Fucking Up in Reverse

The First Essential Scary Truth

A few months ago, one of the cocktail servers I work with had the last two tables in the joint.  “Alex,” she asked, “I’ve closed both of the tables out.  Can you bus the glasses for me when they leave?”

My day had been lousy.  There was no hot water that morning and the moon was full, bringing in the usual clichéd clientele of the difficult and wacky.  However, I was unduly unprofessional and elected to wear my bad day on my sleeve instead of smiling my way through.  My job is to make the same issues that were bothering me that day go away for my clientele.  The management must have seen it as they asked to work the service bar, dealing only with the staff.  Therefore, my bearish mood was only forced on my peers, who didn’t quite know what to make of it.  However, they made the rational decision to keep their interaction with me to a minimum.

And now, just as my miserable day was at an end, here this cocktail waitress wanted me to do her job. The rules of every house in which I have plied my legal drug dealing trade have always included having to stay until the last customer you have personally served leaves the premises.  It is am eminently sensible regulation to place on your employees when you think about it.  With the overly litigious nature of the American polity, the server/captain/bartender has to be on point at all times with his or her guests.  If there is a food allergy or other issue, it’s easier for the primary service representative to be in control instead of trying to pass the information forward.  We all know how reliable grapevines are.

Instead of falling back on the house rules and politely telling her, no it’s your job to stay not mine; I let go and ran my feelings.  It came out something like “it’s your fucking job not mine so do it.”  The poor woman looked at me like I had just slapped her across the face, she got defensive and stalked off.  I had to walk over to her, apologize and then offer to do exactly what she wanted in the first place.

Leave it to me to fuck up in reverse.