Tuesday, July 4th 2006

Working the lunch shift is not that bad; especially if you have the chance to come in at noon. There is one little push around noon and then it tapers off until closing time, which is 3. I had a feeling that things would be a little busier than normal so I decided to go in at 11:30. I arrived at the beginning of what would be a painful shift.

I use the term “blood-money” to describe a shift where the money was good but getting it was nothing short of brutal. We had never been open on the fourth before, let alone during lunch, so today was a lesson in numbers and patience. It was also a test for my skills. The manager was summoned by the owner for a meeting and could not say no. Confident in my abilities he went downstairs to talk shop. It was then that the city decided to come on in.

It was me, the busser and the other server who hadn’t had much experience in volume. I was left to answer phones, seat people, make drinks, wait on tables in my section, wait on tables in his section and run all of our food and communicate with the kitchen staff. The kitchen staff is top notch with food prep, but English is another story. Did I mention that our fridge had shut down due to the heat? We had our perishables resting on ice trays that were quickly turning into tepid pools of water. By one o’clock I was telling people to seat themselves and watching as they soon left because no one could get to them in time.

There was no time to call downstairs and it probably wouldn’t have made a difference. The manager has a sixth sense when it comes to me and the restaurant. I am sure he was feeling my pain. Speaking of pain, while I was making a mimosa, I placed the flute down on the bar a little too hard and it broke in my finger. Three seconds later I started to bleed. I was a too busy to look for a bandage, and was hoping that I would clot soon so I could move on with the huge number of tasks before me. No such luck. I had to clench a tissue between my fingers in between running food and saying to people “Hi, Thank you so much for your patience, I will be right with you.” It was impossible not to see that I was totally swamped. People would ask me sympathetically “Are you the only one here?” I would reply with a defeated “Yes.” I am sure that the majority of my tips were due to sympathy alone.

My manager surfaced at two looking apologetic. It was a good thing because I was about to snap. Without missing a beat, he helped bring us all back above the water line where we had all been bobbing for two hours. I made good money today, but the gash on my middle finger only served to remind me that the green backs in my pocket were truly blood money.

This entry was posted by Johnny on Tuesday, July 4th, 2006 at 5:45 PM and is filed under Just Life, Pounds, Schillings & Pence. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.

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