"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.