Oh my. Look at that range. That intensity. The drama. Definitely channeling some Stanislavsky.

Mostly, look at the hair.

Seriously.

I’d like to speak to the manager!!!

So much to write about tonight.

In truth, not much has happened lately. At least nothing that I haven’t written about before. 

And I composed a list of 8 things.  

And then I sat down at the Chef’s Table at the end of the night.

There were three tables in the dining room. And a couple at the bar.  

A server comes up to me and says Is it true that it’s Paul’s last day.

I ask her to clarify.

She said, that he hugged everyone goodbye, said it was great working with them and to be well.

I asked her to clarify again.

She called another server over who confirmed this to me. 

I asked again, if he didn’t just mean for the weekend, as we are off Monday and Tuesday. 

They assure me that he said, it was goodbye.

I ask them to clarify, one more time.

I then called him. He did not answer.

I texted him and he’s not responded. That was 3 hours ago. 

I guess he doesn’t work for me now.  

Of course, two weeks would have been nice. 

Even an, I’m not coming back would have been nice.

I’m not surprised.

I’m not disappointed.

I’m not even bothered by it.  

For a whole host of reasons.  

But I’ve never had anyone quit and not tell me they were quitting.

I’d like to speak to the manager!!!

It’s 2:00 a.m. again. Where does the night go?

I’m annoyed, as it appears that replying to Happy Birthday posts on Facebook goes against their standards as you are only allowed so many comments at a time. Seriously.  

Fun things that happened at work tonight.

At pre-shift I mentioned that I only knew a couple of tables coming in tonight.

As the night when on, I knew more and more people. I then realize, it was all the husbands who had booked tonight. Without fail. In this case the women always book and I didn’t know the husbands name on the reservation.  

It was seriously 6 or 7 tables.

To quote my friend Mark, I was the govenah tonight. 

I did nothing after 7:00 except chat with people.  

Around 8:00 there were three people checking out the restaurant. I thanked them for coming in, and asked if it was their first time. It was.  

They are from the UK and their son is here on a J1 visa and they’d come to visit. Turns out they also have a house nearby and that they are preparing to sell.

I asked when the son was going home and the mom said, at the end of the summer unless he can find a way to stay.
Do you want to marry him?

I replied, my boyfriend my not like it, but we do have a king size bed, so there is room if he says yes.  

The son turned bright red, and the mom loved every second of it.  
At the end of the night, there was a local sitting at the bar, and they’d made friends with the couple next to him. They all got up to leave, they were the only people in the building.

The man of the other couple is a little tipsy, and comes over to shake my hand says, they keep calling you chef, so I wanted to introduce myself. I explained that I am Jeff, and Chef had left about 15 minutes earlier.  

He goes on and on about how much he loved the meal.

And he finally says, I just love your meat.  

And I replied, I get told that all the time.  

The local couple got the innuendo, and couldn’t stop laughing.  

I really think it went right over the drunk guy’s head.  

I know for some of you office folks a 175 emails is not a lot.  

But I seriously get 6 a day that are important. Most are stupid.  

However, I had 175 emails left after I deleted the junk and at least 35 of them were requests for large parties. It’s insane. The people just keep coming. 

I did get them ALL answered today. I’m about 10 months shy of being out of the weeds.  

And we should be opening the downstairs restaurant, in the new location the first week of May.  

So wish me luck.  

I’ll be up for air in December.  

That is all. 

It’s 2:00 AM again.

And I’m sitting down to write.  

Today was one of those days.  

First.  

I had 6 interviews scheduled. 4 showed up. I hired three. And I’m going to do a 2nd interview with the 4th.  

We are inching closer to opening day. 

The chandeliers were hung today. I haven’t seen them in person, but the video Chef sent to me, is impressive.  

It was finally spring here today. Mid 60’s. Sunny.  

I was in a bad mood.  

It didn’t start that way.

But I found my way there.  

I had to apologize to a server for snapping at her tonight. 
Fun fact.  

10 years ago, I started a rule, that if I snap at you inappropriately, I will buy you a beer.  

I gave the server 10 dollars tonight at the end of her shift.  

It really keeps you from losing your temper if it costs you money.  
It was a long drive home tonight as I contemplated the evening. 
I was frustrated.

But it turns out, by the wrong situation.

I knew that by the time I turned the lights off and locked the door behind me.

I was even grumpy with Adam at the end of the night and that hardly ever happens.  

The one take away for me tonight, was to remind myself, that I’m human. It’s going to happen. Everyone gets frustrated. Everyone gets angry.  

The key is to own it. Not make excuses. Not pass the blame.
Tomorrow, Saturday, I’ll go to work as always, and reset myself to my original setting and start over.  

I’ll apologize to the Friday crew, next week. 

I’d like to speak to the manager!!!

For the start of a new year on our lovely planet, I told Adam that I was going to get back to writing. I miss it. I enjoy decompressing (I typed decomposing) at the end of the night.  

So let’s get caught up.

Yesterday was my birthday.  

My 58th birthday.

How the fuck did that happen?  

Seriously.  

Two months ago, I was in 2nd grade with Ms. Smith, who I wanted to marry. I was so pissed when she married Mr. Smith between my 2nd and 3rd grade years.

One month ago, I was in college for the first time. Gay Jeff in a Southern Baptist Liberal Arts College. Go figure.  

3 weeks ago, I was in Kansas City, Atlanta, Lexington, Cincinnati, Lexington, Tuscaloosa, Cincinnati, New York, San Diego, New York, Iowa, Oklahoma, New York, Maine.  

2 weeks ago, I was in grad school. 

1 week ago, I moved to Maine. 

And fuck, just last week Adam and I bought a house.  

58!

Yesterday was my birthday.

For my birthday, we went to NYC. This is one of many trips we’ve taken to NYC on my birthday since moving to Maine.  

It was a great trip. Wonderful actually.

We saw some wonderful theater. We saw some mediocre theater.  
We ate some amazing food. We ate some mediocre food.  

We discovered that when staying in a luxury hotel, NO ONE. And I repeat. NO ONE. Wants a bathroom that is a wet room. All tile. No tub. No barrier. ¼ inch of water every time you go into the bathroom especially at 3 a.m. getting back into bed with wet feet. And I appreciate you providing a squeegee, but at these prices, I don’t won’t to squeegee a fucking floor to get out of the shower.  

We flew back home today. 

That was an adventure.  

I realized on Tuesday night that I had not brought enough medicine for the trip. 3 days not 4. When I don’t take my depression medicine it fucks with my sleep. I split the pill, which resulted in bad sleep both Tuesday and Wednesday.

Wednesday night was the worst.

The A/C in our luxury hotel was permanently set on 72. It was 88 degrees outside. I was sweating like crazy. At 3:00 a.m I was still awake. The alarm went off at 7:00. We got into an uber at 8:00. I was fucking beat.  

We get the airport, check in, walk 4,698 miles to our gate. PS. My knee is cooperating, but not that much.  

We get to our gate. 133 C. We leave at 10:15. For Bermuda.  
What the fuck. 

Fun fact: Adam plans all of our trips. Without fail. I get to offer suggestions. I can say no. I can say perhaps we should do this.  

But he plans them. For almost 15 years now.  

We are at the gate, going to Bermuda.

He approaches the gate. I’m standing far, far, far away.

I know what the agent is saying without hearing what the agent is saying.

For the first time in almost 15 years, my wonderful boyfriend has fucked up.  

He booked us on the 10:15 PM flight back to Portland.

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.  

The agent rebooks us on a flight leaving in 10 minutes. It’s 1.9 miles from where we are. 

I take a deep breath, and start walking.  

We got there with time to spare…because they were holding the gate for someone else.

However.

It’s 9:30. I’m dehydrated. I’m tired. We are not sitting together. And I’m pretending to be mad.  

The plane takes off. I doze. I have an aisle. I hate aisle seats. I’m a big guy. I can be small on the window.

46 minutes later we land. I turn on my phone. My boyfriend has texted me hands holding each other. We always hold hands when the plane accelerates. Because that’s when it’s most likely to explode into a fiery ball.  

We land. He gets the car. We drive thru McDonald’s for a soda water. I drink it in five seconds. 20 minutes later I’m on my way to work.  

Get to work.

I’m in the fucking weeds. 170+ emails. All needed responses yesterday.

If anyone reading this, can tell me how to put an out of office reply using the Apple Mail app, let me know. The last time I tried, I emailed everyone who’d ever emailed me in two years.  

At pre-shift, my staff gave me a birthday card with a gift card to Ticketmaster so we can buy more theater tickets.  

At 8:30 tonight, a food runner comes to find me and says Chef needs to see me. I go up to him just as a regular approaches. We all talk, and I’m still waiting to see what I did wrong, when the entire staff comes out of the kitchen singing Happy Birthday, holding an ice cream cake…everyone’s favorite.  

It’s not approaching 2:00 a.m. I got home late because of the crash on I-95. I’m tired.  

But you know what. It was all worth it. To spend time with Adam for 4 days in NYC.  

To have a break before the madness starts in 3 weeks.  

To be celebrated by my staff.  

Oh, and my favorite Sous Chef is back at work.  

Life is good.  

Please tell me that in 6 weeks I won’t be 96 living in a home wearing a diaper.  

I’d like to speak to the manager!!!

In January, Chef was at the new restaurant, checking on things. As he was leaving an older man came up and introduced himself and they started talking. He explained that he was excited about the new restaurant and that the remodel was looking great.

And he finished by saying that he wanted to be the maître d when the new place opened.

The brilliantly smart Chef told the man he’d have to contact me, as I dealt with all things front of house.

Of course he did. He’s done this before.

About a week later, I got an email from him that I responded to, saying I needed him to send me a resume.

I never hear back.

Saturday night, I’m running (hobbling) around when a man calls me over, asks if I’m Jeff, and proceeds to introduce himself. It’s the same man, and he’s annoyed that he never heard back from me. I assured him that I did email, asked for his resume, and never heard back.

We talked for just a second and I moved on.

As I was leaving he reminded me that he still wants to be the maître d at the new restaurant.

And I’m at a loss as to what to say to him.

First, does any restaurant, that’s not in a major city even have a maître d any more?

And what does he do? I can assure you he can’t host? I don’t have the money to pay someone to wander around and chat with people.

Adam said I should interview him, but I feel likes that’s creating false hope.

And to make it worse, he looked like he gotten off his fishing boat and come right into the restaurant. He had a green cap on, about 6 week’s worth of wild growth on his neck, and he was rough around the edges to say the least.

I really am at a loss as to what to do or say with him. He was perfectly nice, but what to do, what to do???

I’d like to speak to the manager!!!

Just checking in.

All is well.

I haven’t given up writing.

I’ve been busy at work.

Trying to spend a little more time with Adam and by that I mean going to bed at the same time as him.

I haven’t been yelled at in weeks.

Lots of fun stories I have to share with you but they are on a list in my office.

Work is good.

About three to four weeks till we open the new restaurants. Besides needing staff it’s moving along nicely.

Truly except for my knee which is currently the size of a basketball thing are good.

Things are going well.

I’ll get back to writing in a couple of weeks.

I’d like to speak to the manager!!!

I’ve written about this before, but it happened twice tonight and I feel like it should be discussed again.

Please explain to me, why you make a reservation at the bar, show up 60 minutes prior to the reservation, to get a drink at the bar before your reservation, and then get surprised when you can’t sit down because we take reservations at the bar.  

Man walks into tonight, says he’s early for his reservation, but wants to have a cocktail at the bar before his reservation.  
It takes a minute to find his reservation, because his reservation is for 6:30. It’s currently 5:30.  

I say, ah…your reservation is in an hour.

He replies, yes, I came early to get a drink at the bar, before my reservation.

I say, but your reservation is for the bar.

Yes, I want to get a drink before my reservation.

But your reservation is for the bar.

Yes, I want to have a drink before my reservation…

I suddenly find myself in a Who’s one first situation.

I explain that he’ll have to wait a bit, since we take reservations at the bar.  

I get him seated around 5:45.  

His friend joins him at 6:30.

And here in lies the problem. We don’t allow this, because you’ve taken up two bar seats for 3 hours because you arrived early for your reservations. Making it impossible to seat other guests at those two chairs for the whole night.  

At 7:00 the whole scenario is played out again. Hi, we have a reservation for 7:30, we’d like to grab a drink at the bar while we wait.  

But your reservation is for the bar.

Yes, we’d like to grab a drink at the bar before our reservation.  
But your reservation is for the bar.  

Yes, we’d like to have a drink while we wait.  

He finally gets frustrated, and says let’s go.

He comes back at 7:30 and we seat him.  

And I will forever wonder, where they think they are going to sit, if they have reservations for a later time at the bar. Hi, stools 13 and 14 are available. Come back and see me at 7:30 and I’ll move you to your real stools.

I’d like to speak to the manager!!!

As almost all of you know I was once a server.  

In fact, I waited tables off and on from 17 until I was 46.  

I once thought I was going to be a lifer. I’m sure many of my friends thought the same.  

I worked at mostly corporate jobs.  

Bennigan’s. Applebee’s. O’Charley’s. Anyone notice a theme here?  

I will forever be grateful for my Bennigan’s training because if they did nothing else, they taught me how to wait tables.  

5 full days of classroom training from 1:00 to 4:00 followed by a floor shift.  

When I finished, I was actually good at waiting tables.

And thus, it paid a lot of bills along the way.  

Fun fact: Corporate restaurants are full of ridiculous things they expect from their staff.  

And the worst of all of these restaurants with their list of stupid things they expect?  

My last restaurant serving job.  

There were about 150 servers on the schedule, with more than 40 on a single busy shift.  

Sometimes at 10:00 you’d run into a co-worker and that would be the first time you’ve seen them all night.  

The restaurant was stupid busy. I made stupid money, and 89% of the people I worked with were amazing.  

This post is not about the other 11%.

It’s about, the hoops I was expected to jump through to keep my top ranking among my co-workers.  

As a server there, I lasted 5 years. Until I got to Maine, it’s the longest I’d worked anywhere.  

I was pretty good at my job. I worked a section no one else wanted to work, busted my ass and made a lot of money.  

And for 5 years, I had to fight to keep my schedule.

We had hoops.

And the hoops were used to rank the servers. At the end the schedule was posted alphabetically by first name, but back in the day, the manager’s would gather monthly to rank the staff and it was the schedule was published with your name in order of your ranking. NO LIE!!!

And.  

The rankings were no longer published but if you scores were great in the following areas they’d cut your shifts, and downgrade your sections.  

Surveys:  

We asked our guests to do surveys. In a perfect world you’d score a 7.00 on a survey. The restaurants goal is 6.0. The problem with the survey is that there are a lot of things out of your control that can bring your survey average down. If someone fills out a survey and the manager did not visit the table then your average just went down, to a 6.3. If the food was cold. Your average goes down. If the host was rude. Your average goes down. And yet it was my job to get surveys above 6.0. Managers NEVER did table visits, never, never, never. So I was starting with a 6.3 before the experience even started.  

And the big catch to the surveys? You could do them yourself. Yes. It takes a computer and about 2 minutes of your time. And what do you know. A perfect 7. And the best part. Everyone knew this happened. And they encouraged it. They had contests and the top 10 highest survey scores at the end of the month got to write their own schedule. You better believe that I won. But I think it was stupid that my schedule was based on something so easily manipulated.  

Edit: Until my shifts were cut I never filled out my own surveys. NEVER. But I was being punished for a 6.0 average and so…
Fun fact: The last two years I worked there, I was one of a few people recognized for having the best survey scores. And everyone, and I do mean everyone in the room at 7:30 a.m. on Tuesday, knew that I did them myself.  

———————

Frequent Diner Cards.  

We were expected to sell frequent diner cards. Buy it, track the money you spend and get discounts when you reach a certain level. I think it is stupid. I hate being asked to buy this type of shit at other places like Barnes and Noble used to do to get a discount. I hate having to have a card to use at the grocery store. Wouldn’t it make sense to just give everyone a discount. And I have to admit, I never even tried to sell them And my schedule was based on this.

However,

Another catch. You can buy one for yourself. Wait a month. Cash in the original purchase price, because getting the cash back is part of the purchase deal once it’s used. I’m out no money, the restaurant is out no money, and suddenly my schedule improves.  

It was not stealing. I spent 25 bucks. I got 25 bucks. And I also got to keep my schedule. HOWEVER…it is stealing if you track points and then cash those in for discounts. (I did not do this, but I know lots of people who did).  

UPSELL!!!

We are expected to up sell. Every restaurant expects this. The way around this? You can sell a burger add cheese rather than a cheeseburger. The price is the same but the first way gets you up sell points. Chicken nachos? Why do that when you can sell nachos add chicken. We also had people that just added on things to tables that didn’t speak English. If you don’t speak our language, you can’t really argue when the check comes.

I get management wanting to increase revenue. I get management wanting a measurable metric to know how the restaurant is doing, but seriously, if your staff knows it can be manipulated, and you know it can be manipulated and no one is discouraging the manipulation then what is the point?  

Anyone want to guess?

Their bonuses were the point.  

Someone in a corner office who had probably never worked in a restaurant, decided that if they could measure output, then in addition to revenue they could know how the restaurant was performing.  

I’d love to say that I was making any of this up. But too many of you reading right now, know it’s true. Some of you still work there.  
PS. You know what would guarantee a bad survey?  

Working on Sunday nights, when we would run out of cheeseburgers, French fries and we were serving guests out of kids cups because we didn’t have glassware. No lie!!!
Its called Sunday – Funday for a reason.  

So whenever, ever, someone suggests we do things like this at a restaurant that I have managed, I have kiboshed it. How do you measure your staff’s ability? Stand at the door and ask your guests how things were. Look at their tip percentage next to their net sales. How many comps do they have? How many voids? How do their co-workers feel about them? Are they on time. Are their sells always 100 dollars less than their co-workers. Do you look at the server’s sections when you walk through the dining room?  

Yes it was a big restaurant, but the manager’s knew who their soldiers were. They knew who should be training. They knew who should be a rocker!!! They knew who should be working at the diner down the street.  

They knew all of this, but their hands were tied by a corporate structure that didn’t work. 

I’d like to speak to the manager!!!

I’ve been missing in action again.

I have been beat for the last week.  

I’ve taken COVID tests. 

I’ve increased water.  Tried to sleep more.

BEAT!!!

I went to the doctor on Monday, and he wants to run a bunch of tests.  I’ll go back next Monday for that, as the lab closed early on Monday and we had a Nor’easter on Tuesday.  

However.

I feel much better today.

I hope it sticks.

Thus, I’m writing tonight.

PS.  I just looked at the clock and it said 12:45 a.m.  I thought, it’s still early.  Then realized, I haven’t changed the time on the clock in my office yet.

Ugh.