Anything That Can Go Wrong Will Go Wrong

Oh Murphy, you son of a gun.

It’s not that often I get sat a party of 15.  Like hardly ever.  So when the greeter told me I was getting a large party I was immediately excited.

                                                                                                                            

I had three tables outside and three tables inside.   I was cruising along just fine until I looked up and saw I was getting sat a party of five not long before my 15-top was to arrive.  In my head, I had my game plan ready:  to get their drinks delivered and food orders in the system as fast as possible before the big party comes and I’d be just fine. 

Note to self – never assume this plan will ever work.

It took me a few minutes to get to table 22 - the new 5-top - consisting of all men.  Just as I said hello, one of the men piped up, “Well, I guess you were worth the wait.”    Wow.  This is the type of guest us female servers dream of serving; rude, arrogant, impatient womanizers.  Amazing.  Always a pleasure!   I immediately responded.  “I’m sorry.  How long were you waiting here?”  He replied, “Like two minutes.”  Okay.  Not long.  Now I am absolutely positive he’s a jerk.  I tried to be as polite as possible and asked where they were from and so on to try and change his discourteous attitude, but lord knows that wasn’t going to happen.  They ordered a few cocktails, raw oysters and sushi to start.  I was trying my hardest to stick to my game plan; however, every time I was at their table, they seemed to keep me there with annoying narcissistic, flirtatious banter.  Annoying comments like asking me if I was single even though all of them had rings on their fingers.  They demanded all of my attention, even when I was simply walking by they seemed to need me for something. 

When I came back to the table with their drinks, I noticed my party of 15 was getting sat.  “Deep breath.  I’ll be fine.  Just get table 22’s food orders in and move forward,” I repeated to myself.  My request to the universe was adamantly denied. 

One of the tight-fitted, muscle-shirt wearing guys asked if we had oyster shooters.  Oh no.  Of course this guy is asking for something very complicated right when I’m getting sat this large party.  “Technically we don’t have oyster shooters,” I replied as I was watching 15 people get settled in front of me.  But these men wouldn’t take no for an answer.  They were relentless.  They kept shouting, “Come on… We know you have oysters and we know you have vodka… Make it happen.”  I told them I’d do it, but it would take a while. 

Plan A was starting to fail miserably. 

As if the request for oyster shooters wasn’t bad enough, one of them then asked if we had sake.   Oh God no… not sake.  Let me put it this way, when anyone orders sake at our restaurant, every single server cringes.  I promise you.  Sake is a nightmare.  Let me explain.  We don’t have any updated sake menus for guests, no one knows what we have and don’t have, we had one day of education on our sake (a year and a half ago) and the sake itself is unorganized and in a land far, far away.  Basically, our restaurant shouldn’t even carry sake in the first place.  As you can imagine, the very mention of sake creates an intense and immediate stress.   In retrospect, I should have just said we don’t have any, especially under these circumstances.

As I went to grab the ridiculous sake “menu,” I had to first stop at my large party to introduce myself as they had already been sitting for a solid few minutes.   As expected, people began shouting out drink orders and the head of the party wanted to look at a wine menu to choose a few bottles for the table as well.  I’m so screwed. 

At that moment, I had to order the drinks for the large party, talk with the kitchen and the bar to organize five oyster shooters, grab a wine menu for the large party, a sake “menu” for my 5-top and talk with both tables about their bottle selections.  Keep in mind I still had three other tables outside and three other tables inside, not including my 5-top or my 15-top.  And yes, my other tables were beginning to need things by now - like a lot of things. Checks, coffee, dessert menus, more drinks, etc…

I felt my body tense up and an instant headache forming into my temples.  My mind started to shift… Would it really be that bad if I just walked out right now?  Oh right.  That whole getting fired thing.  I do have quite a few bills to pay.  Hmmm, I guess that’s not an option at this moment.  Damn.

Game Plan A = epic fail. 

Onto Game Plan B = shift into fifth gear (with some sort of nitrous boost) and get as much help as possible.

Boom.  Let’s do this. 

I found my assistant to help get coffees, checks and run drinks for the large party.  I picked up checks and ran credit cards as fast as I could.  I brought the wine menu over to my large party to discuss options.  All the while my womanizing table 22 kept yelling my name and waving at me to get me to come over to them.  It was very obvious I was busy with plenty of other tables, but they didn’t seem to care.  After the head of the large party picked their wines, I went over to the 5-top and gave them our stupid sake menu.  He said, “Finally.”  I couldn’t help myself but to say, “You can see I have that large party as well as several other tables.   Please be patient.  I’m doing my best.”  After a few more rude comments from him, he finally chose a bottle.  I left the table and was now in full panic mode.  Not only do I have to find this bottle of godforsaken sake and present it and serve it to them, I also have to find and open three bottles of wine and present it and serve it to my large party.  And just at that moment, I saw the food runner coming out with five oysters – on the shell - not shooter style as I requested.  I stopped him.  “Wait!  These are supposed to be shooters.”  He told me I had to take them myself to the bar and set them up because he had never done it before and he didn’t have time. 

Oh my God.  Someone shoot me.  And where the hell is a manager.

I grabbed the oysters and high tailed it to the bar.  As the bartender and I were scooping the oysters into the vodka shot glasses, I saw a manager.  “I NEED you to get a bottle of Cakebread Sauv Blanc and two bottles of Stagsleap Cab to table 32… like right this second.  Like NOW.  I literally have no time to present it and pour it.”  He nodded.  I took the impromptu oyster shooters over to my favorite table of the evening.  As I placed them down, the guy who ordered the sake yelled at me, “Where’s our sake?  The food is good here, but damn the service is slow.”  Would it be considered illegal to punch this guy in the face right now?  I took a deep breath.  “I told you these shooters would take a while.  But I got them for you didn’t I?  You’ve got your shooters; now, I’m going to get your sake.” 

I bolted to the walk-in refrigerator in the back of the prep kitchen (behind the main kitchen) to grab the sake.  As one would imagine, the location of this walk-in is in no way convenient for the servers.  It’s basically like a trek to Vietnam under these circumstances.  I searched high and low for the sake to no avail.  Where the hell is this bottle?  Are we out?  After a minute or two of searching, I left the walk-in defeated.  I hustled my way through the kitchen and found a server to ask if he knew anything about this elusive bottle.  He thought we had it, but wasn’t sure, but said he would help me look.  Thank God.  In times like this, one extra person helping can feel like that hand you need to help rescue you from sinking into quicksand.  To kill some time while he looked for it, I visited my outside tables, as to avoid table 22.  Of course they all needed something. God knows it’d been a while since I was last out there.   

At this moment, I was deep in the trenches of my own personal war zone with no end in site.   I hardly had a machete - or even a Swiss army knife – that could have helped me out of this hellish battle. 

I got word back from my one fellow helping hand of a server – we were out of that bottle.  Apparently we had just sold the last one a few nights ago.  This is an absolute nightmare.  I decided I’d just tell table 22 to forget the sake and order another bourbon.  When I told him we were out, he said, “This is absurd.  It took you this long to figure this out and now you don’t even have it!  I should get a bottle of sake on the house.”  I told him, “I’m sorry, I can’t do that.”  He demanded, “Where’s you manager?”  Good question.  “I’ll get one of them for you.” Meanwhile, my large party was getting antsy for me to take their food order.  Yep, that’s right.  I still hadn’t taken their food order.  I told the large party I’d be right there to take their order.  I’m sure they didn’t believe me.  I walked around searching for a manager, asking around.  I ran to the office in the back – past Vietnam and around the corner - and found one.  “I NEED help again!  You have to visit table 22.”  I told the manager what happened; yet, unfortunately for me, he couldn’t help me at the moment.  He was in the process of searching for a bottle of wine for another server.  He said he’d get to table 22 after.  That’s not going to work.  Where’s a machete when you need one.   I walked back into the restaurant and thank God found the other manager.  I told her the situation and luckily she wasn’t as busy and was able to go to table 22 quickly.

Feeling like I finally was handed that Swiss army knife, I now had time to take orders for my large party. 

As I was rounding the big party’s table taking orders, I noticed my manager opening a bottle of Sake at table 22.  Ugh.  They got what they wanted (it is one thing to be offered a bottle of whatever on the house.  It’s another to actually demand it).  I finally finished taking my large party’s food order and put it into the computer.  I then made my rounds to all of my other tables before I went back to table 22.  They actually complained about how “bad” the free sake tasted.  I basically ignored that comment and I asked them if there was anything else they wanted, hoping of course they’d say no.  They apparently had enough and were ready for the check.  Thank you Lord baby Jesus.  Get these guys outta here.  When I dropped the check, they actually asked me what time I got off work and if I’d meet them at a bar.  You’ve got to be freaking kidding me.   I ignored that question as well and walked away. 

Finally.  I could focus all my attention on my 15-top; the one I was actually happy to have before the war zone of table 22 hit.    What a difference it made to have them gone.  I could actually spend time with my large party, get to know them and serve them properly. 

To have a 5-top from hell is one thing.  But to have a 5-top from hell while waiting on a newly sat 15-top with six other tables is a whole other type of combat I never want to experience ever again. 

So Murphy, could you please change your law to state that anything that can go right will go right?  But I’m guessing that’s not going to ever happen.  A law is a law for a reason.

Therefore, my only option for my next battle is to be better prepared with the tools I need – a machete, a sharp Swiss army knife and perhaps a great pair of combat boots.  Hell, I’ll take a butter knife if it’ll help me survive the trenches.  Because I do know one thing: without the tools we need, serving humanity - especially the pompous and demanding ones of the world – will always be a loosing battle. 

~ HK ~