People have issues...

So you all know by now that I am a server..... a server who is waiting to get the heck out of the restaurant biz. Especially after today. With that being said, I actually love my job 90% of the time and I am thankful for my job and all that jazz but sometimes you are reminded just how crazy some people are. I mean I flat-out had to put two different customer's in their place today. Usually this would cause your boss-man to send you packing but today, my boss had my back. Now that I got that off my chest, let me explain. So I am at work and I am telling the new waitress about this god-awful old couple that came in and are just flat-out off the charts grumpy. They never smile, they never act friendly to me or each other, for that matter. In fact, they act as if they hate each other and life all together. Of course, after I give her the 4-1-1 on them, they roll in and sit right in my section. This couple by the way, has brought other past servers to tears and they've even been asked not to come back. They can't take a hint, obviously. So today, I decide a different approach, I try the overly cheerful and ridiculously friendly approach(normally I keep it real) and they weren't picking up the bait. Instead the man fussed about how small his table was and asked if he could sit in another table. I told him we were on a wait and that table was for someone on the wait list. I apologized sincerely and he said "well what about that table"(a dirty table), so I said I would check with the bus boys and see if anyone was waiting for it. As I went to ask them, the old man raised his hand and yelled at me across the room " Hey, I'm hungry are you ever just going to come over here and take my order"? I need to eat now! Hurry it up"! Oh no he didn't. I felt the blood boil in my body and it took everything in me not to tell him to get the hell out. Instead I yelled right back "you just asked me to check for you and that's what I am doing, if you're hungry than why did you ask for a different table in the first place'? Then the dude had the nerve to say "don't talk to me that way". My response..."I could say the same for you" Now what can I get for you, since "you're so hungry"?. I still cant get over why people act this way to server's. I mean seriously who died and made them Jesus? It really trips me out that so many people are this ignorant and unhappy. My advice to people like this.. Stay home and keep your negativity in your own kitchen. If you are miserable, it is no one elses job to make you satisfied, that is one's own responsibility. You are not entitled to a bigger, nicer seat, you are never entitled to anything. Go see a shrink people or go to McDonald's for christ sake.

Blog Obama

I have a confession to make.....I did not have a chance to watch some of his speech until today. I currently have no Internet and no cable and when I am not at school, I am at work. Bottom line...My life is chaotic these days. I am lucky if I can shower! At my work (the restaurant), many of the older regulars have asked me of my thoughts on his speech and made random comments like "what do all your teacher's say about Obama's stimulus plan" What do you think about Obama"? "Are you excited"? My answer...honestly? No, I am not excited. Words aren't actions and until a "change" takes place and makes a noticeable and positive difference, his speech does not really make a difference to me. I am sorry, that's just me being honest. Do I like Obama? It doesn't really matter, I do not know this man. None of us do. I can say that I hope he does a good job and I hope everything works out for the better.

Madonna's Lattes.

So, here I am on a typical Thursday morning at the breakfast joint. Thursday's gather a very different crowd than the weekends, which are usually all of our old-school regulars and younger college students. Thursdays are usually the older retired folk and the British Airways attendants (which are from England obviously). The attendants are very, very predictable...they always come at the crack of dawn(5am) when I am at my laziest and of course they want to sit outside in the lovely 50 or below temperature. Opening side work has not been finished and the cook isn't quite prepped to make poached eggs and English muffins. These people eat poached eggs on top of English muffins or brown toast (what we call "wheat"), like its going out of style. They drink about two to three glasses of orange juice and about two pots of hot tea. It's all very....."splendid." With that being said, I get a total kick out of waiting on most of these individuals and end up asking them a million things about England, flying and so fourth and I absolutely adore a English/British accent. They pretty much rock. I have noticed that they have a very different vocabulary than us here in the U.S. it is very sophisticated and proper and I find it to be really hilarious and cool at the same time.



These folks, I've noticed are more celebrity crazed than Americans if you can believe that. They always have stories about different celebs that regularly travel with their airways. A couple of them were telling me how "peculiar" Madonna is, and how she always has to have soy vanilla creamer for her coffee and soy vanilla latte's made for her at her request. She also has a private Japanese cook that travels with her and they say she eats funny looking jelly food that comes in different sized Tupperware containers. It might look like this:


Or possibly even this:

Hah! Just kidding. Pretty funny, huh? Oh, that Billy Cosby and his Jell-O Puddin'.
Just wanted some suspense.

Anyways, why do I care to hear this? I dunno, but I keep on asking away. They say she travels with a whole barrage of assistants that do everything for her even on a damn plane. What the heck is wrong with this picture? Why the hell do we kiss so much butt to another human being like Madonna? I mean, seriously? Why do we care to know whats going on in a total stranger's personal life and why do we give them so much power? Honestly, I can care less about Madonna. I don't keep up with celebrities and their drama (it kills brain cells). However, I'm guilty of keeping up with my favorite athletes and musicians, so I guess I can't really be a hypocrite about it all. These British Airways people find Madonna fascinating, when I could care less while I'm crying over my Sports Illustrated as I read about Brett Favre retiring. While they like Madonna and whatever it is she likes to eat, I like Brett Favre and care about his retirement (which ruined my entire day). Bottom line, we're all facinated by celebrities, whether we admit it or not.

Customers are Characters.

Ned's (the place I work) is a character in itself. It has been sitting on a sport fishing dock for nearly 50 years and has a very unique charm. It is located right next door to a Sport Fishing joint(which is 50 years old too) on a tiny pier that looks as if it could fall over with the next wave. In the 50 years that this place has been in business it has generated a very interesting crowd of people, most of which are regulars that have been coming for 20 or more years, others are fisherman, and many are foreigners who stay at the hotel across the street. Along with the ones listed, we have a good amount of little known celebrities, and the customers that might as well be famous. I guess the main point of this whole spiel is to introduce my diverse clientele and examine people and their persona's in general. I have got to tell you, we get some pretty interesting characters at this joint.

Starting with him (Puck), from MTV's very first "The Real World" crew. For those of you who have never seen it or don't know who I'm talking about, I urge you to YouTube him and the episodes he was in. I would describe him as... controversial?? That's putting it mildly. Anyways, he came in this past Saturday morning and happened to witness me trip over someones chair and fall flat on my face in the middle of a breakfast rush. Oh yeah, and I was holding a customer's take-out. He asked me for a diet coke right after ward then proceeded to fish with his son and my neighbor over at the fishing joint. I mean come on, how do you keep a straight face after seeing something like that and order a diet coke? I guess good old grandmaster Puck does.

Then there's the fisherman dude who comes in about three times per week and orders the same exact thing every single time and yet it takes him about a half an hour before he decides what to eat. He lives on his boat and always has a weird smell to him. It's kind of a cross between Old Spice and cheese. I don't know his name so we'll just call him the "Weird Fisherman Cowboy." I say cowboy because he wears tight jeans and a cowboy boots all the time and he fishes and sails in this get up. I kid you not. (Also, he has a ponytail and wears jewelry.. Like earrings and turquoise bracelets.) What makes him weird, aside from the costume and funky smell is the fact that he sits and stares at me the entire time. He doesn't flirt, in fact he's kind of a grump yet he stares at me the whole time, even when he is eating with other people. He drinks about 400 cups of coffee just to have a reason to stare. I mean what the hell? Who does that? If you are one of those weird characters who decide to wear funky clothes and smell cheesy, I urge you not to stare at people and act like a space cadet, otherwise you just might have an entire blog dedicated to your weirdness.

intro.

This blog is going to be about my experiences as a server at a small breakfast restaurant on a Southern California Beach pier. I have been serving for about seven years and in the restaurant business for about eight. Serving, although it puts me through college, is so looked down upon by many and that is where I will tie in the ignorance of the many  customers I meet. I am not planning on making serving a lifelong career but for the meantime, it gets me through college and pays the rent therefore, I have the last laugh. And the truth of the matter is that customers for the most part are clueless. I am not saying this to be mean but it's just that simple. Day in and day out I am exposed to some of the most random pieces of work (and you'll see what I'm talking about in future posts) on the planet and it lets me know just how strange the average person really is.

This where I explain the title of my blog, "Serving and Waiting." The first part of the title is pretty self explanatory. I am a server and I am literally serving people. Waiting is another term for "serving" yet it also is symbolic for the customers who are "waiting" to be served. It is funny to me how we all have the same objective in common, I am "waiting" to get paid and move on to another more promising future, and I am "waiting" for these people to eat their food, pay up and go on with their happy little day. Yet they (the customers) are waiting to be served, eat, pay and leave. Now I'm not saying that every customer I get is some weirdo. A lot of these people are die-hard regulars and in some cases even my friends. And out of all the restaurants I've worked at, this place is by far the best and most rewarding (believe it or not). Enough stuff goes on at that place where it could actually be a television show or a book.

So this blog doesn't sound repetitive (which it won't, I promise you), I'll be throwing in the fact that I am someone who isn't always aware of my surroundings, therefore a klutz who really has no business serving food. I'm a danger to both myself and those around me.. No joke. I wish I was kidding, but unfortunately I'm not. Most of my clumsiness that I'll write about will sound unbelievable (maybe way out there) but I swear it's all true.

So, with all that being said, I welcome you to take part in the journey I call my life.