Grinding it out

I've mentioned previously there is a time drawing near where I'll be leaving the Lobster.  Slowly but surely those plans are coming together each passing day.  The rebound in the stock market has helped a ton too. 

Since it is Lobsterfest I've been pounding out as many hours as they'll allow me to get.  Pushing toward 40 every week for the past handful - more than my normal.  As a result, I'm tired, grumpy, and lack any sort of creativity.

But the good news is that Lobsterfest has been great for my bottom line (as it always is).  This year, for whatever reason, my take home average has been up nearly ever single night I've worked.  While it might not seem much when you go home with $25 extra, over a month or two of working 5+ days a week on average and that begins to really add up.  And that is $25 over my expected Lobsterfest earnings, not my crappy run-of-the-mill promotion take home.

I'm well aware that it can turn at any moment.  But it seems like I have a hot streak going.

Had a table the other night that smelled like they smoked a whole bale of ditch weed in their car in our parking lot.  You would've thought we had smoke machines and a dance floor with the fog coming off this family.  Purple haze?  Hell no, this shit was stank nasty green.  So bad that I'd take a breath away from the table before leaning over to hand out drink refills.

I mean seriously?  You could've lit dog shit on fire and it wouldn't smell this bad.  And you thought it a good idea to go out in public, undoubtedly driving here, with children in tow?  Pot might not be harmful, but it sure makes you a fucking idiot sometimes.  A swimming pool of Visine wouldn't clear up those eyes.  It's one thing to cap the night off at home, in the safety and privacy of your own dwelling.  But to get fried-fuckin-baked out of your mind and then satiate your fat ass munchies with overpriced seafood?

Save some money on the food and buy a better quality dank. 

Thankfully they tipped well.  When I asked if they wanted drinks they made sure to point out - as if it wasn't as obvious as the nose on their face - that they were "already rollin" and were doing just fine.  The tip though didn't make up for the gigantic mess they made, and the fact that they ran my balls off the whole time they were in the store.  They were too stupid or stoned to remember half the shit they wanted each time I came to the table, so they'd ask for 4 more things each time I came back with the previous round of shit they wanted.  I seriously contemplated just rolling the damn salad station out to their table at one point after the - I kid you not - 6th request for another/more/different salad dressing.  Fucktard.

Here's how the system is fucked - I can refuse service to someone who is drunk, but not to someone who is high.  This isn't a judgement about weed mind you, just being an idiot with it out in public.  If you want to hit the bong and blow smoke rings in your cat's face at home I'm not going to interfere.  But come into my domain and I throw that philosophy out the window.  Don't be an asshat.  And seriously, exposing your kids to that should mandate a child protective services phone call from the restaurant.  But not in our world of whatever-the-hell-the-customer-wants-is-always-right fascist bullshit.

That's pretty good wisdom for all of life.  Don't be an asshat. 

The more years I work for Red Lobster the more I do think it to be a fascist state (minus the war).  The paramilitary state is the management controlled by the powers that be from on high.  And those powers that be never see the people like me as actual people.  Just another cog in the war machine.  Expendable.  Disposable.  Replaceable.  The original title of this blog was "Red Lobster hates its employees" and I don't know that I've ever typed a more true set of words.