choices(continued)

Choices (part II)

Apologies to my three readers, Not only for leaving you hanging but for how boring that post was. However, since a couple of you have humored me by acting like it was interesting enough to see what happened, I guess I have to humor you enough to finish it.

So anyways,

“So you are not going to let me go home then?” Wendy asks.

“no, sorry like I said it is too early and actually if I let anyone go home it will probably be Martha since she was here first, AND she had kids she could be out trick or treating with.”

I can almost see her shift into another strategy. She pouts out her bottom lip and takes a page out of the ‘women’s handbook’ that page from chapter 3 reads as follows:

“Men are by and large stupid stupid creatures. Should you ever find yourself
wanting something and failing to get them to cooperate, don’t be afraid toflirt and flaunt to get it.”

NOTE: Before I start getting hate mail, you see this tactic play out on any given day, in any given bar, restaurant or strip club across the world.

Some people engage in totally innocent flirtation.

Some pretend to be fascinated by the guy droning on and on about the round of golf he played that day(while trying desparately not to yawn).

Some simply resist the urge to answer tell a guy to buzz off when they make a rude comment.

Some may flash thier breasts if that is what it takes and they are comfortable with it.

Whatever it takes....

Make no mistake, I am NOT judging (well maybe a tad) just pointing it out. Men are not above doing (or at least trying) the same thing. I know as a bartender I tried to. The only difference is that women are much MUCH less susceptible to being led around by their breasts as men are to being led around by their Johnsons.

“Really?" She asks leaning up against the doorway,batting her eyes a bit, and shaking me from my thoughts.

Don’t laugh BD don’t laugh. You don’t want to hurt her feelings. Not to mention remember page 38 of the ‘man handbook’:

Should you ever be fortunate enough to come across a printing of the ultra
Secret women’s handbook you must MUST use the information you gain
therein against them.

And page 64 of the women’s:

Should you ever come across a man who has somehow managed to get
A copy of this sacred ultra secret document it is imperative that you kill him.
first you must torture him until he tells you where it is and then (for the sake
of women everywhere) you must kill him in a way that sends a clear warning
to the rest of the men out there of what the penalties of such are.

“You need to get back out on the floor” I say, proud of the poker face I am keeping.

“This isn’t right, it’s bullshit!”

“Oh? What is bullshit?” I ask curious as to where this is leading.

“Aren’t you the one that is always telling me to (enter sarcastic voice and quotation gesture here) stay in school?”

“Yeah, what does that have to do with anything?”

“Well, like I said, I have a term paper due tomorrow and I have barely started it. If you really thought school was so important you would let me go work on it.”

Ahhhh guilt trip strategy,(page 27)…… THAT is where this is going. And combining it with the ‘use my own words against me’ strategy (page 38)….. Interesting and VERY nicely played I might add.

I am stunned for a moment, but finally I reply,

“Weren’t you off for the last two days?” I know this answer as I juggled 2 other people’s schedules at the last minute to help her get them.

“Yes, why?”

“There is an old saying, ‘a lack of preparation on your part does NOT make it an emergency on MY part.’”

“What is THAT supposed to mean?” She asks rolling her eyes.

“It means you chose to go to a Halloween party instead of working on your term paper.”

“It means you chose to hang out at the bar instead of what you knew you should be doing. You want the whole world to shuffle their schedules around to make room for your term paper yet you couldn’t be inconvenienced enough to skip your party for it. Sorry, but if you are looking for sympathy from me you aren’t going to get it. You made your choice and now for better or worse you have to live with it.”

Turning from my desk,

“Like I said, I don’t think anyone is going home anytime soo….” I start to say and see I am now all alone in the office.

Just what I came in here for in the first place.

Choices

It has been a fairly slow Saturday night. We have the usual array of regulars, but walk in traffic is relatively slow. I have only been working in the town of Biffy(aka B.F.E.) for almost two months so I am not totally used to the ‘when we will be busy and when we won’t” trends, but I am getting there. The 4 servers on the floor are understandably upset and already asking to be sent home.

“jeeeesh!!!! We’re not going to get busy, I don’t know why he won’t let someone leave” I hear “Judy” say in her raspy, 50 year old, two packs a day, biker chick voice.

The devil on my right shoulder quickly types up the following response and sends it to my brain.

Cause if I let someone go it will have to be one of my GOOD servers, leaving me not only short staffed for a rush, but short staffed AND handicapped since you get weeded with any more than two tables

The angel on my left considers this response, even laughs at it, but in the end pulls out a tennis racket and knocks it away. I hate the angel sometimes, even if I know he is right.

I have been in their shoes, so I simply let it go.


Biffy is a small town located not too far from the major college town of Gainseville, Florida, Home of the University of Florida Gators. One reason it is slow is the Gator football team is playing one of its biggest rivals this week. Gator games tend to be among our slower times. AFTER gator games we tend to get pretty busy. Since the game will end in about an hour, and we are still open for four I feel pretty safe in thinking we are going to be busy at some point. Therefore, I have to decline the requests to send someone home. Before long the requests turn to whining.

Four servers, none of them making money. All of them wants to be the one to go home, but barring that they just want SOMEONE to go home.

I get it, minimal tips split 4 ways is always less than minimal tips split 3 ways.

Before too long the whining turns to bitching.

I remind myself of my own serving days, bite my toungue, and hold my ground. It will get busier and until then the best I can do for them is NOT make them find some kind of busy work to do until then.

As I head back to the office, I hear.

“I have a term paper due tomorrow, that is really important! Why the hell won’t he let me leave!”

This comment gets my attention for a moment. I believe in education. I applaud the servers like Wendy and Kyla who are going to college and looking to better themselves in hopes of finding a ‘real job’. I even encourage it to the point of preaching it at times though I know my words usually go in one ear and out of the other. I know this because these same words went in one of MY ears a long time ago and out of the other. I hope they don’t get ‘stuck’ in a serving job for as long as I did and end up regretting it. Lord knows if I had a chance to go back in time and do it all over again I would NOT stay in the serving (or even bartending) end of the pool nearly as long as I did. And that is assuming I stayed in the restaurant business at all. That is not to say that serving is a bad thing, just me admitting that even to me the grass DOES seem to be greener on the other side.

I blew off more than my share of “enjoy your childhood while you can” and “don’t be in such a hurry to grow up” and “stay in school” advice back in my day. To me, it was simple ‘ramblings of an old coot’. It MUST be! Who wouldn’t WANT to grow up, be able to buy what you want, go where you want, do what you want, whenever you wanted to do it? Surely, THAT is what being a grown up was like after all!

Now EYE am the old coot, giving the same advice, knowing it will be ignored but trying none the less.

For these reasons and more, I consider letting “Wendy” go home. There is a knock on the door.

“come in”

“I have a term paper, due tomorrow, can I go home?”

“No, if it stays slow I will try to get you out of here a little bit early, but right now it is just too soon. I think we will be getting busy once the game is over and the Halloween fest in town is over.”

“It isn’t going to get busy anyways, we have only had 6 kids come in for trick or treats.”

“You may be right, but I don’t think so.”

(To be continued, sorry but 6 am and I am falling asleep at the keyboard) See? I AM an old coot!