Wednesday 19 September 2012

Ladies Bathroom Ninjas

Nowhere near this awesome.

It’s 8:15pm on a Friday night.

The restaurant is full. You’re carrying an empty bread basket, a wine list under one arm, two used side plates and a tray of dirty glasses. The service bell rings. 20 entrée plates are sitting at the pass, waiting to be sent to a three-course function. Five people are standing at the entrance looking around questioningly. The gentleman on Table 11 is trying to get your attention and you realise that all their wine glasses are empty. Nobody’s answering the phone. Table 13 waves you down for hot English mustard. A round of beers is sitting at the bar, the luscious foamy heads slowly dissipating. The service bells rings again, angrily. Table 7 are getting up to leave and motion for the bill. Table 2 are starting to stack their own plates. Something in section 3 breaks. The service bell in the bar rings as a coffee order comes out. You head to the kitchen when the new guy intercepts and asks you to talk to Table 23 about a special order. You manage to put your armload aside, get the new guy to begin running entrées, pick up Table 7’s pre-printed bill, beg the kitchen-hand to grab you some hot English, signal to the incoming group of five that you have seen them and will be there soon, pick up two plates to drop off on Table 16, plus a new tray for a drinks pick-up on your way back… when suddenly a woman sashays into view.

“Excuse me,” she says in a commanding undertone as you stop screaming and smile, still juggling the two entrées and drinks tray as Table 7 line up behind her and New Guy returns looking confused and Table 11 starts waving like he’s in a parade.

“Yes?”

There is no more soap in the ladies.” And with that, she fixes you with a meaningful stare and waits for your response, as the background chaos expands exponentially.

For a moment you are struck dumb. You briefly curse the cleaning staff. Your life flashes before your eyes. You cannot believe that somebody has interrupted the beautiful pandemonium of this moment with something so incredibly fucking stupid. And yet here we are.

Ladies Bathroom Ninjas lurk in the shadows of every busy service time in bars and restaurants all over the world. They bide their time, watching your every move, waiting for the perfect moment to strike. There is not a peep from them during quiet moments; they melt into the periphery. Then, when the establishment is bursting at the seams during the hospitality equivalent of peak hour and the state of the bathroom is the last thing on your mind, they attack service staff without warning, and without mercy.

There is no more soap! There is no more toilet paper! The light bulb in the left cubicle has blown! The right cubicle is blocked! Someone has vomited sangria into the basin!

Being a fellow lady, I do sympathise. I know what it’s like to reach for the roll and panic as your fingers brush cardboard. I too have done the musical toilets waltz of entering a cubicle, leaving, entering the next cubicle, leaving, in an attempt to find something remotely sanitary. I also understand that you feel compelled to “let someone know” about these things, even if that someone is a random waitress on the other side of the building who likely does not have the caretaking of toilets as part of her job description.

But right now, in the middle of service that is spiralling out of control, with customers left and right demanding crap like so many screeching open-beaked baby birds, bells ringing, my arms slowly but surely breaking under the tonnes of crap I am carrying and the ever anxiety-inducing sound of glassware breaking, I can safely say this to Ladies Bathroom Ninjas everywhere:

You cannot even comprehend the level of fuck I do not give.

When I give you an equally concerned hushed response, while nodding reassuringly, it’s not to put your little restroom request at the top of the waiting list. It’s to get you the fuck away from me, because I quite literally don’t time have time for your shit. I know it’s wrong. And I don’t care about that either.

Because who am I going to turn to during this time of crisis? The kitchen-hand, who swears at me in Portuguese and is about to be killed in an avalanche of dishes, pots and pans? The bartenders, who are up to their ears in a college pub crawl? My supervisor, who is combating a screaming woman who wants to know why her party of eight haven’t been seated for fifteen minutes? Another waitress, who is equally busy and equally clueless as to where toilet paraphernalia is kept? The chefs, who have fricken’ knives? And do you really want to see the people handling your food and drinks attending to the toilets and returning to the floor?

So, I’m sorry, Ladies Bathroom Ninjas. As I slowly sink into the abyss of dinner service, you’re on your own. But in the event you live up to part of your name and actually carry ninja stars, do me a favour and kill me.

Wednesday 12 September 2012

Customer Review: The Coat Avenger

Eep.

Appetiser

Why you should always stick to your prescribed medication unless otherwise directed by a doctor.

Entrée

Starring: Gentleman customer, innocent waitress A., head barman, and mysterious guest
Scene: Gentleman customer left a coat behind the night before, and has returned today to collect it. A. searches the cloakroom to no avail.

A: I’m sorry, it doesn’t seem to be here. It may have been misplaced. But if I take down your name and number, I could double-check with the staff member who hung your coat and get back to you.
Gentleman: Certainly.

CUT TO: Bar, 10 minutes later. Gentleman has exited, but mysterious guest has entered!

Mrs Coat Avenger: SO YOU JUST TAKE PEOPLE’S COATS AND THEY MYSTERIOUSLY DISAPPEAR, DO THEY?!

Main

A. pauses mid-order. Customer heads turn. At the bar stands the gentleman’s fuming wife: Mrs Coat Avenger. The shit hath hiteth the fan.

Not wanting to forget that good old-fashioned racism, Mrs Coat Avenger pauses long enough to give the Asian barman a contemptuous up-down, before demanding, “WHERE IS YOUR COAT CUPBOARD? WHERE IS IT?!”

Barman directs her. By now patrons are craning their necks to watch as she storms past them and into the alcove signposted Staff Only, ranting, “MY HUSBAND’S COAT IS VERY EXPENSIVE AND I FIND IT VERRRRY INTERESTING THAT IT HAS CONVENIENTLY DISAPPEARED!”

Yes, because according to this month’s Cosmo, your 150kg husband’s sweaty old coat is this season’s must-have. It’ll go perfectly with my pink Mollini stilettos! So you see, when your waiter hung the coat that fateful night it was all part of an elaborate plot to STEAL IT FOR MY SIZE SIX SELF. How verrrry devious I am!

Mrs Coat Avenger ransacks the cupboard in a rage. A. starts to back away. The barman edges towards a muddler in case he needs to physically defend himself. Customers quietly pull their valuables closer.

 “IT’S NOT HERE!” Mrs Coat Avenger – also known as Captain Obvious – finally shrieks, slamming the doors shut with a massive bang. “THIS IS COMPLETELY UNACCEPTABLE!”

I rather imagine Table 14 was thinking the same thing about their dinner being ruined by a screaming maniac.

Mrs Coat Avenger turns on her heel and leaves, without so much as a “THIS ISN’T OVER!” and a fist-shake. Villains just have no manners these days.

Later that evening, the coat is found. On account of it (1) being lost property, and (2) being pain-in-the-arse gigantic and in everyone’s way, it had been folded and moved. Barman sighs and dials the number left behind. Of course, Mrs Coat Avenger answers.

“WELL, WELL, WELL, ISN’T THAT CONVENIENT. I GO IN THERE AND MAKE A BIG FUSS, AND SUDDENLY THE COAT TURNS UP.”

“There’s nothing convenient about having to deal with a deranged hag,” is what he should have said. Instead, in an attempt for at least one person in this exchange to have some class, he reoffered his apologies and extended an invitation to pick up the coat any time.

And so the sheepish husband was soon reunited with the Very Expensive Coat.  It’s no wonder he has a compulsive overeating problem. How does Mrs Coat Avenger go about her everyday life with such farcical reactions to everything? Is this the kind of person you want:

At the supermarket?
Self Checkout Machine: Unexpected item in bagging area.
Mrs Coat Avenger:  WHAT??!! * smashes computer screen with can of Whiskas*

At the movies?
Teenage Boy: Excuse me, I think you are in my seat.
Mrs Coat Avenger: HOW CONVENIENT! *king-hits kid, popcorn flies everywhere*

Waiting next to you at the tram stop?
Mrs Coat Avenger: SIX MINUTES? SIX MINUTES?! WHAT IS TAKING SO LONG??!! *throws Molotov cocktail at information screen*

Around the community in general?
Young Mother: Shh, Ella, don’t cry.
Mrs Coat Avenger: SHUT THAT BABY UP OR I WILL! *pulls out handgun*

And you people were all worried about asylum seekers.


Customer Score
Presentation: 2/5. Two points for that oh-so-fancy taste in Burberry. Minus three points for the foaming at the mouth. 
Intelligence: 1/5. A little known fact is that Mrs Coat Avenger’s application to join the police force as a youth was rejected due to her being a flaming dumbshit. She spiralled into a life of insanity.
Behaviour: 0/5. What the actual fuck is wrong with you?
Value: 1/5. One point strictly for entertainment value only.
Experience: 1/5. I was much happier before I knew people like her existed.
Total Score: 5 cloakroom tickets out of 25. You need immediate professional help, lady, and possibly some sort of vaccine.

0-5 complete waste of human organs 6-10 a distinct displeasure 11-12 what a turdburger 13-14 customer could accomplish something with more manners 15-16 a few mildly tolerable hiccups 17-18 staff could handle as a regular 19-20 a pleasure 21-25 the ideal customer




Monday 10 September 2012

More Stuff Customers Like


Mistaking you for an octopus
“One beef curry, one chicken salad and one falafel burger,” I announce merrily, nursing three plates as is often the case.
“We also had chips and calamari rings?” the customer will add hopefully, always ending this unusual version of “thank you” with a question mark.
How many arms do you think people have, fool? I am of course assuming you can count to two. Let us put the often hot and/or heavy plates we have down before you start rattling off what hasn’t arrived yet.

Creating obstacle courses
Tired of food and beverages being served to you without incident? Put out by the fact that most waiters, bartenders or runners go through entire shifts without suffering grievous bodily harm? Then create an obstacle course for them! Obstacle courses can be as simple as a coat thrown over the floor, a ginormous handbag kicked beside the table, arrays of shopping bags arranged carefully in the aisle of the restaurant, or even your own children rolling around on the carpet. A clever and considerate way to jazz up your dining experience!

Gesturing wildly whenever service staff happen to be nearby with a tray
Don’t like wearing a round of Coronas? Then have some self-awareness and watch the spaces you wave your limbs around.

Holding random service staff personally responsible for the entire establishment’s spelling and grammatical errors
Generally speaking, waiters and bartenders do not personally design, edit and print each and every single menu/chalkboard/advertisement for the places they work casual shifts for. So if you feel absolutely compelled to say something like, “Oh, is this the DINNING menu? Is that actually a CALM sauce? Haw, haw, haw!” in the middle of service… you’re being neither cute nor useful. And if you’re not going to be one of those things you might as well just leave.

Using a hand to shield their wine glass
A simple, “No, thank you” or a headshake also works. Or, you could look up and realise that I’m actually holding a jug of water, you paranoid freak.


Friday 7 September 2012

Amuse-Bouche


Starring: Table 8, two well-to-do couples in their late thirties
Scene: I am called over to investigate a suspicious Cosmopolitan.

Nice Lady: “Excuse me! These two Cosmos taste a little different from one another.”
Me: *insert variation of What-seems-to-be-the-problem?*
Weird Lady: “It doesn’t taste like there’s any alcohol in it.”
Me: “All right, I’ll replace it with a stronger one.”
Weird Lady: “It tastes totally different to hers!”
Me: “Ok. Give me a moment and-”
Nice Lady: “Mine is a little stronger. I’ve never had one before but I like it!”
Weird Lady: “Well mine is too fruity.”
Me: “Perhaps too much cranberry, or Cointreau-”
Weird Lady: “No it tastes like it has NO alcohol!”
Me: “Ah. I will get you a stronger one-”
Weird Lady: “Hers is almost more… dry.”
Her Husband: “They do taste different.”
Me: “I’M GETTING A STRONGER ONE ALREADY!”

This shit should have ended TEN SENTENCES AGO.


Starring: Table 11, one regular customer, one lady and an older gentlemen couple.
Scene: During a busy night, this table has been left with menus for around twenty minutes; two waiters grow concerned and each checks if they’re ready to order.

Gentleman #1: *visibly put out* “They won’t stop checking us!”
Gentleman #2: *sarcastic* “We’re in demand!”
Regular Customer: *trying to make light* “Yeah, these people really want to feed us!”
Lady: “I was ready to order.”

We’re not checking on you because of your charm and vivacity. We fucking work here.


Starring: Table 32, one middle-aged woman and one young woman
Scene: I am bringing a dessert dish

Me: “Your chocolate fondant.”
Middle-Aged: “That’s hers.” 
Me: “Ok, I brought two spoons just in case.”
Middle-Aged: *makes point of pushing her spoon towards Young Woman* “Well we don’t NEED two spoons!”

And you don’t need all your teeth, Outburst McGee.


Starring: Concerned customer outside of closed restaurant
Scene: Customer is peering in window, and knocks frantically as soon as a staff member is sighted

Bartender: *comes all the way out, unlocks door* "Yes?"
Customer: “Are you open?”
Bartender: “No.”

This happens way too often.


Starring: Irate Woman
Scene: Irate Woman is lurking outside the closed bar of a youth hostel

Irate Woman: “Excuse me, is your bar open?”
Passing Housekeeper: *blinks, looks to the bar which has lights off, blinds drawn, shutters closed, doors locked and closed sign flipped, and wonders if Irate Woman is making a joke*
Irate Woman: “WELL IS IT OPEN OR NOT?!”
Passing Housekeeper: “… no.”
Irate Woman: *storms off*

Yes, just what an aggressive moron needs: alcohol.

Tuesday 4 September 2012

Perspective


I defy you to spot the difference, hospo kids, between these two tales of horror.

"The army came early in the morning, we were all asleep. They took all my three sons who were at home and did not let me follow them outside; every time I tried to go out they pushed me back. When I was able to go outside, after a couple of hours, I found my boys burning in the street. They had been piled on top of each other and had motorbikes piled on top of them and set on fire. I could not approach their bodies until evening because there was so much shooting."
 
They come at me in the night sometimes, those sudden, frightening flashes of horror meals once placed in front of me in all seriousness. The Toorak restaurant that served a "scaloppini Marsala" that looked more like something scooped from a cow paddock and garnished with a sprig of parsley. The beachside joint in South Australia that believed the combination of (half-frozen) prawns, cream and coffee beans was a good idea. Or the once-hatted country restaurant that dished up a pile of stinking, rancid scallops in a room that would be a shoo-in for the most forlorn, draughty and depressing dining room in the world award (dead, just slightly stinking, fire included). But the one that really brings on the silent scream was a meal in suburban Melbourne, the highlight of which was a soggy risotto with (really) smoked salmon, coriander, semi-dried tomatoes and banana. The horror, the horror.”
 
I sure couldn’t!



If you have sufficiently recovered from the trauma of finding a banana in your risotto (oh noes!) read more about the situation in Syria, with ways you can help here.

Sunday 2 September 2012

Gatsby's Mailbag

Wazzup mofos? Gatsby here.


Well, the Fool Critic AKA my mum can't be bothered updating today - she came home on break and curled up in a hungover little ball on the floor over there. Luckily, she printed off some mail from Whine Loving customers and lined my cage and common hang-outs with it this morning. After ripping off little pieces and chewing them up a little, I decided to answer these letters for her!

Dear Gatsby,
Last night some girlfriends and I were enjoying a quick lolly-water at a local pub before our date at a nearby theatre restaurant. I noticed a cocktail on special and ordered, draping my pristine white coat over the bar while waiting for the bartender to work his magic. The idiot then proceeded to squirt orange juice on my coat! I of course protested, marching around to the dining room to clean it off, all the while muttering and huffing. The bartender offered me soda water but the damage was done. What do you think of this appalling behaviour?
Sincerely, Deborah K

Dear Deborah K,
What the fuck is wrong with you, dimwit? You place a white fucking coat on the workstation side of a busy bar – signified by chopping boards, discarded lemon wedges, spilled Angostura Bitters and melted ice cubes – then crack a hissy fit when a busy bartender gets shit on it? Would you also leave your cat on the road in Chapel Street and get pissed off when some green p-plater runs it over? I have more sense than you, and I can’t differentiate between a closed window and open air! Order whatever candy-arse crap you’re drinking and get your shit out of the way. In the event you can’t stop being a complete idiot, here are some things to consider:
1.       The coat is not Chanel.
2.       Orange juice is not red wine.
3.       Pre-drinks at a pub is not high tea.
4.       Storming around disturbing the civilised customers in the dining room with your histrionics will not endear you to staff.
5.       The bartender is already attending to forty-odd pub patrons, and it was kind of him to take the time to offer help during service.
6.       Napisan Oxi Action Plus exists.
7.       So does sterilisation.

Sincerely, Gatsby


Dear Gatsby,
Some months ago, a party of 11 family friends and I had successfully landed a table at a fancy-looking restaurant in Prahran one Saturday night, despite not having a reservation. However, once we were seated and given menus, we were informed by the waitress that a $10 corkage charge applied to the BYO wines we had popped on the table! I had never heard such an outrage and let her know this in no uncertain terms, shrieking, “I have to pay to drink my OWN wine? Screw her!” And with that, I opened the bottle with a defiant twist while my gentleman companions cheered me on. In the end they waived the ridiculous charge so we would stop making a scene. “Corkage” – have you ever heard anything so ludicrous?
Sincerely, Passion Pop

Dear Passion Pop,
Well, aren’t you the classless little harpy from hell? First time in a city or something? I have better manners than you, and I think everywhere is a toilet.
Paying corkage is a pretty well-known concept, at least amongst people who get out occasionally. Even at my mum’s crappy first job when she was fifteen at a local pizzeria in a tiny town there were corkage charges in place. It’s a simple idea – restaurants are businesses. Customers bringing their own alcohol means businesses lose money. Charging a fee for BYO is a way for them to discourage this or recover lost revenue, effectively justifying the space your cheap fat arse is taking up. But I wouldn’t suppose a group of thirty-somethings who carry on like they just got out of a barnyard, cruise Chapel St with 11 other nitwit friends/inbred relatives without having the courtesy or forethought to ring up a restaurant and book a table, and scream abuse the young girls waiting on them, to be capable of intelligent thought. Should I translate?
DERRP, EATING PLACE NEED MAKE MONEY. DERRP.
Drink your goon at home, shit-for-brains.
Sincerely, Gatsby


Dear Gatsby,
A friend and I ordered lunch and drinks at a busy pub earlier this week, paid at the bar, and found a table where we patiently waited for our meals. As the harried waitress brought them over, I quickly asked her for another beer; in response she politely directed me to the bar. She expected me to get it myself, as I had done with my first drink! I snapped, “Nice to see the service is good here.” That’ll show her.
Sincerely, Snubbed

Dear Snubbed,
Look here, you lazy fucker. Just because you see someone in an apron doesn’t mean it is table service here on in, especially in a damn pub. Were you not paying attention when you ordered and paid at the bar? Did you happen to notice everybody else in the pub was ordering and paying at the bar? Have you noticed that, in general, the average pub does not have bloody cocktail waitresses, and the common procedure when you want drinks is to go to where they are dispensed, like, I don’t know, AT THE BAR? Even I know all this, and I’m a fucking budgie.
Well, hope that clears things up, and that those chips clog your arteries.
Sincerely, Gatsby


Dear Gatsby,
I was having a lovely dinner with two lovely ladies in Melbourne this evening, and as the waitress brought our main courses I felt compelled to speak up for them. The two glasses of sauvignon blanc they had ordered had not arrived yet! When I reminded the girl to check on the wine, she mutely pointed to the already-filled wineglasses on the table which we had somehow failed to notice. One of my companions pointed out to her that the white wine looked like water in this dim lighting. The waitress mutely pointed at the water glasses, also filled! Is this underhanded glass-filling a common problem?
Sincerely, Short Sighted

Dear Short Sighted,
You really are just a freaking idiot, aren’t you?
Sincerely, Gatsby


Ok, people, it's been fun but I better get back to chirping and nibbling Mum's headphones before she notices my adeptness with her computer keyboard. Catch you on the flipside!
Gatsby