunted by a lot of the things that happened in his past. Also, his daughter is and was a spoiled rotten fucking bitch, and he blamed himself a lot for that. (when it truly was her mother's fault. If I ever see this girl on the street I will stab her in the throat. But that's another story.)

When he died, it rocked, absolutely ROCKED my life as I knew it. Changed everything from the ground up. Everything changed in that one instant. I had just seen him a few days before. The last thing he said to me was "I love you, punkin. I will see you Sunday." He died on Saturday. Suddenly, I had to be an adult. I couldn't dick around and be indecisive about things, I couldn't be an irresponsible kid anymore. My mom went totally off the deep end (So much so that she needed a personal submarine) and I had to take care of everything. The business, the house, the cars, the bills. Make sure mom ate, that our employees were paid, that the destributors weren't padding their orders. F can attest to this--she was there. It sucked.

I miss him terribly. Daily. He really shouldn't have died when he did, they way he did. He was my confidante, my buddy, and my daddy. I got a good portion of my sense of humor from him, all of my photography ability, and my taste in bad television. I know that he lives on in me, even though we weren't related by blood.

When he died, I called my dad to tell him, and my dad cried. This is not a story I have told a lot of people. My dad said later that he wished that he could have told my stepdad how thankful he was that he was there for me, that I had a parent that cared. That he knew that he genuinely loved me, and wanted me to grow up the be the best.

When I moved out here, and dad started to get so sick, he told me that he was glad I was here. That he was glad that he and I could have a real relationship, finally, and that he knew that he wasn't the best dad for me when I was little. That he was glad that my stepdad was there to pick up his slack, that he was proud of the woman that I had become with his tutalage. And that he hoped that I would forgive him, and we could make up for lost time. Personally, I think it took big balls for my dad to say that--to give credit to a man for raising his daughter, and be thankful. I think this says something about my stepdad.

Anyway, that was a lot longer than I thought it was going to be.

But the point I was trying to get across was, well, Happy Birthday, Terry. I really miss you, and I am so glad that you were there for me when I was a kid. I wish you were still here, all the time. I would like to think that wherever you are, you're proud of me.

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On a much lighter and totally unrelated note, I hate people.

If you go to a restaurant, with reservations for 6pm, knowing full well that half of your party won't be there for an hour and a half....you suck. Also, if you tell your server that you wanted to save the table and make sure you could still get served even though you know the kitchen closes as 8pm and you're sure your party will be there right before then, you suck. And if you sit at that table until 2.5 hours after the restaruant is closed, you really, really suck.

Oh, and if you tip your server $5 on a $130 bill, you can go fuck yourself.

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Also, I drove to T's work today, and followed a man whose top speed was 23 mph. In a 50. LESS THAN HALF THE SPEED LIMIT. I wanted to just lay my head on the steering wheel and cry. On the way back, I followed a couple going 31 mph in a 50. Again, I wanted to cry. WHY DO PEOPLE DO THIS? Oh, the speed limit is just that! A limit!

Lord.

My father had a thought that whatever age you are is the top speed you should be allowed to operate a motor vehicle. While interesting and slightly funny, this is why my 80 year old father got speeding tickets. (that and his love of the german sports car.) Most elderly people plod along at painfully low speed, but not dad! Hell no! He would go roaring along at 85 mph and giggle.

When he stopped being able to drive, and I was now at the helm, he would constantly tell me "Get into it, Babe! It's the old man's car! Drive it like you stole it! I'll pay the ticket!" and then rub his hands together with glee as I tore around the S curves on a side road at not the advised 40 mph but at a dad-mandated 65. "That's my girl!".

I'm amazed we won't both jailed.

And still no damn spell check!

Who needs a pelvis?

My back hurts so bad I can see the pain. Does that make sense? hear it ringing in my ears. I always thought pain this bad was reserved for childbirth, waking up during surgery, torture, or having ones body parts blown off.

I am sure having those things done is worse than the pain I am currently feeling.

Anyway.

I sent my mother photographs from my father's memorial so she could see what her old in-laws look like.

All she really said was that my sisters are dumpy looking, I am still fat and I should wear my hair longer than I do.

I informed her that those photos were 6 months old, that I have lost 20 pounds and my hair has grown considerably. And yes, my sisters are dumpy looking.

She did not accept this information.

She did, however, call me in hystarics because her table broke. Absolute hystarics. (She is getting it fixed. For way, way cheap. Still cries when she talks about it.) She was so freaked out, she says, because "it made a loud noise."

Sigh.

Anyway, I'm off to illegally take my fathers pain pills and go to sleep.

Sex, lies, and the workplace

The book I am currently reading is about prostitution in the late 1800's. The "house of ill repute" where the "fallen women" solicit their customers shares the same name as the restaurant where I work.

They also go into detail as to how the men and women who work at this "house of ill repute" are worse than the women who frequent the establishment.

I laughed, and laughed, and laughed. Then I laughed some more. Knowing what I know about my coworkers and the 'nipple twisting' that goes on behind closed doors (name the movie where that line comes from!) at our place of work (no details, but there have been multiple forms of oral sex and use of various sex toys) (No, I am not kidding.) makes it all the more hilarious.

I really need a new job.

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My mother is obsessed with the show 'Celebrity Rehab'. I don't even begin to try and understand.

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I went to get my nails done today, and almost immediatly afterwards fucked them up. I didn't bother getting them repolished, as I destroy them within days anyway, but still. I would like to have at least 24 hours of shiny, normal looking hands. But no. Not this week.

My sister is having T drive one of the cars over to her house tomorrow so she can show it. She won't drive it, so if this person doesn't buy it I'm not sure what will be done. Good way for T to kill four hours, anyway.

Well.....I guess that's it. And still no fucking spell check.

9 Mile Pile-up

I knocked the damn letter out of the park. My sisters sent me copies of theirs, and its actually almost more sad than funny.

T wanted to know if they just wrote

DAD DEAD
WE MAD
GIVE MONEY

And no, they did not. (But if they had, I hope it would have been in crayon.) They attempted to conjure feelings for the man that obviously, if they had, their behavior would have been/be drastically different. I am the only one that wrote more than a page. (Three, in fact.)

I can tell that my one sister, who was also present at the time of dad's death, harbors more resentment towards me than I thought she did about the fact that dad would speak to me at the hospital and not her. (Or anyone else, really.) I am sure it was because dad heard my voice more often than anyone elses, or the fact that I had no problem yelling at him to be heard when he had no hearing aids in. (Which he did not.) But I suppose she is feeling a little left out--I know that she knew that she was not the favorite child. (My father was terrible at playing favorites. Terrible. If/when I have children I will do everything in my power to never behave similarly.)

I cannot tell anyone that their grief is wrong, and she is totally allowed to feel any way she needs to, so long as it is honest.

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I may stab a man if I don't quit my job soon.

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Have I mentioned that I hate Valentines Day? I hate Valentines Day. More than Christmas. It's so, so dumb. (Also, I know the real meaning of Valentines day, and, as usual, am so impressed with the American way of taking holidays and creating some mythos around them that have nothing really to do with the origional meaning[some loose reference, sure.] and turning it into a capitalistic festival. See Samhain, Eostre, Saturnalia, Yule,{Christmas? About the Sun? Sun with a 'u', not an 'o'? What?} for clarification. Oh, and Jesus was born in July, by most accounts.)

Enough of that, I will just get mad.

Too late.

I have no problem with how our holidays are celebrated. I do, however, have a problem with people being ignorant of the past. Telling people who do believe in these things that they are going to "hell". Am I going to hell because I believe that Columbus sailed in 1492? History is history, people. I am not trying to offend anyone, nor am I trying to say that Christianity is wrong--I accept why they chose the dates that they did--(More on that in a minute)--But not even a nod to the native cultures? Really?

The dates of most christian holidays fall on dates of pagan holidays. When christianity sent missionaries across the globe, and even before that, when christianity was beginning to boom, it was easier to get people to be ok with changing their faith if they still had the same festivals.....but slowly changed the meanings.

That was a bad explaination. I apologise. Read up on it, if you like. Or, condemn me to hell, that works too. Whichever.

Anyway.

(Still no spell check? Fuck. Again, I'm sorry.)

What's done is done

Well, I wrote it.

I will have you know that I got so upset during the writing process that I called my mother and woke her up to make her calm me down.

I will also have you know that I was so audibly upset that my mother actually rose to the occasion and did her motherly job.

Anyone who knows anything about my mother and our relationship therein will know that this is a big fucking deal.

Now all I have to do is edit it for grammar, which I appear to have lost all prowess in, and send it off to my sister.

I feel limp. I didn't realize just HOW emotionally draining this would be.

But it's done. And my eyemakeup is totally ruined.

And still no spellcheck from blogger.