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10:46 p.m. - 2002-11-13
The Hostess From Hell
I've had a stressful day.

I suppose I brought it on myself. The stress had to do with a certain Hostess From Hell that I'm currently dealing with at the Fish House, and the fact that I'm an emotionally reactive person who has problems keeping her foot out of her mouth.

Here's the thing.

The Hostess From Hell works the front desk, and she decides where people who come into the restaurant are going to sit. Ergo, she decides which servers get which tables at what time. There's supposed to be a rotation in place, so that the distribution of tables is maintained relatively evenly and no one gets shafted in terms of the number of tables they serve in an evening. As a former hostess, I know that this Rotation does not always work out perfectly, and there are bound to be shifts when someone gets screwed. It happens.

The problem with the Hostess From Hell is that it consistently happens to me, and I have a good feeling it is because she doesn't particularly like me.

She doesn't like me because I have a tendency to call her on her habit of seating those servers she likes more consistently and with better tables (i.e. four people in a party instead of 2) than those she doesn't. Because it's not just myself that it happens to, there are a score of Fish House servers who complain night after night about the Hostess From Hell. The thing is, they deal with it by trying to suck up to the Hostess From Hell.

I am not willing to do that.

As far as I'm concerned, she has a job to do, and she's not doing it. I will not make happy-huggy-kissy with a 40 year old bitch-woman who is power tripping on a minimum wage job, and I will totally call her on her incompetence.

That's the exposition. Here's the story.

Last night, a party of 14 was supposed to arrive at the restaurant. Another server's section was being held for the party, but, fearing that her tables would not leave in time for the arrival of the 14 people, the Manager decided to put my section on hold as well. This move made it impossible for me to get any more tables, stalemating my section and leaving me with not a lot to do and the prospect of a very non-lucrative night.

I went to her to ask what was going wrong. She says ask the Manager, I shouldn't be asking her. So I do. He, in turn, takes my section off hold so that I can take tables again. Despite this, and despite the fact that the girl working the section next to me already has more tables than I do, she puts a table in the girl-next-door's section. This pisses me off, and before I can even say a word, she sticks a hand in my face and says...

"Get away from me"

...repeatedly. Rudely. Loudly.

At this point, I think steam started coming out of my ears. No, seriously.

I bitch to another Manager about it and spend the rest of the night uttering death threats under my breath when I walk past her. The night ends.

So, today. When I get into work, Mike the Manager (the head guy, the big honcho and the one who likes to yell at people) says he wants to talk to me after the lunch shift. I say fine and go about my business. I figure I'll finally get a chance to speak my piece about the Hostess From Hell.

Then, Mike calls a server meeting and that's when the stress really came into play. Mike's an intimidating guy. He's big, kind of ugly, and he likes to talk loudly in a feirce tone while making you feel stupid about something you have done wrong. He tells all of the servers that there have been complaints and problems about servers "bullying" (Bullying!?!) the hostesses. He won't have any of it, and it will stop now or you can leave blah, blah, blah. A hush falls over the crown of servers (I can feel their mind's eyes on me at this point, and I'm just glaring at Mike) until he goes on to other business.

So, at this point, I've figured out that I'm gonna get a good reaming from Mike after lunch, but I plan my counter-attack and brace myself for the worse. Then he postpones our little chat to just before the dinner shift.

Can I say RAT-BASTARD at this point? He lets me stew for 3 hours until my shift. Bro Dave came home, so I vented my frustration to him for a while, and then, after Dave wished me good luck and I got the Doomsday music out of my head, I left for work.

And I had the surprise of a lifetime. Mike was reasonable about the whole matter. He didn't yell, he didn't make me feel like an utter moron, he actually listened to my side of the story. Sure, I got some flack for my part in the whole fiasco, and I was told that I shouldn't take my problems to the hostesses but I should go through him and blah, blah, blah. But I actually got to state my grievances, apologize for my part in the drama, and not get yelled at.

So, I realize this has been a long entry, and if you've reached this point, then I'll just say you've got a lot of patience. I just needed to vent a little more. I was so pleased that I got a level-headed reaction from Mike the Manager that I was in a good mood all night, despite my lack of cash at the end of the night.

So, there you go. My life is work, but my work is certainly not my life.

 

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