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A few minutes later, Statler says he's ready to order -- every guest's favorite lie. We only make it to the second item -- the Trio Sampler appetizer -- before he has to look at the menu again to actually choose the items that would make up the trio. Yeah. "Ready," my ass.
He looks down and furrows his brow in decision-making. This decision should take 10 seconds max. But no, apparently this is some sort of critical ordeal that must be reasoned out thoroughly. After about 20 seconds of standing there in awkward mutual silence, I am quite tempted to walk off and just leave him to his thoughts. Let him call me over when he's actually ready. But there's no way of doing that without appearing rude. Sigh. Looks like I get to just stand here. Awkwardly waiting. Knowing Raymond will walk in any moment. And all I want to do is get things clean for him.
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"Okay! What can I get ya?" I ask from the ground. I finally finished picking up all the lettuce, threw it away, and washed my hands in the sink while he anwered my question. He lists his choices, tell me he wants no jalapenos anywhere on or near his nachos, and then lists all the dipping sauces he wants. Yay for full and complete orders! :) I dry my hands, place the order, and bring him a complimentary glass of sweet tea while waits.
About those jalapenos, though.... guess what button I completely forgot to press?
** ding ding ding, we have a winner!
Well, technically I did press the "no jalapenos" button. But there were so many other modifications that the guy made, and the Squirrel [ our computer system ] was being so, well, squirrely [ per usual ] that I had to delete and re-do several of the modifiers so many times that, by the third go-round, I didn't notice that I'd inadvertently left off the jalapeno directive.
I thought nothing of it again until about 15 minutes later [ about 4:10pm ] as I opened the box in front of the guest to show him the finished product.
"Oh, no! Jalapenos! I am so sorry. I'll go get this fixed right now."
I picked up the box, grabbed the order's ticket, and started towards the kitchen. I snuck a look at the ticket to see if the mistake was my fault or the kitchen's. The words "no jalapenos" were nowhere to be found. Damn. It was mine.
"Wait," he snapped. "I don't want them to just take off the jalapenos 'cause it'll still have the hot on there."
In my head, I totally snickered. First of all, "hot" isn't a noun. Secondly, how intolerant to jalapenos ARE you? These really aren't that hot. But, hey, in his defense, he is old and white. Also in his defense, I did say "I'll go get these fixed." My words did not adequately reveal my plan of action -- whether I would have the cooks simply pick off the jalapenos or have the cooks completely restart the nachos.
"Oh no, sir," I corrected. "I'm going to have them make fresh nachos for you."
"Well, how long is that gonna take?"
"Only a few minutes."
Since it is well enough after 4 o'clock, it would actually take less time to make the nachos the second time around than it did the first time; 4pm is the clock-in time for the first wave of PM shift cooks and by now they've completed their shift change and are settled into position. Prior to that -- as when I first placed Statler's order -- there are only 2 cooks left from the AM shift, so things take just a few minutes longer. But of course I didn't get the opportunity to explain that the recooking would take far less time than the original cooking.
[ Also, about this time, Raymond appeared behind the bar out of freakin' nowhere, till and towels in hand. Damn. I am so not ready for him. ]
"No, no. It's going to take too long. The rest of the order is going to get cold!" Statler protested. "I want the whole thing remade."
My face dropped and my eyebrows shot up. I put the box of nachos down on top of the other three boxes of food and braced myself against the bar. "You want us to remake the entire order, not just the nachos?" I repeated slowly. Not gonna lie, I had a little attitude in my voice. Somehow I held myself back from blurting out, "IT'S TO-GO FOOD, DUDE. IT'S GOING TO BE COLD ONCE YOU GET TO WHEREVER YOU'RE GOING ANYWAYS." Yay for self-restraint!
"Yes, I want you to remake the order," he repeated.
"Alright --" I quickly snatched up the entire stack of food. "-- I'll go throw all of this away for ya," I snapped at him through a thin veil of politeness. I turned and walked away, only getting about two steps away before he stopped me, "Now, you wait a second. I wanna talk to your manager. Bring him over for me." He motions towards Raymond who is completely oblivious to my situation, as he is currently in his I-need-45-minutes-of-silence-when-I-first-walk-in-to-my-shift bubble, an is walking away from the bar and towards the kitchen. "Hah!" I thought. "He thinks Ray is a manager. Can't he see that Ray is wearing the exactly the same uniform I am?" Whatever.
"Sure, I'll get a manager," I actually said. And resumed walking.
The only "manager" available at the time was Jackie, a Floorwalker. [ A Floorwalker is an experienced and trusted server promoted to assist the management on a shift-by-shift basis. Floorwalkers dress professionally like a real manager, interact with guests as if they are a real manager, and essentially act as the bosses' filter, as they have the authority to handle the more minor issues ]. Luckily, Statler won't know that Jackie isn't a real manager. I explained the situation to her -- including the fact that the error was my fault and that I gave Statler an inappropriate amount of attitude. Jackie set out to handle my mess, and I instructed the cooks to start again on the order with no jalapenos whatsoever.
I avoided the conversation between the two of them so that I could cool myself down a bit and focus on the rest of my cleaning. Plus, Statler stood up to tower over Jackie when she approached -- between his height [ and her lack thereof ], his attitude, and his overall demeanor, he looked quite formidable. Throughout the conversation, Jackie's face showed a mix of helpless and flabbergasted, with a side of trying-to-maintain-her-composure; I couldn't help but wonder what was being said. Ten minutes later, and Statler's food finished before he did. Raymond silently bagged up the boxes, and watched as Statler left. Luckily, Jackie filled me in on what I'd missed.
He told her everything she already knew about the situation -- the jalapenos, the attitude. He also mentioned that he thought that I'd been washing my hands in a dirty sink because he saw the lettuce on my hands. *false* Furthermore, he claimed he was afraid to get his order remade because he didn't want us to mess with his food. He thought that I would spit in his food before I walked out of the kitchen. *also false*
The conversation quickly changed course, though, when Statler exclaimed that "Ever since she [ motioning towards me ] and that big one [ referring to one of my bartender friends Sybil, another thick white girl like myself..... but taller and thicker ] started working back there, this bar has "gone to shit." *definitely false* He continued with more rather sexist comments for the majority of the conversation, all leading up to his final statement, "I don't know why they let you people behind the bar anyways!" -- complete with a condescending sneer and a direct point towards Jackie's chest.
The entire time, Jackie was trying ineffectively to get a word in edgewise. Each attempt of "Sir--," "I underst--," "Well--," "I apologize--," etc. was interrupted with the next part of his tirade or with an even more infuriated, "No you do NOT understand! How can you? You keep interrupting me! You're not even listening to what I am saying. This is not how you talk to a customer." He trampled all over her, then took his fresh food and left the restaurant without paying. [ Jackie's exact words? "Basically I just bent over and took it." ]
Jackie trudged jaw-dropped back to the office and related the story to our Kitchen Manager Melissa and myself. Melissa became infuriated when she heard the story. Forget about Melissa's perfect blond hair -- with her fire, I'd swear she was a natural redhead like me. I seriously would have paid money to see her talk to Statler. But, alas. Her outburst was only for our ears.
"Why didn't you stand up to him, Jackie?!? You don't have to let him talk to you like that! Oh, I wish I had been the one who talked to him. I would have given him a piece of my mind!"
Jackie mumbled and bumbled something about "didn't know we could talk back to a customer..."
Melissa is pacing the three square feet of open space in the office. "We have the right to refuse service to anyone. And when someone makes a personal attack against our employees, I don't think we should take that! ...I mean, seriously, half of our bartenders are female. You're a female. Most of the other Floorwalkers are female. Three out of our five managers -- including our General Manager -- are female! We need to stand up to that kind of shit! I would have told him that if he can't be respectful, then he should take his sexist business elsewhere, that he and his money were no longer welcome in our restaurant!"
Jackie blinked as if she were about to crumble under her guilt of not having stood up for me. And for all of us.
Naturally, I turned to my phone and posted a snarky Facebook status:
"Didn't realize that I was born with the wrong genitalia to be competent behind a bar. Whoops. My bad."
My favorite responses?
"What dude goes to a bar to get waited on by a dude?"
followed by, "It's not like we're stirring the drinks with our junk..."
*le sigh* What an ordeal. I don't even know what to make of it all.
[ degreed waitress ]
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