"Sonic" Boom

I'm experienced enough at high volume restaurant work to know quite a few tricks for being more efficient and working faster/easier. I'm more than willing to help anyone learning the ropes and there's a fair amount of logic to why I do some things the way I do them. What I usually tell people that I get asked to train, is that I'm not saying my way is always right and there isn't a way that might work better for them - but there is a reason they have asked me to show you how it's done.

I'm currently working in a new place that I'm very excited about for numerous reasons - the food is incredible, our chef is incredible and not one of those egotistical blowhards who is always yelling at the front of the house staff, our management is level headed, polite, rewarding and supportive, the place is beautiful and the entire staff feels like it was chosen like an all-star team...but there is one newer guy who just seems to be struggling and gets flustered quite often. Nice enough kid, I'm not one of those long-timers who wants to bash someone and get them tossed out of a job - I'd rather be supportive and realize that all of us are new at something sometime and that some of us do certain things better than others. What possible gain would I have in getting someone fired? I mean I have a better job there than this kid does, so he's no threat to me - besides, it's kind of funny at times.

So into a s-l-o-w Monday night we are, and a drink ticket comes up from the new guy - who really isn't that new any more, but who still seems to be struggling. Poor kid. This is what I read the ticket as:

                      S1 Tito's vodka
                            rocks
                            splash soda
                            splash water
                      S2 Tito's vodka
                            tonic

Our rocks glasses and our highball glasses are the exact same shape and height - the difference between them is that the highball glasses are wider and therefore allow for a wash to be added to the glass for things like, oh I dunno, say maybe some TONIC....

I make the drinks quickly, without needing to reach for my handy bartender's book, because yes, I'm that good. Actually I don't think we even have a book, but our computer system does have loads of drink recipes stored in the terminals. Nothing to read here folks...but then I see the name on the ticket and I know it's the new kid. I think I better stick around and mark one of the drinks with two straws and point out to him which is which on account the glasses being so similar and playing an optical illusion trick even on those of us who are more experienced and because the new kid is notoriously taking the wrong drinks. Poor kid is trying, I know he is and he is really nice...

So I stay put and wait for him to come for his drinks so I can give him the 411. Up he comes, up I speak:

Me - speaking: this one is your splashes, this one is your tonic - cool?

New Kid - speaking, most confidently I might add:  Tonic??...it's not supposed to be tonic - supposed to be Sonic!...Sonic, not tonic!

Me - thinking: What. The. Eff...
Me - speaking: How's that? What?

New Kid - pointing to the ticket and reading aloud:  Sonic dude, it says Sonic - NOT tonic! Look man!

Me - thinking again: What. The.Eff...
Me - speaking, again: What exactly do you mean by Sonic?? Enlighten me.

New Kid - speaking, even more confidently now that he apparently knows something I do not:
 Sonic dude - half soda, half tonic! 

Me - thinking again: Well I never...no, actually I haven't

I look closer at the ticket and see what I thought read "Tonic", is actually "sonic" - which is not in my mixology nomenclature. Now if we use that same logic, perhaps the first drink would have read Tito's vodka Swater - half soda, half water... I'm not sure. Just to make sure, I ask around to the rest of the more experienced peeps - and no, I don't give up the name of New Kid. Just as I suspected, nobody else knew what it was either. Poor kid. He really is a nice kid and he does try. I sure hope it gets easier for him. It does strike me as kind of funny.

More nods to Seuss

Greetings again...a rough day to get much new writing done and I'm a bit tapped out from writing something to some friends who are dealing with a very sad loss this week. I got asked about this little
piece too, and yes, there are lots more things like this - when I get a bit more time I will see what's worth posting.

Thanks to Steve and John for asking about this and saying I should post it for those who can relate - that makes a tough day on an even tougher week feel a bit better. Hope more people get a chuckle from this!

The Waiters Who Wait

If you are the waiter, what, pray tell am I

Oh the things you don’t notice, every time you pass by

Our glasses are empty, from bottom to top

Yet nothing so obvious will make you stop

I know your job isn’t easy – for once it was mine

Worked too late to cook, so we came here to dine

To sit and be waited on, I thought we’d be able

If that’s going to work, then please come to our table

I don’t want to piss and I don’t want to moan

But please – you’re at work, so put down your phone

If you’d just turn around, it’s easy to see

Another round’s needed, by my date and me

We just want to relax, not clean and not cook

But you just don’t notice, every time that you look

Appetizers are gone, and I want more food

Good heavens you’re really an ignorant dude

I really don’t know why you’re working like this

I can’t understand all the things that you miss

And me on a night off, I don’t want to think

About where the hell is my food or my drink

So if you are the waiter, then how can it be

That the one who is waiting just seems to be ME?!

A gruesome chore...and a nod to Dr. Seuss

Greetings folks, got an email asking me about some goofy writing I did a few weeks back, then a phone call about it. You asked for it, here it is - only posting because you asked!

Super-duper, poopy-schmoopy

 I do not like this toilet mess

But I won’t clean it, I confess

For cleaning causes too much stress

This toilet bowl, all clogged and brown

A mass of poo that won’t flush down

The smell of it does make me frown

And so I’ll tell you what I did

I turned my back and closed the lid

And there it stayed – I thought well-hid

A kindly man I know as Chris

Would try to plunge through the abyss

Because he wasn’t having this

His bagged hand reached – and pulled out half

This made my child, and myself laugh

Perhaps I’d call the maintenance staff

Into a Hefty, Chris plopped this poop

Big brown disgusting booty soup

Within which his bagged hand did scoop

We lay there & giggled – my child and I

While a good man choked and thought he’d die

That man must love me so to try

To save me from a gruesome chore

And flush it down forever more

My child asked him to shut the door!

Yet all his efforts went in vain

No brown would travel down my drain

My child & I thought Chris insane

He failed and left, oh what a drag

He’d carry out one poop-filled bag

No manly rights of which to brag