I was on route to Captain Rigatoni's not too long ago, all shiny and well dressed (as usual) running punctually on time (as usual) and with a smile on my face and a freaking song in my heart (aren't I just the picture of perfection!) When I heard a pop.... I pulled my car over and sure enough, I had the very most flat of flat tires. I was not too bothered by this as I was raised to be an independent and clever woman, one who does not need any stinking AAA. I got my jack, and my winter coat. I dug out my tire iron and the spare tire. I got to work. Much to my dismay the lug nuts would NOT BUDGE! Inwardly cursing my mechanic for tightening the little buggers with the air wrench thing I realized that I would have to call for some serious help (AKA my poor put upon Dad. The middleaged Huz was at work.) The entire situation proved to be challenging (it was cold. my phone service was questionable. My Dad was very hard to locate.) But to make a veeeery long story short and reasonable the tire got changed. Being that I am a gifted and responsible employee of Captain Rig's most Magical Bistro I got on the hop and drove like a lunatic to arrive a mere 37 minutes late.
As I made my walk of shame into the restaurant I noticed that I was feeling a touch unwell. Thinking back on my day I remembered that I was running on no lunch, and that the cold weather and tire changing nonsense had put me into an icky state of low bloodsugar-itis. I am a scrawny little thing, who needs to be fed every hour on the hour to keep the hypoglycemia at bay. If I miss a meal, watch out... Not only do I get crabby but I get clammy, shaky and eventually just fall down and pass out, or become disgustingly nauseated. That's where I was at upon my arrival and I was rather hopeful that I would be able to snag some juice and crackers before being called into service.
As soon as I walked in Marissa and my Human Work Friend jumped on me. "You're just in time" they said with barely disguised disgust "We are being summoned to the kitchen for a Very Important Meeting!" Now, when one is summoned for a VIM one absolutely does not stop for a life saving smackerel of something. Looking longingly at the basket of bread, I woozily made my way into the kitchen and propped myself up against the salad cooler (and was promptly admonished for leaning on the salad cooler...)
Captain Rig crashed into the kitchen, very much in I-Just-Swallowed-A-Beehive mode. Faaaaaaaantastic. Glaring around at us in a tizzy he started in (and I knew we were in for a long one.) He reached into the dessert cooler and produced half of a cake, which had had something of an accident and had essentially slid off of itself earlier in the week. (we had been allowed by his majesty to eat some of said cake on that particular day- it was very good and we were all secretly glad that it had structurally failed.) Anyway, I digress. He pointed at the cake with a large meat cleaver and demanded the cooks to tell him why it had not been turned into some other type of dessert and sold. None of them happen to own a magic wand that transforms failed desserts into Ace Of Cakes like masterpieces so they were unable to answer his question. This displeased Capt Rig immensely which encouraged him to spend at least 15 minutes repeating the same question over and over again "WHY THE EFF DID YOU CLOWNS NOT MAKE THIS CAKE INTO SOMETHING THAT WE COULD SELL? WHY THE EFF DO I PAY YOU? WHY ARE YOU ALL SUCH IDIOTS?" This went on for long enough to put me into a stupor, one which was not even relatively pleasant. At this point I had reached the cold sweats and shaking part of my desperate need for food and was wondering what my punishment would be if I passed out and fell upon the floor.
Just as I had decided that vomiting on my shoes was the thing to do I was horrified to hear Captain Rig shout my name (he knows my name. mental note to legally change name as soon as possible) I shook my head in a weak attempt to revive and asked him to please repeat. He pointed and glared at the red faced cook behind the line and then he pointed at me. "SHOULD I" he intoned, slowly so that I would be sure to understand "FEEL SORRY. FOR THESE IDIOTS.... WHO WASTE! MY! MONEY! And EFFIN! RUIN! MY! BUSINESS!" I peered over at at the cook, who looked inches away from tears. I could feel the stares of Marissa and my Human Work Friend on the back of my head as they collectively held their breaths. In my hypoglycemic state I had a clear vision of what would happen if I said "Yes. You should feel sorry for them because you emasculate and demean then in a way that is unprofessional and unacceptable." I imagined how red faced and bug eyed Captain Rigatoni would get and how he would gesture wildly to the door and order me to GET! THE! EFF! OUT! I pictured myself high fiving the cook, grabbing my bag and shouting "Don't let the door hit me in the ass on my way out" or some such ridiculous nonsense. "Hey" hollered Capt Rig (in reality) "WELL, SHOULD I????" I looked at the cook, who looked back and from behind Captain Rig's back gave the tiniest shake of his head. "HEY!" shouted Capt Rig, fed up with my meandering nonsense "ANSWER ME!" "Welllll" I said, valiantly trying to see a loophole "I suppose that you wouldn't need to feel sorry for anyone who.... wastes your money.." And there was a huge sigh of relief from everyone around me who gave a crap. Not entirely satisfied with my answer Cap Rig jumped over to the sad looking cake and stabbed his meat cleaver into it. "WASTING MY MONEY, FOOLS" he ranted, stabbing and cutting in a manic frenzy "NONE OF YOU ARE ON YOUR A GAME!!! YOU DO A TERRIBLE JOB! GONNA RUIN MY BUSINESS!" After a few moments of ranting, hacking and frothing he was spent, and thankfully retreated to the dark, dank recesses of his office.
I RAN and had some juice. Revived. Shook my head in dismay.... And wrapped up the chaotic night by having an amusing conversation with Marissa and my HWF about what exactly they pictured me doing during the stand off with Captain Rig. Evidently they imagined me doing something startlingly similar to my groggy daydream.
This set off a several day tirade from His Highness about what a terrible job all of us do (pretty normal) about how we are never on our "A Game" (same message, dfferent phrase) and of course the standard stuff about being idiots, clowns, etc. Stay tuned to find out how long this rant lasted, or what it might take to snap a crazy man out of his madness....
Showing posts with label bad meetings. Show all posts
Showing posts with label bad meetings. Show all posts
Saturday, March 6, 2010
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.
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.
Tuesday, December 22, 2009
Where we discover that Captain Rigatoni is Nostradamus!!
Meetings at the Captain's are irregular and disjointed. Some days there are no meetings, not even so much as a "today's specials are" and on other cursed days there are many.... We are all rounded up from doing whatever menial tasks we might be attending to and herded into the kitchen where we are then berated for many hours.
On a very special Friday night Captain Rigatoni decided to give us about forty minutes on his world views. At first I felt that this was a fairly major time suck, and that I would much prefer to be out polishing the floor with my toothbrush. He droned on and on for quite some time, with a few outbursts of frustration at the usual situations (INCOMPETENT!! CLOWNS!! BAH HUMBUG!) but for the most part I was struggling to pay attention due to the high level of booooring.
That was.... Until I realized that he was letting the cat out of the bag! He was letting all of us lucky people have a view of what it is really like to be as big and important as Captain Rigatoni! And what a responsibility it must be, because he is a prophet! "I knew that the bottom was going to fall out of the economy!" He declared, making me wonder if that is really possible. The economy does not really have a bottom- but those are his genius words and not the plain, dumb monosyllables of a MAW. "I SAW this coming" he said, steely eyed as he strode around the room sternly, looking each and every one of us in the eye. "I knew that it was all going to fall to pieces, LAST YEAR!! BWA-HA-HA!!" My thoughts came to a screeching halt as I digested his latest ridonkulous declaration. Last year? As in 2008? Dear Captain, I am sorry to disagree with you but the Economy has been on a downward spiral of doom since very early in 2007, if not slightly before. Looking around the room at my sheep-el coworkers all nodding in rapture I peeked over at one of the "humans" that I'm lucky to work with and gave the side-eye. Which I got right back in return, making me feel glad that there was some sanity in the room on this particular evening. At this point the Capt had really reached full throttle and was giving us a passion filled declaration about his keen Spidey-sense on how everything in the world works. "I know how it IS" he bellowed "I know how BUSINESS works, I know how STUFF runs and I know what PEOPLE are thinking!!" Thinking fast I filled my head with a large number of sarcastic thoughts to see if he would use his psychic powers to pick up on them. He did not, which really shocked me since he is a superhero and everything... Running out of time before the restaurant opened for dinner he made a dramatic conclusion to his inspirational speech "Things are going to get worse before they get better, all of yous.... You might ask how I know this? Well, I just do because I know these things. I knew that times were going to get hard and I can tell ALL of YOUS that it is going to be AT LEAST another year, or maybe two, or even THREE, or very possibly FOUR OR FIVE before things get BETTER!!" (good to cover all bases with a span of 5 years, right?) All of my coworkers, with the exception of one or two humans dropped at his feet salivating heavily. "Oh Captain Rigatoni" they panted eagerly "We are not worthy of your greatness! We are all blessed to have Nostradamus in our midst! Please, please let us lick your toe cheese and be your servants for life!!" As much as Capt Rig loves to be told how great he is he had grown weary of hanging about with his minions. Also, he had to go find the cooks and give then their daily beatings, question the wisdom of paying them and ask them why the F*** they had the audacity to use the wrong mop on the floor. Shaking his head in profound disgust at the horrible, horrible things he had to put up with he kicked aside several of the waitstaff who were still bowing at his feet, and ran off to lay down the law. Gazing after his retreating bulk with unreserved admiration the staff all murmured how lucky we were to be blessed to work with such a great and wonderful prophet. How was it that we, a bunch of renegade slackers could possibly have such a tremendous opportunity! Gosh, WE should pay to work for HIM!!!
The very best and most magical part of this story is that somehow, over the 9 hour course of that evening Cap Rig forgot that he had had this meeting with us. At 11:25 PM he demanded that we all come to the kitchen AT ONCE!!!! Where he proceeded to give a carbon copy of the same meeting... I was hoping that perhaps he would give us some alarming new thought on the future of the world, or make startling predictions for 2012 but alas... Rerun!
On a very special Friday night Captain Rigatoni decided to give us about forty minutes on his world views. At first I felt that this was a fairly major time suck, and that I would much prefer to be out polishing the floor with my toothbrush. He droned on and on for quite some time, with a few outbursts of frustration at the usual situations (INCOMPETENT!! CLOWNS!! BAH HUMBUG!) but for the most part I was struggling to pay attention due to the high level of booooring.
That was.... Until I realized that he was letting the cat out of the bag! He was letting all of us lucky people have a view of what it is really like to be as big and important as Captain Rigatoni! And what a responsibility it must be, because he is a prophet! "I knew that the bottom was going to fall out of the economy!" He declared, making me wonder if that is really possible. The economy does not really have a bottom- but those are his genius words and not the plain, dumb monosyllables of a MAW. "I SAW this coming" he said, steely eyed as he strode around the room sternly, looking each and every one of us in the eye. "I knew that it was all going to fall to pieces, LAST YEAR!! BWA-HA-HA!!" My thoughts came to a screeching halt as I digested his latest ridonkulous declaration. Last year? As in 2008? Dear Captain, I am sorry to disagree with you but the Economy has been on a downward spiral of doom since very early in 2007, if not slightly before. Looking around the room at my sheep-el coworkers all nodding in rapture I peeked over at one of the "humans" that I'm lucky to work with and gave the side-eye. Which I got right back in return, making me feel glad that there was some sanity in the room on this particular evening. At this point the Capt had really reached full throttle and was giving us a passion filled declaration about his keen Spidey-sense on how everything in the world works. "I know how it IS" he bellowed "I know how BUSINESS works, I know how STUFF runs and I know what PEOPLE are thinking!!" Thinking fast I filled my head with a large number of sarcastic thoughts to see if he would use his psychic powers to pick up on them. He did not, which really shocked me since he is a superhero and everything... Running out of time before the restaurant opened for dinner he made a dramatic conclusion to his inspirational speech "Things are going to get worse before they get better, all of yous.... You might ask how I know this? Well, I just do because I know these things. I knew that times were going to get hard and I can tell ALL of YOUS that it is going to be AT LEAST another year, or maybe two, or even THREE, or very possibly FOUR OR FIVE before things get BETTER!!" (good to cover all bases with a span of 5 years, right?) All of my coworkers, with the exception of one or two humans dropped at his feet salivating heavily. "Oh Captain Rigatoni" they panted eagerly "We are not worthy of your greatness! We are all blessed to have Nostradamus in our midst! Please, please let us lick your toe cheese and be your servants for life!!" As much as Capt Rig loves to be told how great he is he had grown weary of hanging about with his minions. Also, he had to go find the cooks and give then their daily beatings, question the wisdom of paying them and ask them why the F*** they had the audacity to use the wrong mop on the floor. Shaking his head in profound disgust at the horrible, horrible things he had to put up with he kicked aside several of the waitstaff who were still bowing at his feet, and ran off to lay down the law. Gazing after his retreating bulk with unreserved admiration the staff all murmured how lucky we were to be blessed to work with such a great and wonderful prophet. How was it that we, a bunch of renegade slackers could possibly have such a tremendous opportunity! Gosh, WE should pay to work for HIM!!!
The very best and most magical part of this story is that somehow, over the 9 hour course of that evening Cap Rig forgot that he had had this meeting with us. At 11:25 PM he demanded that we all come to the kitchen AT ONCE!!!! Where he proceeded to give a carbon copy of the same meeting... I was hoping that perhaps he would give us some alarming new thought on the future of the world, or make startling predictions for 2012 but alas... Rerun!
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