To-Go Tips Galore! -- Tip #7

Okay, so I put you on hold. I realize neither of us wants that. But let's take a second, shall we? Let's think about why. Why did I put you on hold?

The answer really is quite simple  -- Now's not a good time to talk.
 

To-Go Tips Galore! Tip #7: If you want your food, then stay on the line.
 
This is a concept I've touched on before in a previous To-Go Tips Galore! post, but it certainly needs repeating.
 
I only have one computer, you know. I share that computer with my other bartenders. If one of them is ordering food or processing a payment for another guest, I have to wait to use the computer.
 
Please, dear caller, allow me to take two or three minutes to get some other things settled for the people standing directly in front of me, and then you can have all of my attention.
 
I promise I will come back to you.
  
I have two phone lines, and most of the time during the weekend rush, both of them are ringing simultaneously. I could very well be answering a to-go call on the other line while you're on hold.
 
I answer the calls in the order in which they came. So when you decide you've waited long enough, hang up and call back, guess what you've done? You've put yourself at the end of the line again. You're likely going back on hold to wait out a few more minutes.

Together, my fellow bartenders and I are processing the pickup and placement of to-go orders by the people standing right in front of us, serving food and drinks to the bar guests, making drinks the servers have ordered for the restaurant, and acting as our own bar-back, in addition to answering the two to-go phone lines.

And the last thing I, or my bar guests, could possibly want to hear while doing all of this is that God-forsakenly-annoying riiiiiiiiiiiing BEEP BEEP of the to-go lines. Putting a caller on hold solidifies his/her place in line while silencing that haunting noise.
 

[ Side note: a bar guest the other day had the gall to ask us if we could silence the phone ringer. It took everything within me to not retort, "And how do you expect us to answer the phone if no one knows it's ringing?" ]

Now if you've been on hold for ten minutes -- which is extremely rare [ and far more rare than the guests claim is occurring ] -- then, yes,  hanging up and calling back is a good idea, because I have likely forgotten about you in my scurrying about. That's my bad. But seriously, don't yell at me. You chose to call in at 7pm on a Saturday night, or at 12:30 on a Friday afternoon, and so you have to deal with the consequences: longer wait times. What did you think I was doing? Just sitting around, twiddling my thumbs, hoping and wishing that you -- yes, you! -- would deign to call me so that I would finally, finally have something to do??

I cannot tell you how many people offhandedly comment upon arrival, "Well, I was gonna complain about how long you had me on hold for, but then I got here and saw how busy y'all are! I don't know you keep up with all this!"

So what now, you self-entitled jerk? In yo' face!
Maybe you should get your panties untwisted and you won't be so insufferably impatient!
Stand there in awe at my epic multitasking skills!
Revel in amazement at the sheer volume of sales I am conducting by the minute.
Realize that you are significantly less important to me than you had initially presumed.
And be patient in that line 'til it's your turn for my attention.

So there.
:)
 
[ photo credit ]

 
 
Sometimes, our situation is exacerbated when we are extremely busy by the management blocking off one of our to-go lines to help save the kitchen from going down in flames. When the cooks are slammed with the food orders for hundreds of people actually seated in restaurant, adding five or six orders every three minutes or so for someone who's not even here yet can be the straw that breaks the camel's back. My standard, and fairly accurate, "15-20 minutes" quote time becomes "20-25 minutes." But this means that now I have only one to-go line. So if I'm talking to someone on that line, or someone is on hold, then no one else can place any to-go orders. Sure this kills my potential for tips from the lost to-go orders and can irritate some guests, but it maintains the kitchen's ability to function, which, from what I can tell, is pretty darn critical for a restaurant to operate.

This is yet another reason for you to stay on the line! Again, if I put you on hold, I'm coming back! There are anywhere from one to four bartenders working at any given moment, so if none of us can get to you at that precise moment you call, please be patient. My restaurant as a corporation technically does not support the to-go operation, but is forced to tolerate it, meaning that we don't have a designated to-go person. As in, on weekend evening shifts, we have four bartenders: one up to his neck in drink orders for the whole restaurant while two more are drowning in to-go orders, and the fourth is generally acting as the assistant, the "go fer" running the errands the other three need to stay afloat. And somehow between the four of us, we manage to serve our fifteen or so bar-top guests. Despite the corporate anti to-go stance, our store's to-go sales constitute 15% of the entire restaurant's sales. We would not even remotely need a fourth, or even a third, bartender on weekend nights if we had a smaller to-go operation. Even other stores in our chain here in the area would be crippled by the sheer volume of to-go orders that we handle routinely. We have a lot going on.

tl;dr: BE PATIENT, YOU IMPATIENT, ENTITLED JERKWAD. YOUR TIME WILL COME.

[ photo credit ]

 

[ degreed waitress ]

I promise I'm still alive...

What an adventure these past few months have been! What an emotional rollercoaster!

 

I apologize for not having uploaded any posts lately... I know a few followers of mine been hounding me lately for updates (Hermione and Eloise I'm looking at you!).

 

Between starting a graduate school program, moving into a brand new apartment, starting an exciting relationship with a co-worker and falling hopelessly in love, then getting dumped and having my heart ripped out of my chest while still having to see him pretty much every day at work complete with lots of drama, and injuring my hand on the clock while my managers mishandled the situation but thankfully allowed me to file workers' comp, and all sorts of other crazy adventures, this blog hasn't exactly been first on my priority list lately.



I promise to be uploading more posts soon though :-) I can happily say that my time off from posting has led to a nicely growing stockpile of stories waiting to be shared with you.

 

 

I mean, look at that hang loop! That is a niiiice hang loop!
Doesn't it just make you want to secretly slip a soup spoon through it?
Or tie a napkin flag to it?
If you jostle the shirt's wearer, just enough,
and at just the right moment, he won't even feel it.
Minutes of pure entertainment, guaranteed.
 
[ photo credit ]

I shall start with the story of "T-bone," the resident jokester of our serving staff. It is not uncommon to see a server's belt loops or shirt back loop secretly filled with soup spoons as they stand at the computer ordering their tables' food. It's always entertaining to see how long it takes for people to notice the spoons hanging there delicately.

 

 

 

Apron strings are a never ending source of entertainment as well...
....untying them...
...tying them in super-knots...
...tying them to someone else's apron strings...
...tying straws to them...
...tying napkins to them...
...tying spoons to them...
Need I say more?
 
[ photo credit:
T-bone's careful handiwork,
an inattentive server at the computer,
my phone's lovely camera,
and an absentee manager
so I didn't get caught with my phone out at work ;) ]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Or other simple, tried-and-true pranks, like asking for unnecessary favors from fellow servers... having them deliver cocktail sauce to a party eating chicken tenders, or a ranch to a table that hasn't even been sat. Confusion breeds hilarity. Or my personal favorite, T-bone once convinced a new, ditzy coworker that we serve a side of peanuts (the chopped, dessert-decorating kind) with every unsweetened iced tea. Standing by and watching these events transpire is always quite entertaining, and usually they are taken in stride by the prankees. Well 9 times out of 10, at least...

 

T-bone took his pranking to a whole new level last weekend, though.

 



Not quite, but almost!
 
[ photo credit ]



One of the tall tables in the cocktail room that night had a party of one gentleman who was, based on appearance only, generating much kitchen-gossip as he was undoubtedly a pimp. In his fifties probably, he definitely stood out in his shiny leopard print shirt, tiger-striped hat, extensive gold jewelry, and oversized fur coat. Just give him a cane and a hoe or two, and the image is complete.



He walked towards the exit where he cornered Yasmin, our exotically beautiful Panamanian new manager. He chatted her up, and from head to toe, her body language screamed "uncomfortable." She deftly retreated, uttering her friendly "Thank you for coming in tonight. Have a good evening," but not before he slipped her a little scrap of paper, asking her to call him sometime.

 

She scurried back to the back of the restaurant, and into the managers' office, and I scurried after her, barely concealing my laughter until we were out of sight.

 

I followed her into the office where I collapsed in hysterics and Yasmin threw the paper almost angrily into the trash can. The other managers laughed sympathetically as we shared the story. Joseph the manager (not to be confused with server/bartender Joseph) pulls the scrap out of the trash can once he learns of it and unravels it.  

 

"You have to call this number, Yasmin," he says, reading the words she had not read. "You have to settle this right now." He smiles slyly, and pushes the phone towards her. In leaning foward, I catch a glimpse of the pimp's "name" -- Cat Daddy --  and his phone number. And I double over in laughter all over again, not only at the ridiculous name, but also now at the realization that the phone number listed is that of our own restaurant. If Yasmin had called it, she not be contacting a pimp, but rather the host staff she oversees.

 

Turns out, T-bone had orchestrated the whole thing. "Cat Daddy" returned to his table and grinned good-naturedly as he watched as many of our servers who now knew of the situation blatantly came out to the cocktail room to see this pimp for themselves and bust out laughing unashamedly. Once Yasmin calmed down from her embarrassment, she too joined the laughter, and even admitted to both Cat Daddy and T-bone that it was a funny prank.

 

It's the little things that make this job worthwhile sometimes :)

 

 

[ degreed waitress ]