Friday, March 17, 2006
Busted
Dag. One frickin day in a row of blogging. Surely I can do better. Seriously, I feel you. You're out there saying, "Shit, dog; if you're trying to go back to school for journalism, maybe your ass oughtta practice havin something to say." Well, fuck you. Basketball's on.
Wednesday, March 15, 2006
Every Day
I'm trying to make myself write every day. Even if it's just a bit (which it will be today), or completely insensate (which it will be almost always). I need to sharpen up my writing skills and get more proficient at organizing my thoughts. For some reason, longhand never does it. I can type so much faster than I can scribble; it's easier to keep up with my mind this way.
The main reason I feel I should improve my writing is because I think I've decided to go back to school. I say "think" because several things need to fall perfectly into place for my finances to take this massive hit. I'm applying to EKU, to their Communications department. Specifically, the Journalism program, hence the need to work on my skillz. Which, hopefully, will end up payin da billz.
I'm tired of being unskilled, undereducated, and underpaid. When I was 22 I thought, "Of COURSE I can wait tables the rest of my life. I don't want a REAL job anyway; I wanna stick it to the man. Or at least avoid him." Well, it turns out the man is where you find him, and I'm finding him more and more in the restaurant biz. It's all so unrewarding: financially, emotionally, spiritually. There's just nothing there. And it's obvious I'm not going to accidentally become "that guy". You've met one of "those guys", I'm sure. We all have. They start telling you some convoluted story about who they know and how they met, how they go way back and lost touch for a while. Then they reconnected and the other guy was rich with a kick ass job. He hooked his uneducated, talent-less bro up with a bitchin job that makes no sense to you. You know; he's the Acting Vice-President of Inter-Firm Communication and Computer File Relocation. He works from home, in his boxers, about two hours a day and gets paid 100,000 a year. That guy.
I'm not going to luck into that. Or, at least, I'm tired of waiting. So back to school with me, just like Billy Madison. Unfortunately, right now, it's back to my shitty bartending job. More later.
The main reason I feel I should improve my writing is because I think I've decided to go back to school. I say "think" because several things need to fall perfectly into place for my finances to take this massive hit. I'm applying to EKU, to their Communications department. Specifically, the Journalism program, hence the need to work on my skillz. Which, hopefully, will end up payin da billz.
I'm tired of being unskilled, undereducated, and underpaid. When I was 22 I thought, "Of COURSE I can wait tables the rest of my life. I don't want a REAL job anyway; I wanna stick it to the man. Or at least avoid him." Well, it turns out the man is where you find him, and I'm finding him more and more in the restaurant biz. It's all so unrewarding: financially, emotionally, spiritually. There's just nothing there. And it's obvious I'm not going to accidentally become "that guy". You've met one of "those guys", I'm sure. We all have. They start telling you some convoluted story about who they know and how they met, how they go way back and lost touch for a while. Then they reconnected and the other guy was rich with a kick ass job. He hooked his uneducated, talent-less bro up with a bitchin job that makes no sense to you. You know; he's the Acting Vice-President of Inter-Firm Communication and Computer File Relocation. He works from home, in his boxers, about two hours a day and gets paid 100,000 a year. That guy.
I'm not going to luck into that. Or, at least, I'm tired of waiting. So back to school with me, just like Billy Madison. Unfortunately, right now, it's back to my shitty bartending job. More later.
Monday, March 13, 2006
Sunday. Sigh. Bloody Sunday.
Great gangrene-riddled Christ! I haven't worked a Sunday in nearly a year and I have totally been taking this for granted. Sunday, as anyone in the restaurant industry well knows, is infamous for being the absolute worst day possible to have a shift.
When I worked at Don Pablo's, Sunday was anathema to our servers. Corporate policy was to give free fountain drinks to anyone who brought in the program from their church. I haven't the faintest idea why. Perhaps it was some kind of misguided moral reinforcement: We are SO proud of you for going to church today that we'll waive the buck-sixty you would have paid for this Sprite. Keep it up!
People flocked to Donny P's on Sunday. I don't know why they so desperately needed to get their Mex-on right after church, but they hit the door hard and fast. That place filled up like Leo's lungs at the end of Titanic. And make no mistake; these were the absolute WORST people you can imagine. Rude doesn't even scratch the surface of their attitude. They were the most awful, sanctimonious, put-out, furious, disdainful folks you can imagine. They were seething with hate before they even sat down, all of them. Some of it could be explained by the inept, high-school hostesses they spoke to first. But I can't believe that every single one of them was pissed off by a ditzy little blonde girl that mispronounced their last name. What happened to these people to fill them with such high-octane rage?
If you've never waited tables, you can't begin to conceive of what servers go through on Sunday. The percentage of people who yell at their server, demand to speak to the manager, ignore the hostess and seat themselves, and just generally complain about everything, is through the roof. And speaking of percentages, tipping is nearly non-existent on Sunday. Most of the mulleted rednecks that attended Don Pablo's couldn't figure out ten percent of ten dollars if you put a gun to Jeff Gordon's head in the first place. However, on Sunday, fury replaces mathematics. Not only is Sunday terrible because of the customer's attitudes, it's even worse because we get paid LESS to wait on people who hate us MORE.
I have seen servers cry on Sunday. I don't mean the new girl, the one that just can't seem to get the hang of it and has never waited tables before. I'm not talking about the guy working his first Sunday, which happens to be Mother's Day (the Armageddon of the serving world). I'm speaking of tough, battle hardened, leather-skinned pros who've been at this for years. They've seen nearly everything, and Sunday can still do this to them.
Joseph-Beth is a lot better than anywhere I've ever worked. Granted, our everyday clientele is a little higher-class than the average hunting aficionados that populate Lexington. This means that our Sunday crowd is better behaved than the dolts flocking to Golden Corral. Nonetheless, people are still short with us, much too tense, and disinclined to leave a decent tip on the table.
What the fuck is the problem with Sunday? Why do you people make it so hard on us when we woke up this morning dreading going to work in the first place? Why must we serve your hateful ass on a day when you so obviously don't possess the temperament to be out in public?
I'll tell you why. Fucking church. Church is the only thing all these people could have in common on Sunday. Considering most of them are late 30's to mid-60's, they certainly weren't all out drinking on Saturday night (which is where their servers were). A lot of them have their spiteful little kids with them, but they can't all be fed up with them. Most of them have normal jobs, which means they're back at it Monday morning, but they can't ALL be clinically despondent about that. They have the whole day off. They had all day yesterday off. Church is the only practical explanation for ruining everyone's day on Sunday, including mine, and I don't even fucking GO to church.
These folks have to get up early. They have to drag their recalcitrant kids out of bed because most children congenitally and naturally realize that church is a monstrous waste of time. They have to put something nice on. Maybe not a tie, but at least zip your dress pants up you fat bastard! They have to manhandle said children into something respectable. In order to sleep as late as possible, breakfast is out, so the roads are full of drowsy, hungry, resentful people. We know why they're drowsy and we know why they're hungry. But why are they resentful? Because they fucking hate church, that's why. They don't want to go, but they go anyway, which pretty much defines religion as a whole phenomenon. It's like exercise; they may not like it, but they think it's good for them, so they force it.
Think about it. If one hour a week is too much for you to give to your god, if it makes you the surly, mean-spirited, cantakerous lout I have to deal with later, just stop going. Please. For the good of mankind, cut out this church shit. This is supposed to be the time in your week when you're joyful and full of praise and delight and what not. You're thanking god for letting your wretched existence continue another 7 days. But, just like the rest of us that have figured out that it's all a sham, you're bored. The singing is terrible and off-key. The sermons are patently absurd. The minister or priest or reverend has done this a thousand times and would really rather be at home surfing through MonsterLoad.com's quality site. You don't like church. You KNOW you don't like church. What you maybe don't know is that it makes you an asshole for the rest of the day. You wasted your morning by sitting in a building that I'm convinced is the one place god most certainly is NOT. You've wasted your time and your family's time, and, now that it's all over, you're hungrier than ever. Well, fucking go to Don Pablo's cause I don't wanna see you.
When I worked at Don Pablo's, Sunday was anathema to our servers. Corporate policy was to give free fountain drinks to anyone who brought in the program from their church. I haven't the faintest idea why. Perhaps it was some kind of misguided moral reinforcement: We are SO proud of you for going to church today that we'll waive the buck-sixty you would have paid for this Sprite. Keep it up!
People flocked to Donny P's on Sunday. I don't know why they so desperately needed to get their Mex-on right after church, but they hit the door hard and fast. That place filled up like Leo's lungs at the end of Titanic. And make no mistake; these were the absolute WORST people you can imagine. Rude doesn't even scratch the surface of their attitude. They were the most awful, sanctimonious, put-out, furious, disdainful folks you can imagine. They were seething with hate before they even sat down, all of them. Some of it could be explained by the inept, high-school hostesses they spoke to first. But I can't believe that every single one of them was pissed off by a ditzy little blonde girl that mispronounced their last name. What happened to these people to fill them with such high-octane rage?
If you've never waited tables, you can't begin to conceive of what servers go through on Sunday. The percentage of people who yell at their server, demand to speak to the manager, ignore the hostess and seat themselves, and just generally complain about everything, is through the roof. And speaking of percentages, tipping is nearly non-existent on Sunday. Most of the mulleted rednecks that attended Don Pablo's couldn't figure out ten percent of ten dollars if you put a gun to Jeff Gordon's head in the first place. However, on Sunday, fury replaces mathematics. Not only is Sunday terrible because of the customer's attitudes, it's even worse because we get paid LESS to wait on people who hate us MORE.
I have seen servers cry on Sunday. I don't mean the new girl, the one that just can't seem to get the hang of it and has never waited tables before. I'm not talking about the guy working his first Sunday, which happens to be Mother's Day (the Armageddon of the serving world). I'm speaking of tough, battle hardened, leather-skinned pros who've been at this for years. They've seen nearly everything, and Sunday can still do this to them.
Joseph-Beth is a lot better than anywhere I've ever worked. Granted, our everyday clientele is a little higher-class than the average hunting aficionados that populate Lexington. This means that our Sunday crowd is better behaved than the dolts flocking to Golden Corral. Nonetheless, people are still short with us, much too tense, and disinclined to leave a decent tip on the table.
What the fuck is the problem with Sunday? Why do you people make it so hard on us when we woke up this morning dreading going to work in the first place? Why must we serve your hateful ass on a day when you so obviously don't possess the temperament to be out in public?
I'll tell you why. Fucking church. Church is the only thing all these people could have in common on Sunday. Considering most of them are late 30's to mid-60's, they certainly weren't all out drinking on Saturday night (which is where their servers were). A lot of them have their spiteful little kids with them, but they can't all be fed up with them. Most of them have normal jobs, which means they're back at it Monday morning, but they can't ALL be clinically despondent about that. They have the whole day off. They had all day yesterday off. Church is the only practical explanation for ruining everyone's day on Sunday, including mine, and I don't even fucking GO to church.
These folks have to get up early. They have to drag their recalcitrant kids out of bed because most children congenitally and naturally realize that church is a monstrous waste of time. They have to put something nice on. Maybe not a tie, but at least zip your dress pants up you fat bastard! They have to manhandle said children into something respectable. In order to sleep as late as possible, breakfast is out, so the roads are full of drowsy, hungry, resentful people. We know why they're drowsy and we know why they're hungry. But why are they resentful? Because they fucking hate church, that's why. They don't want to go, but they go anyway, which pretty much defines religion as a whole phenomenon. It's like exercise; they may not like it, but they think it's good for them, so they force it.
Think about it. If one hour a week is too much for you to give to your god, if it makes you the surly, mean-spirited, cantakerous lout I have to deal with later, just stop going. Please. For the good of mankind, cut out this church shit. This is supposed to be the time in your week when you're joyful and full of praise and delight and what not. You're thanking god for letting your wretched existence continue another 7 days. But, just like the rest of us that have figured out that it's all a sham, you're bored. The singing is terrible and off-key. The sermons are patently absurd. The minister or priest or reverend has done this a thousand times and would really rather be at home surfing through MonsterLoad.com's quality site. You don't like church. You KNOW you don't like church. What you maybe don't know is that it makes you an asshole for the rest of the day. You wasted your morning by sitting in a building that I'm convinced is the one place god most certainly is NOT. You've wasted your time and your family's time, and, now that it's all over, you're hungrier than ever. Well, fucking go to Don Pablo's cause I don't wanna see you.
Friday, March 03, 2006
February Sucks
I apologize to my 3 semi-loyal readers for my lack of dedicated blogging in the month of February. As everyone knows (except, perhaps, the stinking commies), February sucks. While it is the shortest month (and, pointedly, Black History Month) it drags its ass like an old tired dog. Everyone is sick of winter by February, they're ready for the interminable professional ice hockey season to end and they've caught their third cold of the fucking winter. I myself am suffering from one right now. However, since I am a bartender, I'm not calling in sick. Oh, no. I'm going to work and I'm getting the goddam customers sick, too.
So, fuck you, February. We're glad you're gone. Take your useless President's Days and your stupid Groundhog Day and your wretched Valentine's Day and cram em all up your twisted little ass.
So, fuck you, February. We're glad you're gone. Take your useless President's Days and your stupid Groundhog Day and your wretched Valentine's Day and cram em all up your twisted little ass.
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