In which our Heroine screws up. And introduces you to some of her favorite people....

There is no motivator as great as a Holiday weekend to get Captain Rig all up in a fine fury. His rage had been building for a couple weeks, and the blatant incompetence of his staff of clowns had just become too much for him to handle. We all know the drill by now- "WHY do I pay ANY of you F***ING IDIOOOOOT CLOWNS!!!" What are all of YOUS thinking??? All of YOUS are ruining my business- CAPTAIN RIG isn't doing anything wrong but all of YOUS ARE!!!" The constant reference to himself in the third person plus his lack of discrimination of the popular word "YOUS" made for some very interesting rants. There was an epic issue with the bread. Yes people, the bread. On a busy night when the bread baker is running late and the bread doesn't come out of the oven until 15 minutes before opening it is tempting to start slicing it up while it is still warm. We're talking about 1,000 slices of bread that need to be butchered (along with a few fingers) before that special little task is completed. With this in mind one of the newer staff members went for it and started slicing away, gingerly attempting to protect the warm bread from breaking. Well, this caused an atomic bomb of fury to go off in the kitchen. We were all summoned, and lectured for many many minutes about the level of idiocy that this particular person showed with the premature slicing. We were all kindly, and lovingly reminded that the restaurant would continue to run fine without all of us and that if we did not start shaping up we were going to be asked to ship out. And if we continued to MAKE HORRIBLE waste of Capt Rig's amazing product that we could go and F**K ourselves (all said in loving tones. clearly.) When some of the bread had cooled sufficiently to insure that I would not have any of my fingers chopped off for bad behavior, I rescued it from it's hostile home in the kitchen and stuck it in a basket to bring to the waitress station. As I arrived at my destination the unthinkable happened: The basket broke. All 5 loaves fell to their doom. NOOOOOOO!!!! NOOOOOOO!!!!! I actually anticipated that Hell's Minions would rapidly descend upon me and poke me with those little pitchforks that Devils are known to have. When nothing happened I made a very reasonable decision that the 5 second rule clearly applied in this situation and that I was going to take my chances that the ever-present surveillance camera had missed my accident. I dusted those loaves off and rebasketed them. (and I continue to nervously await my fate. Will an instant replay of camera #7 at 4:11 on Friday seal my fate?? We shall seeeeeee....)
Mistakes, horrible fate deciding accidents and Hell's Kitchen fury out of the way I continue to see some interesting character development from my fellow staff members. It is critical to note that I am the lone survivor from the first round of post summer hiring's. Why is this, we all might ask. Am I certifiably insane? A masochist? Secretly in love with Captain Rigatoni (oh, GOD. I'd rather be alone and celibate FOREVER, so we can rule that one out) Or am I just a glutton for severe and constant punishment? Beats me, but I know that I continue going in several days a week in hopes that I can just do my freaking job and not get in big huge trouble for having my drying rag (It's NOT A RAG, it's a TOWEL) in back of my hip bone instead of in front. Gosh.
My coworkers, (along with the fact that the "rules" change every 48 hours whether they need to be changed or not) are what make this job horrendous. Oops, I mean enlightening and meaningful. Ok, ok in all fairness there are one or maybe two people who have a heart that is not made from rotten apples, but they are few and far between. And soon going back to their homeland (read on, friends.) Let's take a moment to talk about the players in this dirty little game called survival of the fittest (and YES. I am FIT.)

JAN: Ahh Jan, how I love you. Your patience, your willingness to kindly show me the ropes and to gently tell me how I could improve my evil ways. You are the wind beneath my wings, Jan. You inspire me to greatness, make me long to have a Grand Canyon sized chip on my shoulder, and you help me to become the best I can be.
Shall we all take a moment to gag? As I have already mentioned Jan is second to Capt Rig in the competition to be the Axis of Evil. She is rude, crude and loves to tell you how much of an idiot you are and how wrong you are. She is pretty much a beeyotch, and that's that.
One good thing about our sweet and lovely Jan. She is an honestly rotten person- she actually admits that she is horrible and does not try to play her bitchiness off as being "nice." she is also very consistent in her level of awfulness, and there is never a doubt that she will act nasty. I enjoy giving her a hard time and watching her get all wound up about it. "F**K off, middleaged waitress" she will tell me. And oddly, she says it in a way that kinda warms my heart (and I'm not kidding, which proves that I am quickly sliding off the deep end! ahhh!) Jan is one of the group of divorced, and angry 40-something year olds who are in a deep rage over the failure in their relationships. This is too bad. and so not my prob.

Ashley: A very bad person who tries to come off as the "sweet one." Ashley, let me let you in on a tiny little secret- you are NOT fooling anyone. Just because you don't yell as loud as Jan, just because you are slightly less trollish ion your appearance, just because YOU passively-aggressively try to play off your cutting comments- just because YOU don't hit the freak out button quite as hard- does not make you a nice person. If our little pal Ash was not BFF's with Bobbi, Capt Rig's sister she would probably try to compete for the Axis of Evil award too. But she tries to play the nice card because of the "friend" status. The nicest thing about Ashley is that you can be her best new girlfriend one day, and her biggest enemy the next. This might bum me out if A: I actually wanted her to be my friend, or B: if I gave a shit. Which I do not. Ashley is not divorced, but has recently ended an off again on again many year relationship. She is very angry and bitter about this and will tell anyone willing to listen all about it. Lucky them.

Julio: One of the few male members of the staff. Also one of the only nice ones. Julio comes to the US for a few months every year, to support his family in Columbia. He is fracking fabulous, and one of the few people who seems to have a grasp on reality. His English is not the best- but he fully understands what everyone around him is saying. When he gets sick of listening to Jan's endless snarking he runs away crying "no comprende! no comprende!" He regularly announces that everyone working at Capt Rigs is "crazy garbage" which is a remarkably accurate assessment. His tables are quite taken with his broken English and he makes boatloads of cash. Sadly, he is leaving us to return to his Fam in just a few days. Which means there will possibly be zero normal people left in Hell's Kitchen. Awesome.

Gina: so I'm in the kitchen with Gina the other evening when the call goes out to run an onion soup. She calls the order back (and when you "call it" you "CALL IT", like in 6th grade when you would "call" dibs on the cutest boy.) since she called it I did not, and went about my business. "HEY" she snipped at me "YOU really should have taken that SOUP." I pointed out to her that SHE had called it, and that it is strictly forbidden to steal someone's "called item." That threw her on her fanny for a moment, and I watched as she struggled to find her words. "WELL" she bitched "If you had called it I would not have had too." (no shat.) I was baffled/bemused by her line of thinking and pointed out that when someone calls back an order instantly it is challenging for someone else to do the same. At this point she had no leg to stand on and was very sad to have lost an argument. That pretty much sums up her personality. She is in the cool-kids-club of 40 something divorcees who are very, very angry, and are dealing with all sorts of child support/custody problems. **sigh** I hope that crap isn't contagious.

And finally for today....

Dan: Dan seems to be a pretty good person. He is in his own part of the cool kids club which we will refer to as amicably divorced with shared custody. He is a plethora of information and seems to be hesitant to chuck people under the bus.
He is what those of us in the industry refer to as a lifer, or a pro-server (meaning that not only does he not claim to have a higher ambition but he also takes serving very seriously- like VERY SERIOUSLY.) I admit that Dan is one of the best servers that I have seen in action, but I can not listen to him without having the urge to crack up. You can tell that he is trying to make an art form out of table waiting- he has the hand gestures, the waiterly accent, the correct pronunciation, he is super into it. And because I am a card carrying member of the ass-hats club I constantly have the urge to make fun of him. (which he would NOT take kindly too.) HOWever, I am so appreciative that he is not a royal raging miserable cow like the rest of THEM that I'll try to keep my teasing thoughts to myself.

So, there are a few of the key members of Capt Rig's restaurant of insanity. In the past the people I have worked with have played a small part in what might make an evening interesting. Here, they ARE what makes the evening interesting....