Turkish Delight

So yes, for all parties interested, I am now gainfully employed. Entry-level Management Position, you ask? CEO? President of a growing tech company? No, no, no, no. Those positions are far too boring for my taste. Instead I have taken the fast-paced, quasi-pseudo lucrative job as a host/busboy at a Turkish restaurant in St. Louis. Before I start chronicling stories of my own stupidity, I have to say that it has been a pretty cool job so far. Yes, I pick up dirty dishes, polish silverware, and show testy middle-aged women to their seats, but the people I work with have been really cool. The owner is one of the nicest ladies I have ever met. She is a small business owner, so she’s really dedicated to the restaurant and really cares about her employees. Her husband is a Turkish guy (Surprise!) who cooks all the food. And it’s awesome. 

I started two weeks ago and have been doing mostly bussing, but I guess I am being quasi-pseudo promoted to host in the next few weeks while the other weekend host goes on spring break. Hosting actually scares me because I’m really not a people person. I like talking to people, but generally only like talking to people that I like. Talking to people who I don’t know isn’t really my thing. Especially when they are freaking out because they have to wait twenty minutes for a table. I’m hoping I figure it out and can make it work, but I much prefer the detached soulless job of scrubbing down tables and refilling water. That way you really don’t have to be chipper all the time and can just emo through the night if you don’t feel like acting happy.

Two Saturdays ago I started. My boss introduced me to the “head bus boy.” He actually looked college aged, so I didn’t feel too bad about myself…until I found out he is starting college next fall. So basically my supervisor is a kid who doesn’t have a high school degree. He’s cool though and we get along really well. The other girl who started bussing that same night is a Bosnian girl who is awesome. Basically we just walk around the dining room together and complain. We’re the same age so that made me feel better about myself. 

Okay…so on to random stories…

The Bartender

So last weekend I was bussing most of the night. It was V-Day so a lot of people were coming in and we had two bartenders. The bartenders were also more involved with the dining room because lots of people were ordering wine and stuff. Anyway, at about 7 the second bartender came in wearing tight, red pants. I had worked with him the weekend before and hadn’t thought much about him. That night, however, he was in the kitchen more and every time I walked back there he was complaining about something. At one point I dropped a wine glass (because I’m an idiot) and it shattered to the ground. Everyone else in the kitchen yelled, “Opa!” and started laughing. My high school supervisor gave some crap about it and then told me he’d smashed like 4 that night. 

Then the bartender popped his head in.

He looks right at my supervisor and I and yells, “What are you just going to laugh about it or you going to clean that shit up?” Remember this was .7 seconds after it had fallen to the ground. My supervisor waved me off still laughing and said he’d get it. 

Later that night I heard the bartender talking to someone else about his co-bartender. He’s like “Are her legs broken?” To which the other person was like, “I don’t think so…” Then the bartender was like, “Then she should get up off her ass and help me!” 

The last event was at the end of the night when I came back to the bar with some glasses. My boss waved at me and asked if I had ordered anything because they were giving the whole staff a free meal. I told her no and then she grabbed my buddy the bartender and told him to help me order some food. The guy was of course pissed off that he would deign to help a busboy; so he takes me back into the kitchen and just keeps yelling things. It was like constant yelling about absolutely nothing. He was yelling at one of the servers, he yelled at the cook – it wasn’t angry yelling, but just kind of like loud talking – and then he starts talking to the cook and is like, “You got the order about the food right and then you like got to get it up cause I’m like you know,” then he just randomly inserts, “teddneedstomakeanorder” after which he starts talking nonsense again. After that he just like waved at me and is like, ‘Order! Order! And then sprinted back to the bar.” I was left standing there wondering if anyone even understood what he was saying. Luckily the cook leaned through the divider and is like, “What did you want, Tedd?” 

The kicker was that after I got my food I sat down with the other bussers and started eating. The girl I started with and another new guy were talking about who they liked and stuff. I almost pissed myself when they both started raving about the bartender. They both in the same instance were like, “I love Jack the Bartender!” Then they started giggling and talking about how great he was… It took all my reserves to keep from asking: 

“Really? Cause he seems like a giant douchebag.”

Valentine’s Day!

So, yeah I was working on Valentine’s Day. It was amazing to go around and listen to some of the couples. Most of them were your stereotypical obnoxious couples who played with each other’s hands and talked softly while looking admiringly into each others peepers. My favorites included an old couple (who were kind of large) who decided to sit on the same side of a two-person booth. I laughed every time I passed by the thing because they looked so uncomfortable I thought for sure one was going to lop out into the aisle and cause devastation.

The older couples were great too because they were the exact opposite of the lovey-dovey couples. A lot of times I passed by a cranky old guy who was complaining about the price of something. It was clear that his wife had forced him out on V-Day and he was going to resist enjoying himself with every ounce of his being. A whole group of them came in and we sat them in the back of the restaurant. Every time I came by to fill up water they were bickering about something – any breaks in said bickering were largely elicited by the fact that the older guys were talking to each other and ignoring their dates. Happy V-Day, Ladies!

The greatest couple of the night, however, was this power couple who came in later in the night. The dude was like a cassanova, alpha male stud, and his date was this smokin’ hott buxom babe. They sat down and as the night progressed I gleaned that they hadn’t been dating for very long. The guy was constantly talking about “his firm.” Like constantly. Every time I walked by he was clucking about it, the work he had to do, or how Johnson dropped the ball on something. The lady was just as bad. At one point I was clearing the table behind them and the chick was really on a roll. She was raving about being one of the three most powerful people in her company.
“So I’m one of the three most power people in my company. Like the three most. Some other people have power, but it’s not as much as I have, because I’m one of the top three most powerful. Like you make a list of the most powerful people and I’m in the top three…maybe even two. Top three. Did I mention how powerful I am?”
I was laughing while I was changing the table paper and another busser came over to me and asked what was so funny. To which I just responded, “Sometimes I laugh about nothing.”

So I guess that’s all the news from me. Nothing exciting, but random enough stuff to make a quasi-pseudo good blog entry.

…Because I’m the third most powerful.