Musical chairs part 2:

While the week days at work are quieter, the weekends are still very much hopping. Tonight was no exception. Continuous flow of people starting at 5:00. And along with the people who had reservations, we had a fair amount of walk-ins.

Walk-ins for the new readers are people who come in without a reservation.

I’ll spend time looking at ways to move things around. Seats in chairs is how we pay our bills.

Tonight a man walks in with a woman around 7:00. He’s looking for a table with no reservation. The lobby is filled with people waiting to be seated. Three groups with reservations that just need a body to take them to their table. Two or three groups who are walk-ins waiting to see if I can accommodate them. I add them to the queue and start seating folks.

Six minutes later everyone is in a chair. I’ve found a place for everyone.

30 seconds later I’m called to table G-8. The man who arrived last. He’s unhappy with his table. I go back to the table and he’s expressing his dismay. I explain that his options are this table or bar stools. He stays put.

I go back to the host stand.

30 seconds later I’m confronted by him in the lobby. He pulls me into the dining room, points at all of the empty tables and asks why he can’t have one of them.

I explain they are all booked with reservations.

He then pulls out wad of cash and wants to know how much a “real” table will cost???

I say that I can’t.

He pulls out a bill and offers it to me.

At this point I’m a little offended.

It’s a $20.

20 bucks. 20 bucks is not even close to being worth the headache that giving a table awayvwould be worth.

To quote a bartender I know “It needs to be a C note if they want their pole greased”.

I say no again.

At which point he gets annoyed and asks if he can sit at the cocktail table in the lobby.

At this point I don’t care. People are piling up In the lobby again.

I say yes. Sit here.

He gets his mother. They sit. They order.

Every time I walk by he tries to talk to me.

I’m busy seating people.

He keeps trying to talk to me.

Finally I stop.

He asks again about a table in the dining room.

At this point their appetizers have arrived.

Ugh. Please. Stop it.

I go back to the host stand.

I look at the book. I can move things around and get him a table.

I offer. He accepts. He moves to his third table of the evening.

And that’s the end of the story.

Of course, if I’d been him I would have ponied up the $20 bucks.

He did not.

I remind myself that I did it for the pleasure of being nice to people not for the money.

But sometimes, it’s nice to be able to buy myself something pretty after being nice.