Burned Out Server is Sacked

July 10, 2012

in Server Stories

Waiting tables can burn you out hard, especially if you’re the type of person who hustles. After 20 years of serving low-life miscreants, my burn-out was way beyond being tired of it. Every fiber of my being was just done with it. It got to the point that everyone I waited on was a motherless, ill-bread moron, and I loathed the fact that they even decided to eat out. How dare they?

It was a slow burn, but when it all came down, I happened to be working at the absolutely worst corporate atrocity I’ve ever seen. Worse than Crapcake Factory, DUI Friday’s, or The Olive Dungeon combined. It was L___’s Seafood House. What a hole. Positively miserable, and soul-sucking. Despair lives in the air at L___y’s. Oh, and there has been some talk about Regional Managers having the moral gauge of Bernie Madoff in these stories. The RM at L___’s was as bad as they come. He was, I think, actually born under a rock, and raised by salamanders. Living proof that RMs are walking dumpster juice. The servers were the most miserable you will ever see. Totally defeated, and afraid to have a personality. The management team had less personality than a dirty sponge between them. God, was it awful. We had to use a script, verbatim, with every single table. Yes, I said verbatim, and managers would hover to make sure it was being done.

The unhappiest, most self-concerned, and greediest server was, of course, a trainer. Her name was Rosa, and in her mind “trainer” meant, “I can skate on my side work and nit-pick everyone to death to make it look like I’m working, and I can pick and choose my tables and customers, regardless of any floor plan, or anything the door staff has to consider. The best part is that I can act like I’m in on something with management, and when they’re around I can act buddy-buddy with them and become scrutinizing of the servers I was just laughing with before the manager came around. Trainer is muy bueno, I’m so entitled. Excuse me, I have to talk about you in Spanish with the kitchen staff. We like doing that to white people.”

One night, at closing, I told that crazy old bat to get out of my face and shut the fuck up. I pointed out that the tasks to be completed are clearly posted, as they have been for years before even her highness was there. I let her know that I’ve been doing it now for quite some time, with absolutely no problems rolling a napkin around a fork, or pouring something from one container to another. I suggested that she might want to pitch-in instead of gripe, and maybe we can go home tonight. I was a little loud, and a little abrasive. Not really. Actually I scolded the bitch like a piss the bed toddler, and kept her droopy face quiet all night.

The next day at work the GM, Troy, a grossly obese, touting his ghetto upbringing like it was a badge of honor, losing his breath after three steps, walking down hallways sideways, zero class, idiot son-of-a-bitch, called me into his office. “Here we go,” I said to myself. He gets me in the office and played the worst good cop I had ever seen. This fucking Shamu is playing me? WTF, and why? Scale breaker told me how he knows that Rosa is a pain in the culo, and he’s surprised it didn’t happen sooner. Mr. bed sheets for briefs failed to look me square in the eye once. That cowardly, buffet-bankrupting, dickhead.

Over the following couple of weeks, Troy became unaware of my existence. He had forgotten to put me on the schedule one week. When I asked him why his blubber-laden brain let that slip, and told him that a whole side of beef is a lot of breakfast to take on, which could take any of the miniscule amount of fumes he mistakes for energy away, possibly causing him to forget something, like putting me on the fucking schedule, and I hope he can get his fat ass out of the chair without cardiac arrest, to print me a schedule before I do something really mean like phone in bomb threats to all of the all-you-can-eat menudo joints in town and change the lock to the walk-in and the freezer. He had somehow managed to completely conceal his neck as he sat in his office chair, which was about be rendered useless any day now, gasping for air and barely able to huff out the words, “I’ll… call… you… tomorrow… with… your… schedule… hh… hh… hh.” He did; I wrote it down as I have been doing for many years and magneted it to my fridge, like usual.

On Mother’s Day I was scheduled to be at work at four. I got there at 3:30 and Troy called me into his office as soon as he saw me. Ken, the pasty manager who couldn’t keep his shirt tucked in, and once cried when a waitress asked him if he was gay, came in behind us and shut the door. Oh, shit. Troy handed me a write-up for the Rosa incident. I signed it, clearly remembering our conversation about this three weeks ago. He took it, and filed it. I thought it was done, but Troy started breathing like a sick ape and I knew he was gonna start talking. Ken stood as close as he could to the corner, quivering, ready to squirt any moment. Troy gasped to me that it is Mother’s Day and tardiness can’t be tolerated on a day like today. He was pulling another slip from another file. I told him I was 30 minutes early. He showed me the paper he was pulling from the file. A schedule, matching the one on my fridge exactly, with the small exception of the one hour discrepancy on Mother’s Day.

His schedule said 3 o’clock. He was trying not to appear how aware he was that he’s the slickest pavement cracker on the planet, but his upper lip was trembling. He was impressed with himself when he handed me the termination papers. As proud of himself as he must have been when he ate his first block of government cheese in record-breaking time, thus shattering the family record that his great-great uncle’s friend’s cousin’s hairdresser’s pimp set in 1944. I couldn’t help but to laugh-sigh when I was signing it. It was a relief on one level, but kinda shitty on another. Whatever.

I tried to say, “Sorry about the mix-up, dude,” but I barely got two words out before he dissed me like he was some kind of hot-shit gangster shot caller and said, “C’mon let’s go.” I moseyed outta there and he waddled behind me, barely keeping up, or even able to walk, for that matter. He wanted to be sure I left. I did, and the last thing I heard about him was from my lawyer who had called him up to ask why my last paycheck came in the mail two weeks late with twenty-seven hours missing from it. She thought he was very polite and extremely helpful.

– Franky G

{ 12 comments… read them below or add one }

Edward July 11, 2012 at 11:39 pm

With that attitude you totally deserved getting fired. You're disgusting!

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Aaron July 13, 2012 at 8:11 am

An "ok" story. It got boring after awhile because it repeats itself. OK. We get it. Troy was obese. Hope you feel better now though.

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Pierre Doucet July 13, 2012 at 8:26 am

You got mouthy with someone with seniority, and got fired for it. Completely justified.

The owner's weight had nothing to do with why you got fired, yet that seems to be all you've got to complain about.

Get your temper in check or get out of the serving business, doesn't sound like you have thick enough skin, kiddo.

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Eric August 16, 2012 at 6:21 pm

If someone with seniority is being lazy and not doing their work, they should be held accountable. But you don't seem to think so.

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Chris July 13, 2012 at 2:54 pm

People shouldn't really have to deal with the Rosas of the food and bev industry. But, there are other ways to handle them without doing it at work. The internet has a wonderful website, http://www.poopsenders.com/, that will send that bitch (and Troy, too) a box of shit. Good luck in your next endeavor!

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Stanley July 13, 2012 at 4:08 pm

Whoever operates that Poop Senders site must work in a zoo as you can order gorilla and elephant crap. Seems like it might be illegal to send that stuff to someone in the mail. I know a couple of people that I'd like to place an order for.

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Hugh July 16, 2012 at 7:02 am

While I'm sure some of the people he had to work with were bad, his attitude in this posting tells me that he isn't exactly a jewel himself. I pray I am NEVER served by this clown.

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Jack August 10, 2012 at 5:08 pm

Here's a perfect example of a guy who belongs in the unemployment line. Some free advice dude, get a job where you don't have to interact with human beings.

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Sisi October 12, 2013 at 8:57 pm

And maybe the OP, once he is poor enough, can get some government cheese, since he seems jealous of that.

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Erin May 13, 2013 at 10:31 pm

I'm surprised at how well this was written. OP, you should be an author!

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'ol N March 20, 2014 at 9:06 pm

these comments ere really "something else!!" (*in a good way, of course!!*)

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johnny doe May 7, 2014 at 7:06 am

So true about L_____ shithole! I worked for C—- house what a disaster!! Waiting tables is awful I agree!!!!

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