tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-47110675611184743582024-02-08T05:15:12.933-08:00These American ServersJoe Sixtophttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08242065520511683288noreply@blogger.comBlogger121125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4711067561118474358.post-73661536851673505372020-07-28T13:30:00.000-07:002020-07-28T13:30:25.177-07:00Don't Call Me "Boy," Rafael!<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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U.S. Senator Rafael "Turd" Crud (R-TX) weighs in with some typical Republican <a href="https://www.alternet.org/2020/07/ted-cruz-spews-disgust-at-waiters-and-waitresses-who-he-says-dont-deserve-600-unemployment-checks/" target="_blank">bullshit</a>. Most people in our industry that care about politics at all tend to vote for Democrats, but a significant amount prefer the Nazis. When will they learn?.</div>
Joe Sixtophttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08242065520511683288noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4711067561118474358.post-15326014652514898412020-07-21T13:43:00.000-07:002020-07-29T21:06:50.449-07:00Run Tell the Children<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Wow. It's been about a year. My how time flies. I've had a few adventures during that time. You probably have, too. If anybody read about mine, I might post more often. If three people hit me up, on email, Twitter or whatever, I'll tell about what's going on, OK?<br />
Meanwhile, do you have a college radio station or a non-profit community radio station where you are? If so, I recommend checking it out if you haven't already. A lot of them stream online, so there's that, too. My local one played this excellent record by a new (or at least new to me) band called <b>The</b> <b>Untamed</b> recently. I can't seem to find out much about them, but their two songs I've heard are awesome. Especially <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hqN1zb24VVk" target="_blank">this one</a>. You're welcome.<br />
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Fun fact (that I just made up): The money to record this great track came to the band when one of them finished as runner-up in an <b>Izzy Stradlin</b> lookalike contest!<br />
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Joe Sixtophttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08242065520511683288noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4711067561118474358.post-20775359292382049362019-07-22T17:18:00.000-07:002019-10-23T10:22:37.377-07:00Please Tip Your Über Eats® Driver ©2019 by Joe Sixtop all rights reserved<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Please tip your <b>Über Eats</b>® driver. As well as your driver for <b>Postmates</b>®, <b>Lyft Chow</b>™; <b>Deliveroo</b>®, <b>Take Out Taxi</b>™, <b>Grub Hub</b>®, <b>Amazon Restaurants</b>®, <b>Waymo Calories</b>™, <b>Door Dash</b>® and <b>Bring Glutton</b> ™, But don't order cookies! Just check out <i>These American Servers</i>™, we've got plenty of 'em here! Thanks.</div>
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What was I on about last time? Oh, yeah. I shared how my friend Jakey G works for an app that's about delivery of restaurant grub. And how I've occasionally ridden along while he worked. The first time I rode with Jakey G was almost my last. When we got near the restaurant, Jakey G asked me to get out of the car and stay out of sight. Same deal when we got to the client's place. None of this had been discussed prior to us starting out. I thought it was dumb, didn't like it and said so and declined to do any more ride alongs.</div>
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About a year later, Jakey G asked me to go on a run again. He explained that a lot of single moms do Take Out Taxi and the like and bring their kids along, not having <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/2/22/18234606/warren-child-care-universal-2020" target="_blank">good childcare options</a>. Therefore, Jakey G thinks it's Ok. He doesn't know the actual company policy and I can't seem to find out. Hey, if any of y'all know, hmu, Ok? Anyway, I went.</div>
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Our first ping sent us to a nearby <b>Burger King</b>®. We got there quick and the drive-thru line was crazy. I suggested that he try to go inside. He didn't want to. Have you ever heard of someone with a "can-do" attitude? Jakey G has a <b>can't-do</b> attitude. He argued that it would be a waste of time. He used to work for Burger King and knows they close the lobby at 10:30 and blah blah blah. I pointed out how crowded and slow-moving the drive-thru was and that it couldn't hurt to try, even though it was a little after 10:30. He reluctantly tried the door and it was unlocked. </div>
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We went on five more runs over the next three hours. Twice to that same Burger King and once to a different Burger King. By then doors were locked and the drive-thru wait each time was at least 20 minutes. We also went to a pizza joint and a bar that's famous for great burgers. All the deliveries were within two miles of where the chow had been ordered, so Jakey G wasn't getting a lot of cash that night. Drivers don't get paid for getting to the pick-up point or for waiting around for the product.</div>
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After about three hours, we decided to call it. Jakey G had kept glancing at his mobile device. "Damn. They didn't tip me," he kvetched after each delivery. From what I can gather, Take Out Taxi's clients have quite awhile to tip on the app but most either do it soon or not at all. A few tip in cash but it didn't happen that night.</div>
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We weren't far from my crib and got back quick. Jakey G came in for a minute. He looked forlornly at his phone. He'd only made $25. I know he'd burned at least a ten-spot in gas, so not a very lucrative night for my friend. He was about to turn off the app when it chimed. Jakey G smiled. "Remember that last delivery?" he enthused. "That lady tipped me five bucks!"</div>
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Joe Sixtophttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08242065520511683288noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4711067561118474358.post-857818182095033932019-04-30T00:07:00.000-07:002019-07-24T09:57:58.062-07:00Chinga La Migra Hot Wings ©2019 by Joe Sixtop all rights reserved<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
I've got this friend, Jakey G. He's signed up for two— maybe three—of those ride-sharing/chow-delivery apps. He's been with them for about three years. One of the services he's with doesn't operate in the small city where he lives and business isn't exactly stellar up there for the others so he mostly comes down here to work.<br />
Jakey G's a late-night kind of guy. He gets to town about 7:30 or 8:00. Depending on weather and how he's feeling or whatever, he works about six nights a week. Sometimes, when I'm likely to be home from work but still awake, Jakey G will find himself in this neighborhood. And then he's liable to knock on my door. Jakey G usually hangs out here for 15 or 20 minutes and then gets back to driving for a few more hours. But there's been three or four times when he's invited me to ride along.<br />
Of course, if I were to ride along, it would be delivery only; he'd nix the "Accepting Passengers" setting or turn on an app that was delivery only. Even then, I was reluctant to go, though intrigued. Jakey G's none too bright. I was concerned that my riding along could cause him a problem with his employer that neither of us could foresee. The first time he invited me, I declined, citing that reason. A few weeks later, he asked again That time, I was like "fuck it" and tagged along.<br />
Jakey turned on the app. It pinged him in a few minutes and sent us to <b>Chinga La Migra Hot Wings™</b>. Jakey G stopped near the strip mall that was our destination. "Ok. Jump out here and wait for me to get this order and I'll be back in a minute." I didn't like that shit and said so but didn't argue and did as I was bade. I wanted to get this done and go home. I'm a grown-ass man and I don't have to sneak around.<br />
My concerns about riding along had not been with picking up and delivering the chow, they'd been about the company that runs the app, Jakey didn't tell me before we began our adventure that he didn't want me seen. If he had, I wouldn't have gone. Does the fry cook or anyone else at Chinga La Migra Hot Wings give a rat's ass if the driver picking up an order has a passenger, in the unlikely event they notice? Hell no. Is the half-drunk stoner playing <b>Fortnite®</b> on his big screen, rabidly jonesing for chicken to slake his munchies, concerned about how many people were in the vehicle that brought him his fix? Not bloody likely. But when we got about a block from the half-drunk stoner's crib, I was asked to dip out and wait again.<br />
On the way back to my pad, I told Jakey G that it was kind of fun except the part about getting out of his car and hiding. I laughed and told him he's a 'tard for stressing about what the restaurateurs and clients think about him having a passenger, on the off-chance they might even be aware of such. Our convo wasn't contentious or anything. I basically said it was a bad idea for him to have a ride-along when he was working and to not invite me again. And he didn't. For about a year.<br />
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Oh yea. I almost forgot to mention. If you like a website that uses cookies, BINGO!</div>
Joe Sixtophttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08242065520511683288noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4711067561118474358.post-89855362024872370932018-04-01T02:55:00.000-07:002019-05-02T15:15:22.897-07:00Joe's Easter Story ©2018 by Joe Sixtop all rights reserved<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
I'm happy to announce to all and sundry, especially to any theoretical reader(s) in the <strong>European</strong> <strong>Union</strong>, that this site is completely and utterly devoid of cookies.<br />
APRIL FOOLS! There's cookies up in here. For real.<br />
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I guess it was two, maybe three weeks before Easter. It was a busy weekend night, of that I'm certain. The kitchen had closed. The bar still had a little something going on and a few straggling tables occupied one of the dining rooms. I'd had a pretty good night.<br />
We'd been busy but nothing we couldn't handle. My clients were nice and everything went smoothly. If I could hustle up with the broom, me and my $250 (!) could get out of there before 11:00.<br />
I was sweeping a dining area that had closed and subsequently emptied out. And I swept the shit out of it. I tidied up some real estate that wasn't even in my jurisdiction. When I got through, I had a heaping mound of detritus, too much to ethically put in the little trash can at the hostess podium (c'mon, you know you've done it). I scooped it all into a cardboard box and headed toward the big dumpster out back.<br />
But I wound up making other arrangements. Standing face to face by the garbage area were the owner/GM of <strong>Chez</strong> <strong>Swanky™</strong>, Donny J, and the chef, whose name, like mine, is Joe. He usually goes by Chef and there hasn't been any confusion.<br />
Anyway, I couldn't quite hear Chef Joe's angry words and didn't want to, but Chef Joe, the younger, taller and imminently more fatass of the two, was staring down Donny J and obviously giving the owner verbal hell. Donny J just seemed to stand there and take it. As soon as I realized what was going on I went elsewhere. It might have been my imagination but I think I saw Donny J flinch a little under the wrath of Chef Joe.<br />
There often seemed to be some tension between those two. Sometimes it was kind of jokey, but not usually. When spoken to by his boss, Chef Joe answered back kind of sharpish. Chef Joe calls everybody "dude." Chef Joe'd had custody of his daughter the previous Christmas and had taken off on Christmas Eve, the busiest night of the year at Chez Swanky. Donny J was pretty unhappy about that. I'd seen a few minor, testy exchanges between owner and chef before that evening and a couple afterwards. I only witnessed the bitch-out by the garbage bins briefly and didn't hear what was said, er, shouted. But I was a little taken aback. I'm real sure their confrontation never turned truly physical, but to me it was redolent of the threat of impending violence.<br />
Now, unless it's Christmas Eve, Valentine's Day, Mother's Day or New Years Eve, Chez Swanky is closed on Sunday. And since Chez Swanky is a dinner-only restaurant, we're closed every <em>day</em>. Except we serve brunch on Mother's Day. And Easter Sunday. We do decent on Mother's Day but it's nothing to write home (or a blog post) about. But our Easter brunch rocks balls.<br />
Brunch service starts at 11:00. We open the doors at ten of. Last year, as usual, everything went well. None of my co-workers seemed hungover or pissed off about working Sunday morning. Most of our guests were in a good mood, and besides a couple of weirdos who sat in stations other than mine, were real nice and tipped well.<br />
We were real busy for a good couple of hours and then business didn't die but just began to kind of peter out. This would have been about 1:30. We'd advertised seating until 3:00. Chef Joe was very adamant that there'd better not be any entrée orders rung up after 3:30.<br />
A little before 2:00, owner/GM Donny J and his co-owner/occasional assistant manager the (no shit) very lovely Mrs J, sat down at Table #24 to enjoy some Easter brunch their own selves. I remember thinking that it'd be real cool if they'd hold off for about a ½ hour before they ate. The wave had crested but it was still breaking on the shore some and maybe we could still use their help, but oh well. A couple of my co-workers, Mikey B and the lovely Shannon, also expressed that sentiment.<br />
You know who else had that opinion? Chef Joe. Mr and Ms J had sat in cute blonde waitress Shannon's station. As she'd rung in their order, she told Chef Joe who the food was for. That's good restaurant protocol, by the way, alerting the kitchen when chow is for managers, owners, VIP's and the like. But on that Easter, it didn't work out so well.<br />
Chef Joe went batshit livid. "That motherfucker ain't eating until shit around here blah blah blah whatevs!" said the angry chef. He instructed his crew not to make any orders for Table #24. After awhile, Donny J figured out, or was told, what was up. He got Mikey B to ring in their order, still on Table #24. I don't know if using another table number was contemplated or would have worked out any better. Chef Joe wouldn't allow that order to be prepared, either. I don't know if they ever got to eat.<br />
Brunch eventually ended. The clientele left, we cleaned up and moved a few tables and things around so we'd be ready to start serving dinner in about 25 hours. Several of us were at the booths in the upstairs dining room, rolling silver, when Donny J sidled up and bade us join him out back on the benches by the parking lot. "I wanted to tell all of you that I just fired Joe. Maybe you know that he wouldn't make our food a little while ago. I wouldn't have fired him just over that. This has been coming for awhile," said Donny J. Then he paused.<br />
That's when I announced to the assembled crew, "Anybody have a bet on me being the first Joe canned out of here? Better pay up, motherfuckers!"<br />
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Have a happy Easter, everybody.<br />
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Joe Sixtophttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08242065520511683288noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4711067561118474358.post-3078599377378156252018-03-01T00:34:00.002-08:002019-05-02T15:16:06.186-07:00The Jersey Mike's Way ©2018 by Joe Sixtop all rights reserved<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Hurtie G's not a bad guy. He just did a bad thing. A shitty, inconsiderate, discourteous, sorry-ass, impolite, rude, thoughtless, bitch-ass, ungracious, tactless, Johnson-skulled, unkind, imprestigious, boorish, pompous, haughty, supercilious, douchebaggy, motherfucking bad thing.<br />
Hurtie G is friends with my friend Shaquille. And we all have some other mutual acquaintances. That's how I met Hurtie G. It turns out Hurtie G lives just a couple of blocks down the road. Easy walking distance for me but not for Hurtie. He's often mentioned that he's got some bad feet. Living so close, Hurtie G and I have hung out a couple of times. Hurtie G didn't have a car or a driving license for the longest time. He scored both of those things last month and good for him.<br />
A week or so before Christmas, Hurtie called and asked if I might spare an hour or two one afternoon upcoming to run him by his bank and to take him to <b>Snippy's</b>™ to get a haircut. We were crazy busy at <b>Chez</b> <b>Swanky</b>™ in December and I was usually working six nights a week so I told him I couldn't promise. But when the schedule came out a couple of days later, I saw that I was off on Tuesday. I called Hurtie G and told him I could help him out that day.<br />
It actually worked out pretty well for me. Across the street from the large strip center where Hurtie wanted to get his haircut is a big liquor store. I parked close to <b>The</b> <b>Hair</b> <b>Port</b>™ so Hurtie wouldn't have to walk far—he's got some fucked up feet—and I strolled over to get a couple of liquid Christmas presents. I told Hurtie to either wait at <b>Great</b> <b>Clits</b>™ or by the car if he was done before I was.<br />
I got back to the hoopty just in time to see Hurtie G emerge into the parking lot with his shiny new haircut (I didn't see any difference in his conservative-looking, middle-aged white man 'do but I didn't tell him that) and said, "Cool. Let's go."<br />
Hurtie asked if it was OK if he went next door to <b>Jersey</b> <b>Mike's</b>® Sub Sandwiches and got something to go. This may have been discussed and agreed to earlier. I didn't have a problem with that. I went in with him. Even though I like Jersey Mike's and have been several times I wasn't trying to get anything there that day. Hurtie G planned to get a <i>really</i> <i>big</i> sandwich and make several meals out of it. He generously offered to buy me something or give me some of his sub, but I declined.<br />
You know how Jersey Mike's works even if you've never been to Jersey Mike's. There's a menu board and a cold well full of ingredients and condiments. You can get whatever, but you're encouraged to get it "Mike's Way," which is a suggested combination of the ingredients and condiments. Hurtie G ordered his big sandwich from the young man running the store. The guy did a good job; he was courteous, efficient and professional. He tried to sell Hurtie some chips and a cookie.<br />
Then he rang Hurtie up. Hurtie paid for his big sub, which looked to cost him about 15 bucks or so. They thanked each other and we prepared to leave. I'd been eying the tip jar located next to the cash register, hoping Hurtie would put something in it. Hurtie G just then noticed it. That's when he announced—in a rather loud voice —to the Jersey Mike's guy, "Your salary's just going to have to be sufficient for you today. I can't contribute anything right now."<br />
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Joe Sixtophttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08242065520511683288noreply@blogger.com17tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4711067561118474358.post-56871685094732361022017-05-15T18:24:00.000-07:002017-05-19T12:50:13.723-07:00So I Met this Super-Awsome, Incredibly Good-Looking Young Woman!... ©2017 by Joe Sixtop all rights reserved<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Hey. If anybody in Europe or its suburbs is reading this, I just gotta tell ya something. There's cookies on this here <strong>US</strong>-based struggling (life support? lol) restaurant-centric internet column. I got one third-party cookie thing I put on here myself. That's only because <strong>Google</strong>® (unless they got some kind of shady stuff I don't know about) has asked me to tell y'all about it and because it's there and Google's own cookie ordeal will not even give me US states, much less communities within the land of the brave. <br />
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So that's all I need to tell y'all. But I'd like to also tell everyone that I'm still alive and still "in the game" and I expect a few more episodes of <em>These American Servers™</em> will happen. Who knows? Maybe a lot of them. I just need to chill out and collect my thoughts and plan my next moves.<br />
All right. It's theoretically possible that someone might occasionally read this and be interested in my story a little. Everybody's OK. I told her (at least 26 and, praise Jesus, maybe 31) straightaway that I was interested in her in a good way. That good way includes but isn't limited to the physical. I told her some of this in front of a grown man that I diagnosed as her Dad. I wasn't told different. But I now realize that while my guess was the best and most likely case, he could easily be her big brother or even her significant other. <br />
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Hey. Sorry. It's Joe here. I like this episode here. I must. I keep coming back to it and rereading it a lot. In case anybody else reads it (unlikely but theoretically possible, I think) I just want to make a couple of things clear: One is that [fem name redacted] has some personal problems. She has (I think) two kids. I'm pretty sure some family of hers is helping out (even I can tell her clothes come from Target, and she looks beautiful in them!) but the baby daddies aren't much in the picture. Just a real good guess on my part. I really have no idea where she lives, but I'm thinking it might be around here. I'm VERY confident she is overcoming an addiction to recreational intoxicants of some kind. I'm thinking some prescription shit or worse. She's probably got Hep C. <br />
The dude I refer to on here as "that motherfucker?" His name is actually Gilby C. No, he's not the secondary guit-fiddle slinger for a classic lineup of Guns 'n' Roses. He's just a work-friend that gets on my nerves sometimes. I called him about something work-related and maybe to just yak a little. He knows he shouldn't have mentioned [fem name redacted]. Gilby and I are cool. The only thing I'm even a little concerned about is someday in the far future, I'll find out that she asked him for my digits (she's probably aware that Gilby and I are some kind of buds) or email or something in 2017 and Gilby, in 2019 or so, will be like, "Oh. Sorry, dude. The way you yelled at me when I even mentioned her name around you, I thought [whatever stupid excuse he'll come up with] you wouldn't want her to contact you. Did you ever think to call and ask me, Gilby? Risk my irritation in 2017 and save our "friendship" for the future. Ok, bro'? Anyway, I'm a grown-ass man. I'll probably be all right. I often am. Ok. Go read the rest!<br />
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So I quit that job. With notice. I'm on good terms with everybody as far as I can tell. I have the option to return when and if I want to and I suspect I will eventually. So I called this guy that kind of works there, tonight. On his landline home phone with my cell phone. He's like a keyholding host person that occasionally does some stuff in the kitchen and he got hurt (not on the job) and is off for a few days. So I called him and Specifically from Jump Street told him not to tell me ANYTHING about [fem name redacted because I'm superstitious via <strong>Dio</strong> lyrics, I guess]. Then we had a mostly pleasant chat (I think he may be fucked up because of some legit prescribed pain meds) and then he told me how she'd been at work.... whenevs, whatevs. And I screamed at the motherfucker through the phone.<br />
"Didn't I just TELL you to not MEntion to me ANYTHING about [fem name redacted b/c she's so awesome and pretty that typing her name might affect my computer somehow... or maybe turn it into a <strong>MacBook Pro®</strong>]?!<br />
Oh, well. Everything'll work out in God's own good time and way, That's how it's always worked so far.<br />
Cheers!<br />
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Joe Sixtophttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08242065520511683288noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4711067561118474358.post-43081263328818251142017-05-03T03:23:00.001-07:002017-05-03T03:23:54.007-07:00<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Sorry. Stuff. Trying to fix things. I've waited on a few tables. I've been trying to find a way that works to tell everyone that Google has cookies on here and has been kind enough to allow this project here. I also use a product that I found on the internet. I've had that here for awhile. If Google would allow me a little more information as to location, I wouldn't have used that. A brief break of a few minutes. Thanks.</div>
Joe Sixtophttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08242065520511683288noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4711067561118474358.post-1011822352178181382017-02-07T14:41:00.001-08:002017-05-19T12:49:26.779-07:00The Snacks are Often Candy ©2017 by Joe Sixtop all rights reserved<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Do you work with an attractive young waitress named Julie G? I do. All that needs to be told today is that Julie's real nice and she brings snacks to work. </div>
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Julie always offers to share. The snacks are often candy, which I always decline—that shit's hella bad for you—but sometimes I'll sample her crackers or pretzels. The other night. I believe it was a Tuesday, Julie and I were the only waitpersons scheduled. We arrived at the same time. Julie broke out a bag of chips and asked if I'd like some. The chips were a kind I'd never heard of, <b>Lay's</b>® <b>Kettle Cooked</b>. I poured myself a modest handful and shoved them into my piehole. They were good!</div>
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Julie ate a chip. "Yuck!" she exclaimed as a grimace crossed her pretty face, The chips were salted with a flavor called "<b>Geektown Gyro</b>™". I wasn't knocked out by that particular flavoring either—I mostly enjoyed the texture and crunchiness—but it wasn't offputting. Julie really hated it, though.</div>
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Our three rezzies (seven total covers) all showed, along with a like number of walk-ins. Neither of us had to work all that hard and we each walked with well over a hundred bucks. We clocked out a little after 10:00 and prepared to walk to the parking lot together. "Hey. You want these chips? I didn't like them," said Julie.</div>
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"Sure, thanks," said I and we walked into the night.</div>
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It was kind of chilly out, and inside my whip too until the heat kicked in, so I put on my coat. It's real nice, an <b>MLB</b> officially-licensed <b>Saint Louis Cardinals </b>one. It was given to me by a now-former girlfriend who cruelly dumped me when I was diagnosed with commitmentphobia. On the way home I <i>didn't</i> buckle my seat belt (#FuckDonnyT-Rump!) but I <i>did</i> rock my Cards gear <i>and </i>started thinking about dinner. Since I already had chips, I decided on hummus. To get to a store that carried it and was still open, I detoured down a nice, quiet residential street.</div>
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I was pretty close to the 24-hour <b>Foodtown</b>® when a siren blared and some blue lights flashed behind me. I wasn't speeding and I was totally sober. I have a valid driving license, car insurance, good tags and my registration, so I wasn't too worried (even though you never know how shit's gonna go down in these instances!). But I was, technically, in violation of America's oppressive seat belt laws. "Damn! That fascist pig has <i>really good</i> eyesight," I thought to myself, bitterly.</div>
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But seat belts weren't mentioned. Unbeknownst to me, I had a brake light out. I promised to fix it tomorrow and was permitted to leave, unticketed. I buckled up and headed to <b>Foodtown</b>, still clad in my bright red <b>Saint Louis Cardinals </b>merch.</div>
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I was rung up by Msericka, a good-looking young white woman. She complimented my jacket and my choice of team to like. I think I was the only customer in there, so we had time to chat a minute. It turns out that Msericka's biological father was from Saint Louis and she'd inherited her fandom (and I guess not much else) from him.</div>
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I left with my <b>Supremely Spicy </b>hummus by <b>Sabra®</b> product in a pretty good mood. I just met a cutie who liked my favorite team <em>and</em> had daddy issues!</div>
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The radio was tuned to the "<b>Everything that Rocks!</b>" station and <b>Led Zeppelin</b> came on. I cranked it. I must of been pretty exhilarated because heading home, via the same quiet street I'd just gotten pulled over on, I forgot to buckle up.</div>
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How was <i>your </i>night?</div>
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Joe Sixtophttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08242065520511683288noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4711067561118474358.post-12320798457784973742016-02-29T15:29:00.002-08:002017-02-07T14:42:54.463-08:00The Failed Doctrine of Trickle-Down Economics ©2016 by Joe Sixtop all rights reserved<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
The other night at my job, <strong>Chez Swanky</strong>™, it was just two of us on the floor, my good work-friend Mikey B and me. Things were pretty slow. Mikey B loves the biz and he's pretty knowledgeable. With little to keep us busy except ogling the tumbleweeds roll through the dining rooms and watching the hostess stand (Chez Swanky usually doesn't have an official door whore on weeknights), Mikey B and I commenced to chatting. The subject was tip-outs.<br />
We often don't have to tip out anyone but a bartender. They get 1½ %. We also have to kick back 1% of our credit card (not cash) tips. I don't like the latter but it's pretty much standard policy at a lot of your higher end eateries like Chez Swanky. I have no problem whatsoever tipping out the bar and 1½ %'s pretty reasonable. If more than one bartender's on, they still just get 1½ % and divvy it. But here's the thing: Chez Swanky being a small, independently owned fine-dining restaurant, it's not that unusual for owner Donny J to be the evening's booze-slinger. He still gets the tip-out.<br />
I mentioned to Mikey B that I didn't think that was right and it might even be illegal. Mikey B disagreed, although he conceded that I had a pretty good argument.<br />
It's not that big a deal to me, though. I make pretty good money at Chez Swanky and for the most part respect Donny J. I know he's not getting rich and it won't surprise me any if Chez Swanky closes down sometime in 2016 when the lease is up (although I think it's more likely that a new lease will be signed and we'll keep rocking). I don't at all begrudge him the tips he gets from patrons who actually sit at the bar. If I owned a bar (which I have <em>no</em> ambition toward), I could easily see myself picking up a little extra cheese (but not from my employees) behind the taps occasionally.<br />
Anyway, not a big deal to me and I'd probably never mention it to Donny J▬or anyone else unless I was asked▬except that a day or two after my convo with Mikey B, Donny J brought it up himself.<br />
He didn't actually ask me about how I felt about him getting tip-outs, of course. He asked me how I felt about having more bus help more often, which would naturally lead to me tipping out more. I'm all for it! He told me about a couple of ways it might be done and then asked me for my input. I shared it and, while we were on the subject and he'd <em>kind of</em> brought it up, told him that I was wondering if his being the owner and receiving tip-outs from the waitstaff might be borderline unethical and maybe illegal.<br />
Donny J stammered something about our tip-outs being pretty reasonable for that type of restaurant by industry norms (true) and a weak defense of his little bit of extra income that sounded a lot like the failed doctrine of trickle-down economics. Then he changed the subject and shortly after, our discussion ended, without rancor.</div>
Joe Sixtophttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08242065520511683288noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4711067561118474358.post-12049237813878730712016-02-29T15:24:00.000-08:002016-02-29T15:24:41.179-08:00<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Hi It's been a minnit. Sorry about that if you've been jonesing for some new material here on my struggling internet column. I'll try and find some solace in knowing that it's <em>extremely unlikely </em>anybody has been so hankering.<br /> Anyway, if you're reading this on the day it appears (and thanks for that, or whenever you might be kind enough to stop by) you might be able to vote in the Democratic Presidential Primary election tomorrow. If so, I encourage you to push the button for Senator Bernie Sanders. And speaking of politics, if there's a politician you don't like and want to call them a name that's rightfully theirs but they try to go by something else, please be aware that the Republican hopeful commonly know as Ted Crud (R-Douchebagville) is not really named Ted. His real name is Rafael. You should call him that. And he's from Canada, so ineligible to be President here anyway. <br /> Cheers, _____-Joe</div>
Joe Sixtophttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08242065520511683288noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4711067561118474358.post-2896552117132886452015-09-14T11:22:00.001-07:002016-02-29T15:32:38.886-08:00Monday Night Football Drinking Games ©2011, '15 by Joe Sixtop all rights reserved<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Yeah, it's another rerun. Don't worry; nobody read it then either!<br />
<br />
Do you ever play drinking games? For example, there's Monday Night
Football. Watch Titans at Chargers, for instance, and every time Joe
Buck or Mike Tirico or whoever, says, "First down San Diego!" everybody
takes a drink. Then there's Fox News, where every time one of their
resident douchebags says "Democrat" when they should have said
"Democratic," or disses President Obama, your whole crew has to down a
shot. I think it's safe to say that either of these drinking games will
get anyone playing it fucked up pretty quick and there are a whole lot
of other variations out there.<br />
I don't play drinking games, even when I'm hanging out with people
who are. I binge at my own pace and get wasted just fine, thank you.
Neither do I advocate drinking games. I think they encourage individuals
who already like over-consuming alcohol to get even more hammered than
they would if left to their own devices. But if folks are going to play
them anyway, I want some of that market share! So here's an awesome new
drinking game called These American Servers™. Play at your own risk.<br />
Everybody get out their internet-connected device. Log onto your
favorite search engine. I like Startpage because of their privacy
claims, and Google works pretty well too. Have someone call out a phrase
or a title from <i>These American Servers™</i>. The first one to find
a reference to my internet column gets to make everybody else take
a drink. Or you can deny the others a drink and have one yourself.
Remember, and this is <i>very important</i>, you have to actually click on the link to <i>These American Servers</i> or your win isn't official.<br />
Try different search engines. If you want an easy, fast-paced game,
go with Google Blogs. If you're trying to not get too blitzed too
early, see what Yahoo or ixquick have for ya. They're not as friendly to
<i>These American Servers</i> as some of the others are. Maybe you could see what Chinese Google has to offer.<br />
Whatever alcohol you imbibe when playing These American Servers is
up to you. Perhaps the Chili's crew in Dothan, Alabama enjoy the game
with 40 ounce jugs of Schlitz® Malt Liquor after work and you might have
a good time with those. Watch out though. That shit is way more
powerful than the weak-ass "light" beers that so many people are into
these days.<br />
Please don't operate a motor vehicle if you've been playing These
American Servers or while you're playing These American Servers. If you
run across any rumors that poor, talented-yet-troubled movie director Wes Craven was playing These American Servers this past August 30th, please disregard them because they're probably not true.<br />
"But Joe," I might be asked if anyone actually read this, "I really
want to play These American Servers, but ever since I read your
excellent post from December of 2010 entitled "<a href="http://theseamericanservers.blogspot.com/2011/12/righteous-proposal-2010-by-joe-sixtop.html">A Righteous Proposal</a>,"
where you advocate a boycott of adult beverages until America ends its
fucktarded "War on Drugs," I've given up drinking. Is there anything
that I can do?"<br />
Well thanks for joining me, my hypothetical brother or sister. Just
so you know, I haven't consumed any alcohol since that post went up
either and I applaud you for being part of the solution instead of the
problem. Together, we can make a difference. As a matter of fact, I do
have a couple of suggestions about that. Instead of using Colt 45® say,
or Jack Daniel's, you could substitute dankity-dank bong hits! Or maybe swap
the booze for Caffeiene-Free Diet Pepsi®. Of course, if you go with that
last one, you and your friends are probably some irredeemable wusses.</div>
Joe Sixtophttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08242065520511683288noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4711067561118474358.post-49043756248113857282015-07-29T23:49:00.000-07:002015-09-15T00:24:01.054-07:00That Tidbit of Intel ©2015 by Joe Sixtop all rights reserved<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
So I guess it was about a year ago I quit my job at a restaurant I like to call The Valley of Despair™. God bless the staff and management there. My problems weren't with them. It was mostly just a horrific overabundance of shitty customers that burned me out. Not too long after that I scored a gig at a nice, upscale restaurant in the old-money part of town. Let's call it <b>Chez Swanky</b>™. It was a little more my kind of place to work and I put in a lot of effort to prove to the bosses and myself that I was good enough to belong there.<br />
The chef when I started there quickly took a dislike to me. Not so much that he thought I was a bad employee (I don't know his thoughts on that) but a <i>personal </i>dislike. WTF? Well, he's gone now and while the new, current chef and I are far from best buds, we're cool.<br />
I'm confident that business at Chez Swanky isn't what ownership needs it to be. The owner, Donny J▬someone I have a decent amount of respect for as a manager and businessperson▬is also the GM and he's been a little snappish here lately. I've started to feel that those in charge are unhappy with me. I've discussed this a little with some of my co-workers, especially my current best work-friend, Merrie, and they all seem to find themselves in similar straits, especially Merrie.<br />
One night when I was off, Zanie T, a young woman who works in our kitchen, went out to a bar after work with some of the Chez Swanky waitstaff. I was later told by someone who was there that Zanie had confessed that the chef and owner would like to get rid of <i>all</i> their current servers and replace us with an all-new waitstaff. The co-worker who shared that story with me is someone I trust not to lie, but she does have a mild propensity for exaggeration. Also, she'd probably had a pretty good amount of wine that night. So I didn't totally trust that tidbit of intel. But I thought about it some. I've been a little paranoid at work lately and I'm not alone. The phrase "walking on eggshells" is frequently bandied about.<br />
So the other night I spoke to the owner. I dropped no names nor shared anyone's conspiracy theories. I just told him that I'm getting the vibe that he might prefer for me to move on. I told him I was giving him two weeks notice <i>if he wanted it.</i> He said that he'd rather not accept the resignation and bade me stay on. He pointed out a couple of areas I could improve on and made several positive comments as well. He also reminded me that if he'd wanted to fire me, he certainly could have. I rescinded the offer and I'm still there. I've never had a lot of trouble finding a job so I'm not too worried about that. I'm currently having a debate with myself about what my next move's going to be.</div>
Joe Sixtophttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08242065520511683288noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4711067561118474358.post-44888986901616362652015-04-02T00:30:00.000-07:002015-07-29T23:12:30.435-07:00Gotta Speech These Folks ©2015 by Joe Sixtop all rights reserved<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Hello and welcome to The Endangered Species Grill. They call me Joe and I'm delighted to be your waiter this evening. May I begin by telling you about our features tonight? Great. We have a terrific appetizer for you: Buffalo tenders. Please be aware that, of course, <em>our </em>buffalo tenders are made from the flesh of real buffalos. They have just a hint of spice and go nicely with a cold beer, perhaps a <strong>Falstaff</strong>® or <strong>Pete's Wicked Ale</strong>®. Our featured entrees tonight are tenderloin filet of Northern White Rhinoceros atop Tibetan Faro in an Iberian Lynx cream gravy with Thylacine bordelaise. If that appeals to you, I recommend you order it immediately; the Northern White Rhino is critically endangered and we expect to run out this evening. We also have our split Passenger Pigeon breast pot pie with heirloom Poke Sallet and a gravy made from Bald (like me!) Eagle entrails. You might feel that $250.00 is expensive for a pot pie, even one as good as ours, but it's actually quite a bargain considering how difficult it is for our chef to obtain quality passenger pigeon breasts these days. And it pairs wonderfully with a nice, chilled bottle of <strong>Bourgogne Aligoté</strong>...<br />
Maybe you work in a nice, upscale, fine-dining kind of restaurant and you have to spiel like I just did to every table all night. It's not a problem; it's part of the job and we're glad to do it. But if I ran a classy, upmarket kind of dining establishment I'd make it mandatory that the hosting professionals would be able to speech the features, et cetera, just as well as the waitstaff is expected to. Especially the good-looking, 19-year-old Junior College co-ed that just double-sat you fourtops on the busy night where the food runner called in sick, the dishwasher is crazy backed up and the kitchen is in peril of going down in flames at any minute.</div>
Joe Sixtophttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08242065520511683288noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4711067561118474358.post-78622509484554741582015-02-19T14:25:00.000-08:002015-04-02T00:31:33.488-07:00Long Ago When Cash was King ©2015 by Joe Sixtop all rights reserved<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Ok, this episode of <em>These American Servers</em>™ is going to start with a couple of jokes that I hope you'll find somewhat amusing. The first one is included strictly for <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Search_engine_optimization" target="_blank">SEO</a> purposes and it's filthy. The second one is more family-friendly and, for a clean joke that's probably 90 years old (even though it was new to me), pretty funny.<br />
These three guys, <strong>Adrian Peterson</strong>, <strong>Goran Dragic</strong>, and <strong>Stevie Wonder </strong>walk into a bar. The bar is called <strong>Champions League</strong> and it's famous for excellent Pączki. But these guys just wanted to get their drink on, and so they did. For some reason, after awhile the conversation turned to who had the largest genitalia, everybody bragging and making claims. Eventually a way to settle the dispute was arrived at: Everyone would whip their junk out and set it on the bar for visual inspection (I guess Stevie'd just have to take someone's word for it).. At the exact moment the johnsons were arrayed on the counter, who should walk in but German Chancellor <strong>Angela Merkel</strong>? "Would you care for a menu this evening?" asked the hostess.<br />
"No thanks," replied the leader of unified, democratic Germany, in perfect English, "I'll just have that delicious-looking buffet!"<br />
Have you <strong>Amber Heard </strong>this one? An arial and an antenna got married. The ceremony itself was merely Ok, but the reception was amazing!<br />
<br />
I have this co-worker I like a lot. Her name's Merrie. Last night we both closed. After most of the crew was gone, Merrie and I each got two tables. My fourtop's bill was $216.00. We don't have to close out our credit cards immediately, so I merely glanced at the tip line on the voucher. The amount I saw was 30 dollars, which is not a disaster but I felt a little chintzy from people who were nice and seemed to have a really good dining experience but oh well. Plus I had a deuce that left me $20. Merrie didn't fare quite as well, getting about $37.00 total on her couple of tables she got during our late mini-pop. I told her I'd gotten a total of $50. Then when it was time to check out, I realized that the tip I had thought was $30 was actually $50. So instead of the 50 bucks I'd told Merrie I'd gotten, I actually harvested $70! But I kept my mouth shut about that realization.<br />
<br />
Are you familiar with a "fast-food" concept called <strong>Sonic</strong>®? Their servers are called car-hops. You park next to an intercom and place your order through it. A car-hop brings it out to you and asks if they can do anything else and negotiates payment. I rarely visit Sonic, but when I do, I always pay and tip in cash. One time I received a Sonic gift card for my birthday. There was nowhere on the voucher to leave a rip. I always have cash, so this was no problem to me. But last night the afore-mentioned Merrie told me that she'd taken her daughter to Sonic and paid with her <strong>Visa</strong>® debit card. For a good waitress who makes decent money, I'm often surprised by how Merrie never has any actual, you know, <em>money </em>with her. Merrie scrounged up some change from the floorboard and maybe got some jingle from her daughter in order to leave something. But Sonic needs to put a tip line and place to total up the payment on their vouchers. I only go to Sonic once or twice a year (awesome banana splits!) so no big loss to them, but until they rectify the situation, I won't go there at all.<br />
<br />
I hope you had a happy Fat Tuesday and Mardi Gras, and wish you a Happy Chinese New Year (or <em>Lunar</em> New Year if you're like in Taiwan or something). Cheers!</div>
Joe Sixtophttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08242065520511683288noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4711067561118474358.post-80482060235575907642015-01-23T00:22:00.000-08:002015-02-19T17:41:07.162-08:00There Save for the Grace of God ©2015 by Joe Sixtop all rights reserved<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Do you ever enjoy a salty snack while you're consuming a long-awaited new episode of <em>These American Servers</em>™? If so, insert the <strong>Orville Redenbacher</strong>® product into your trusty <strong>Kenmore® </strong>microwave, 'cause it's <strong><em>Popcorn Time</em></strong>!<br />
<br />
I ran into Sheldon Silver, a fellow waiter of my acquaintance, today. He shared a story with me about how he'd visited the little wannabe doctors' office at <strong>Walgreens</strong>® recently. He told how this super-wasted drunk guy was in there, yelling and falling down and shit. One female client of the place was scared to walk out to her car because she didn't want the guy to follow her. Sheldon volunteered to escort her and dude did follow them. The lady got in her ride and then Shel went back into Walgreens and the drunk did too. It wasn't a situation that seemed dangerous, just annoying. Eventually, some law enforcement arrived and dealt with the drunk.<br />
Sheldon allowed as to how he was a little non-plused by the whole ordeal, but mostly he felt sorry for the guy. Sheldon says he himself used to be a real bad drunk, so his reaction to the incident was sympathy.. I've also had some major alcohol abuse issues in my life—I haven't consumed any adult beverages since 2010—so I completely understand where Shelly's coming from. There's a little story that I couldn't decide if I wanted to tell or not and Mr Silver's little vignette made me decide to go ahead on with it. There save for the grace of God could easily go any of us.<br />
<br />
Back in 2012 I went in search of a night job, still having a day job at <strong>The American El Chico</strong>, which closes too late for me to want to work PM shifts there. A restaurant I call <strong>The Valley of Despair</strong> has hours that work better for me, it's a big, successful chain and has a location not too hard to get to from where I stay, so I put in an application online. The next day I got a call from the General Manager at my nearby TVOD and we set up an interview for the next afternoon at Three O'clock.<br />
I arrived about five minutes early and was told to sit at a table near the restaurant's office. I could see the office from that seat. I looked around. I saw a well-dressed, fairly attractive, very businesslike-looking middle-aged black woman talking to a guy I (correctly) guessed was the kitchen manager. I suspected she was a lawyer and maybe the KM's wife. Their convo ended and she walked toward the office. She looked my way for a second and we made eye contact. I smiled and nodded. "Didn't you wait on me and my friend at <strong>The American El Chico</strong> last week?" she asked.<br />
I didn't remember her. "Oh yeah," I replied, "Good to see you again," or something like that.<br />
She told me that she had been a manager there many years ago and she liked to check in with them from time to time and thanked me for taking good care of her that day. I assured her that it was my pleasure and that I hoped I'd see her again. Then she walked into the office.<br />
After about ten minutes or so, she left the office and walked out of the restaurant and again we exchanged smiles and nods. About ten minutes after <em>that</em>, a guy (the General Manager) stuck his head out the office door and with a smile bade me enter.<br />
"Placenta tells me you've waited on her at <strong>The American El Chico </strong>and that you're good. Why're you leaving there?" he queried.<br />
"Actually, I don't plan on leaving them, I want to stay there lunches and I'd love to work for you on nights," I replied. Then we went on with the usual interview blah-blah-blah and I was told I was hired and could I show up for training in 48 hours and all that.<br />
On the drive home, I wracked my brain for a minute, trying to recall the woman who's name was apparently Placenta. After a little cogitation, I think I remembered her and maybe another lady coming in and having dinner and not more than one (really girly) drink, a Mangotini or Bahama Mama or something like that. They'd been pretty low-maintenance and tipped decently.<br />
So I went through training at <strong>The Valley of Despair</strong> and got out on the floor in real stations in a few days. I'd occasionally see Placenta in the restaurant. It turns out she was an Area Director for the company. We have an Area Manager, who oversees about four restaurants and is the immediate boss of my store's General Manager. Placenta Pills was the Area Manager's boss. I didn't see her often and when I did, it was smile and nod and maybe "how's it going?" again. My GM said she'd told him to hire me on that day of my interview and that's why he did, although he admitted that he probably would have anyway. Placenta Pills was not in our restaurant every day (or even every week) and when she was it was usually before I arrived to work my dinner shifts. On our very few, brief, interactions, Placenta Pills was never anything other than pleasant and courteous to me. I never saw her be anything less than that to anyone, although to hear my managers occasional comments, she could be a bit of a hardass with them.<br />
So I worked Saturday night. I closed, in fact. We close at Eleven PM on Saturdays and I didn't get out of there til about One. Placenta Pills wasn't mentioned by anyone in my earshot and she didn't cross my mind all evening. I love being off Sundays and that one I was. Yay! Placenta didn't cross my mind that day either. She did on Monday though. I didn't have to be at work until Five that day and when I got there, all I heard from my co-workers was "Did you hear about Placenta? It was on the news!" and like that.<br />
"No. I didn't hear about her. What's up?"<br />
It turns out that Placenta Pills and a friend had gone out to a bar (or maybe some bars, that's not really clear yet) and indulged in a major amount of alcohol and a negligible amount of food. Placenta and her drinking buddy had left one establishment in Ms Pills' <strong>2003 Cadillac Escalade</strong>®—I've seen it and it's a sharp ride, or at least it was—got on the busy street, clipped another motorist and kept going. As near as my co-workers and I can determine, the hit-and-run accident was not very serious and its victim unhurt. Placenta was pretty fucked up and may not have even been aware of the mishap. I suspect she wasn't. Then Placenta got on the Interstate at a high speed and headed southbound. Tragically, she was in the northbound lane. She head-onned a late-model <strong>Camaro</strong>® while doing at least 85. The 41-year-old driver of the sports car was killed instantly. His passenger, a woman of 31, had to be helicoptered to the hospital. Last I heard was that she was alive, but barely. Maybe you could spare a good thought for her, OK? <br />
Word is that Placenta cooperated fully with law enforcement on the scene and took the <strong>Breathalyzer</strong>. She blew something like a .21, which is pretty blitzed. I read an article on the local newspaper's online edition. Placenta made bail and has been suspended pending further notice from her job as Area Director by the company.<br />
<br />
</div>
Joe Sixtophttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08242065520511683288noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4711067561118474358.post-71491461160775372802015-01-01T22:23:00.000-08:002015-01-23T00:23:07.885-08:00A Diet Coke® Decision ©2015 by Joe Sixtop all rights reserved<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
So working a lot of lunches at one place and dinners at another. I try to have all checks at the AM job ready as soon as everything is rung in. We're supposed to present all checks in check presenters at both jobs, but I don't. So when my customers are ready to go after eating lunch, I'm ready to turn and burn.<br />
The other night at the PM job, a nice, 30-ish couple and their toddler came in and sat at table Eleven. It's a two-top but pretty big so the two-and-a-half diners fit in OK. Like we're supposed to, I pimped some beverages to start off. The guy contemplated a beer—I could tell he really wanted one—but opted instead for some tea. The lady acted like she <em>really </em>wanted a <strong>Diet Coke</strong>®, but just ordered a glass of water. The kid got something in one of our kids' cups.<br />
Ms Lady had a Rose Parade grilled chicken sandwich and dude had an Alabama Football burger, the child had chicken tenders and fries. I rang in their order, printed their check and stashed it in my server book, just like I would have done on a lunch shift.<br />
Someone else ran their food. I did a call-back—within two bites or two minutes!—and they said everything was fine and seemed to be enjoying their chow. I noticed the guy's tea glass was getting low, so I cruised over with a pitcher to silently refill it. The lady looked at me with a smile. "Can I get <strong> </strong>that <strong>Diet Coke </strong>now?" she queried. She'd mulled, then eschewed, the low-calorie treat when it was first offered. You know how sometimes your guests will ask you to "bring it when the food comes?" She hadn't done that and didn't act like she had and it'd been my fuck-up. She was just asking for something she'd earlier declined. "Sure thing," I said and went and got her refreshment.<br />
Like I'm pretty sure it is at your job, we're supposed to ring in any beverages <em>before </em>they're made, much less served. And like you'd do, I went and got her drink and delivered it before I rang it up. Then something distracted me for just a second and I didn't ring in the D C.<br />
Soon, the family was through eating. They considered, then declined, my suggestion that they share a dessert, even after I told her how good chocolate goes with diet cola (and it really does). The guy just asked for the bill and I pulled the already-printed check from my apron and presented it immediately, with the <strong>Diet Coke</strong> not rung in.<br />
The ticket was dropped face-down and not perused. A piece of plastic from <strong>Capital One</strong>®<strong> </strong>was put on the table. I picked up the check with the credit card and went to settle things. No one at the table had looked at the ticket. When I got to the <strong>Squirrel</strong>® cash register, I remembered the unrung <strong>Diet Coke. </strong>With tax, our non-alcoholic bevs are just under three bucks. I though about saying "fuck it" and running the check as I'd presented it. They were nice and she hadn't needed a refill. But we're supposed to ring up drinks, and fountain bevs are a big part of the company's bottom line. So I rang in her drink, ran the plastic and gave them the voucher. They left me a good tip.<br />
<br />
From the management and staff here at <em>These American Servers</em>™ (me), a Happy New Year is wished to each and every one of you who were kind enough to stop by for a minute and read this and, what the hey, to pretty much everybody else. Let's have 2015 be the best year yet for all of us!<br />
<br />
RIP Sandra 1945-2014</div>
Joe Sixtophttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08242065520511683288noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4711067561118474358.post-54774344274553497962014-09-30T21:35:00.000-07:002015-01-01T22:25:18.858-08:00Most Unjustified Customer Complaint Ever ©2012, '14 by Joe Sixtop all rights reserved<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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I'm back. I was maybe going to abandon my little project here, but I'll think I'll stick with it awhile longer. But I don't have anything new ready to go, so here's a blast from the past that I kind of like. Nobody read it then, so if you stumble onto it this time it'll be new to you, right? Enjoy!</div>
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Most every day, I work with Tracey H. She's young, about 23 I think, and hella good-looking. She's a very pleasant person to work with. She's real good with her tables and everybody likes her. Well, almost everybody.<br />
Tracey had station three on Tuesday. Nobody's guaranteed the same station every day but it usually works out that way. And as usual, I was working <strong>Curveside</strong>™ <strong>to-go</strong>. Inside the restaurant was pretty busy but my to-go wasn't very happening. One of our door whores called in sick so I spent a good chunk of my shift helping the one who'd actually shown up. I bused a few tables but mostly just escorted hungry clients to wherever the real hostess told me to.<br />
One deuce was a middle-aged couple I brought to table 15 in Tracey's station. They seemed nice from what I could tell by our brief interaction. The only reason I remember them at all is because the nicely dressed woman had some 1980's Duran Duran-looking hair that kind of made an impression. The guy could've been Willard Romney or Lawyer Malloy for all I can recollect about him. <br />
The next day, Wednesday, the same couple, at least it sure <em>looked</em> like them, came and got seated at the same table—again, in Tracey's section—they'd had 24 hours earlier. I ran their food out to them. I remember this because Tracey later reminded me of it and because of that Spandau Ballet hairstyle. I didn't mention their previous visit. If I had, I would've heard about it later so I know this much is true.<br />
The duo sat at table 15 on Tuesday, when I seated them, and again on Wednesday, when I delivered their chow. Tracey waited on them both times. On Thursday, I answered the phone. Nothing unusual about that, I do it all the time. The caller was a woman who asked to speak to a manager. I told her I'd hunt her one down and asked who was calling. In a nice, even tone of voice, in which I detected neither rancor or irritation, she said, "This is Mrs. Philastus Hurlbut and I have a complaint." I wracked my brain for a second as to whether I'd recently fucked up a to-go order for anybody with a name like Philastus Hurlbut and couldn't recall such. Then I went and fetched key-hourly manager Veranda B.<br />
Veranda took the call on "my" phone, the one I take most of the Curveside orders on. I went about my bidniss, walking past Veranda and her discussion a couple of times. I overheard little snippets of the conversation, Veranda saying things like, "um-hmm," and "yes ma'am." After four or five minutes, the call came to an end.<br />
According to Mrs. Hurlbut, she'd come in on Wednesday with her husband. They'd been enthusiatically greeted and welcomed back by Tracey, who remembered them from the day before. However, on the previous day, the man who'd lunched with Mrs. Hurlbut wasn't her husband but her boyfriend. Apparently, this caused Wednesday's lunch to be a less-than-pleasant experience and later, a bit of dischord at home. Tracey says the two guys sure looked alike to her, mostly just recalling Mrs. Hurlbut's 'do, but upon reflection, she allows as to how the husband was perhaps a little heavier, darker complected, older and maybe a little less attractive than the boyfriend. I remember Mrs. Hurlbut and her Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark hairstyle had a dude with her both days but can't recall anything about him.<br />
Our company's always harping about how we need more regulars and remembering clients who've visited before and greeting them warmly is <em>strongly encouraged</em>. Tracey did nothing wrong and isn't in any trouble or anything. Mrs. Hurlbut contended that it wasn't any of Tracey's business who'd been in the restaurant the previous day nor her place to say anything about it. What the fuck ever. Tracey says she got a good tip from them on Tuesday and nothing on Wednesday.</div>
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Joe Sixtophttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08242065520511683288noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4711067561118474358.post-91707885222837427122014-06-30T23:31:00.000-07:002015-01-01T22:24:24.104-08:00It Might as Well be Hockey ©2014 by Joe Sixtop all rights reserved<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Well, it's been a minnit since a new episode of my struggling internet column has dropped. But check this out: Tonight I went to work, I waited on some people. Most of them were pretty cool, nobody was an outright A-hole or anything. We had some business but nothing crazy. I made adequate money for my efforts. I got cut at a decent hour and went home. Except for the getting cut and leaving at a time that I liked, it was a pretty average shift.<br />
And that's the way it's been lately. The only thing that's changed since I last checked in with y'all is that I quit my day job and have picked up some lunches at what has heretofore been my evening job. I'm just kind of bored and burned out with it all. I don't seem to have the energy and enthusiasm I had last summer and I want it back! On the for-real, that got a little out of hand last year; I want a slightly more mellow version of what I had in 2013. Oh well, keep eating right and exercising!<br />
I'm not quite ready to give up on <em>These American Servers™ </em>(or being one of them) just yet. Since I don't really have anything restaurant-related that I can even pretend might be interesting, I'm going to go off-topic. The first one's about politics and the second concerns sports. Stick around and pretend to enjoy!<br />
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If you keep up with politics, you might be aware that there was a little bit of a contretemps about who was going to be the Republican nominee for United States senate from <strong>Mississippi</strong> this year. Like in a lot of southern jurisdictions, a candidate in the Magnolia State has to get at least one vote more than 50% from those who deigned to participate to be declared the winner. If no one scores that objective,the top two finishers face off in another contest, with all the other challengers eliminated.<br />
The incumbent, <strong>Thad Cochran</strong>, came in second, but the challenger, <strong>Tyler Pastornicky</strong>, didn't quite manage to hit that magic 50%, because another, minor candidate was in the mix and he got about three per cent to fuck things up for Tyler. So incumbent Cochran reached out to eligible voters who are traditionally more Democratic to help him out in the runoff. He also got popular Mississippi guy, former <strong>New York Jets</strong> QB <strong>Brett Farve,</strong> to do a campaign commercial. Apparently, the strategy worked, because Senator Thad won the runoff.<br />
If I'd been able to vote in that contest, I'd of been like, "Fuck that!" Why should I vote for some reprehensible right-winger and help him out? He'd have to promise a lot more than that he'd (probably) be only slightly better than his opponent. But now that Mr. Pastornicky and his minions are acting like such petulant little bitches about the results—kind of like <strong>George Bush Jr</strong> back in November of 2000—I'm glad things worked out the way they did. The senator will PROBABLY prevail in the general election (c'mon, it's Mississippi) but might be inclined to be (very) slightly less douchey, feeling that he might owe his newest supporters a little something. And if the Pastornicky contingent stays home in droves during that election, the (most likely <em>extremely)</em> conservative Democrat, <strong>Travis Childers</strong>, might actually get a narrow victory. If that shut the Republicans out of a majority in the United States senate, that'd be awesome.<br />
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I really like baseball. It's my favorite spectator sport. But I really, really <em>hate </em>the new (this is its third season) ordeal where there are <em>two</em> wildcard teams. Major League Baseball has three divisions per conference. so three teams finish in first place. The two best teams that <em>didn't</em> finish first face off in a one-game, winner-take-all playoff for the right to play the best of the first-place finishers in a best-of-five series for the right to go to the conference championship. To me, this is some bovine cabins. One of the things that made baseball great was that the playoff teams <em>deserve</em>d to be playoff teams. This new format is so bad, it might as well be hockey. It didn't happen because it was a good thing for the sport, it happened in the hope of some more dumb shit to put on cable TV and maybe increase the chance of selling a few more September tickets in Kansas City and Pittsburgh, There's a good chance my favorite team, the <strong>Saint Louis Cardinals</strong>, might benefit from this new ordeal, and it's pretty sweet to have your team in the post-season every year, but I still don't like it. This diluted bullshit is seriously taking away my enjoyment of the regular season. How about you?<br />
Speaking of baseball, great former Cards manager <strong>Tony LaRussa </strong>retired after the 2011 season wherein his squad won their most recent world championship. According to <strong>ESPN</strong>, TLR has unretired and taken an office job with the Arizona <strong>Diamondbacks</strong>. The <strong>Phoenix</strong> team's not very good. If they don't turn things around real soon, I believe Tony will take over as field manager for them, at least on a temporary basis, either this year or next. You read it here first!<br />
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Joe Sixtophttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08242065520511683288noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4711067561118474358.post-23700921887975476762014-04-30T23:42:00.000-07:002014-06-30T23:32:15.873-07:00All to No Avail ©2014 by Joe Sixtop all rights reserved<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
I've been keeping notes, usually on order pads here lately. I've been scribbling little ideas for episodes of <em>These American Servers</em>™. And I was just about ready to try and put all that together into a coherent blog post. But then I lucked into a story I like better, so I'm appropriating it for my humble internet column. Enjoy!<br />
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We close at 10:00 (11:00 on weekends), but our shifts are too long. So I usually bring a snack I can enjoy at some point during the evening, to keep the hunger pangs at bay. The snack is almost always an apple. If a co-worker named Jasmine is there, I usually offer her a slice of my Granny Smith product. Tonight we slid back to the dry storage room to get our munch on. My work-friend Josh C was back there already, getting some napkins or whatever. He overheard our convo and told us that it reminded him of something that happened to him back in high school. Josh C is only in his very early 20's, so his incident isn't but a few years old.<br />
Josh had a crush on a cute fellow student named Stacy. From what I've heard, she's extremely attractive. Josh wanted her in ways that went beyond friendship, but friendship was as far as Stacy was willing to go with Josh C so that's what he settled for, hoping to bide his time and look for the chance to maybe take things to another level.<br />
Josh C and Stacy hung out pretty regularly. They'd go out to eat a lot. Josh always paid. One time they were at the food court at the mall. Stacy got up to use the bathroom. She left her phone at the table with Josh C. For lack of anything better to do, Josh picked up her phone and started looking at it. He decided to look himself up in her phonebook. His name wasn't there. He kept checking, nicknames, his last name, abbreviations, anything he could think of, all to no avail. When he and Stacy talked on the phone, it was usually him calling her, but she called him occasionally. She had to have his number in there. So he took his own phone and called Stacy's phone. He looked to see what popped up on her caller ID. It said "Free Food."<br />
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Ouch! Poor Josh C. I hate that happened to him and I'm glad he's able to laugh about it now. I told him that even though it hella sucks to go through something like that, it's a really great story. I even said that since the story was so good, I wanted to steal it. He told me to go ahead. I said I couldn't claim the story since no one had cell phones when I was in high school. But I can tell the story on <em>These American Servers</em>, and so I have. I asked Josh if he and Stacy had lots of mutual acquaintances and he said they did. I told him he should have gotten ahold of the phones of every one of those people and changed Stacy's name in them from "Stacy" to something like "Disease-Infested Whore."</div>
Joe Sixtophttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08242065520511683288noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4711067561118474358.post-44698267918721900542014-03-31T00:56:00.000-07:002014-04-30T23:42:48.167-07:00I Didn't Have to Work Sunday Morning ©2014 by Joe Sixtop all rights reserved<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Kelly D wants to open up her own catering company. Bucco Jr is attempting to get it together to own and operate a food truck. Alyssa P is trying to become a professional photographer. Skullcrusher L quit waiting tables and is now a Correctional Officer (which is a politically correct term for Prison Guard). Two of the Joshes are angling to get into the music business and another one would like to give up being a <em>waiter</em> in favor of becoming a <em>writer</em>. Amy A is about to get her teacheing credential. Joe'd like to luck into a job where he makes at least ten bucks an hour and works weekdays and gets paid holidays off and the opportunity for some (non-mandatory) overtime. I'd love to be able to work a couple of wait- or bar-shifts a week somewhere too.<br />
See, most of the co-workers that want to do something else besides restaurant work have an idea of what they want to do. I just feel like I wouldn't mind getting into something else but I don't have much of an idea what. If I had money, I'd go and learn something like welding or avionics or whatever. But I'd have to have enough finances to not have to work (or at least not work much) while I was learning. I know some really good servers who both attend school and work fulltime and seem to do OK with it but I know myself well enough to feel like I'd struggle too much with that. Plus, when the going got tough and I had to let up on one of my endeavors, I know which one would suffer: school. It's real important to me that I feel like I'm doing a good job at work but I seemed to have no such personal scruples about education, back in those long-ago days when I was a kid in school.<br />
Getting out of the restaurant business (or at least merely dialing my participation back a lot because I kind of love it and would miss it if I made a clean break) is just something I've been thinking about here lately. I don't see it happening any time soon, but ya never know. If you have any ideas or suggestions for me, I'd love it if you'd share them.<br />
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Assistant Manager in Charge of the Waitstaff at my Night Job Barrie T is on a well-deserved vacation this week. He's the one who makes our schedule. Before he left, he asked me if I worked Sundays at my day job. I don't but I guess it's theoretically possible I might so it wasn't a total lie when I stammered "sometimes," having no idea why he was asking that but thinking it wasn't for any reason I'd like. Although we'd never met there, Barrie T used to work at the company that's my current day job. He's well aware that their Sunday Brunch starts an hour early. "I have you first out Saturday Night the next two schedules so that early Brunch shift won't kill ya," he told me.<br />
"Hey, thanks," I said, sincerely because even though I didn't have to work Sunday morning, I love getting cut early regardless. So I was a little surprised Saturday when I arrived for my dinner shift and saw that I was not only not in an early cut station, I was closing. It's not Barrie T's fault; he's on vacation, remember? But that early-out status was put in the computer and was ignored by one of that shift's managers. What if I'd requested that early-cutness for some really important-to-me reason? It just kind of pissed me off a little, although I didn't say anything. We got pretty busy and didn't anybody get cut all that early. I wound up making some real good money too, so o well.<br />
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I hope that stuff in the first part of today's episode doesn't read too much like self-pity or whining (I'm good if the second part does). I'm doing OK and consider myself blessed in a lot of ways, not the least of which is employment. I'm thinking about quitting the day job and just working some lunches at my current night gig. Of course, if I did that, I'd have no good excuse I could tell them for why I couldn't work weekend lunches like I've got now. Plus, since AM job fired GM Lupo W, they've promoted Assistant Manager Zweetie B to ACTING General Manager and I really like her a lot (not in the same way I used to like a similarly-named former co-worker who might be remembered by long-time readers of <em>These American Servers™</em>). In fact, if Zweetie gets the GM title there on a more permanent basis, that'd make me more likely to stick around. But if I do, I think I'll try and work there only four weekday lunches a week instead of the current five. That might free me up a little to go and look for some employment that's not restaurant-related. But even if I wind up only slinging chow (which isn't the end of the world), I'm kind of tired of working Sunday Nights and want to find a way out of doing that, or at least cutting way back on it.<br />
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RCW 1925-2014 RIP<br />
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Joe Sixtophttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08242065520511683288noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4711067561118474358.post-45219310538965617262014-02-28T12:48:00.000-08:002014-03-31T00:56:58.221-07:00What Scottish Inns was Charging ©2014 by Joe Sixtop all rights reserved<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Wups! I forgot that new episodes of <em>These American Servers</em>™ don't just magically show up every so often on their own (but oh, how I wish they did!); I've gotta get off my ass and make them happen. And I haven't been doing much of that lately. I guess there's a remote possibility that some people might like to read new episodes of this if any appear. If indeed such individuals exist and you're one of them, today's episode is dedicated to YOU!<br />
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I worked at this one restaurant for over nine years. After September 20th of last year, I didn't work there any more. So I went and got another job at a place I'd worked at previously. I think I was unemployed for, like, three days. I'd been gone from there for about ten months and, although a lot of familiar faces remained, there'd been some turnover among the employees. One of the people that I hadn't met before was a waiter named Skullcrusher L.<br />
Skullcrusher L was the oldest employee they had, beating even me by at least a decade ( I'm in the top ten oldest there for sure and maybe the top five). Skullcrusher L worked <em>every</em> night. If he wasn't scheduled (he usually was), he'd come in wearing the clown suit and pick up. Skullcrusher L never clocked in until he got a table and ran a report and clocked out immediately when his last table paid—regardless of how much sidework he had left—therefore officially only working about 40 or so hours a week, although actually more like 60. The restaurant does a lot of business and I make OK money there. But the dinner shift usually starts out slow. Skullcrusher and I had some time to converse and get acquainted.<br />
He was living in a motel. He wasn't living alone. Shacked up with Skullcrusher was the love of his life, his dog, Scruffles. It costs a lot to stay in a motel when you have a pure-bred, 14-year-old Ukrainian Weaselmutt living with you. Skullcrusher had been living in the motel for several months. He'd been paying by the week and then gotten in some financial trouble and started paying by the day, which, if you've ever lived in a motel, you know is a lot more expensive. Skullcrusher's a good dude. It entered my mind to ask if he'd like to rent out one of my couches for a LOT less than what <strong>Scottish Inns</strong>™ was charging. Not forever, maybe just for a couple of weeks or so to get him caught up to where he could at least go back to paying the motel's weekly rate again. And I'd get a little cash out of the deal too.<br />
I probably would of discussed this with Skullcrusher if it wasn't for Scruffles. Even though my sweet little Sugardog lived with me in that apartment until 2010 and it was great ,we're not supposed to have dogs there. And if we do, they're supposed to weigh less than 35 pounds. Scruffles weighs in at a whopping 55 pounds and looks bigger than that. Dogs can bring fleas and tear shit up. They can get you in trouble with the landlords. I decided to keep the them-staying-at-my-apartment idea to myself. Then Skullcrusher brought it up.<br />
I told him I'd think about it. My main concern was the dog. Skullcrusher said he'd bring the dog over and let me see what I thought. OK, that's fair. One evening after work, he brought Scruffles to my tiny apartment. Scrufffles is a nice, (usually) quiet dog and house-trained. He's pretty old but in GREAT shape. Skullcrusher takes awesome care of him. I thought I was a pretty good pet owner when I had a dog? I guess I was all right but Skullcrusher makes me feel like a major slack-ass in that department. It was obvious that Scruffles didn't have any fleas or anything like that. I told Skullcrusher to let me think about it for a couple of days, which I did. I thought of a few concerns and told them to him. He had a good answer for all of them. So I said it'd be OK for TWO WEEKS. After that we'd see where we were at and if everything was cool, he and Scruff could stay for about two months.<br />
Skullcrusher and his dog moved in back a little before Christmas. The plan at the time was for them to be out by the end of February. A lot of stuff's happened, including Skullcrusher changing jobs, and now the deadline's been moved to the end of March.<br />
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I just found out about a restaurant-related game called <strong>TIPS!</strong> In the game's official logo, the exclamation point is a spoon and I thought that was pretty clever. Its website is <a href="http://www.stonesilent.com/">www.stonesilent.com</a> and you might want to check it out. Maybe hit me back and tell me what you <a href="http://www.stonesilent.com/" target="_blank">think about it,</a> OK?</div>
Joe Sixtophttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08242065520511683288noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4711067561118474358.post-47891330517473718022014-01-24T23:24:00.000-08:002014-02-28T12:48:30.701-08:00Check Registers ©2014 by Joe Sixtop all rights reserved<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
I waited on this fivetop the other day. They were pretty nice. A somewhat elderly gentleman in the party ordered a <strong>Miller Lite</strong>®.<strong> </strong>I convinced him that his best bet would be our 22-ounce <strong>Blotto™ </strong>draft. Another of the guests also wanted a beer but only would go for the pint. I served up everybody's beverages. A couple of minutes later, I strolled by their table again. The old guy claimed to be sorry but that his beer was "sour" and could he just have a twelve-ounce bottle? Sure thing sir. Just a second. The other beer drinker in the group polished his off just fine and you could tell he wished he'd opted for the larger serving and it was a little bit of a struggle for him to not order up another.<br />
I took the offending lowered-calorie treat off the table. I showed it to my GM and told him what was up. My boss is nice but he kind of argued with me a little about the sourness of the brewski, as though it was I who had a complaint about the product. I reminded him that wasn't the case and that I imagined the beer to be fine and fresh and that the other guy enjoying less filling great taste at that table didn't seem to have a problem with his. I rang the bottled Lite and was assured that the problem one would be taken off the check.<br />
My five finished their lunch, shared a dessert and the pint drinker requested the single check. I'd printed it up when I rang in their <strong>raspberry chocolate cheesecake</strong>, probably at least a half hour after the draft beer contretemps happened. The bill was for about 49 dollars (one of the diners hadn't eaten but merely enjoyed some coffee). Dude gave me his credit card and I ran it. As everybody gathered up their coats and shit and prepared to leave and I thanked them a final time, I happened to see the credit card slip, signed and totaled and face up on the table. I'd been left $15. Sweet! A minute later I noticed my GM over at the table talking to them. He'd forgotten to take the allegedly sour draft beer off the check.<br />
I'd hit "summary" when I rang in the chow. It was right. I checked again when I rung up dessert and I hadn't fucked that up either. I <em>didn't </em>check to see if the 22-oz beer had been removed. I just trusted that it had but it hadn't. The clients didn't notice it; my boss remembered when he bade them goodbye. He owned his mistake and didn't in any way suggest that I was at fault or anything. Good for him. So we removed the already-run and -totaled receipt and asked for and got the credit card for the second time and reran it. I brought jones his voucher—now corrected to 45 dollars—again. He signed and totaled it again and they left. <br />
When I went back to retrieve the receipt I saw that this time I hadn't been left 15 bucks. This time I'd gotten 20.<br />
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I'm fortunate enough to be a member of a credit union. I've had my meager finances in banks before and, while some banks are way<em> </em>better than others, credit unions are better still.. My credit union is located not where I live now and have for almost a decade, but back in my hometown. I can mail money orders from anywhere to my credit union and they get deposited in whichever of my accounts I want. And I've got a debit card. I have to pay about 30 bucks for a box of checks but there's no other charge for checking and the boxes of checks last me for literally years.<em> </em>I finally filled out my last check register a couple of days ago. Damn! I still have plenty of checks left and always get registers with them and I didn't want to order more checks. I'm not wanting to go 500 miles to my credit union just for a check register. So there's a credit union located in a real cool 1970's-looking building next door to my day job. I just went in there after work today, got in line like I had money on deposit and asked the teller for a check register. Dude just gave me one free, no questions or static or anything. I think that's pretty cool and maybe I'll see if I can join that credit union or, since it's so conveniently located, might even try and get a job there. I'm still OK with the restaurant business but kind of thinking that working at two corporate chain restaurants every day is a little much.<br />
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Cheers and happy New Year everybody!<br />
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Joe Sixtophttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08242065520511683288noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4711067561118474358.post-50313363443156517542013-12-12T23:58:00.001-08:002014-01-24T23:26:14.114-08:00Blurred Lines ©2013 by Joe Sixtop all rights reserved<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
I guess mostly 'cause manager Garry S likes to make the schedule on a <strong>Xerox</strong>® machine and through no fault of my own, I lucked into the night off on Thanksgiving Eve. I like to go visit friends and relatives in my hometown on the fourth Thursday in November and some years I do. I'd always be off on Black Friday at The American El Chico, where I worked for nine years until I got fired back on September 20th and was scheduled lunch on the day after Thanksgiving at the new AM gig. So I stayed here and enjoyed a rare off-all-day Thursday. So that Wednesday night I started composing this here episode of <em>These American Servers</em>™, even though it took over two weeks before you got to see it. Hey, I do what I can.<br />
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I was working at a fairly upscale, independent restaurant, the best job I've had yet, come to think of it. Anyway, one night an acquaintance of mine, <strong>Applehell</strong>™ waitress Shannon, along with her husband and well-behaved little girl, came in for dinner. I don't remember if they asked for me or not but they wound up in my station. Right about the time they were fixing to leave, Shannon said something that's stuck with me: "You put a lot more into your job than I put into mine." Not that I was good at it necessarily or that she wasn't, just that I put a lot in. And I've got to admit, I try pretty hard to see that people who sit in my station have a good experience. Plus when things don't go well at work I tend to really suffer and since I hate to suffer, I strive to see that I don't have to do much suffering.<br />
I was reminded of Shannon's long-ago statement today. I'm pretty new at my current AM job but was assigned a trainee. Dude's name is Seamus and he's real eager to get out of training and onto the floor on his own. Today's the day he's supposed to wait on people while I silently stand nearby and observe and supervise. He had a good suggestion; that we'd say he was the trainer and I the newby watching to see how it's done. If any questions were asked that he couldn't handle, we'd act like my answering them was part of my learning experience, a contingency which never transpired.<br />
Seamus did a very good job. I thought his greet was just a little too enthusiastic and told him so but that's a minor point—it wasn't bad or anything—and I mostly was really impressed. I think Seamus is a great waiter and he's kind of inspired me to try and step up my game a little. He did something very accommodating for one of our guests—nothing too major, I guess, otherwise I'd remember what it was—and I conveyed my approval. "I know how to make money," Seamus replied.<br />
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Well, it's a fortnight later and Seamus has been on his own in full stations for over a week now. There haven't been any problems as far as I know and I believe he's doing a good job. But from that one training day follow, I thought he was going to be, like, amazingly super-awesome and he hasn't been, he's merely been somewhat above average. For at least that one day he was a super-awesome trainee though.<br />
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I'll be the first to admit it isn't the Victoria's Secret Fashion Show 2013. It's not the Denver Broncos or the Denver Broncos schedule. It's not even the Lakers. I can't take all of y'all to Krispy Kreme in Uruguay (and big ups to Uruguay for their new cannabis policies BTW!) or anything like that and even if I could I'm not sure if I could get Gisele Bundchen, Michelle Jenneke, Demi Lovato or Idina Menzel to accompany us like it was an American Hustle. But it might interest some of ya to know that even though I'm not currently fucking with Instagram Direct I've still got Twitter and it's @JoeSixtop. Hit me up if you want to follow or compliment me on my SEO or whatever. And I'm wishing a MMMerry Christmas to EVERYBODY!<br />
Cheers, __________-Joe </div>
Joe Sixtophttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08242065520511683288noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4711067561118474358.post-90937918671965840172013-11-21T20:20:00.000-08:002015-01-01T22:59:17.974-08:00A Letter from Texas ©2013 by Joe Sixtop all rights reserved<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Dear Cousin Earl:<br />
I'm sorry you haven't heard much from me since I left Mississippi and moved here to Dallas, Texas. I dialed your phone last week but I guess you weren't home or maybe you're still trying to duck calls from the draft board. Too bad there isn't a way to know who's calling before you answer. Heck, I think it'd be nifty to have a phone you can carry around like a transistor radio you can talk on. Of course, that'll never happen but it's fun to think about.<br />
I'm real lucky to have landed myself a pretty good job. I wait tables at The Dreamlifter Restaurant in the Statler Hilton Hotel. It's kind of like what our poor, homely old Aunt Melinda—you remember her, don't you?—does at the Cotton Patch Café up in Holly Springs, except my place is a lot swankier. Anyway, I told them I'd been a waiter at The Secession House over in Jackson for two years and they bought it. I figured nobody'd want to spend all that money calling long distance just to find out about me and I guess I was right.<br />
It's kind of a tough job but I like it OK and the tip money's pretty great. I just wait on customers and then when they pay, they put an extra ten per cent on top of it that I get to keep. Shucks, it's not unusual for folks to leave me 15%, sometimes even 20! Plus the hotel pays us .13¢ an hour on top of the tips. I'm darn near rich!<br />
Our customers can come in here and order up some alcohol (except on Sundays, of course) and not just beer but wine and even whiskey and it's all legal and legit. That's just one of the lots of ways here's different from back home. We've got both kinds of wine here too, Burgundy and Chablis. I'm trying to learn more about them, like how to look really swell opening the bottles at the tables (!) and why the only good wine is from France.<br />
When I take people's orders, I have to write 'em down on a piece of carbon paper. I have to use this complicated secret code they made us learn called abbreviations. Then I ring up the orders on this expensive ciphering machine they got back by the kitchen. Then I tear off one of the pieces of carbon paper and put it on this thing called the wheel and the cooks usually start making it. My work-friend Otis said that someday soon just ringing up an order on the ciphering machine will automatically make it appear to the cooks in the kitchen and save a lot of wear and tear on my Florsheim shoes (I think I got mine at Kresge's) but I'm calling cow-poop on that. I don't think they'll be able to do some <em>Twilight Zone </em>crap like that even 50 years from now.<br />
The other night after work our chef, Pierre, invited some of us over to his swanky apartment. He's a real nice fellow although he's kind of persnickety about how a lot of things at work get done. He's about 50 and is kind enough to let our new Cuban busboy, Jiminez, be his roommate, even though Jiminez can't be more than 20. They need to get a bigger apartment, too. I noticed they only have one bedroom and one bed. I guess they take turns sleeping on the couch.<br />
Pierre just got back from a vacation in Europe. He has a nice hi-fi set-up and played us a record album he brought back. It's an English combo called The Beatles. And I gotta tell ya, they're pretty good. If they were American, they might even have a chance to get popular here, too. Pierre brought out these funny, hand-rolled cigarettes and told us to "be cool," whatever that means. They smelled like a cross between shit and a lespedeza stack caught on fire but we passed 'em around and I got to feeling pretty good from them. I need to check and see if Camel or Philip Morris make anything like them that I can maybe buy at Walgreens.<br />
I've been hoping to meet some girls here in Texas. Our restaurant is pretty fancy so they won't let any women wait tables here and all the housekeeping ladies are 45-year-old Mexicans. There is one girl I really like here. She fixes salads in our kitchen. Her name's Betty. She's real pretty and super nice and I like her a lot and I'm always wanting to kiss her. The only problem is that Betty's a negro! Don't tell my Daddy about this, OK?<br />
President Kennedy is going to be here in Dallas tomorrow. He's gonna ride through town in his cherry presidential Lincoln limousine and then make a speech. I'm off work and I think I'll go see him. I like President Kennedy a lot. But I might not go. I'm from the same small town in Mississippi you are and I'm still not used to the big city crowds something like this will bring. It's no big deal either way. The president is a healthy young man and I'm sure I'll have plenty of other opportunities to see him in person.<br />
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Joe Sixtophttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08242065520511683288noreply@blogger.com2