Hey ladies! It's summer time.

It is that great time of year again where water remains in its liquid form in the outdoors - summer time - aka construction and/or mosquito season depending on where you live (both for me).

I just wanted post a quick reminder to all you ladies out there about your fashion choices.

I'm a tall man, and when I walk up to the table where you are seated, I inevitably will be looking down at you with a few exceptions in most Red Lobster bars.  Back in my olden days, I'd actually squat down or kneel down next to my booths to get at or below their eye level.  This was also advantageous because I could hear people better.

But as I aged (read as my knees went to shit and back began to betray me...) I largely had to stop doing this.  So I'd arrive at your table and regularly get a nice view all the way down your blouse to your belly button ring.

I know when you were at home looking the mirror that your lose v-neck summer weight blouse seemed like a good idea.  It doesn't look all that bad on your frankly.  But it is more revealing than you might realize.  Just standing here I can see that lefty got a double piercing and you have a long hair growing out of righty.

Believe me, I'm not some prude opposed to looking at free titties.  But I suspect that this is not the intent of many of you ladies when you were going out to dinner.  And I'm not talking about the trashed out skanks where this was the intent to begin with.  If you come in wearing something from Madonna's concert wardrobe that basically says "please stare at my rack all night long" I won't fell bad if you're getting checked out.  Though ironically, more often than not if you are wearing that outfit, you're NOT the woman we want to look at anyhow.  Though our old bus boys were less discriminating...I digress.

So as you are picking things out ladies, keep this top view in mind if you care about your modesty.  And when you forget, the male servers of the world thank you.

Other runner-up views are side boob, sleeveless boob views through the pits, and the always reliable bending over down blouse view.

And yes, I should be applauded for not including a picture...

Great Server Story - Speaking out IS the right thing to do

This from Houston, TX via Today.

Waiter hailed as hero after standing up for boy with Down syndrome

by Lisa Flam, NBC News

A Houston waiter who refused to serve a customer last week did not lose his job. Instead, Michael Garcia is being celebrated for standing up for a little boy with Down syndrome, with people stopping to shake his hand at the restaurant where regulars are made to feel like part of the family.
Five-year-old Milo Castillo has lots of friends in preschool and loves to give hugs.
Courtesy Kim Castillo
Five-year-old Milo Castillo has lots of friends in preschool and loves to give hugs.

One of those regulars, Kim Castillo, was at Laurenzo’s Prime Rib in Houston last week when several waiters stopped by her table. Her 5-year-old son, Milo, who has Down syndrome and whose speech is a little delayed, was showing off his new words and talking about his birthday the week earlier.

A family sitting nearby asked to move away from  the Castillo family's table, and a man in the group made a disparaging remark about Milo.

“I heard the man say, ‘Special needs children need to be special somewhere else,’” Garcia told NBC affiliate KPRC-TV in. “My personal feelings took over, and I told him, ‘I’m not going to be able to serve you, Sir.’”

“‘How could you say that?’” Garcia said he asked the man before he left the restaurant with his party. “‘How could you say that about a beautiful 5-year-old angel?’”

Castillo, who noticed the family move but didn’t hear the remark, was grateful when she later found out what Garcia had done, even more so when she learned that the other family were regular customers as well.

“I was impressed that somebody would step out of their own comfort level and put their job on the line as well as to stand up for somebody else,” she said. “I know Michael did it from his heart, and from reacting to the situation. I don’t think he stopped and thought about what he was doing.”

Of the other family, she said, "It's sad that they're ignorant."


Click through for the full article.

I've got a seat for you right here!

Stay classy Orlando!

People think we make things up or exaggerate when servers write blogs like mine. I largely undersell the insanity I have experienced over the years.

And honestly, in this day and age, I can't believe there isn't phone video evidence of these two going at it.

Tipping on Endless Shrimp at Red Lobster

There is a direct correlation (an inversely proportional one) of tips to shrimp taken home on Endless Shrimp orders.  The more you put in the box, the less you leave on the table for a tip.

If you are eating Endless Shrimp, you should tip at least $3 per person for each meal ordered, plus whatever is appropriate for anyone/anything beyond that.  I'm not asking for much, not asking that you leave $10 on a $16 check.  But $3 per Endless Shrimp makes it worth it for your server.

Also, the more dressing you use, the lower on average my tip will be, with the exception of light dressings.

If you put butter on your biscuits, my tip drops.  And by the way - holy fucking gawd - those biscuits are bathed in butter already.  I don't think you could get more calories in them if you deep fried them.  Enjoy your angioplasty.  Same goes for dipping the biscuits in any form of dressing.

If you add the letter "K" to the word shrimp my tip goes down.

If it is 10PM and you roll in with your 3 year old and let them order Coke, my tip goes down.

The words Hennessy, Patron and Courvoisier all make my tip go down.

Any Scotch that isn't rail makes my tip go up.

Red wine improves my tip.

If you ask for your fried seafoods to be well done, my tip will suck.

If you ask for your steak to be well done, tip sucks.

If you use honey mustard on something other than your salad my tip goes up.

If you smell of weed my tip goes down.  If you wear something with the image of weed on it my tip goes down further.

If you wear something that says Insane Clown Posse (ICP) my tip will suck.

If you wear a baseball hat during the meal my tip goes down.

If you wear a leather vest my tip goes up.  Goes up further if you have a beard.

Cowboy boots + non-cowboy jeans usually means a good tip.  Cowboy boots + cowboy jeans usually means a crap tip.  But only on men.

If you are a dude and you walk in holding hands with another dude, my tip goes up.  Confident gays tip well on average.

If you snap your fingers to get my attention, my tip goes down.

If you yell to me when I'm at another table, my tip goes down.

If you let your children run free through the restaurant like it is McDonald's fucking playland my tip goes down.

If your table has someone who is disabled - especially wheelchair bound - my tip goes up.

If you order the New England Sampler my tip goes up.

If you order fresh fish in any prep other than fried my tip goes up.

If you order the Rock Lobster tail (and the cooks don't fuck it up & make it rubber) my tip goes up.

If you ask for malt vinegar my tip goes up.

If you order the Steak Lobster and Shrimp Oscar my tip will be fat.

Just another job hazard from the "quality" of customers at Red Lobster

Original video on YouTube.

Huffington Post had this to say:

A Missouri woman is facing felony charges for attacking a waitress at a restaurant in southwest Illinois after the wrong food order was delivered to her table.
Cell phone videos caught the brutal attack on a female server at Red Lobster in Fairview Heights, Ill. Dec. 30.

Police say the food orders for a table of four women were handed off between waitstaff, resulting in a mix-up, the Associated Press reports. When the wrong meals were delivered, one woman threw a drink in the waitress' face before all four women began punching and pushing the server, who suffered cuts to her nose and forehead and a swollen eye.
"Look at the waitress! She's going to kick that [expletive]! She threw a drink in her face and they came and attacked her," a customer can be heard saying on the video of the incident.
After an appeal to the public to help identify the women involved, police have arrested and charged Ania D. Wilkes, 20, of Ferguson, Mo. with mob action and aggravated battery, both felonies, according to KSDK News. Police say tips helped them identify three of the four suspected assailants, and more charges are expected to be filed soon.

It doesn't get any more ghetto than that.  I've seen fights in restaurants but thankfully not between customers and employees.  This is probably why the Popeye's Chicken I went to the other day had 2 inch thick bulletproof glass.

KMOV has the names of these fine citizens.

Three Belleville women are facing felony charges after they were accused of assaulting a server at a Red Lobster restaurant in Fairview Heights last Friday.
The assault happened around 2 p.m. inside the restaurant in the 110 block of Ludwig Drive.

A witness said she saw three female customers get mad because the server was filling up their glasses with water too often.  According to the witness, as the server walked away one of them picked up a water glass and threw it, hitting the victim in the back of the head.  The witness said as the server turned around, the customer hit her in the face with one of the dessert books.
The server was treated by a paramedic, but did not go to the hospital and stayed at work.

Customers and restaurant employees made sure the women stayed put until police arrived. Officers then arrested the three suspects.  They have been identified as Sharrell A. Evans, 21, Britley L. Green, 22, and Geneen L. Green, 44, from Belleville.  All three have been charged with mob action and aggravated battery.  Both charges are felonies.  They are being held on $50,000 bond each.

The incident comes just six months after a cell phone video captured four female customers beating up a server at the same restaurant over what they deemed bad service.
In that incident, the victim ended up with cuts on her nose, a swollen eye and was forced to miss a few days of work.

Hey mom - le'ss go to duh Red Lobzter an eats us some skrimp and den start some shit up...

BTW - getting clocked in the head by one of RL's glasses would hurt like hell.  They're very solid and heavy and if the bottom corner caught you it could really do some damage.

Every restaurant within 100 miles should put a photo of these server terrorists (yes I went there) on their front door. 

Burn baby burn

There's a special place in hell for people who don't tip.  I'm pretty sure they'll live in satan's latrine.  You're lower than spammers and pedophiles.  Yes, I put them on the same level of hell.  It's where cats go when they die.  I'm kidding about that last part.  Maybe.

If your service sucks, complain to a manager.  Don't just stiff your server and walk out.  If your service doesn't suck, tip.  While some inbred ignoramus might want to blather on about how it is a reward, I'm here to tell you bullshit.  It is a wage.  It is more than a social convention.  When you chose not to get rot gut from Taco Hell and you picked a restaurant where the person serving your table makes significantly less than minimum wage you are agreeing to the terms to tip or complain.  Those are your two choices, with the alternative being to fuck off, stay away and go eat shit at Subway and die of food poisoning.

No this isn't because I got stiffed.  It was a single mom in my store who has a really sick kid.  She's a fantastic waitress (and not just cause I trained her).  I helped with the table.  They were happy and WELL taken care of.  But they fucked her with a verbal tip.

That doesn't pay for cancer drugs asshole.  She doesn't qualify for medical insurance here, and her ex-shitbag is 6 months behind on child support, and the state is not helping much either because of the oddity of this case in particular.  And yet you saw fit to eat the most expensive platter on the menu, drink $40 worth of liquor as a table, split two apps and take desert with you, but leave nothing for her.

I hope your pubes spontaneously combust and burn your dick off.  Then you'd be as dickless as the rest of us already know you are.

You want to see the inherent sinfulness of humanity?  Work in a restaurant.  People are fucking evil.  It's unmistakable.

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.

Slutty Halloween Costumes

Slutty Halloween Costumes: A Carefully Worded Tribute -- powered by Cracked.com



I miss the days we could wear costumes to work.

Spam and Asian wedding

Yes, a strange title to this post, but it really is the intersection of my last week.

A couple of days ago I was cleaning out the spam box in my email account.  How did the world know my penis was so small?  By the amount of cock enhancement messages I had in there you'd think I was hung like....an Asian dude.

Why'd I go there?

Earlier this week I served the wedding rehearsal party of a really cute mid-40's Asian couple.  The gentleman was very soft spoken, nearly submissive to his wife early on in the evening (they were at our store for about 2.5 hours).  It was a small party - 7 people - so I made sure they enjoyed themselves and had a good time.  Unfortunately we didn't have any Asian beers, so the gentleman began ordering Top Shelf Margarita's, and after the majority of 4 of them, he became my newest best friend.  Thankfully he wasn't a loud drunk.  But at some point as they all were a few drinks into their evening (and heading to a bar later they said) they started joking with one another, and to a certain extent with me as well.  They were a bit isolated from our other tables, and it was dead because of some other area activity pulling people away.

As they joked, the jokes got slowly but surely more risque (though never offensive).  Somehow their lovemaking (the to-be-wed) became the point of discussion and my new best friend managed to inform me, and the whole table, that while he's hung like an Asian he make up for it with a tongue like a serpent - while making the tongue between fingers gesture ala Kingpin.  The party roared with laughter, with the exception of his mother, who just stared ahead at her food.

Unintentional hilarity is the best kind!

If you're coming to Red Lobster to get hammered...

We've had a new regular in our restaurant.  Well...at least new to most of us, but I'll get to that back story later.

This new regular showed up about 8 weeks ago now I'm guessing, beginning of summer.  The first night she came in, I had the pleasure of waiting on her.  Wonderfully nice lady.  Mid-40's, slightly overweight but carries it very well.  Divorced, no kids, no cats!!!!!!! and one dog.  Drives a pretty bad-assed Pontiac G8 that she's had tuned.  We'll call her "Becky" for the story to protect the guilty.

I did my intro and she ordered a beer and a tequila chaser.  A bit odd, but I didn't pry.  She seemed happy, and was pleasant to me throughout the meal.  She ate light, boxed half her salad and had the fish I recommended to her in the half portion size.  When I brought out the salad the shot was gone and the beer was 2/3's empty as well.  She asked for a second round.  So I brought it thinking this would probably be the end.  As she wrapped up her eating and I asked about desert, she asked that I bring her something fun from the bar.  I rattled off a list of a few of my favorite after dinner drinks and Becky said "I've never had any of them, but I've never had a drink I didn't like so take your pick and bring it to me with the bill."  I got her a Brandy Alexander (YUM!) Ice Cream drink, and since it was slow in the bar I actually got real ice cream instead of that fake nasty shit we normally use.

Lady.

Loved it.

Started coming onto me.

Asked if she could "thank me" after I got off of work.

She's pretty good looking.

Has money...but no.  I've found a woman that puts up with me & I'm not looking for more than that at this point in my life.

I told her I was flattered and that she was about 20 years too late.  Yes honey, we met 20 years ago.  Gawd I'm old.

As she finished her drink & paid me (35% tip!) she asked me to chat for a few minutes.  It was a slow night and I had side work I was already putting off until later anyhow, so I humored her.  Got a bit of her back story.  Her family owned a number of bars & restaurants that she oversees with a minimal amount of involvement.  She said they were basically her trust fund/cash cow and that she pays people good sums of money to take care of them so she doesn't have to.  She had recently moved to town to be closer to the hub of their operations since there are 5 establishments of her's in town.  Yes, her's.  Her parents both died last year and her sister didn't want any of it "since she's married to this rich lawyer prick."

Then she got to the point.  Becky explained that she's a bit shy, new in town, and desperately wanted to get laid.  But she didn't want to be some tramp at the local watering hole picking up who knows what, so she thought she'd come here, get drunk, and see where the night took her.  How's that for being open and honest!

Then she apologized for hitting on me, which I told her again I took no offense at.  She asked if I had any suggestions.  I asked if she knew of the family adult toy shop down the street (yes, family!  Actually a pretty classy place, no bad/nasty porn and not filled wall to wall with creepy pervs).  She made it clear she didn't believe in toys.  She wanted a man.

Now as a man I know at least 10 men who at any given time would have paid her for the pleasure, and as a waiter that number probably jumps to at least 100.  But I found myself a bit reluctant to set her loose on anyone I knew, and I think she could sense it.  So she thanked me for the conversation, finished her drink, and got up to leave (I assumed).

But as she made it to the lobby, she detoured to the bathroom.  I quit paying attention at that point having noticed the tip she left, and got back to the side work I'd been putting off.  Maybe a half hour later, I walked through the bar, and there she was bellied up to the bar chatting up one of my co-workers "Dave" who rides the bus home.  He's a good guy, was a Marine for 10+ years & is back going to school now.  He's in his early 30's, I figured he could handle himself if this went where I suspected it was going.

The next day it was the talk of the store.  Apparently when she went into the bar, she asked the bar tender for another beer, shot of tequila, and if he wanted to fuck.  That conversation didn't last long though because he's queerer than Liberace.  Plus, he wouldn't serve her any more because he knew what she'd had already.

Dave jumped on that landmine from the best we can tell.  He's an honorable man, so he didn't kiss & tell.  But it was obvious when he showed up at work the next morning in his car rather than on the bus, and she was with him.

I gave him the raised eyebrow, and he just shrugged with a sheepish grin.  Nothing more was said by him (or her) but there was a buzz for a week in the story.  And now 8 weeks later, they're talking marriage.  And the crazy thing is, I actually think it will work!

Becky has started to drive Dave to work & pick him up every day.  They've looked at a home together, and even went on a vacation together.  It is like a movie love story with one crazy beginning! 

And it all started because she came to Red Lobster to get hammered.

I like Jesus, but Easter can suck my balls

Easter.  It should be a day of celebration.  And for some it is.  But rarely is it so for your server.  Sure sometimes Easter can be a big money day, but that is not something you can bank on.  You get stuck with a party of 14 who are celebrating Easter along with 22 birthdays (yes that math doesn't work, but I'm pretty sure that was what was going on today) and they camp out during peak volume for 2 1/2 hours.  Hey folks, when I got your food on the table in 12 minutes from the time you ordered that means you need to shit & git.  That lobby is full because of you.  I have whiny skanky teenage zombies (aka hosts) bitching because they have parties waiting for my tables.  And then you complain about a gratuity.  When asked about the service by the manager you gave nothing but compliments.  So when you came back in asking if we saved the cake you left behind it gave me great pleasure to inform you it was cleared by the busser and thrown in the garbage.  And when you complained to the manager I laughed when they apologized and showed you the door.

What you can also bank on is assclowns in hats.  There is a direct link to the number of hats and size of hats and how shitty your tip at that table will be.  And if there are men wearing hats and the man is under the age of 60 you may as well just bend over as you approach the table and take it like a man.  Crying only makes it worse.

Easter lunch is a horrible mix of old ladies in too much perfume, loud black families, dicks who think bible tracts are better than tips, and morons who let their kids drink 7 cokes and then wonder why they are running around in a PACKED and dangerous restaurant.  Yes dangerous.  I'll go out of my way to step on your crotch dropping if you let the bastards run through my section. When they smack their heads on chairs I actually laugh out loud.  If that's the best your genes can do, stop.  Save us all some pain.

Where the hell do all the grandmas come from on Easter.  I swear I had a table where one guy had 4 grandmas.

And another table of mine I'm pretty sure they only had one grandma.  That family tree didn't fork.  But thankfully it is hard to yell "Squeal like a pig" while drinking your scampi butter.

And men in pink.  Fucking pink.  This isn't so much a macho issue as it is an issue about you looking like a douche.  Only gay men can pull off pink, and that is only if they are really hot.  The rest of you guys need to leave the pink to the good bits on the ladies.

So I worked my ass off today, and all I got from it was a headache, swamp ass near my 'taint, and barely enough money to make me consider coming back in on Monday.  And I do mean barely.

Modern measure of love

No, this isn't a dick joke sicko.

Do you talk about your lovers in the crapper?  Do you phone your lover while on the crapper?  That's love.

Last weekend I was walking out through our lobby at the Slobster and noticed our two teenage hostesses huddled together reppressing what could only be laughter.  I'm generally annoyed by teens and so I shrugged with indifference and kept walking.  That is, about two more steps.  Then I heard "and den dat muthafucka ate my puusssy reeeaal good..." come melodically from the women's bathroom.  And the teens burst forth with peals of giggles and laughter.  Annoying but appropriate.

Teen Hostess 1 says to me "They've been in there talking like that for at least 5 minutes!"  Giggle snicker snort.  She has tears at the corner of her eyes.  "And they've been talking just that loud!"  There are double doors between the host stand and the interior of the ladies' crapper. 

"And she talked about EATING HIS ASS!" mindless teen drone #2 says about 40% too loud for any setting, let alone a work place that doesn't involve a pole or creepy guys "massaging their leg" as they walk up and down aisles of porn.

While I can see the fun in standing here and listening, I can also see there are customers out in the parking lot and they look to be coming in.

I look at the seating robot twins and say "When the ladies ask, tell them it was 'just some guy'".  They give me blank dumbfounded stares.

I push the first door open with my foot and say rather loudly "HEY!  Keep it down in there!"  And pound on the wall and then walk out.  There was a small shriek emitted when I said "HEY!" and then lots of laughter.  From the bathroom and the host stand.

Dog puke chain reaction

As a server, it seems over the years I have gotten to see nearly everything there is to see.  It really takes something for me to look at it and say "I've never seen that before."

A couple of weeks ago we had a blind man in with his seeing eye dog.  This isn't anything new, we have a handful of vision impaired people who come to our restaurant semi-regularly.  I've seen this guy a few times a year for quite a number of years, and this time he had a new dog with him.  I wasn't waiting on him, but have before so I said hello and asked if I could greet his service dog.  Always ask first, if nothing else, out of courtesy.  The dog is working, even if it is just "laying there".  Don't distract it, and for the most part just ignore it and things will go fine.  But if you are going to greet it, wash up afterwords, OK? 

So I ask Tommy if I can pet his new dog & get the OK.  He's come in a slow period mid-afternoon, and is grabbing a bite to eat before catching his bus back home.  He's been shopping for Christmas gifts in the area stores and wanted a quick lunch.  He remembers me waiting on him, and even remembers a bit of our previous conversations.  We chat for a few minutes and his food arrives, so I bid him good eating and  get back to the side work the rest of my crew is neglecting.

As I am cleaning gum from under a table across the dining room, I hear a child yell and then quite a bit of commotion and see a mother and child make their way to the bathroom like they were shot out of a cannon.  A approach the server who seems to have seen it all go down and ask what happened, now noticing two distinct piles of puke, one on a table and one on the floor, and the awful stench of partially digested food.

Stacy - in the process of becoming a trauma nurse - is the lady on the scene and gives me the lowdown. 

"Blind guy's service dog started acting really strange.  It got up and paced back and forth, back and forth really quickly about three times, from one edge of the booth to the other edge.  Then this dog stiffens up - I thought it was going to drop some brown - and I'm telling you - it BLASTED a huge puke out on the floor. It was a river of dog puke."  She points, no facial expression, she's used to this I guess from her studies to become a trauma nurse.

"Then that girl in 44 (table) sees it and starts to have  fit.  Moments later now she's puking it up too.  And she did it good too.  All down her dress, on the table all over her mom and in her mom's purse.  Damn kid was going like Poltergeist.  I don't know where she was storing it all.  I'm telling you, it was coming out of her nose, and I seriously expected her to shit herself as hard as she was pushing it out."

So now there is puke everywhere, you can hear the girl screaming and crying in the bathroom, and the few other guests nearby are pretty grossed out.

When the manager explains to Tommy what just went down, Tommy offers to buy the family's lunch, since his dog set off the chain reaction, but apparently dad refused stating "She wasn't feeling well this morning, and I warned her that chasing Taco Bell with a box of Hot Tamales was going to come back to haunt her.  Damn kids never listen."

Grand entertainment!  And our manager, one of the best one's I've worked with, comped two neighboring tables food and then proceeded to clean up the puke (both piles) himself.

The grandest part of the story is that the server who was covering 3 of the 4 tables involved ended up making a bundle.  Tommy left her a 100% tip (his meal was like $12 and change), dad of puke girl left a $20, and the comp table that was also in her section left $30 since they got about $55 worth of food comped.  $60+ in tips and she didn't have to clean the puke!

Thankfully I didn't work near that section because the smell was pretty potent.  I can handle a lot of things, but I'm telling you between the two piles, the smell was beyond description.  Interestingly, Taco Bell and dog food look somewhat similar when puked back up.  Just in case you were wondering.

This is why you're fat

Awesome site - This is why you're fat.  I want to submit a photo of a super-tub drinking drawn butter eating a salad with mountains of blue cheese and french dressing after having licked clean the large ramekins of tartar sauce and eaten 6 biscuits with extra butter and ranch on them.  That or just  a photos of the Admiral's Feast.


And BTW for you NFL/SNL fans - 'Da Bears!

Random Red Lobster crap

Mad Bar Tender - a view of things to come?  Another reminder that Darden has become a soulless corporation.  When I tell newer employees of the good old days back in the 90's they think I'm making stuff up.  It is amazing just how little Red Lobster cares for their employees - from the top corporate executives on down to the local management.  I've never seen such a large organization who regularly shoots itself in the foot in regards to employee relations.


A few years back I wrote about some of the sick shit customers do in our restaurants - Doing Gross Things at the Table.  I have a few more to add to that list.

Give me more mommy!

1.  A while ago I was waiting on Mom, Dad and Junior.  Junior looked to be about 6-7 years old I'm guessing.  He was missing some teeth - and by some, it appears that he was the model for most jack-o-lanterns.  So sitting at the table, Junior pull out yet another tooth.  A bit gross, but not out of the ordinary for a 7 year old little boy.  He nicely wrapped the bloody tooth in his napkin and stuck it in his pocket.  This is where the story turns for the bad.  I come back to the table a few minutes after delivering their food to do my check back and make sure everything is great.  As I approach the table I see this horror - mom scoops up some shrimp from Juniors plate with her fork, chews it, spits it out onto the fork, and puts it on his plate.  Junior scoops it up with his fork and proceeds to eat it.  I've seen birds do this, but not people.  That's not right.  When Mom notices that I observed this, she casually says "His tooth is bothering him, we do this all the time."  I stifle vomit and laughter long enough to escape to the alley.  Barely.

2.  If your boobs point to the floor, and you like wearing tank tops, wear a bra.  You don't have to look at you, we do.  A pair of padlocks in tube socks doesn't make people hungry like you might think.

3.  Hock a loogie into your napkin.  I don't care if you just coughed up a hairball the size of Cher.  If you spit that phlegm into your napkin, that means I have to pick that nasty shit up off the table after you leave there Typhoid Terry.  Go outside.  Go to the bathroom.  Go home and choke on it, but don't spit it out here.  Ever.  Ever!


Recently I have been examining some job opportunities, and sizing up my other outside (aka non-Red Lobster) revenue streams, and more and more I see the end of my association with Red Lobster on the horizon.  I don't know when, or if it'll just be a drastic cut back, but I think in the next 6-9 months I'm going to go for it.  If/when that happens, I might be open to taking on some other writers.  Really this blog up to this point has been a lot of my own thoughts, but I know there are others out there with great stuff they could contribute.  Maybe we'll have a Lobster Girl too.  I'm not sure I remember what life without Red Lobster is like since I've been working with RL off and on since the early 90's.  Damn that makes me sound and feel old when I type that.

Mother's Day - we survived - barely...

Mom, I love you, but I hate your day.  Nothing personal.

Mother's Day this year was exceptionally bad in my store for our staff.  We all know it is coming, and everyone knows we won't get any time off, that is the norm, so we're used to it.

We also know that it is an "amateur" day, meaning we'll get a bunch of people who don't normally go to places as "nice" as our Red Lobster.  We're used to crappy tips, but messes, and ridiculous volume of people.  It is that very volume that usually makes up for everything else, as you are assured to walk out with a pocketful.

This year wasn't any different from an earnings standpoint.  Most if not all our service staff made far more than we would make on just a normal weekend, especially on a Sunday Lunch shift.

But something was different this year.  Something brought out a new level of asshole in quite a number of our customers, a level and frequency of asshole to rival the proctologist's office down the street.

I saw a number of servers in tears over the way they were treated by customers who were out of line.  Credit to our staff that they took the abuse and walked away, especially to one of our more fiery fresh meat young ladies who I didn't honestly believe previously could hold her tongue at any point.

What is it that is in some people that turns them onto their asshole setting on the day they should be enjoying with their mother and grandmothers?  Do you think mom wants to watch you verbally abuse a service staff?  Do you think mom wants to be reminded that you are an impatient ass-clown?  Do you think mom is honored when you raise your bitchy shrill voice to cuss out a teenage hostess because you were dumb enough to think you'd get seated right after church on Mother's Day?

I could go on, but suffice it to say the local drinking establishment, our after-hours office so to speak, was filled with Lobster crew following both shifts.  Not that it is a surprise we retired there, but the fact that all but 3 service staff showed is nothing less than amazing.  Thankfully most of us didn't have to open Monday morning.

Please seat all the young democrat Jews in my section!

A new media study among 1,629 Americans revealed a significant relationship between tipping and age, with older people tipping less for both good restaurant service and bad service.
The study was conducted during April 23-26 by HCD Research using its MediaCurves.com® website, to obtain information on Americans’ tipping habits when dinning in restaurants.

When restaurant service is good, respondents 40 years-old and younger reported that they leave an average tip of 19.5% of the total bill, compared to respondents over 40 years-old who reported leaving 18.0% of the total bill. When restaurant service is bad, respondents 40 years-old or younger reported leaving an average tip of 10.1% of the total bill, compared to respondents over 40 years-old who reported leaving 8.6% of the total bill.

A significant relationship was also revealed when comparing the tips left by infrequent and frequent attendees of worship services. When restaurant service is good, frequent worshipers reported that they leave an average tip of 19.3% of the total bill, compared to infrequent worshipers who reported leaving 18.3% of the check. When restaurant service is bad, frequent worshipers reported that they leave an average tip of 10.0% of the total bill compared to infrequent worshipers who reported leaving 9.0% of the check. 

A while back I visited IKEA looking for a few items for the house.  We ended up with a shower curtain and some new dining room chairs.   We also got a few odds and ends - 2 plates to replace ones we have broken in the last few years (buy white plates, they're easy to replace and the feature your food rather than the plate design on the table!).  We couldn't get more because IKEA is not near where we live, so we could only take what we could fit in around our suitcases in the Honda we own.  Next time we're renting a truck.  IKEA isn't the best quality, but for the price it can't be beat in my experience.

So suffice it to say that a few days after purchasing and installing my new shower curtain I was very surprised to see an ENORMOUS woman (and her doting husband) walk into our restaurant wearing that very same shower curtain as a rain jacket.  I'm 100% sure she modified a shower curtain into a rain poncho.  It was clear that the "jacket" was home made, but fantastically done I might add.  I suspect it took 2 curtains due to needing extra material for arms and a hood.  I obviously didn't ask how she made it, but I'd imagine with some sort of high strength rubber cement that you could construct this same jacket.  It closed with some Velcro straps on the front.  I walked by her table quite a number of times as she was right outside one of our kitchen doors, and I got some pretty good looks at the jacket.  Whoever put it together really knew how to put clothes together for large people.  She was able to get it off and on with no problems.  When she removed it and hung it from a jacket hanger on a nearby booth you could see clearly on the inside that it was handmade (there was no liner to cover up the gluing on the seams).

And to the lady's credit, despite being among the largest women I've ever seen, she was very friendly and nice to our staff (I didn't wait on her, though I'm guessing she was 6'4" and about 500lbs - a mountain of a woman).  She apparently had come in because early the next week she was getting gastric bypass, and wouldn't be able to eat at Red Lobster for a really long time after that apparently.  They were celebrating her recent weight loss.  She told the server in her section that she'd already lost 125lbs so that she could get the surgery, and that she was motivated to keep the weight off since she has a new grand baby to someday chase around.  Large people tend to run to one of two extremes - big and angry or big and jovial.  Give me big and jovial every time, even if they are talkers and campers.

The things people say in public

I wasn't waiting on this table, I only happened to be in the "neighborhood" when the shit hit the fan.

A co-worked had pointed out to me a couple of lesbians in her section who were slowly but surely having a heated moment.  They started out quietly, but as the minutes passed you could tell one lady was very angry at the other lady.  None of us were close enough to hear what was being said though, so we stood at a distance pretending not to notice all the while guessing what the argument was over.  My guess was the argument was over who forgot to clean the big blue dildo last time.  It could happen.

Just as I thought thing were beginning to settle down I hear a loud "crack" as the angry woman smacked the table with the palm of her hand (very hard I might say, she probably regretted it later) that drew all our attention to the table.  The very next moment the woman stand up, throws her napkin in the face of the other now crying woman.  Angry lady then grabs her crotch with both hands and loudly proclaims "You can suck my balls bitch!  SUCK!  MY!! BALLS!!!" and then calmly walks out of the restaurant.

At least 40 people had to hear that last part, and one guy a couple of sections over, a fratboy I've served previously, says "You can get mine too!" which causes the crying woman to now just bury her head in horror on the table.

Needless to say crying woman got up and gave her credit card to a host so she could pay and get out.

And the worst part is now we're all debating whether it was two women or what?  I swear as does the lady serving them that they were both women.

Sugar Momma

Today I write about that select species - the Sugar Momma. This is a strange phenomenon, but one that most in the service industry have learned to quickly identify.

While not exclusively, it is often a white lady with a black guy where I live. She is often older than he is. 9 out of 10 time the lady is blond or red headed, often via a bottle. Don't know why that is, but it is. She also often looks like she has a few miles on her. And by few I mean early 80's Mercedes diesel few. Or as one of my favorite movie quotes said, she looks like she's been ridden hard and put away wet. And for whatever reason, she carries a purse the size of a diaper bag - generally a knock off Chanel or Fendi or Gucci or whatever is trendy. And she wears sweatpants. What kind of woman wears sweatpants in public? The crazy cat ladies and sugar mommas that who. No, there is no confusing these ladies with a Cougar.

You will notice her generally bitchy attitude to her boy, but if you observe, you'll notice if he whines he always gets his way. She's grasping at straws, and the only one she has left is her ability to buy him stuff. He's a prostitute who is paid in food, rims, cell phones and shoes.

Sometimes the arrangements work out long term. Like 2% of the time. All the others are a chain of continually devolving and complicating mess.

Some of the greatest entertainment provided by sugar mommas is when two of them meet who have shared a common boyfriend, or worse multiple boyfriends. If you add in a few stray kids from their common man whore(s) the intensity goes even higher. And great hilarity can ensue if he cheated on past sugar momma with current sugar momma. I've seen women have to be restrained in front of their children for this transgression. I've seen women scream across restaurants at other women because their restraining order wouldn't let them come any closer. For real.

I often find myself wondering "is this what you really wanted from life?" and "how in the hell did you get here?" You don't just fall into being a sugar momma I suspect. You have to choose that route. Can we attribute this to years of abusing Patron?

And sugar mommas never tip well. Ever.

Is this just an urban occurrence or do people see this going on elsewhere?

In rich people this would be called Demi Moore BTW.