Thirty is the magic number

Oh it's been so busy of late. So so busy. I'm not complaining, much, but I have started to take a tube of vaseline with me to work. It makes the nightly shafting so much easier to take. I have to say we have been jolly brilliant too, the kitchen have been sober and quick and the punters, for the most part, cooperative and pleasant. The only exception being the table of twenty four that showed up one evening without having gone through the tedious 2 minute process of reserving a table in advance. They all thought that somebody else had done it. Oh how the chuckled when they realised that nobody had. There was less chuckling from the Waiter Chums working that night. It's probably a blessing for all concerned that I was not there.

waiter-lube
makes it easier to bear...

Even I have have been remarkably tantrum free, I did whinge for a day or three about tips, but still I was in sparkling form. There was a snappy/gruff period in the middle of Easter sunday when Waiter Chum Number 1 managed to annoy me. She snapped at me for seating a four top on a table that was in the middle of being deconstructed by a ten year old with sticky fingers and a huge case of OCD. Honestly he had arranged the cutlery into the shape of a crop circle. Impressive for sure but annoying, mainly for Waiter Chum Number 1. But chocolate soothed over our petulant moment.

But it appears that our customers are only happy when they arrive in groups of 30 or more. Take last week, we had...

A table of thirty singles from a singles/friendship club. Awh bless their little lonely hearts. But they were so sweet and lovely. Terrible ratio of women to men though and what men there were wouldn't have captivated the heart of even the most desperate of women. But they all had a giggle and seemed to love it. But it was hard serve them without going, "Awh" and feeling sorry for them. Probably no need as they were the ones who were drunk and I was the one with the sore smelly feet.

Then we had a table of 37 from the Canadian Fencing team. Wow, for athletes, they sure could drink. Whiskeys were nailed at such a rate of knots it made my gargantuan head spin. By the end of the night it was just the coaches left as all the younger members of the team had gone back to their hotel for an early night, or something like that. But the coaches sat on and I couldn't help listening in as I cleared up around them. Who would have thought that the world of competitive fencing was so political. Large Canadians with French accents became really rather animated as they waxed on about the old days of fencing and how it's all changed so much. For reasons of health and safety, mine that is, I removed the large pepper mill from their table. I thought they were talking about Errol Flynn but they weren't.

To be honest it was like being in A Louis Theroux documentary such was the oddness of their discussion. When I heard they were booked I assumed there would be lots of puns in it but there was not. Foiled again. Ahem.

And finally a table of 35 old age pensioners from Florida. Oh my. They were fun if a little hard of hearing.

"CABBAGE, IT'S CABBAGE" I confirmed for a little old lady.

Her husband wasn't so sure and asked for just a "bisl".

"Cabbage? You're telling me it's cabbage? Do I want cabbage? It's cabbage, you're saying it's cabbage, why wouldn't it be cabbage. I'll take just a bisl of your cabbage if that's what you are telling me it is."

This lead to an argument between them, "HOW'S HE GONNA KNOW WHAT A BISL IS MORT? HE'S IRSH! THERE'S NO IRISH JEWS. THEY'RE ALL CATHOLIC. SOME ARE PROTESTANT BUT THEY ARE ALL CATHOLIC. THEY'RE NOT JEWISH."

I did not know what a bisl was and I'm pretty sure I went to college with an Irish Jew.

"HE JUST WANTS A LITTLE BIT OF YOUR CABBAGE", shouted the little lady. It was surprising that such a voice could be mustered from such a small frame.

"Oy vey!" indeed.

Tonight's table of 30 are Dutch, probably my favourite non-Irish people to serve, outside of Americans obviously, due simply to their awesome "acshent".

Thirty really is the magic number....

When your words come back to haunt you......

So there I was waffling on about how accidents happen and about people need to be less litigious and how much nicer the world would be if we all just treated accidents as being just that. Eh? Remember how I was galloping about on my high horse looking down on the little people with their mouths open who demand financial recompense and handjobs for even the most minor of mistakes, boo-boos, and gaffes? Well that came back to bite me on the ass with no small amount of gusto.

Which was disappointing.

see how my own words cam back to haunt me...

I was down dealing with with my "surprise" table of thirty three Canadians, lovely people, when from the corner of my eye I could see the manager dealing with my other table of twenty European business people here on business (but they wouldn't tell me what this business was despite my many attempts to gouge it from them). You don't want/need a manger at your table at the best of times but even less so when it's check time. I made a dash, as much as any fat lad can dash, back to the bar to wrestle control of the situation from the manager.

"And Manuel will take that for you", says the manager and hands me the credit card machine.

I performed all the usual post meal niceties and checks. When the waiter asks you if you loved everything when you are paying the bill it is mainly to remind you that the service was top bloody notch and seeing as you have your wallet open and all that ahem cough-cough. But I wasn't really worried as it was a table of twenty so they would be liable to incur a service charge of 10%. Their bill was £671.00 at the last count, nice. God bless expense accounts and the associated gold cards that come with.

The woman paying the bill handed me her American Express card. We don't take Amex cards, who the hell does in this town? I made my usual little joke, "Ah sorry madam we don't take Amex.....Visa, Mastercard, Valentines, Christmas, Mother' Day cards are all good but no Amex." She chortled, politely, and called me a "character". I was hoping she meant somebody smooth and lovely but she was probably thinking more of Groucho Marx's cynical and sarcastic, Rufus T Firefly. Meh.

She reached into her wallet, purse, filofax thingy-ma-jig and produced another card. If you wanna know where all the credit has gone I suggest you take a peek in this woman's bag, she had more cards than Christmas. Seriously. Anyhoo she handed me her card and I slotted it into the machine but as I hadn't printed the bill I wasn't quite sure of the final total so I asked her to hand me her copy. Which she duly did.

I scanned the bill once, got the total and keyed it into the credit card doofer. I checked the bill again and realised that there had been no service charge added. At first my heart sank and then started racing as I wondered just how I would stab to death the manager, in a manic frenzy or slowly thus making the pain last longer. Now normally I fill the minute or two that it takes to process the credit card payment with inane but jovial banter. I did not fill the processing minutes with inane or jovial banter this time. No I just stood there seething and shaking with rage.

£67 for fuck sake! That's like a hundred of your US dollars, seventy four of your funny Euros and like 4000 of your Canadian dollars. Rage!

Sixty fucking seven quid, lost and gone. No hope of recovery. I said goodbye to the business people who were here on business and then turned to immerse myself in the task of clearing their shit up. It wouldn't have been shit if I had got my sixty frigging quid but I had been stiffed because the manager had forgot to put the service charge on the god damned bill, so it was shit. I muttered my plan of attack as I cleared the table. I was thinking that I would start by playing it cool, disappointed but mature and then crank it up to an almighty ruckus, maybe a brouhaha, but probably just a ruckus, it would really depend on his reaction.

But then my words came flashing back,

"There appears to be no such thing as an accident or genuine mistake anymore. Well actually there are plenty of accidents and genuine mistakes, it's just the reaction to them that has changed. It's all, "Woe is me"...."

Sake. So I just sucked in my cheeks and chalked it up. Plus the manager that omitted to put the service charge on the bill is actually the nicest person in the world, true story. Shouting at him would have been like shouting at the Andrex Puppy.

I really hate growing up and being mature about things. I'd much rather mess myself. Actually I'd much rather have the sixty quid. If I'm really being honest I'd rather have the sixty quied and mess myself......