This conversation happened Saturday at the bar I work at:
DRUNK LADY: (pointing to a storage closet) Is this the bathroom?
ME: It is if you’re drunk enough.
CO-WORKER: Did you say “it is if you’re black enough?”
ME: no, I said drunk.
CO-WORKER:Oh, I was gonna say, damn, you’re racist!
ME: Oh, I AM totally racist, just not that openly.*
*I did not say this last line, but added it later for dramatic effect.
ADVENTURES IN CUSTOMER DISSERVICE:
IF YOU ARE TOO LAZY/STUPID/CHEAP TO FIX STUFF JUST IMPROVISE….
…This was the philosophy at the Grand Cafe in Portland, OR where I held my first bar job. This was taken in the women’s restroom, the flushing mechanism broke and so they just removed the tank lid and wrote on the wall with a sharpie “push hard girl” followed by an arrow pointing to where you were supposed to press… CLASSY!
…Also, the owner was a crazy and sexist coke head that yelled at us regularly and only hired women save for one token male slut who thought he was hot shit and tried to bang everybody. Coke use and sexual harassment was rampant and the owner would often fire half the staff on a whim. A gal working there was treated to dirty old men and the occasional gang banger or ex-con during the weekdays and the Portland’s answer to the Jersey Shore weekend nights. One of my most vivid memories was the way a mirror was positioned behind the bar so the patrons could get a good view of my ass. I lasted three months. Also, I’m pretty sure this was the first place I ever had the distinct pleasure of cleaning up a stranger’s vomit.
I’ve had A LOT of different jobs, in A LOT of different industries and the one thing each job had in common was that I eventually learned to hate it. The only thing I hate more than any job is interviewing for a new one and the worst part of any interview are the questions you can never give a real answer to: “why do you want to work here?” “what are your worst attributes?” or “where do you see yourself in 10 years?” I’m throwing up right now just recalling them, so to save me any further regurgitation I’ll move on. Finally, this vomit inducing line of questioning is followed by me being given the chance to ask questions. If I truly asked what I wanted to ask, I could assure myself of not getting the job. The frustrating thing is that these are exactly the questions I need to ask to find out if I would be happy working at a place. For now, I will have to ask them only in my dreams and only on this blog. So here they are……..
TOP 10 QUESTIONS I WISH I COULD ASK IN A JOB INTERVIEW BUT CAN’T:
1. May I see the stupid and degrading uniform I would have to wear if I worked here?
2. How many hottie latino guys work here?
3. How many annoying people work here?
4. So, how “on-time” are we required to be?
5. Are there managers and or immediate supervisors that are bat-shit-crazy and will I have to deal with any of them?
6. What are your thoughts on petty theft?
7. Are you with the IRS or are you cozy with aiding employees in cheating the IRS?
8. Do you tend to overlook drug and alcohol use in the work place?
9. How do you feel about employee abuse and dismemberment of faulty work equipment.
AND LAST BUT NOT LEAST, THE MOST IMPORTANT QUESTION OF ALL…
10. How do you feel about employee abuse and dismemberment of faulty co- workers and customers/clients.
Don’t you hate it when a total stranger tells you how to do your job?
This granola-hippie chick was having the coffee shop cashier bag up her muffins and bagels. He was separating them into three bags when she said in a high pitched and nasal voice “Don’t you have a bigger bag? You are just wasting all this paper.”
…and THIS is why hippies are bad for the earth. When they unleash their snippy little unsolicited bits of advice, it does not make me want to conserve. What it makes me want to do is crush my empty can of Red Bull against her head and toss it in the trash and say “yeah, I did it! Now, I’m gonna go drive a car, no an SUV and run over a bicyclist and when I get home I am gonna to flush my toilet over and over and over and over again.”
If granola-hippie-snippy chick is so concerned about paper bag use she needs to, I don’t know, BRING HER OWN EFFING REUSABLE BAG WHEN SHE SHOPS. Just a thought.
Every year, during the second week of January, the JP Morgan Health Care Conference invades San Francisco’s Union Square. This is what I have been dealing with all week: wealthy banker/health care types in power suits, many of whom treat the restaurant I work at as their own personal conference room/coffee shop and me as their personal servant. There are many great people among these conference types, this is not about them. The ones that suck though, really suck and this is for them:
Dear JP Morgan Conference Douche Bags that make the whole lot of you look bad:
1. A restaurant is NOT your own personal conference room/coffee shop, if you want to sit for hours and just drink coffee and talk business, rent a conference room at a hotel or GO TO EFFING STARBUCKS! They are into screwing the little guy too, so you guys should get along great.
2. IF YOU DON’T KNOW SOMEONE, DON’T TOUCH THEM. That means don’t grab the waitress by the arm or pat her on the back or poke her to get their attention. Also, don’t wink at the waitress or call her hon, it creeps her out. If you want some physical attention from a female, they are called hookers and you can get them in the Tenderloin a block away for cheap. Use a condom… or don’t… get AIDS… I don’t care.
3. If you are in a hurry.. it’s called fast food.. go to McDonald’s.
4. Enough with the bottled water, soy milk and decaf coffee lattes! Pretentious douche bags are extra irritating.
5. The wasting of food by rich people is obscene. At least box it and take it out to a homeless person (you’ll find them on your way to pick up a hooker in the tenderloin). There are starving people in developing nations.. you know… the nations you go to on vacation and act like douche bags in as well.
6. How many times do I have to say this: It is NEVER acceptable to snap your fingers at a waitress to get her attention. You snap your fingers to call a dog, not a person. The next time a person does this to me I will run up to his table (because it’s usually a he) bark three times and piss on his leg. Then, I will make sure your dish is laced with the chef’s “special sauce.”
7. The world does not revolve around you. I know it’s hard to believe but it does not. This is not Tudor England, you are not lords and we are not your peasants. Now go feed a homeless person, drink your soy-decaf-latte and go get a hooker.
That is all.
