Draaaa-Maaaaa
May. 16th, 2009 11:07 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
exhilarationSo, my job. I don't love my job. But at the same time... I kind of owe a lot to my job. I worked as a hostess in the restaurant where Krissy bartended for a while, and it was kind of the same environment: everyone hung out with each other outside of work, and they were all friendly with each other at work and it was kind of like a big extended family or something. Or, maybe kind of like going to a small school or something, you spend so much time with all these people and you just end up being close and giving a shit about each other.
I moved here knowing nobody except my family, and they were not really too keen on having me around (they're wonderful now, but I really can't forget the cold shoulder I got when I first got here) and so it was just me. In my house. My falling apart house, with my computer, and that was that. I worked at the Coffee Co with Shaina, the fat cow, who's in her 40s, Jean, a kind of stuck-up but nice lady in her 60s, and then Renee, the manager, who's only about 5 years older than I am but definitely was never friendly to me cause, hey, she fired me, didn't she? And that was IT. That was ALL the social contact I had.
Then I got a job at the restaurant and BAM. Social contact like whoaz. Going out after work every night. Rides to and from work when I lost my driver's license. Hanging out totally outside of work. And I love it. It's like having a whole bunch of friends. And I have made real friends there too. But...
THE DRAMA!
I think this has to be a restaurant thing. Cause Krissy's restaurant was exactly the same way. Of course, I was kind of there as an attachment to her, so socially, it was a little different there. But it's basically the same nonsense.
So there is this girl, Heather, that I was hanging out with sometimes. Until she got a boyfriend. This is how it usually goes for me, see, people hang out with me a little and then they find someone they really like and hang out with them instead. So her boyfriend was this guy Indy. Like Indianna Jones. Heather is my age (25) and Indy is 19. Nobody really thought much of this age difference (well I did but I kept it to myself) and they were the talk of the restaurant for a bit.
Then they broke up and Indy started dating this other girl Missy.
Then he was dating Heather again.
But then he was dating Missy.
And then it became clear that Indy was, in fact, dating both of them at the same time! And not just that - he and Heather were planning to get a place together for the winter, they were about to sign a lease and everything, but then he brought Missy to karaoke and everyone was kinda like, ummmm, okay, wait, did he break up with Heather again or what?
This came to a head one lovely Sunday when Heather started screaming at him in the lobby (in front of, of course, all the customers...) and this ended up with him pushing her up against the wall (like, off the floor) and choking her, and her kicking him in the nuts. I have never in my life seen anything like that except, you know, in a movie or something.
So, they're fired.
Then there's a girl who also works at XXXotic, so she says, but I've never seen here there, so, I dunno, maybe she's full of it. But she never wants to work. She always tries to give up all her shifts because the restaurant job is just a cover job so her parents don't know she's actually a stripper. People always need money so usually she just doesn't ever actually work, but this one day she had to and fussed about it all through her shift, kept coming up to the host stand and saying she was done for the day, no more tables for her, etc, except that she wasn't because Rich, the asshole manager, told us to keep her on until the very end of the shift and to let anyone else go if they asked to leave. She got so pissed and made such a fuss because she was still having to take new tables two hours into the next shift because Rich was so intent on making her stay that she was such a complete bitch to the last table she took that they walked out before she even came back with their drinks.
Which... I mean, it's really hard to be welcoming and polite to people when your boss is deliberately pushing your buttons all day long. And her shift was, technically, long since over, too, she was only ever scheduled for the lunch shift and it was way into dinner at that point.
But she's fired.
I don't go for this kind of drama. Bevan doesn't go for this kind of drama either, and, as a bartender, well, he's deep in the heart of the drama-center anyway. But he got into some too, and somehow I got dragged along as well. He made a comment to one of the bartenders, Adam, about another one of the bartenders, Jenna. Basically it was that he likes working on Sunday mornings better than Saturday mornings because on Saturdays he has to do all this extra stuff that the Friday night closing bartender is supposed to do and on Sundays everything is already done, and so on Saturdays he spends the whole day being behind and trying to catch up.
So Jenna (the Friday night closing bartender) hears this, and this girl is totally into herself and thinks she's like the model employee or something, and the next Friday night they work together is all "how DARE you say that about my closes!" And he was all, "but, it's true, you never stock anything and you never label anything and you leave all your shit for me to do!"
Ok. Well, apparently, in her head, it's okay for her to do that because he has me to help him open up and she just figured that "Lara would do all that since I can't get her out from behind my bar anyway."
Ok. Well, I don't just go behind the bar whenever I feel like it. I do it when I'm doing take-out, but that's allowed. The take-out person is supposed to go behind the bar, because that's where all the take-out stuff is and thats where the computer is and that's where the phone is. I haven't done this in a while because in the winter we don't have a person on take-out anymore, it just isn't busy enough. But I'm sure I'll do it plenty once summer really starts.
And I do it when I come in early with Bevan and he's opening up the bar, because he used to be my ride to work and so I'd be stuck there with nothing to do so I'd do his stuff with him, we'd get it all done early, and then when it was time for me to start we'd do my stuff together too, and so it's just become routine now. Nobody ever said I wasn't allowed back there before the restaurant was even open.
And sometimes I'm back there late at night when he's closing and it gets a little busy (this hasn't happened in a while either, cause, yeah, winter) and I pour drinks for servers, like beer from the tap or something. This again started because he was my ride and I was waiting for him to get off, so, rather than sit around and do nothing, I'd label all the stuff for him and vaccum the bottles and stuff, and if someone needed something and I was closest, sometimes I'd pour it. But that's it. I don't do this when other bartenders are on cause I figured it would annoy them since nobody is really allowed to be back there but them anyway and besides, apparently I am annoying.
So now this has caused the Friday night closing bartender to feel free to leave everything UNDONE because she assumes that Bevan and I will do it the next morning, and that this is fair because she doesn't have an extra person to help her open and close.
I never really got along with this girl Jenna anyway, she always seemed kind of standoffish to me and not really interested in holding a conversation.
And then we have Erica, Erica my friend Erica, who has really developed a reputation as a complete bitch. I can hear her yelling in the kitchen from all the way up in the lobby! Erica has started working in the kitchen on Friday and Saturday nights (I don't really know how this happened, I have this feeling that she kind of just took over back there or something -) but she's been "running the kitchen" on the weekends and serving in the dining room during the week. So, I know she's not cooking, so I think what she's actually doing is telling everyone what to do. I dunno for sure cause I never go back there anyway. There was another girl who did this but she just had a baby so for a while it was someone random every night, and now it's her. And she screams and yells and curses at the cooks and the servers and gets so angry and frustrated etc that she's really gotten the reputation of a hellion.
Um. I guess that's okay, because nobody really liked her to begin with...
But also, the rumor has been that she's sleeping with Rich, my asshole manager.
The rumors have been that she blows him in the manager's office and that's why she gets the best sections even though she's new and that's why she got the kitchen job, even though she's knew. I kind of ignored that one cause, well, she's really pretty good at everything she does, so I think she got to do this stuff because she's good at her job and takes it seriously.
Then people have said that she does his laundry - I dunno where the fuck that rumor came from, cause I know for a fact that Erica doesn't do her own laundry. But I do know that when she comes in for her lunch shifts she picks him up cigarettes and Red Bull. I always thanked her for doing this because I'd rather work with the man after he's had his fix than without it, cause, yeah, like I said, he's an asshole.
So when people try to talk to me all hush hush about all the dirty things that Erica does for Rich and that's why she's his favorite, well, I'm usually just like, "you're stupid" or something completely blunt like that. Cause if Erica were actually sleeping with him, she'd tell me, right?
Yep. Exactly. Of course she would. Just like she told me she had a girlfriend, right? /sarcasm.
So Erica's sleeping with Rich, my asshole manager.
Yep. She is. And when he calls the restaurant for her when he's not in, he calls and asks for me, so I can get her on the phone or give her a message, so people won't know that he's calling her at work.
And Kevin, the cool host who doesn't suck, is apparently Rich's friend and they hang out outside of work, and Kevin can't stand Erica and is always doing horrible things to her at work like changing her name in the computers so her checks print out saying "Mole" instead of "Erica" (which is apparently a nickname of hers from high school before she was hot or something...)
And Erica is now taking me aside at work at venting to me about how he treats her unfairly and picks on her more than the other servers and blah blah blah and I'm just like, Erica! Yes! He is being harder on you! If he's not, he's gonna get fired! He already pretty much promoted you to lead server and window person - what more do you want?
Yep. That's what I get for getting her a job with me.
And all the teasing and hush hush talking behind people's backs and rumors and speculation and name calling and such - this seems very high school to me.
So apparently nobody is allowed to go through life without experiencing that horror in some way, and this is my karmic repayment for dropping out :P
I moved here knowing nobody except my family, and they were not really too keen on having me around (they're wonderful now, but I really can't forget the cold shoulder I got when I first got here) and so it was just me. In my house. My falling apart house, with my computer, and that was that. I worked at the Coffee Co with Shaina, the fat cow, who's in her 40s, Jean, a kind of stuck-up but nice lady in her 60s, and then Renee, the manager, who's only about 5 years older than I am but definitely was never friendly to me cause, hey, she fired me, didn't she? And that was IT. That was ALL the social contact I had.
Then I got a job at the restaurant and BAM. Social contact like whoaz. Going out after work every night. Rides to and from work when I lost my driver's license. Hanging out totally outside of work. And I love it. It's like having a whole bunch of friends. And I have made real friends there too. But...
THE DRAMA!
I think this has to be a restaurant thing. Cause Krissy's restaurant was exactly the same way. Of course, I was kind of there as an attachment to her, so socially, it was a little different there. But it's basically the same nonsense.
So there is this girl, Heather, that I was hanging out with sometimes. Until she got a boyfriend. This is how it usually goes for me, see, people hang out with me a little and then they find someone they really like and hang out with them instead. So her boyfriend was this guy Indy. Like Indianna Jones. Heather is my age (25) and Indy is 19. Nobody really thought much of this age difference (well I did but I kept it to myself) and they were the talk of the restaurant for a bit.
Then they broke up and Indy started dating this other girl Missy.
Then he was dating Heather again.
But then he was dating Missy.
And then it became clear that Indy was, in fact, dating both of them at the same time! And not just that - he and Heather were planning to get a place together for the winter, they were about to sign a lease and everything, but then he brought Missy to karaoke and everyone was kinda like, ummmm, okay, wait, did he break up with Heather again or what?
This came to a head one lovely Sunday when Heather started screaming at him in the lobby (in front of, of course, all the customers...) and this ended up with him pushing her up against the wall (like, off the floor) and choking her, and her kicking him in the nuts. I have never in my life seen anything like that except, you know, in a movie or something.
So, they're fired.
Then there's a girl who also works at XXXotic, so she says, but I've never seen here there, so, I dunno, maybe she's full of it. But she never wants to work. She always tries to give up all her shifts because the restaurant job is just a cover job so her parents don't know she's actually a stripper. People always need money so usually she just doesn't ever actually work, but this one day she had to and fussed about it all through her shift, kept coming up to the host stand and saying she was done for the day, no more tables for her, etc, except that she wasn't because Rich, the asshole manager, told us to keep her on until the very end of the shift and to let anyone else go if they asked to leave. She got so pissed and made such a fuss because she was still having to take new tables two hours into the next shift because Rich was so intent on making her stay that she was such a complete bitch to the last table she took that they walked out before she even came back with their drinks.
Which... I mean, it's really hard to be welcoming and polite to people when your boss is deliberately pushing your buttons all day long. And her shift was, technically, long since over, too, she was only ever scheduled for the lunch shift and it was way into dinner at that point.
But she's fired.
I don't go for this kind of drama. Bevan doesn't go for this kind of drama either, and, as a bartender, well, he's deep in the heart of the drama-center anyway. But he got into some too, and somehow I got dragged along as well. He made a comment to one of the bartenders, Adam, about another one of the bartenders, Jenna. Basically it was that he likes working on Sunday mornings better than Saturday mornings because on Saturdays he has to do all this extra stuff that the Friday night closing bartender is supposed to do and on Sundays everything is already done, and so on Saturdays he spends the whole day being behind and trying to catch up.
So Jenna (the Friday night closing bartender) hears this, and this girl is totally into herself and thinks she's like the model employee or something, and the next Friday night they work together is all "how DARE you say that about my closes!" And he was all, "but, it's true, you never stock anything and you never label anything and you leave all your shit for me to do!"
Ok. Well, apparently, in her head, it's okay for her to do that because he has me to help him open up and she just figured that "Lara would do all that since I can't get her out from behind my bar anyway."
Ok. Well, I don't just go behind the bar whenever I feel like it. I do it when I'm doing take-out, but that's allowed. The take-out person is supposed to go behind the bar, because that's where all the take-out stuff is and thats where the computer is and that's where the phone is. I haven't done this in a while because in the winter we don't have a person on take-out anymore, it just isn't busy enough. But I'm sure I'll do it plenty once summer really starts.
And I do it when I come in early with Bevan and he's opening up the bar, because he used to be my ride to work and so I'd be stuck there with nothing to do so I'd do his stuff with him, we'd get it all done early, and then when it was time for me to start we'd do my stuff together too, and so it's just become routine now. Nobody ever said I wasn't allowed back there before the restaurant was even open.
And sometimes I'm back there late at night when he's closing and it gets a little busy (this hasn't happened in a while either, cause, yeah, winter) and I pour drinks for servers, like beer from the tap or something. This again started because he was my ride and I was waiting for him to get off, so, rather than sit around and do nothing, I'd label all the stuff for him and vaccum the bottles and stuff, and if someone needed something and I was closest, sometimes I'd pour it. But that's it. I don't do this when other bartenders are on cause I figured it would annoy them since nobody is really allowed to be back there but them anyway and besides, apparently I am annoying.
So now this has caused the Friday night closing bartender to feel free to leave everything UNDONE because she assumes that Bevan and I will do it the next morning, and that this is fair because she doesn't have an extra person to help her open and close.
I never really got along with this girl Jenna anyway, she always seemed kind of standoffish to me and not really interested in holding a conversation.
And then we have Erica, Erica my friend Erica, who has really developed a reputation as a complete bitch. I can hear her yelling in the kitchen from all the way up in the lobby! Erica has started working in the kitchen on Friday and Saturday nights (I don't really know how this happened, I have this feeling that she kind of just took over back there or something -) but she's been "running the kitchen" on the weekends and serving in the dining room during the week. So, I know she's not cooking, so I think what she's actually doing is telling everyone what to do. I dunno for sure cause I never go back there anyway. There was another girl who did this but she just had a baby so for a while it was someone random every night, and now it's her. And she screams and yells and curses at the cooks and the servers and gets so angry and frustrated etc that she's really gotten the reputation of a hellion.
Um. I guess that's okay, because nobody really liked her to begin with...
But also, the rumor has been that she's sleeping with Rich, my asshole manager.
The rumors have been that she blows him in the manager's office and that's why she gets the best sections even though she's new and that's why she got the kitchen job, even though she's knew. I kind of ignored that one cause, well, she's really pretty good at everything she does, so I think she got to do this stuff because she's good at her job and takes it seriously.
Then people have said that she does his laundry - I dunno where the fuck that rumor came from, cause I know for a fact that Erica doesn't do her own laundry. But I do know that when she comes in for her lunch shifts she picks him up cigarettes and Red Bull. I always thanked her for doing this because I'd rather work with the man after he's had his fix than without it, cause, yeah, like I said, he's an asshole.
So when people try to talk to me all hush hush about all the dirty things that Erica does for Rich and that's why she's his favorite, well, I'm usually just like, "you're stupid" or something completely blunt like that. Cause if Erica were actually sleeping with him, she'd tell me, right?
Yep. Exactly. Of course she would. Just like she told me she had a girlfriend, right? /sarcasm.
So Erica's sleeping with Rich, my asshole manager.
Yep. She is. And when he calls the restaurant for her when he's not in, he calls and asks for me, so I can get her on the phone or give her a message, so people won't know that he's calling her at work.
And Kevin, the cool host who doesn't suck, is apparently Rich's friend and they hang out outside of work, and Kevin can't stand Erica and is always doing horrible things to her at work like changing her name in the computers so her checks print out saying "Mole" instead of "Erica" (which is apparently a nickname of hers from high school before she was hot or something...)
And Erica is now taking me aside at work at venting to me about how he treats her unfairly and picks on her more than the other servers and blah blah blah and I'm just like, Erica! Yes! He is being harder on you! If he's not, he's gonna get fired! He already pretty much promoted you to lead server and window person - what more do you want?
Yep. That's what I get for getting her a job with me.
And all the teasing and hush hush talking behind people's backs and rumors and speculation and name calling and such - this seems very high school to me.
So apparently nobody is allowed to go through life without experiencing that horror in some way, and this is my karmic repayment for dropping out :P
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I hate soap operas...
Date: 2009-05-17 01:14 am (UTC)This soap needs a name, like "As the Menu Turns" or something. Ok, that sounds lame, but it's all I can come up with right now. :-p
Re: I hate soap operas...
Date: 2009-05-17 04:28 pm (UTC)I think "As The Tables Turn" might make a decent soap name - "turning tables" means old people getting up and new people sitting down and all.
LOL. I'm surprised there isn't a restaurant-based sitcom out there somewhere (is there?)