"Hey, girl..."

I'd hate to see my partner's phone bill. PPL makes at least twenty calls per day, each one starting with one of these phrases:

• "Hey, girl..."
• "Hey, bitch!"
• "Hey, baby."
• "Hey, Holly-Bolly!" (That's her greeting for our supervisor.)

On Fridays we arrive at the weekend's Petco venue at 11am and on Saturdays and Sundays, 9am. Usually, by the time I arrive punctually (and PPL arrives late), I have received three to five phone calls from her with various questions:

• "What's the address of the Petco?"
• "I just plugged the address into my GPS and it's not coming up. What should I do?"
• "Do you know if there's a Sun National Bank near the Petco? How about a TD Bank?"
• "Can you call me back once your paycheck is direct deposited into your account?"
• "I think I'm on the wrong road...there's a lot of construction around here and I think I've been on it too long. Where is the Petco again?"
• "Do you think there's a Taco Bell near by?"

On a happier note, my favorite thing about this job is Petco's consistently close proximity to Chipotle chains. I spend my weekends packing on pounds with delicious soft shell barbacoa tacos, and the rest of the week working it off at the diner by running away from dirty old men's lecherous looks.

"Where's the coleslaw? I get coleslaw with this. Can I get some coleslaw?"

I have a few quick rants that are anything but eloquent. Ignore them, respond to them, learn from them; do what you will.

• Who actually likes coleslaw? Where did this disgusting food come from? Is it one of those foods that people of a certain generation like, their children don't like, but then their grandchildren do like? When I remember to supply it, customers don't eat it. When I forget to supply it, they come at me like I forgot to supply them with oxygen.
  
• Who doesn't eat their pickle?! Worse yet..who takes a bite of their pickle and leaves the rest on the plate? Can't you just finish it and stop tempting me to pick off your plate? Do you know how often this happens? A piece of me dies when I see a poor helpless wasted pickle abandoned on a plate. Eat your pickle or donate it to someone who likes them.
  
• During my shifts, most people get meals that include a basket of really nice bread (I know this because we servers slice the bread and I've sampled more than my fair share). Why wouldn't you touch the bread? It's so good. I swear I didn't do anything to it. It's so so good.
• Why do so many of the waitresses tease and entice the kitchen staff? Are these girls that hard-up for male attention? For instance, I saw DGA proudly showing Abdul a picture of her in a revealing Halloween costume and he was begging her to come into work wearing it. Maybe you had to be there, but ew.
• I don't think I can accurately describe the fury and frustration felt when one's silverware, hidden and waiting to be wrapped, is taken--nay, stolen--but I'll try. It's like you found out you were adopted, had your first born child kidnapped, got stuck in a traffic jam for 3 hours, forgot to study for a huge test, and got dumped by your true love...all at once. It's happened to me twice so far, and I've never quite gotten over it. Both times I felt like crying, screaming, and challenging the unknown thief to a duel (Why not? I had nothing else to live for at those moments). What hurts the most is the fact that my name was written, large and beautifully, on a piece of paper in plain sight with my concealed utensils. This could only mean someone saw my name and thought, "That bitch deserves to have to scrounge around for more silverware like a dirty, homeless dog desperately searching for scraps of food."

"We were blessed to have you in our lives today."

While days 5 and 6 were full of small random oddities, they were still very much positive experiences. I dislike this constant ominous anxiety I feel as I wait for the axe (angry boss or disgruntled diner patron) to drop (yell at me and bring me to tears, either publicly or privately, with only my thin shreds of dignity to comfort me).  But enough about my puny feelings...

I don't think I mentioned much, if anything, about the wrapping of silverware. This is a time-honored tradition in which, during his or her shift, members of the wait staff must fight to the death to procure a large amount of knives, forks, and spoons and then wrap and secure enough sets of silverware to fill a large bin. This occurrence typically involves some form of covert operation to appropriate utensils; alliances are forged, friendships are shattered, and powerful enemies are made. Experts believe this event's origins can be traced back to the ancient Olympic games, and considering that the restaurant owned by a Greek family, I'm inclined to agree.  

As per usual in my life, if I walk around without a smile on my face, it is instantly assumed that something is wrong. Since I can't always be smiling, and my face is guilty of openly displaying a boundless spectrum of feelings, I hear a lot of "Are you okay?" and "Is everything going alright?"...I even hear it from the scary, intimidating Greek owner, who becomes as mild as a lamb around me, adding "babe" to the end of each sentence.   

My relationship with the kitchen staff seems comparable to mob relations I've seen in mafia movies. When I need silverware for wrapping, I got a guy for that. So far, I like to think I've taken the high road when it comes to acquiring utensils, I just go straight to the source: one of the dishwashers. When I need more of something and I can't find it, I got a guy for that. Who knows where everything is better than a busboy? Indeed, the language barrier is troublesome, but we've worked out a form of sign language that seems to be working quite swimmingly.  

In a coworker bonding session, DGN (code for "Diner Girl Newbie," as she was hired when I was, knows my name, but I have no idea what hers is) told tales ripe with relationship woe. She's moved in with every boyfriend she's had. She walked in on her last boyfriend with another guy, threw up, then decided to become a lesbian, but now she's with Chad so she's bisexual. She works another full-time job that sounds pretty important, but took this job to pay for all of her various fines. She's 20. I told her that her life fascinates me.  

The urge to use diner vernacular is becoming nearly unavoidable. As I approach a new table, I'm overwhelmed with the temptation to say "What can I get yous?"...providing there's more than one person, of course.


I got one of the best groups a newbie could ask for, desiring fairly simple orders and, most importantly, laughing at everything I said. One of them only wanted coffee, defending his choice by saying he didn't want to be a "rollie-pollie holy roller," and that's when it hit me: you would swear they had just huffed laughing gas, but it turns out they were just Christians. Because of my genuinely happy nature, they concluded that I must have the spirit of the Lord in me and asked what my exact faith was. I answered their question by saying I chose to be nondenominational. They said "Good, as long as you're not a Muslim."

"Wait...you work here for fun?"

After my 4th shift, I've realized it's best to talk as little as possible about myself. I'm not like my coworkers; compared to most of them, I have lived the life of a fairytale princess. Very little happened that needs any sort of explanation, so I'll make a list:

• I was in charge of 3 tables (movin' on up!).
• My shift was 6 hours, but my section only saw action 3 times.
• DGS was hired back and told me her completely guilt-free side of the story. I've come to the conclusion that she was in the wrong for placing a racist stereotype on the table before she even met them and that the table was at fault for simply being comprised of rude people who just happened to be black, causing the incident to explode into a race issue.
• DGS asked me to grab a drink with her after work. I was intrigued. What on earth would we talk about? It didn't happen.
  
• DGC suggested I help her study for her GED. At first I thought she meant GRE, then I remembered where I was.
• DGC told me she had boy troubles. She asked if she should get back together with her ex who beat her, had a baby with another girl while they were still together, and "ruined my life." Hmm...where...to...begin...?
  
• I listened to DGC and DGS discuss and share contact information about their Ed Hardy dealers and the Ed Hardy merchandise for which they have dire needs.
  
• My tables left me extremely generous tips--especially this adorable couple that tipped me $15 for their $45 bill. I felt vindicated knowing that when it comes to restaurant patrons, there's no racial template--people's characters just come in different flavors, no matter what they look like. 
 

"What Can I Get Yous?"

Like any other self-respecting young person with years of higher education under his/her belt, I have decided to try my hand at the food service industry (that's code for: I'm waitressing at a diner). Since strange things happen to me on a daily basis, I thought it best to create this blog from almost the very start of my serving career. There's no way I could limit this solely to the documentation of work strangeness, so do not be alarmed if I branch out to cover events of every day life. This is a catch-up entry, I hope to never write this much again.

Just a few short days ago I was officially hired at the diner/bar and an experienced waitress, DGS, was assigned to show me the ropes. She is the perfect South Jersey diner waitress. She's lived in the same house all her life, has a 20 month old baby, a deadbeat baby-daddy, a current boyfriend recently released from jail, and she's worked 10 years for the same family that owns several dining establishments in the area. She told me to make sure I always use a tray when serving customers while she herself was coarsely holding 4 water glasses in one hand, no tray in sight. She used sentence-enhancing words such as "shitty" to describe food, people, and procedures. DGS's approximate age eludes me--her drastically different life experiences lead someone so comparatively sheltered as myself to believe she could be anywhere from 25 to 74 years old. I honestly don't think I could have asked for a better person to introduce me to this world; DGS owns diner world.

Day 1:  DGS was overjoyed when she noticed a coworker's new acrylic checkerboard nails, but made sure to mention she liked last week's better--they were Burberry plaid. While DGS was complimenting this girl's checkerboard nails (which hauntingly echoed the pattern of the diner's tile floor), the girl said "My fingernails are okay...but check it out, these are SLAMMIN'!" and with that she proceeded to take off her right shoe and sock to display checkerboard toes in all their glory.

Day 2: An all-around uneventful training session until the moment I left the floor. An African-American family was seated in DGS's section, and she was pleading with the manager (who was busy trying to take me to get my uniform) to make someone else take the table because she was certain the family wouldn't tip her. This incident greatly escalated upon my departure. Apparently DGS was short with this table, rushed them along, and took their food away before they were done with it, causing them to ask to see a manager (and rightfully so). The details from here are a little fuzzy--as I gathered them via whispers--but there was yelling between DGS and the customers, then between DGS and a manager, and she was fired on the spot.

Day 3: I arrive to discover I was trained by a racist girl who was disrespectful to her superiors and won't ever be coming back. Hmm. She was a damn good waitress though; I hope she transferred her serving skills to me as her soul drifted away into that big restaurant in the sky. This could be a kind of blessing, like, if I mess up I can just remind everyone who taught me and why nothing can be my fault. After I learned this juicy piece of gossip, a coworker, DGB, offered to teach me to say "put it in my mouth" in Spanish to guarantee me a smooth relationship with the kitchen workers. I declined her tempting offer.

• My first table of the night (the first table I ever waited on alone!!!!!!!) consisted of a middle-aged man and his young daughter (possibly granddaughter). When they were finally seated he expressed how happy he was with his seat because it allowed him a prime view of all the waitresses. I tried to overlook this slightly off-color remark by saying, "Oh yeah, you can see all the action in the whole diner from here!" Toward the end of their meal, I went back to ask the little girl (Boo-Boo) what kind of ice cream she wanted with her meal but the man rejected the dessert, explaining that he drove for the Mister Softee HQ down the street and they planned on going there after dinner. At this point, the man put on the ol' Mister Softee charm, and continually told me he'd take me for a ride around AC in his ice cream truck: today (Oh man, my shift doesn't end for a while!), tomorrow (Ugh darn, I don't work tomorrow!), the next day (Silly me, I forgot to mention I'm lactose intolerant, quitting my job here, getting married, and leaving the country!).