Waiter Rant (7 page)

Beth laughs. “Thanks for the visual.”

“No problem.”

“Say,” Beth says, looking around the empty restaurant. “The place is dead. Is it all right if I leave now? I’d like to be home before my boyfriend gets back from work.”

“You two gonna go out and blow three hundred bucks on vodka?” I ask.

“No,” Beth laughs. “We’ll try being fiscally prudent.”

“Good girl.”

Beth gives me her cash-out. As I rifle through it, I think about how the system that pays waiters sometimes contributes to their poverty. Most servers take home all their earnings in cash at the end of their shift. For example, if you make $50 in cash tips and $100 in credit card gratuities, after taking care of the support staff (tipping bus people, bartender, food runner, and paying bribes to the hostess) you get to keep about $120. That money goes directly into your pocket at the end of the night. Because it’s in your pocket, it’s easy to spend it before you get home. It sickens me to think how many times I’ve blown my hard-earned money on fancy cocktails and late-night snacks. Ugh.

A good waiter trick is to consolidate all your take-home money into fifty-and hundred-dollar bills. I’ve often noticed that I’ll spend a pocketful of twenties faster than I will a hundred-dollar bill. Something about Benjamin Franklin staring back at you provides a moment of fiscal pause. Another tactic is to remove $20 from the night’s take for fun money or gas, and then earmark the rest for deposit in the bank. I used to be such a regular cash depositor at my local bank office that, after months of depositing small bills, my usual teller began to suspect I worked as an exotic dancer. When she asked what club I danced in, I laughed and told
her to get a new eyeglass prescription. I never was or ever will be Chippendale material.

Luckily for me, Fluvio changed the system for paying his waiters a couple of years ago. After doing it the old-fashioned way he changed over to a system that lets us take home our cash tips at night, but pays our credit card tips by check at the end of the week. Getting the bulk of our compensation in a large weekly check reduced the chances that Fluvio’s waiters would blow their money on pharmaceuticals, grain alcohol, and stupidity.

At first we all bitched about the change. After Fluvio explained the benefits of his system, however, we realized it was superior. You see, there’s a big tax problem with how waiters get paid. Remember the tip-out? The money waiters pay out to support staff? If I make a $100 in tips and tip out $20, I’m actually making $80, right? Many establishments make me pay taxes on the entire $100! That’s right. I pay taxes on a huge percentage of money I don’t get to keep. I’m paying the bus people’s payroll taxes! It’s unfair, but that’s how it’s done in many places. Restaurant finances are notoriously shady. With Fluvio’s new system we paid taxes only on what we actually took home. If I made $100 and tipped out $20, I was taxed on only $80. That’s a tremendous difference. Fluvio also instituted a very transparent payroll system, at least as far as the servers were concerned. After every shift a waiter writes down his or her tips in a ledger that’s accessible to all the staff. Everyone, including the bus people, can see how much money everyone’s making. The bus people know they aren’t being cheated, and the staff can double-check their weekly paycheck against the ledger. There’s a system of checks and balances. If you’ve ever suffered under the Byzantine payroll system of a dishonest restaurateur, you know what I’m talking about is very cool. The other benefit of Fluvio’s system is that I have to go to the bank less often. This may disappoint my nearsighted male-stripper-loving teller, but that’s okay—I’ll let her keep her fantasy.

As always, Beth’s cash-out is in order, and I let her go home.
Louis and Saroya show up for work, but by eight o’clock it becomes obvious the evening’s going to be a bust. The Bistro’s almost empty, and the reservations have already eaten and left. Business is bad. Louis and Saroya beg me to send them home. If there’s one thing these two hate, it’s standing idle in an empty restaurant.

Since I have to stay and lock up I send them home. Half an hour later a party of fifteen people walks in the door. Ordering premium cocktails, fine wine, and expensive food, these polite, well-mannered people turn out to be dream customers. Their bill is massive, and so is their tip—almost $500. After tipping out the bus I make $400 on the table.

The bus people and I, happy with our good fortune, clean up the restaurant and call it a night. As I’m locking up I realize I made a nice chunk of change today. I can’t wait to tell Louis and Saroya what they missed. They’ll be squirming with jealousy. It’s a restaurant truism that the waiter who stays late always leaves with the most cash. Tonight I was that late waiter, and the table gods smiled on me. I experience a pulse of waiter “good-money high.” Maybe I should play the lottery tomorrow. When you’re hot, you’re hot.

As I start heading home I toy with the idea of calling in sick tomorrow but dismiss it. That’s another curious waiter dynamic. After they score a big payday many waiters feel compelled to take an extra day off. Instead of saving their lucky money, they use it to fund a mental health day. I can understand. This job doesn’t offer paid vacation. Waiters have to make do on their own.

I know from experience, however, that my little waiter high isn’t going to last. I know I’m going to be back here tomorrow, doing the exact same thing I’ve been doing for seven years, and probably making shit money to boot. Servers almost never make killer money two days in a row. The table gods are fickle bitches.

I shake my head. How pathetic is it to have a theological system based on a pantheon of imaginary restaurant gods? Maybe my waiter truisms are defense mechanisms to stave off my anxiety
about being in a dead-end job. I’m pushing forty. Very few people have the talent to make professional waiting a career. At some point even the best waiter moves into management or takes an ownership stake in a place of his or her own. If I’m honest, I can’t imagine doing anything in the restaurant business ever again. I need to be funding a retirement plan and be happy with what I’m doing. I need to get out. But doing what?

For a while I dreamed of opening up a coffee shop. Not a Starbucks knockoff, mind you, but a classy, homey place, with a real fireplace, overstuffed chairs, cool jazz, and coffee made by human beings, not machines. I investigated business loans, scouted locations, and watched several java entrepreneurs, noting their successes and failures. The failures got to me. I saw several shops, places where the owners put their hearts and souls into the endeavor, fail. It was painful to go into their empty shops and watch them stare out the windows, praying for customers. I tried putting myself in their shoes, imagining I was the one with business loans and the friends rooting for me, only to watch my dreams collapse.

For many reasons, I’m terribly afraid of failure. Having so many jobs yanked out from under me hasn’t helped either. I’ve become fearful that I’ll never succeed at anything. The Bistro has been the most stable job I’ve ever had. What started out as a safe place to hide until I figured out what to do with my life has become a career. Somewhere along the line I lost the will to try to do something else. That’s where I give guys like Fluvio credit. At least he has the
cojones
to put it out there and try making something for himself. My mom and dad seem to think that my blog may be an opportunity. They think I have what it takes to be a writer. Maybe that’s true, but the publishing world isn’t exactly beating a path to my door. When the site got popular, I tried hustling T-shirts and coffee mugs through an online store like every other blogger out there. The idea tanked. If I’m honest with myself, I’m worried my blog and my writing’s just another thing in my life that won’t work out.

My good-money mood evaporates, just as I expected. Suddenly I feel very lonely. Aggravated, I think about going to the bar down the street for a cocktail. I decide against it. I need something more distracting than a drink. Half an hour later I walk into a loud bar, the kind of place where the bartenders wear short shorts and the entertainment’s provided by scantily clad girls twirling themselves around a pole.

By the time I finish my first overpriced martini, the nearly nude sharks are already circling around me. One of the sharks starts rubbing my neck. Next thing I know she’s sitting in my lap and I’m buying her a drink.

“Wanna go in the back?” she whispers into my ear. Glitter sparkles on her cheeks.

I look over at the “Champagne Lounge,” the place where girls pretend to like you for twenty bucks and the length of a song.

“And what happens in the back?” I ask, looking all innocent.

“I do a little dance for you,” the girl says. Her accent’s Eastern European.

“You any good?”

The girl laughs, her dyed red curls tumbling around her face. “I’m the best, baby.”

The girl’s very pretty. When I think about it, she lives on tips just like me. I idly think about inquiring into her money-management practices but decide against it. She manages her money by tucking it inside a G-string.

“Let’s go then,” I say, beyond caring at this point.

The girl leads me by the hand into the back. I told you I spent my money on stupid shit.

S
ince we’re already talking about spending money on stupid shit that won’t get you laid, let’s talk about Valentine’s Day.

If you ask me, Valentine’s Day is one of the biggest scams going. Guys still paying off the baubles they bought wives and girlfriends at Christmas and Hanukkah are frightened by Madison Avenue into believing their sweethearts will transform into frigid harpies if they don’t shell out for some jewelry and round-trip tickets to an exotic island. Smelling blood in the water, restaurants replace their regular menus with “special” menus that give price gouging a good name. The foods many kitchens prepare on that holiday are often items they make only a couple of times a year. If your chef hasn’t had the practice of making the same dish day in and day out, your entrée’s probably going to taste like rubber osso buco. If you’ve ever had a crappy meal on Saint Valentine’s Day, you know I’m right.

Just like New Year’s, many restaurants get hit with the unscrupulous stick every February 14. They hyperinflate their profit margins by shrinking portions, using cheaper ingredients, and masking inferior cuts of meat and fish with creamy or oversalted sauces. If everything you eat tastes like it’s been soaked in black truffle oil, then someone’s pulling shit somewhere.

And don’t get me started about the pain-in-the-ass seating arrangements. Normally restaurants have several tables designated as two tops. On Valentine’s Day
every
table is a two top. Restaurant floor plans are not laid out to accommodate an onslaught of romantic couples comfortably. Imagine your dining room. Pretend you have a table that seats eight people. Chop up that table up into four smaller ones and then try cramming four couples into them. Now imagine waiters, customers, bus people, and chefs tramping their grease-sodden shoes all over your carpet. Your dining room just got awfully crowded, didn’t it? Ah, Grasshopper, you’re beginning to glimpse the magnitude of the problem.

Then there’s the never-ending drama to get the best table in the house. There are only a few best tables in any restaurant—especially on Valentine’s Day. A smart option would be to remove several tables from the floor plan. Sure, you reduce the number of paying customers, but at least the kissy-faced couples will have room to breathe. Try suggesting this to a restaurant owner, however, and he’ll look at you like you’re smoking dope. If anything, he’s trying to jam in
more
tables. Every year Fluvio drags several tables out of storage and tries wedging them into places they really shouldn’t go. Every year I ask him if he’s going to put a table in the ladies’ room.

On Valentine’s Day you’re going to be sitting cheek by jowl with the couple next to you. Deal with it. And don’t bitch about where you’re sitting. You’re probably lucky to get a table in the first place. The primo spots have been reserved for big spenders, big tippers, or people who’ve planned
way
in advance. Most Valentine’s Day reservations, surprisingly, are made at the last minute. If you have a suboptimal table and try bullying me into giving you a window seat, the hostess has got the cell phone numbers of eight desperate guys who’ll be happy to grab your chair before the heat from your ass has had a chance to dissipate. Go ahead—make my Valentine’s Day.

It’s sad, really, when you think about it. Valentine’s Day used
to be a much simpler, low-pressure affair. Two thousand years ago it started out as a feast day to honor the Christian martyr Valentine. It seems the pagan Roman emperor asked Valentine, a priest, to renounce his faith. Showing an appalling lack of survival skills, Valentine refused. The emperor, who I suspect was a bad tipper, rewarded Valentine’s intransigence by having him beaten senseless with clubs and beheaded. While poor Valentine’s bones moldered in the catacombs, he somehow ended up becoming the patron saint of engaged couples and happy marriages. If you’ve ever planned a wedding, you know Valentine caught a tough gig.

Time marched on, and, like many Catholic traditions, Valentine’s feast got hacked by preexisting Roman mythology. Somehow the tradition of Cupid got folded into the whole mess, and the greeting-card industry, knowing a good idea when it saw one, revved up the papyrus. I know that the real history of Valentine’s Day is a bit more complicated than that, but you’ve got to feel sorry for its progenitor. Valentine got the shit beat out of him, his head cut off, and what was his reward? Becoming the “box of chocolates” saint? That blows.

Wasn’t Valentine’s Day easier thirty years ago? When I was a kid, Valentine’s Day meant giving Mom a box of Russell Stover candy and bringing homemade cards to all the kids in my first-grade class. Now Valentine’s Day is an important profit center smack dab in the middle of winter. Candy companies, restaurants, and florists depend on this holiday to help keep them in the black. A few weeks before V-Day the department stores start revving up the commercials, and men everywhere start believing they have the ability to pick out tasteful lingerie for their wives. (You don’t. Just give a gift certificate.) Restaurants start running ads reminding procrastinating men to make their reservations before it’s too late.

And that’s just fine with me. While I bemoan the commercialization of poor Valentine’s untimely demise, I’ve got a living to make. Remember, I’m a waiter. Don’t be fooled by my occa
sional bursts of sentimentality. I can be one mercenary bastard. The period between February and April is slow, and my bank account’s hurting. Be warned, I’m going to do my damnedest to separate you lovebirds from your money.

When the fateful day arrives, I show up to The Bistro a few hours early. Fortified with two cups of Starbucks and a Red Bull, I’m raring to go. I want to get a head start on my prep work and review the seating plan with the hostess. Before I can even take off my coat the house phone rings.

“Where’s the hostess?” I shout. I don’t want to pick up the phone.

“She’s not here yet,” yells Imelda, one of the bus girls.

“She was supposed to be here at noon!”

Imelda just shrugs. The phone keeps ringing. I know what the caller wants already. I take a deep breath, sigh, and pick up the receiver.

“The Bistro,” I answer, “how may I help you?”

“I need a reservation for tonight,” a desperate male voice rasps over a cell phone.

I look at the computer, where we track our reservations. “I have an opening at five-thirty, sir,” I say. “And another at ten.”

“That’s it?” the man answers incredulously. “I want something around seven.”

“I’m sorry, sir,” I reply. “That’s all I have open. If you’d give me your phone—”

“Listen,” the man says, “you need to squeeze me in at seven.”

“I’m sorry—”

“This is Mr. Green,” the man barks. “You remember me? I’m a friend of Fluvio’s.”

“Oh yes, Mr. Green,” I lie. “I remember you. Please hang on one moment.”

I put Mr. Green on hold and call up his name on the Open Table reservation terminal. The computer’s database enables us to keep track of patrons’ birthdays, anniversaries, favorite waiters, and a never-ending list of special requests and behavioral
oddities. There’s even a section euphemistically titled “customer notes.” This is where the waitstaff get a chance to leave feedback/ warnings about the customers. Sometimes the notes describe patrons as great tippers or contain useful information about food allergies or table preferences. Occasionally the notes read “cheap tipper,” “takes forever to eat,” or, less professionally, “customer’s an asshole.”

Despite the juvenile pranks, the reservation terminal’s a serious piece of equipment. There’s enough sensitive information locked inside its digital memory to give an identity thief a raging hard-on. Because The Bistro maintains mailing lists and reward programs, our computer system is a treasure trove of personal data—right down to the customers’ home addresses and credit card numbers. It isn’t just my restaurant doing this. Reservation and computer systems are prevalent throughout the industry. Can you imagine your Amex number being guarded by a nineteen-year-old hostess? If I ever have to flee to a country that doesn’t have an extradition treaty with the United States, I’ll have no problem creating a new identity.

Now the computer’s telling me Mr. Green’s record is pretty shabby. The notes describe him as a “difficult customer” who’s sent his food back several times and refused to pay for it. Even more damning, he hasn’t shown up for half the reservations he’s made. Now he wants a table at the last minute on Valentine’s Day? No way, pal. For every action there’s an equal and opposite reaction

“I’m
so
sorry, Mr. Green,” I say. “I have nothing available.”

“What?” Mr. Green sputters. “But I need reservation!”

“I’m sorry.”

“Let me speak to Fluvio!”

“It’s Valentine’s Day, sir,” I reply calmly. “As you can imagine, Fluvio’s very busy.”

“So you’re not gonna give me a reservation?”

“I’m afraid I cannot.”

“My wife’s gonna kill me.”

“I’m sorry, sir,” I repeat for the umpteenth time.

Mr. Green unceremoniously hangs up. I smile to myself. Restaurant karma strikes again.

Mr. Green’s your typical yuppie food Nazi living inside a cocoon of self-entitlement. He probably thinks that shortchanging waiters and insulting chefs is a divine right. I was never a big fan of divine right philosophy. Today Mr. Green is shit out of luck. I actually have a table free at seven, but I’m saving that for a good customer. Unfortunately, Mr. Green’s never going to learn how his past behaviors cost him the table. It’s not a good idea to let patrons know they’re on the receiving end of vindictive waiter thunderbolts; they tend to get all indignant. I prefer to think about a blue-balling Mr. Green sleeping on his couch and wondering why he couldn’t get a reservation. Customers seldom make the connection between bad behaviors and not getting the service to which they think they’re entitled. Here’s a dining out tip: if you
never
get the table you want at your favorite restaurant, or if reservations on a special day are
always
hard to come by, someone at that restaurant doesn’t like
you
. Think about it. Review your history as a customer. Do you leave good tips? Are you a polite person? Are you an obnoxious drunk? Believe it or not, people often refuse to do business with people they don’t like. Just because you have money doesn’t mean you get to ride the ride. I know that’s irrational and no way to run a business, but economics tells us that business isn’t always about numbers. Businesses are run by people, and sometimes people are just plain crazy. Think about your workplace and the unprofessional shenanigans that occur there. Not everything that happens at work is dictated by the bottom line. So don’t be surprised that chronically bad customers end up getting bad service. It may not happen right away, but it will happen eventually.

Two hours after Mr. Green’s call The Bistro starts filling up with customers. I look at my watch and groan. It’s only five o’clock. The realization that I’m going to spend eight busy hours on my feet hits me full force, and suddenly I’m glad I bought that
new pair of shoes. I go to the kitchen and pour myself another espresso. I’m drinking way too much coffee. As I sip my demitasse I remember the time I started having heart palpitations and ended up in the ER. The doc told me I was fine—just lay off the caffeine. That doctor probably never waited tables.

Celine, the blond hostess who always reminds me of a 1940s movie starlet, pokes her head into the kitchen. “Table twenty-six just got seated,” she says. “Can you get them out in an hour fifteen?”

“My dear,” I reply, “I’m the king of turning and burning.”

“I hope so,” Celine says, walking away. “We’re overbooked.”

“Hey,” Armando, the chef, calls out. “Don’t forget to push the dessert special tonight.”

Armando whipped up a special dessert for V-Day—a heart-shaped raspberry-filled chocolate ganache cake for two. It’s covered in tacky red icing.

“Hey, Armando,” I shoot back. “Why didn’t you make an anatomically correct cake this year?”

“Huh.”

“You know, Armando,” I said, pointing at the cake. “Make it look like the Sacred Heart.”

“You’re sick,” Armando replies.

“Blood dripping from it. The works.”

“You’re gonna burn in hell.”

“You know,” I continue, “the official symbol of Valentine’s Day shouldn’t be a heart.”

“What should it be?”

“How about a pair of testicles in a jar?”

“I don’t think I can make a dessert that looks like that,” Armando says.

“Aw, c’mon,” I reply. “You’re a talented guy.”

“Maybe something with chocolate-covered cherries…” Armando muses aloud.

As I head over to my new table I run through the day’s specials in my head. Fluvio, to his credit, doesn’t replace The Bistro’s regular menu with some kind of Valentine’s Day scam. Sure, we
have some nice specials—lamb shank osso buco, wild boar in a mushroom sauce, and potato-encrusted halibut, but, unlike New Year’s, customers can get away with ordering a cheap bowl of spaghetti Pomodoro if they want to.

My new arrivals at table 26 are intently studying their menus. As I draw closer I notice they don’t look like The Bistro’s usual clientele. The man’s wearing a baseball cap and what looks like his best denim work shirt. His eyes threaten to pop out of his head as he looks at the prices. His companion’s a very pretty lady, but she looks like she’s wearing a reincarnated bridesmaid’s gown. Her overdone makeup gives her face a startled expression. As the couple whisper back and forth about how expensive everything is, I groan again. It’s not an uncommon occurrence for people to get up and leave at this point. I remember my parents yanking my brother and me out of a restaurant because it was too expensive. It was years ago; my parents were young and struggling, and money was tight. I remember feeling embarrassed. Don’t get me wrong, I didn’t grow up destitute, but I was at the age when you start realizing your parents aren’t all-powerful. My young brain was beginning to comprehend that money was very important and that my family didn’t have as much of it as other people did. I never forgot that moment. To this day, I always empathize with diners who, for whatever reason, realize they’re out of their depth.