Saturday, January 30, 2010

The party that made me cry last year

Remember this? This group scheduled another event for a recent Friday night. I found out when I came in for the first half of my double that day.

This year, there was no second server asked to come in, no second bartender, and almost no manager. The day manager had to leave early and the night manager had to come in late so the third manager came for the interim. Since he is also an owner, and was not "really" working, and the party consisted of several of his friends, he sipped coctails the entire time, never forgetting to ask me from time to time if I needed anything.

I did my best to keep up with the party, but since it was an open bar many of them simply walked up there. I caught them sometimes, sometimes I didn't. No one really cared either way which was wonderful.

Near the end of the open bar I was making my round back to the dining room when I saw two guys rush in to my path. My path happened to be through the employee area containing the pass through for the kitchen. Before I could say anything, the host of the party, and friend of our owners, said loudly "Can we help you guys?"
One of the two said aggressively that they wanted to order food and they had been waiting 15 minutes for service. I knew this was bull but politely told them I would be more than happy to take their order. They walked back to a table and I followed with two menus. There was a third person sitting at the table and I apologized for not bringing enough menus but was told it was OK. I proceeded to take their drink order; two long islands, no ice (as I was told 4 times), and a water for the one with no ID (no I can not accept a traffic ticket. I need a photo ID). While I was carding the guy who wanted the second long island the first started ordering their food. It wasn't a complicated order, but with two different food items and one drink order being told to me at once I decided to write it down. I asked them to please wait a second and pulled out some paper and a pen. While I'm doing this they repeat their order. As I am writing the drink orders I again ask them to wait a minute. They repeat their order again. Annoying and rude since this is all being done with an attitude on their part. I begin to write slowly. After a second I repeat part of the order to prompt them to continue from there. They speak slowly like I am not intelligent enough to understand normal speech.

I make their long islands, which look like diarrhea in a glass since it is mostly mix rather than liquor. Upon bringing the drinks and set ups to the table the most obnoxious of the three begins to ask me "Hey girl, what time you get off baby?" and "Damn, you sure are fine from behind." I ignore the second comment and, to the first, respond that last call is at 1:30. "You got a man baby girl?" "What his name?" I smile and walk away without answering.

Every time I walk past the table the obnoxious one asks where their food is. The first three times I tell him it is still cooking and I wil bring it out as soon as it is ready. After that I ignore the question.
Finally their food is ready. When I deliver it the obnoxious one asks for more ranch. I run something to another table and then proceed to get the ranch. As I am at the condiment station (sad ranch is considered a condiment now) I overhear a confrontation between the host of the party and the obnoxious guy at the table. I quickly get my manager and a verbal confrontation between the two men and the obnoxious guy ensues. After about a minute, my manager gets fed up and kicks them out. He delivers their bill himself and makes sure they pay it. Do I even need to say he's my favorite of the three to work with?

So I don't think I will be crying over a talk with management this year. As annoying and uncomfortable as the situation with the three guys was, I'd prefer that to getting a lecture from management that makes me tear up and fear for my job.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

I'm happy to hear the party went better than last year. It's great your manager did something about those guys.

Anonymous said...

That is my motto. Any problem get the manager on duty.

M.L.Daniels said...

I had a party last year that was thoroughly traumatic, and luckily they didn't return this year! Sorry you had to repeat a bad experience. :( God bless!

Nikki said...

Unfortunately, now that you've started bartending, you're going to get even more of those comments and you're not going to have anywhere to run off to. And if you ask the customer to stop they're going to complain about how "rude" you were.

But hooray for your manager! Every now and then you get a good one.