What Scottish Inns was Charging ©2014 by Joe Sixtop all rights reserved

     Wups! I forgot that new episodes of These American Servers™ 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!

     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.
     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 every 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.
     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 Scottish Inns™ 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.
     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.
     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.
     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.

     I just found out about a restaurant-related game called TIPS! In the game's official logo, the exclamation point is a spoon and I thought that was pretty clever. Its website is www.stonesilent.com and you might want to check it out. Maybe hit me back and tell me what you think about it, OK?

Lonesome Joe Sixtop ©2013 by Joe Sixtop all rights reserved

     Thank you for visiting These American Servers™, America's premier restaurant-centric internet column (OK, server blog) to be presented by a guy named Joe, at least as far as I'm aware. And as to the afore-mentioned internet, the search engine terms (SETs) for today's installment include: Tim Hudson injury—and even after this weekend's disappointing series in Atlanta, I hate that happened—Gold Cup Final, Cyclospora, 孫旗 (a subject I'm not conversant on but that a lot of Chinese people seem to be interested in), rock's all-time greatest frontman Mick Jagger and Siohvaughn Funches. I'm not keeping up with the dispute she's having with NBA standout Dwayne Wade 'cause I don't care and it's none of my business and according to Google Trends she's dropped off their charts, yet remains in our hearts. Well, mine anyway. Whatever else Ms. Funches may be about—and I'm being serious here—she deserves mad props for having that world-class great name!
     And speaking (or more accurately, typing) of restaurant-centric internet columns, if you work as a server in North America, you probably have one and it's better than These American Servers. If you work with servers and bartenders but aren't one, you're a dishwasher, say, or a cook, door whore, manager or barback, you probably don't have one. What's up with that?
     Now where was I trying to go there? Oh, yeah. If you have a server blog, do you ever get any weird little synchronicities with it? It's happened with me, more than twice. Like one time, I was in the early stages of composing something about working with a lot of people from south of the United States and before I was finished there was a bit of labor unrest involving most of my Latino co-workers ("Four Guys from Guatemala," January, 2011) from that job.
     Another time, I was a mere couple of days away from trying to entertain y'all with some of my thoughts on the subject of auto-grat ("Mandatory Gratuicide," January, 2011) when some unpleasantness arose at work concerning that policy ("A Tanya Fiasco," January, 2011, a month where I was really ballin' with my little project here apparently). I could go on with more examples but that's enough for the present.
     Right now I want to see if I can maybe harness the theoretical power of these perceived coincidences by mentioning some things I'd like to have happen.(and yes, I'm totally aware that even in the very unlikely event that these are anything more than just some random coincidences that it probably doesn't work like that). For example, I'm kind of lonesome here lately and I'd like to get myself a righteous new girlfriend. Also, I want to win some insanely fat lottery prizes and I can't help but feel like the latter could definitely facilitate the former. Plus, I think I should  go and get myself another night job, something kinda awesome this time, please! Least likely of all—but what the hey, I'm kind of on a roll here—a substantial increase  in traffic for These American Servers would probably cheer me up some. Please stick around with my struggling internet column and I'll try and keep ya updated with any good news.
     Anyway and as always, thanks for reading and please feel free to share your thoughts on these or any other sixtopics in the comments section, via email, on Facebook or, if those lousy California bastards ever remove the totally unjustified (I swear!) cock-block they done put on me (yeah, really), Twitter @JoeSixtop.

     From a few of weeks later: Twitter removed the totally unjustified cock-block just a couple of days after they hit me with it. @JoeSixtop. Thank you.

Cory O Story O ©2013 by Joe Sixtop all rights reserved

     Of all my co-workers ever, present and past, there's this dude named Cory O that's definitely one of them. He's a nice guy and a good waiter. As near as I can tell, none of his managers, customers or fellow employees have a problem with him and that includes me. Pretty much.
     Cory O's about 30 and newly married. I don't know for sure, but I bet they didn't have a pre-nup or anything like that. I've met his wife, she's fairly attractive and real nice. They're both very religious. In fact, Cory O is an ordained (by what or whom I don't know) minister. Supposedly he's on track to someday be lead pastor of his own congregation and then it'll be bye-bye waiting tables, although that's probably a few years away. Cory O's been observed typing up sermons on his iPad® between shifts. Due to his church obligations, he's off from the restaurant Wednesday nights and all day Sundays.
     I've never heard Cory O utter even the tamest of cuss words. Cory O likes to make fun of me. I say "Hell yeah!" a lot. Cory O does a pretty dead-on impersonation of me saying that but he changes it to "Heck yeah!" I try to never cross the line into actual verbal cruelty--except with people I dislike and maybe not even then--but I make fun of people all the time so I have little room to be upset with Cory O for his mockery. Except for sometimes when I'm kind of weeded, he'll fuck with me a little (he'd never call it that, of course) and I don't like that shit at all. It's at the very least unhelpful and can easily be counter-productive. But I think it's not done mean-spiritedly and I try and not let it bother me much.
     One evening about three weeks ago I was at work and Cory O was off. He called me on the company phone to ask if he could borrow 20 bucks from me 'til the next day. That's all he needed to say but he tacked on a convoluted yarn about how he had money but his ATM card was acting up and so on and whatever that, had it come from a less upstanding citizen than Cory O, I'd have thought was the bullshit story of a jive artist with a substance-abuse problem. I didn't get my money back the next day; I wound up being first cut that night and Cory O hadn't received any cash payments by the time I left but I did get it back within a day or two, no biggie.
     Then one afternoon about a week later, Cory O asked me if I had a debit card with any money on it. That struck me as an odd question, yet I answered that I did. He wanted to know if it was Visa® or Mastercard®. I hardly ever use the thing so I had to think a minute before I answered. "Visa." Cory O told me he was paying off a fine on the installment plan that he owed to some governmental jurisdiction, the state I think. He wanted to pay over the phone and save himself a trip downtown. Cory O has a Mastercard debit card and the entity getting his money will only take Visa. Cory O didn't want a loan. He would (and did) pay me the $25 coming off my card immediately. "(A co-worker) usually does it for me but her purse was stolen," he said. I let Cory O pay his ordeal with my card, but reluctantly. I'm mostly a cash, check and money order guy and keep my plastical purchases to a bare minimum. I believed Cory O and didn't think he was scamming or anything. But I have no idea who--besides just the spying-ass NSA--may have garnered my information that was transmitted via cellphone. Cory O paid me cash right then. That was a little over a week ago and I haven't detected any suspicious activity on my bank account.
     This past Saturday night, Cory O and I were on the same shift again. When I got to work as scheduled at 5:00 PM, I was very happy to note that I was in the station that's customarily first cut. Cory O'd arrived at 4:30 and was in a later-cut, though non-closing, section. As purely a station, I prefer the one Cory O got assigned to that evening and I'm sure he does too. But since I'd be cut earlier, I was cool. I worked my section and Cory O worked his. When cuts were made, Cory O got cut and I didn't! WTF? I asked him what was up and he mumbled something about him having to be at work a little earlier than me. Big fucking deal. At least two other employees were scheduled even earlier than Cory O was and had to close. Cory O had used his 30-minute arrival advantage to finagle the new rookie manager into fucking me over.

     What do Emmy Nominations, Behati Prinsloo, British Open, Rolling Stone cover, Honky Boo Boo, Rachel Jeantel, Detroit and Talia Castellano have in common? I'm guessing that they all have Twitter. Well, guess what? I've got Twitter too! @JoeSixtop . If I'm doing the math right, as of last time I checked my next follower on there will increase my Twitter crew by a whopping 100%! Plus I'm trying to work out a deal with the New England Candy Company to supply free Clark® Bars to my next 600 Twitter followers, but those people wouldn't know a great promotional opportunity if it kicked them in their ass, so don't hold your breath waiting for that one, OK?