Cue Stereotypical Early 20s Existential Crisis...

I've realized that both my jobs are perpetuating our society's downward spiral. After a lot of thought (probably too much thought) I've narrowed my jobs' evil contributions down to gluttony and materialism. I know there's nothing I can do; we have to work with what we are given, and so I am forced to profit from America's desire for stuff. 

There are about five "healthy" options in the diner's entire menu and so few people want them I don't even know where these meals are in the computer database I use to place orders. Diners are known for providing quick and greasy food, so I'm sure most dieters and members of the health conscious community steer clear of these establishments all together, but still, some things people order are just absurd. Sometimes I'm impressed by the creativity people use to turn a healthy meal into a delicious explosion of calories. You would be astounded by the amount of people I've witnessed struggling to squeeze themselves into diner booths and on several occasions I've had to try to tactfully advise customers to change tables for the sake of their own comfort. The looks on the faces of these people are incredibly heartbreaking, but my feelings for them become torn when they still order a chicken cheesesteak with extra provolone cheese and mayonnaise...but don't forget the diet Pepsi!

This week's Picture People conference call was thoroughly scathing. Territory manager was "deeply disappointed in this past weekend's performances." This weekend will likely include a surprise visit from this boss that I've never seen before, so rest assured I will be constantly on edge, dreaming anxious dreams, skipping lunch break so that I can babysit my partner, PPL, and on my best, overcompensating behavior from Friday through Sunday. Territory Manager feels that anything less than ten sessions per day in unacceptable, so from now on if we don't reach our goals each day he will call and assail our ears with more insincere business tactics and terminology. It's my opinion that Petco's contract with the Picture People is a last, dying attempt to garner more revenue--so, that being said, here's my valid, supportable question: what if my Petco only gets about ten customers per day?


I'm sorry if I offend any animal lovers, but I truly think that if you buy anything more than food, essential care items (flea medicine, etc.) and the occasional toy for your pet, you are mindlessly complying with the well-oiled machine that is the pet supply industry. Seriously, do you really need: 

• doggy rain coats,
• doggy life preservers (I do believe it's called the "doggy paddle" for a reason),
• toy mice with "realistic mouse sounds!",
• ferret t-shirts with phrases like "Grin and 'Ferret'",
• holiday pet toys (I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but I don't think animals follow religion or celebrate holidays),
• Bed Head, a high-end hair product company's animal equivalent, Pet Head,
  
• or professional pet portraits by the Picture People? 

"Can I get a diet water, please?"

Saturday:  
 Absolutely nothing happened at Petco. Seriously. It was Halloween, no one wanted pictures taken, and all I wanted to do was go home, become Cleopatra, and celebrate with friends.

My Halloween transformation was more drastic than I ever could have anticipated. The bar's manager selected me for a VIP costume contest--A.K.A. a rump-shaking competition involving silly guys in creative costumes and hot girls in smutty costumes. I feel bad that the manager mistook me for a hottie and in an effort to show that I'm a classy broad (as exemplified below) I chose to not take part, but I kept my invitation to the contest for written proof that I'm better than you.

Sunday:
If it was super hard for me to wake up and get going the morning after my sex, drugs, and rock n' roll-ish Halloween, it must have been nearly impossible for my Picture People partner. When she showed up about an hour late, she looked like death and I was all, "Helloooo...Halloween was yesterday, duh." PPL told me that her night was terrible because her friends that she was so excited to see "ditched me for blow" (I have to put that in quotes because I can't take myself saying "blow" seriously, but that's exactly how she put it). This is also about the time when all my suspicions about her turned out to be completely justified--she admitted she was in recovery for cocaine abuse. I'm a regular Sherlock Holmes!!

The good and bad thing about this job is that there's a lot of downtime. If you're having a bad day, like PPL obviously was, you have time to cope with and try to solve your problems because you have a partner to pick up the slack and there are lots of times when there are absolutely no costumers in the store. On this day, however, PPL took this downtime just a smidge too far by:

•  arriving an hour late,
•  falling asleep at our makeshift sales desk for twenty minutes,
• disappearing for an hour during what is supposed to be her thirty-minute lunch break,
• and admitting that the cause of her long break was that she took a nap in the backseat of her car.

Monday and Tuesday:
These were days one and two of my sheer stockings experiment at the diner. Not to toot my own fabulous horn, but I made more money than I've ever made before (besides the time my family came in and tipped me $50)--like three times more. Though I have noticed an increased amount of ocular attention in the direction of my legs, I'm sure there's no actual connection between the increased visibility of my limbs and customers' generosity, because that just seems silly...but I will continue to wear sheer black stockings for the remainder of my employment there. Today marks day three of the experiment. I will keep you posted.

This week I planned to give the diner my two weeks' notice. Don't cry; I still want to continue serving, I'd just prefer a classier, higher-paying venue. After this week's shifts though, I have mixed feelings. As previously mentioned, I've been getting better tips than ever (though I know I could get even better tips elsewhere), the past few days have brought some really great customers, and I've had people ask for my name so they can request me in the future (this may sound like a sickeningly sweet Sally Field Academy Award speech-type thing to say, but it touches me to know that they like me, they really like me). One table said I was a great waitress and assumed I had been working there forever; they also said they hoped I kept getting promoted...but really, isn't quitting and finding a better job basically a food industry promotion?

A man at my last table on Monday night supplied a few corny gems that are necessary to share:

• "Can I get a diet water, please?"
• "Could you spill me some more coffee?"
• "Would you get me the Shepherd Special? That's coffee and a piece of 'ewe'."

"She's hitting on you again!"

It's been over a month, and I finally feel like I've totally gotten the hang of this waitressing thing. New and old girls alike come to me with questions, I have a very smooth relationship with the kitchen crew (and I didn't even need to learn filthy Spanish sayings in order to do so!), and I can wait tables, complete my side work, AND wrap silverware pretty much simultaneously, allowing me to leave much earlier than I ever used to. I've still never tried the food though and I don't intend to.


Yesterday, I was blessed with a table of older men who were stopping by after losing all their money in Atlantic City. They were a fun bunch, though they all forgot their glasses so I had to read the entire menu to them and they had questions about EVERY entree and (since I don't eat the food) I had no answers. *When asked if any meal is good, my generic answer is always "The portions are large, everything smells great, and you can't go wrong when the main ingredients are garlic and onion."* By the end of this table's meal, they were getting feisty. The oldest man kept telling the second oldest man that I was hitting on him and when I handed them the check, they provided me with one of the best pick-up lines ever: "We're not from around here...could you leave your number on the bill so we can call you for directions if we get lost?" For once, my lack of sense of direction and my inability to find my way out of a paper bag came in handy and I was able to truthfully evade this table's silly, light-hearted advances. As they left, they handed me their bill and payment, including my tip, and said "You got the last of our Mohicans"--they tipped me fifty percent! Why can't I get more flirty older men who get my strange sense of humor?


My plan for today's shift (since the Phillies are playing tonight and the diner will be slow) was to experiment by wearing sheer black stockings to see if I get better tips, but alas, my only pair had a big hole (Mom, when you read this, know that I need more sheer black stockings. And I didn't get a chance to do the dishes before work. And the money from the check I cashed is on the sofa.). Damn you, Phillies, for taking away my customers. Oh, and GO PHILLIES!

"Once you've been here [20 years], you'll know all the tricks."

It's official. There's no way of putting this modestly: I am the Diner Princess. I swear I've done nothing but be myself at this job and it has gotten me everywhere. It's nothing at all extraordinary about me, but rather an overall negative attitude exhibited by 90% of my coworkers (again, the tough times most of them have seen in their relatively short lifetimes cannot be overlooked). Smiles are rare sights, cheery outlooks are practically extinct. 

•  At my last shift, as I ran around in search of silverware to hide in a miser-like manner, an older waitress grabbed me and showed me a hidden Mecca of utensils, all for me. All that ran through my mind was, "Okay.....what do you want from me?" but she seemed to have completely genuine intentions, so I kept thanking her and telling her she was my fairy godmother. She probably gave me the hard-earned silverware of her sworn enemy.
  
• My luck appeared to have failed me after securing my treasure trove of forks, knives, and spoons. DGG, eager leave her shift as soon as possible, asked me to serve a large table for her. She tried to tempt me by explaining that she already provided their drinks and took their orders, I would just have to serve them and tend to their needs after that. Call me crazy, but as a new girl, even the prospect of keeping this large table's tip didn't sound too inviting--it was a lot to take on so soon. Never one to complain at work, I quickly took the table as my own and suppressed my fears of slipping on the wet floor while awkwardly carrying a heavy tray the size of an inner-tube (Did I mention they mop the floors every day as I'm arriving at 4?! This is how my life will end.) Anyway, the point here is that ultimately this incident resulted entirely in my favor: I didn't fall, I gained experience, I got the big table's tip, and, most importantly, when the manager saw me taking on such a large table that obviously wasn't meant to be mine, he was angry with the pushy waitress who made me take it but impressed with me. 
• DGC helped me wrap over half my silverware that night so I could leave early.
  
• When I make a mistake or have a question, the manager laughs at me, nicely corrects my error, and says he loves me.
• All my coworkers are so incredibly willing to demonstrate and explain anything to help smooth my assimilation into diner world. Sometimes this information comes out as a sort of annoying know-it-all expertise commentary that makes me want to jab them with my hard-earned silverware, but I know they are just taking advantage of an infrequent opportunity to pass on wisdom.
  
• When the mean manager seats people in my section, he gently taps me on the back and calmly tells me how many he just seated so that I may get their waters, followed by a term of endearment.

Not much out of the ordinary happened during my most recent shift. 

• I had nice tables that mostly consisted of travelers. Travelers are always blown away by our decked-out diner; I try to encourage their thoughts as if I haven't heard the same things from everyone else but what I really want to say is, "Come on, this is South Jersey..there's a place just like this 5 minutes away and another one 10 minutes away."  
• The nice manager asked how old I was, if I was married, and if I had kids. I said "23. No. Probably never." He said to let him know when I was ready to start a family. I have so many thrilling life prospects it's really not even fair to the rest of the world.
• DGR (who blew my mind one day by announcing she was a mere 44 years old when I swore that by the looks of her she pushing 60) was involved in an incident report. Her boyfriend came barging into the diner and threatened to beat up the managers. Cops came to the rescue. DGR then had to wait on a drunk who was impossibly demanding, extremely confused, poorly dressed, and only wanted to eat lobster. 

  

"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!).