We have a patio.

Said patio is NOT dog friendly.

If we don’t like kids you sure as fuck know we don’t like dogs.

And every night someone shows up with a dog. When we explain that they can’t have their dog on the patio it because an emotional support dog.

Seriously.

By law. We are not require to make accommodations for an emotional support dog.

Only service dogs.

Also I bet your emotional support dog was just Fido until we told you no.

Also you can be fined in the state of Maine for claiming an animale is a service animal when it’s not.

It also makes it hard for the people who seriously need support animals.

Also don’t get mad that you didn’t know we didn’t allow animals.

The phone worked all day. You could have called.

And you should be ashamed of yourself.

Today I got to work at 1:00 as usual.

Turn on the a/c. Get a cup of coffee. Log into the I-pad.

Walk into the office, hit the play button on the machine.

There were 9 messages. Lizzy was one of them.

One of the others was an angry woman who was mad because she was charged $50 for cancelling a reservation.

I call her back, leave my standard message: Hi this is Jeff calling from _________________. You can reach us back at 555.555.5555.

I learned last year not to leave any other message or people will assume they’ve gotten a reservation or their issue has been resolved.

Generic call me back message.

I move on to other messages.

As I said, Chef and I sat down to talk to today.

We’ve been chatting for about 30 minutes when one of our kitchen employees leads a woman out of the kitchen into the dining room.

I thought she was there to make a reservation.

Oh. NO.

Her husband has insisted she come down to the restaurant to confront me about being charged for her cancelled reservation.

Back story.

She made the reservation on line at 8:30 yesterday morning. She made it for 2 people.

She realized at 4:55 she needed it to be for 3 people.

She called the restaurant at 4:55 on Saturday night of the July 4th weekend to change her reservation.

I’m standing there when they field the call.

There is NO WHERE for a table of 3 until 8:30. This is too late for her. They cancel her reservation.

The following exchange takes place.

She also states that NO ONE ever answers the phone. I ask her if she leaves a message, NO BUT…

I assure her that if she left a message she’d have been called back.

She then insists that she made the reservation for 3 but we changed it on her.

I assure her that this didn’t happen.

She then wants to know why she was charged if she cancelled. We are a busy restaurant and we surely filled the reservation.

I explain that she literally cancelled five minutes before service started and that I’d been turning people away all day.

She then says, well we put our name on your notify list all the time and perhaps if you called people back you could have filled it. I explain that we have never and will never use the notify list.

She pushes back again saying that she should be refunded her $50 dollars.

I say great. I’ll refund your $50 and charge you for the reservation for 3 that you have for today that you are once again trying to cancel after the 24 hour deadline.

She insists that she did not make the reservation.

I laugh. Spin the I-pad toward and say (I love to do this) the machine doesn’t lie. You made the reservation at 6:17 last night. My team did not make the reservation because the time stamp says it was you. So either you made it or you should change your password because you’ve been hacked.

She continues to insist that she wouldn’t make it because she’s bringing her son and she’d never have made it for 8:30.

I laugh.

She then says I don’t know why you’d charge someone who lives down the street who just wanted to change their reservation.

I explain that I was at the host stand when she called and she never asked to change her reservation.

She then says it’s because we are always booked?

HUH?

I ask her to explain?

She says you are always booked. I couldn’t change it.

I ask her, if she asked the hosts to change it and she says no. I tried to do it online. You are always booked.

Finally Chef, says we’ll make your reservation.

She’s coming tomorrow at 5:00.

A glitch in the Resy system is that if you cancel a reservation it still sends a text reminding you of the reservation.

So of course the husband calls tonight to yell at the hosts. He then ends by asking if if I’ve refunded the charges.

The host has no idea what he’s talking about.

I’ll refund her.

In 2 weeks.

Anyone want to guess what happened at 8:00 tonight?

Go ahead. I’ll wait.

Why yes. Yes, indeed.

I was on the patio when I hear a request to come to the host stand on the radio. And when I get there I discover:

A party of eight showed up with two 4 top reservations. One inside. One outside…

One reservation at 8:00. One reservation at 8:30.

They are ready to go at it when I get there.

Of course. Before I even take a breath I think to myself. This has happened everyday for six days. Every. FUCKING day.

I step behind the host stand and ask the host what’s going on.

She explains.

The girl. We’ll call her Lizzy.

She starts.

I’ve been calling for days trying to get through but no one answers and no one returns my calls.

I take great offense to this. I spend the first hour of EVERY day returning messages from the night before and morning of. I tell her all of this.

She tells me that she called earlier today and no one called her back.

I laugh.

And say, oh. Your reservation says Elizabeth. But you’re Lizzy. I called you back today. Your voicemail is full.

She looks like I called her some horrible name.

She continues saying, okay. You might have called me today, but I’ve been calling for weeks.

I assure her if she’s left messages, she’s been called back.

She has not left messages. I checked my notebook. I have every message I’ve taken since working there recorded in three ring binders.

She continues.

Well my mom has been calling as well and no one has returned her calls.

I assure her that if she has left a message she has been called back.

She changes her strategy.

She no longer cares, she’s just insisting that they sit together.

I explain this can’t happen because we are full.

Well why not, she says?

Because we are full, I say.

Well can we just wait.

I reply yes you can, but we won’t be able to seat you until around 9:30 and our last reservation is at 8:30.

Then we’ll wait she says.

I explain that I just said, our last reservation is at 8:30 we won’t be seating anyone at 9:30.

A man appears and asks why not.

I’m struggling at this point.

I literally say, BECAUSE I said so.

At this point she goes back to her original tactic, saying as she plops her Louis Vuitton bag on the host stand, my mother lives at Walker’s Point and she’s been trying to get in touch with you for weeks to no avail.

Seriously. You just told me your a Bush and this is somehow supposed to make things better. (Turns out she’s a step Bush).

The man steps up again.

Can we get get drinks on the patio and get seated when the table is available.

UH. NO. We just covered this, no one tonight is getting sat after 8:30.

So can we get seated at separate tables and then move when a table becomes available.

UH. NO. You can’t.

Well why not?

Because at the point your food will be in the system. No one will know where to take it to. And it’s difficult to provide you with exemplary service doing it this way.

SHE looks at her friends and says why don’t we just go someplace else. They agree that this will be a great idea.

I explain that I’d be happy to cancel their reservation but they’d be charged $25 per person for the 2 reservations. So they’d be paying $200 dollars to eat elsewhere.

The man says, they have our credit cards on file?

She says with frustration, yes.

She goes back to the original argument.

I explain that this is not true. You have left one message today wanting to change your reservation. You made your original reservation two weeks ago. You’ve had plenty of time to change it. You WILL get charged.

They decide to stay.

Now they are trying to decide who will sit where.

The man starts again.

I don’t understand why you are being so difficult.

I explain that I’m not being difficult. I literally have two table open. One outside. One inside. I’m not going to move anyone and that they are NOT going to sit together.

He continues to be pissed.

Finally the men are seated.

The women remain at the host stand. I think it’s over and leave.

Then I get called back to the host stand. They’ve finally exited to the patio but they were bullying my host. Demanding she find a solution and then told her was rude when she said, I’m not sure what you want me to do?

She then tells my host that she is in the service industry and she should be embarrassed about how’s she is treating her.

I think to myself, I’m embarrassed for you if you are in the service industry acting like this.

A few minutes later I go outside and discover they haven’t been sat yet, because their table wasn’t ready. One of the, marches over to demand to know why they haven’t been sat yet. The host says, because your table is dirty. When it’s cleaned we’ll get you sat.

They are finally seated.

They decide to be difficult and didn’t order for close to 45 minutes. The men inside had eaten two courses and paid before they even ordered their food.

They also took every opportunity to tell their server how rude the hosts and the manager were.

When I tell Chef about the comment about living at Walker’s Point he says, I hope you said, well I’m sure you have beautiful views but that still won’t get you a table together.

We did decide that tomorrow I’m putting a message on Resy that says if you do make two reservations to skirt the system your request to sit together will not be honored and you will sit at the tables we have reserved for you.

Six fucking days in a row.

Wow!!!

Tonight was a better night.

First. I got some sleep. Which was greatly helpful.

Second I had several conversations with people that helped.

And third, all of your comments were valid.

I should start by saying last night I was venting. LOUDLY. VERY. VERY. LOUDLY.

The one thing I’ve known, more than anything about being overworked is that I have no one to vent to. I have no other adult in the room.

I don’t vent to Chef because he’s busier than I am, more overworked than I am, and I don’t want to bog him down with the details of Front of House unless it concerns him.

I don’t have another manager to vent to. My ventee, left in April leaving a bigger void than he knows.

I also don’t have Adam, as he’s in bed by the time I get home and we literally barely see each other from Wednesday to Tuesday. I saw him for about 5 minutes tonight, and I try not to dump on him as he’s going to sleep.

I try, sometimes unsuccessfully to not involve my employees with my frustrations. It makes me feel like a parent talking about my spouse to a child.

Last night was hard.

I continually get beat up at work. In fact, I had so much anxiety at the start of my shift after the bullshit conversation about the two 5 tops.

I watch as my staff continually struggles to keep up with little things.

And then at the end of the night, chef was frustrated with me and let me know.

Then to finish it, I go outside and all of the patio tables have been cleared of their set ups even though there is a table that hasn’t even ordered yet.

I was just done!!!!!

So I came home and vented to all of you.

Unfortunately, many of my staff read this. And I managed to upset a few of them. Of course, none of this was directed at them, but once again I felt like a bad parent who was taking their frustration with their work life out on their children.

I did damage control and they all understood. But it doesn’t make it right.

So I’d also like to apologize to them publicly.

Meanwhile, I spoke to Chef today and asked him not to be so discouraging at the end of the night. He heard me and apologized.

We also chatted about the business, the services we are doing, the numbers we are doing. It felt great. He also gave me several amazing compliments which felt great. The best being that although I make decisions he might not make he knows I’m making them with the business in mind not my own personal needs in mind. Which is very true.

I also had some advice given to me which I appreciated it.

From you.

But also, Adam reminded me that I needed to focus on the big picture and stop being bogged down with the little stuff.

Jen reminded me that our guests don’t even notice for the most part. And as long as they don’t care, yes keep working on improving things but don’t get so stressed out.

So, I’m sipping a bourbon. Writing. And much calmer tonight.

Thanks for listening.