Not really sure about the picture...

If you're wondering why every post lately has been about the trials of waitressing, it's because starting Boxing Day BP has had me working every day, all day, until I go back to school on the 7th. I get exactly one day off in that two-week period, and I'll probably be too tired to enjoy it.

I haven't even had time to play with my Christmas presents (new record player, Sega Genesis, CDs, Care Bear - they all look so lonely.)

Sad panda.

close-open

I got to work today to discover that last night's closer didn't do any of her closing duties, and thus I had to clean up after her even though I had closed UFC seven hours earlier. I'm sure it must have been out-of-control busy, but if I could have managed to get my store clean after UFC (I closed at the other location), then there's absolutely no reason that she couldn't.

When she got in (at 12; I started at 10:20), she complained about how busy it was the night before, and spent two hours bitching about other coworkers. I felt like I was babysitting.

I convinced the manager to let me leave at 3:00 instead of 8:00 (they didn't need me), so I crawled into bed and have been watching the first season of Criminal Minds ever since. Clearly, being a likable and reliable employee pays off.

The downside is that my parents aren't home and after 7 hours of watching Criminal Minds, I'm now certain there is someone outside my house waiting to kill me. Is there a BAU in Canada?

3:16

I just got home from work, and I have to be back in 7 hours to work a 10-hour shift.

Fuck that.

Customs of tipping

Today at work, we had an explosion of people. It got so busy that I actually forgot about one of my tables. 100% forgot. I put in their order and then didn't talk to them again. My manager at one point asked me if the table was mine, and I told her no. I didn't bring them their food or refill their drinks or say goodnight or anything (I did make them some killer hot chocolate, though.)

They left me a 20% tip.

When I realized what I had done, and what they left me, I was so upset. I felt like the worst waitress ever, wanted to cry and tried to give the five bucks to my manager, who had been taking care of the table (she refused.) How does stuff like this even happen?

Moreover, I have come to the conclusion that everyone has their own opinions regarding tips. People, I've decided, learn at a young age what is appropriate to tip (probably from their parents) and stick to that, and it will apparently take a lot to change their mind. I'll get some tables that, no matter how stellar my service is, they don't feel they need to leave me more than 3%. On the other hand, I'll get people like I had today, who (other than the killer Hot Chocolate) got the worst service ever, and they still left me a generous tip.

Then I thought about how I've always been a firm believer that it's necessary to leave a solid 15% tip, and what it would take for me to leave less. I could only come up with two things that would cut a tip: 1) If the server was rude and 2) If the server was ignoring me, and very clearly doing nothing productive (ie. "I need a refill and she's been talking with the hostess for 20 minutes," not "I need a refill and she's tornadoing around the restaurant trying to maintain her other 7 tables.") I would never penalize a server for being too busy, or if my food was made wrong, but I know a number of people who would.

The custom of tipping is interesting to me, mostly because it seems like such a cut-and-dry issue and yet people get so worked up and set in their ways regarding it.

We still haven't decorated our tree

Sweet

My main goal this year was to finish just one class with a mark in the A* range, because I've never done that before (discounting Info and Vis, which a chimp could have aced) and I just checked online and I scored an A- in TWO of my classes.

I totally kicked some English and History ass.

yumm

Hannah made orange chocolate brownies during our baking day and I have pretty much been devouring them for the past couple days. I should probably stay away from them for a while. I'm eating the last one for breakfast right now.

I think if I'm ever on Death Row, I'd like these brownies and a glass of milk to be my last meal.

three sleeps

I went to my Uncle Bob's for Christmas dinner with my family (mom's side) tonight, which is always my favourite part of the holiday season, and until tonight it definitely didn't even seem like Christmas.

Normally, I am always really excited about Christmas. When I was younger, I loved it, and even after I learned the truth about Santa, I still loved the time of year. All the cheeriness and the giving and family getting together, not to mention the ridiculous amounts of holiday kitsch makes me exceptionally happy. Seriously, the tackier the decorations, the better. I don't care how nice you say the Canadian Tire trees are, with their themes and their colour schemes, I still say a tree isn't a REAL Christmas tree unless it's adorned with dozens of Popsicle-stick ornaments made by little kids. When I was about three, I made an ornament out of file labels and lick'em stick'em stickers...we still put it up every year. I love Christmas.

However, this was the first Christmas where getting ready for it all actually seemed like work. I only have six presents to buy but I still haven't managed to finish. Between the half-dozen functions I have to attend, stressing about getting through my exams and getting just raped by shifts at the restaurant, I feel like I haven't had a chance to sit back and enjoy Christmas. We haven't even decorated our Christmas tree yet (unless you count the tinsel that is still stuck to it from when we packed it away last year.)

Is this what growing up is like? Things you love to do suddenly take a backseat to things you have to do. I'm 20, but I still feel like I'm too young to not totally revel in the Christmas season. Maybe things will pick up again when I'm married and I can share the magic with my kids. Christmas just doesn't seem like Christmas this year, and for no other reason than I seem to be just rushing right past it.

I think my new year's resolution will be to take time to enjoy the things I used to love, before I got too busy for them. I haven't even read a book for pleasure in months. I used to read constantly, and now my bookshelves are filled with dozens, if not hundreds, of books that I haven't gotten the chance to read. I guess they have something in common with the still-in-storage Christmas decorations.

post script: I will be 21 in exactly one month. My life is going by too fast.

The Next Generation

Today, I fought through ice and snow to get to work fully expecting that no reasonable human being out go through all that just for pizza. Surprisingly, it was quite busy. I was serving this family with three adorable kids, aged probably 6, 4 and 2. After they were finished, I was cleaning up their table and found this left for me by one of the kids:


If you can't read the purple at the bottom, it says: "On the other side of this page is nature in the future if we all stop polluting."

On the other side was this:



It was so freaking cute, I wanted to cry.

Bottom line is this: if a six-year-old can take action to help the environment, so can you.

BP

In the restaurant biz, there are a lot of shitty things that can get you down (lousy tips, incorrect orders, fights with the kitchen staff, lunatic customers, etc.) I usually try to let it roll right off my back because I figure if I didn't stay positive, I would end up just miserable and bitter all the time. Plus, most of the time there's nothing I can do about it anyway.

Today I was talking about this with my manager, who has a similar outlook, and I told her about how I served a party of 8 and they all left me just horrendous tips, but it didn't bother me too much because I was pleasant and polite and nothing went wrong with their food. I figured these people are just cheap by nature, and there's nothing I could have done to change that. She agreed, and said I'd probably make awesome tips on my next table, and it would all work itself out in the end.

I only served three more tables after that and each one of them left me at least 20% (which is definitely not the norm.) It was the nicest thing ever. It's reassuring when stuff like this happens, mostly because it helps me deal with the really awful things that sometimes happen (ie. being left a handful of pennies as a tip because someone's lasagna "was weird"; being screamed at in front of the whole restaurant because the kitchen made a plate of nachos wrong (after having apologized profusely and offering to have them remade and the bill taken care of); working a nine-hour close shift to find that all of the other servers slipped out without doing any of their side duties or even cleaning their section...you get the picture.) I just wanted to share my nice day.

In a slightly less nice, but more hilarious story...

My restaurant is about three minutes away from my house, but they decided this weekend they wanted me to work at the other location, which is all the way across town. Yesterday, my first day there, I was crouching down to get something and one of the other servers dropped a steak knife on my face. I still have a mark on my lip.

What a warm welcome I received.

With this blog, I can record my every thought...

I can't sleep. And my Mighty Mouse is acting weird, which is interfering with my Solitaire.

They aren't all winners.

Mine takes pictures, plays Millionaire, and can record my various rants - What can yours do?

So, as inspired by Derek's talk of blogs, I've decided to make more of an effort to write. As a means of forcing myself into it, I've even made Blogger my homepage, so we'll see how it goes. I'll try to keep the useless rants to a minimum. Starting tomorrow.

So I was driving home today in the parking lot that was the QEW and flipping radio stations trying to find something decent (Okay. I was looking for the new Fergie song. I'll be honest.) and I stumbled across The Strombo Show, which was quite entertaining, as far as Edge personalities go. Anyhow, Bob, one of the hosts, posed the following question:

Is it rude to talk on your cell phone while riding the bus?

He thinks it is, but this guy was met with a ton of opposition. All but one person who called in told him that he is wrong, and chatting on your cellie while riding the TTC is, indeed, okay.

I felt the need to tell the Internet that I'm on Team Bob and all those callers are wildly incorrect. There are few things that irritate me as much as a poorly placed cell phone call. (Irritate is too light a word - listening to Random 16-year-old talk about this week's crush sends me into a blind rage.) When I am on the GO train, I just want to sit in silence, do my crossword puzzle, occasionally crack open a school book and mind my own business (see previous entry on GO etiquette.)

It all comes down to the fact that GO and TTC riders are sharing a very small common space, so the personal bubble becomes a huge issue. Not only do I not want people touching me, or really making eye contact with me, but the sound waves emitting from the extremity attached to their cell phone are invading my personal space. I feel a mild sense of violation, which often leaves me with a scowl on my face.

I can accept that if one is riding the train with a friend, it's unrealistic to expect them to sit silently for an hour, so a quiet conversation between two people is only mildly disruptive, but what has the world come to when someone can't sit still for an hour (or, in the case of bus rides, 10 minutes) without feeling the overwhelming need to talk to someone they likely saw no more than 12 minutes ago.

While we're at it, I have taken the time to compile a list of places that Emily Post would deem cell use unacceptable (excluding obvious places, like classrooms, churches and movie theatres.)

• Buses, Trains, Streetcars, etc.
  
• Restaurants
  
• Stores (exception being if you're walking quickly through a mall)
• Checkout counters
• Libraries
• Anywhere where you're sitting/standing within three feet of another person
• Anytime when you're in the company of another person (you should be paying attention to them, not a piece of plastic.)
  

As Bob pointed out during his rant, unless it's an emergency or a pragmatic call ("Okay, I'm almost here." "Hey, I'm leaving now - want me to pick up anything from the store?" "Hey man, I just drove past your house and it's on fire. What's up with that?") it probably isn't necessary for you to be talking to them at that very second. If you absolutely have to, you should excuse yourself to a more secluded area, and finish the call as quickly and as quietly as possible.



For the record, I do own a cell phone. I'm pretty certain I couldn't get along without it.