Showing posts with label There is no crying in baseball. Show all posts
Showing posts with label There is no crying in baseball. Show all posts

Monday, February 22, 2010

Resturantitis. The plague of DOOM.

Restaurantitis: A plague of epic proportion, possibly contracted at said place of employment and most certainly vile enough to prevent one from functioning at a normal level.

Yes my friends, as I mentioned a week or so ago I was struck down by the horrible anthrax like bubonic bug that is restaurantitis. Hence, the lack of blogging as of late as I have been so crippled by congestion that my thought process has slowed to a turtle like shuffle.

After 5 days of laying low, moaning and taking large doses of sudafed I deemed myself non-contagious and bravely went back to Captain Rigatoni's to kick some ass.

Guess who got her ass kicked?...... I got thru the sidework portion of the day in grand style, despite not being able to hear anything whatsoever due to my completely blocked ears. I tried to look on the bright side- not hearing means being somewhat immune to the high decibel level of screaming. In reality, not hearing makes it very difficult to take orders, or to hear what sorts of food need to be brought to what table.

As the evening progressed I noticed that the air in the restaurant had turned into the consistency of pudding. I found that it was a great struggle to move thru the jello-air, or to breathe properly. "Suck it up!" I told myself sternly "thick air has never stopped you before!!" Slowly swimming my way into the kitchen I heard the chefs call for someone to run food to table 47 so I grabbed it and headed on out. Only to find that table 47 had nobody at it. Struggling to get enough oxygen into my addled brain I heaved back into the kitchen. "Table 47" I gasped "has nobody at it." "TWENTY SEVEN!!!" hollered the impatient expeditor "I SAID TWEEEEEENTY SEVEN." Armed with the correct table number I labored my way over to table 27 only to find that they were already eating. I could not believe my eyes... I felt that I was rapidly nearing the end of my rope, and that a freak out was imminent when the Tattletale grabbed the food from me with a curt "the party at 27 moved to 29. They should have told you that." Completely exhausted form the walking back and forth, and the considerable confusion, I tried to remember what on earth I had to do next.... Check on my own tables. I tediously made my way over to my side of the restaurant when out of the blue the whole floor tilted to the left. And then to the right. Grabbing table 26 to stabilize I broke into a cold, nauseated sweat. Looking around cautiously so as to not disturb my equilibrium any more I confirmed that the earthquake had only happened in my brain. Tiptoeing along as the floor continued to buckle around me I finally reached the security of the wait station where I was able to prop myself up against the counter. My human work friend walked by and looked at me with a significant level of parental concern. "I'm not gonna make it" I moaned into my palms, sick frustrated tears oozing out of my eyes "I JUST. CAN'T DO IT" "Have you asked Bobbi if you can leave?" my HWF asked logically. "No way" I moaned, all sweaty and shaky "She's gonna yelll at meeeee" "PFFFFFT" said my HWF "You're a mess, I'm going to go and tell her." As the world continued to tremble around me and my eyes continued to leak in extreme frustration the Tattletale came upon me. "What's wrong with YOU??" she asked indignantly. "I'm SICK and the floor is TIPPING and I need a minute to cry by MYSELF!!" I said crabbily. "Are you going to throw up?" she asked nervously. "YES" I said "ON YOU." (I had no intention of vomiting, but it made her go away.)

Thankfully, I was sent home. Luckily, once I sat down in my car the world came back to a place of stability. Happily, I was in bed, with loads of decongestants in my system by 7:30. My conclusion is that working at Captain Rig's on a normal day is bad. Working with restaurantitis is fully impossible.

Sunday, January 3, 2010

In which the insanity becomes even more insane...

Happy Oh-Ten everyone! We plunged into the new year at Captain Rig's with a bang (and a whimper...)

Not shockingly the arrival of the super new decade brought an unprecedented level of stress to our normally cordial and relaxed environment. New Years eve-eve did not run particularly smoothly and if you ask Jan and Karen it was all the fault of us new staffers. Idiots! Renegades!

Before I dive into the deliciously gory details of what was a truly hideous weekend I just want to pause for a moment and say one thing. I can honestly say that I have never seen such a display of absurdity by a boss in my life. Words fail me, and for those of you who know my true identity that is a rare thing. Sadly, I simply can not put into writing the level of crapola that Captain Rig brings to the table. Moving on...

New Years eve got off to a bad start right from the beginning. Tensions were running on overdrive and a delivery of critical items had not yet arrived, throwing several staff members into fits of fury. Preparing to chop up a Mt Everest sized pile of lettuce I discovered that I was missing the bags that the lettuce gets stored in. Inquiring about the whereabouts of said items was obviously the wrong thing to do "You're just going to have to START ON LETTUCE" Karen screeched at me, as her lips curled into a sneer exposing her desperate need for dental work. Looking at her it occurred to me that she had most likely suffered some sort of traumatic brain injury, rendering her incapable of being at all rational. Speaking very slowly, taking into account her extreme mental deficit I explained that I was indeed chopping lettuce but was unsure what to do with the finished product. "You'll just have to figure it OUT!!!" she screamed like a complete lunatic. Sighing in despair I retreated into the depths of the kitchen to beat my head bloody against the wall and contemplate the unjust world that I was sadly a part of. Lucky for me, within minutes the delivery man had arrived bags in hand.

As Marissa and I finished up with the 42,786 pounds of lettuce we were summoned to the kitchen by a roaring Captain Rigatoni. He and Bobbi were furious with all of us and our inability to perform even the most mundane of tasks. They were sick and tired of the incompetence and F***ing bull crap that they had to put up with. Captain Rig was especially disgusted by the fact that our idiocy had attracted the attention of the labor department. He stormed around, pointing, cursing, gesturing and hovering precariously closely to the brink of a major coronary event. And then I did it. I made the very poor decision to open my foolish mouth and make a comment on the bile that he was spewing every which way. (it was legit though, I was not being a smartass!) Hearing the sound of my voice Captain Rig whipped around, eyes bulging in horror that someone of my pathetic stature would dare to speak to his highness. Demanding to know my name, he asked if I wanted to continue working there. Much to the dismay of my brain, my mouth opened up all of its own accord and said "YES". WHAT the frick mouth?? Hush yourself!! Getting close enough to me so that I could see the pores on his nose he snarled that if I wished to continue to have the privilege of working for him that I had best zip it. He continued to rant in a manner of complete disarray and confusion for quite some time before concluding with: "Well I don't know about all of YOUS but CAPTAIN RIGATONI is going to have a damn good 2010." To which people actually applauded. After I threw up a little in my mouth and contained the urge to slap everyone in the face I unwillingly plunked my hands together a bit to blend in. AKK!

Running away in horror, trying to shake the feeling of pure insanity I was stopped by my human work friend. "So..... what did you think of THAT?" he asked me. Being that I was genuinely disgusted and furious I replied that I had never in my life seen such a display of confusion and bullshit. As we finished our whispered discussion Bobbi rounded the corner and noticing that the two of us had paused, she shouted "STAFF, STAFF there is a LOT to do and we need to GET SHIT DONE!!!" Moving along, shaking our heads at her display of insanity we proceeded to circle like moronic goldfish around the restaurant. A few moments later I noticed that a bit of snow was on the floor so I stopped to pick it up. Like a freaking cat Bobbi pounced on me again. "STAFF" she hissed "IT is time to be paying attention to our TABLES!!!" Looking at my empty section I decided that I needed to hide. Passing my human work friend I declared my intention to hide out in the bathroom for a bit of time. I took a moment in the bathroom to take deep, calming breaths and try to lower my blood pressure to a more acceptable level. I reminded myself that I was not really an idiot, contrary to popular belief. I tried to get in touch with my inner zen like qualities, even while my stupid eyes were threatening to get all cry-ish on me. Realizing that I could not shack up in the bathroom forever I shook it off, tried to keep my inner beast dormant and got the hell back to work.

Fortunately at that point things became busy and we had a nice, smooth evening. New Year's Day went well too, with a minimum of drama and ridonkulocity. Imagine THAT! We can all do our jobs... Now this isn't to say that the Head Harpies were not on a rampage of destruction but most of them kept their thoughts to themselves.

What I managed to take away from the whole long, absurd and exhausting weekend were a few tremendously helpful tips on how to run my own business. Hooray! First of all I need to really start yelling at my staff a whole lot more, with gratuitous use of the F word as well as referring to myself in the third person. Awesome-o! Secondly, I need to schedule an "I'm Great" meeting, where all I do is talk about the fabulocity that is me, name drop, pat myself on the back and in general make my staff want to commit harry carry on the spot. Thirdly, and most importantly I absolutely need to remember that the way to get my peeps in the mood to do a helluva good job for me it to use them as my own personal punching bag right before the busiest day of the year. Cool beans!! I feel that if I implement these tips I will soon be the most successful person in the world, just like Captain Rigatoni.