Sundays

I hate working Sundays. Not because I'm overly religious and need to get to church. Not because it would be a nice day to spend with my family and friends. I just hate. Working. Sundays.

This is why.

1. I have to get there too frickin early. I work all week, and of course Saturday is usually our busiest night. By the time you've cleaned up, checked out, whatever, it's well after midnight when we're walking out the door. I live an hour away, so I head straight home, since I have to be back in the morning. Sometimes the drive is great for winding down, but after a busy night, I still can't always get to sleep right away when I get home. If I'm lucky, I can sneak in about 5 hours of sleep, but I'm usually not that lucky. Then I have to get up early and drag my tired ass back to work a 13 hour day. Fun. Since I've been with this restaurant since day 1, I'm pulling rank and strongly suggesting that some of these newer servers can get their rears in there Sunday morning and open the place. Then I can come in later and complain that everything has been done wrong.

2. The B team works on Sundays. Major, MAJOR irritant. The B team consists of newer servers who are still trying to figure everything out. They make mistakes on the computer, whether it's ringing stuff in, closing checks wrong, or anything else imaginable that can be done wrong on a computer in a restaurant. This is fine, mistakes happen, but since Sundays are littered with new servers, it happens more than once. And it slows things down. There is nothing worse than trying to find an open computer on a busy night, and at any given moment one is being completely hogged by a newbie and a manager trying to fix a mistake on a check. The discussion on how a server error can back up a kitchen will be saved for a later post.

It takes more than just waiting on your tables properly to make the night go smooth. There are a ton of little extra things that need to be done. Like stocking. Glassware and silverware doesn't magically appear polished on the shelves. Our particular restaurant doesn't have a gnome that brews the coffee when you've taken the last bit. Servers do this. Newer servers are just trying to keep up with their tables, they often neglect to help with these little things. The gnomes and fairies that restock and polish the glassware and silverware and brew the coffee and in general re-fill things that have been emptied, are the more experienced staff that realize that you need to make the time to do all of this. Now, there are quite a few servers that have been there since day one who also don't help to re-stock during the shift. They just plain suck, and, they also work on Sundays.

3. Weird people go out on Sundays. This is a fact. These people aren't mean, they can be quite nice, but they are definitely "off". The saying actually goes: there is no such thing as a stupid question EXCEPT on Sundays. These are the people who think the beefsteak tomato is some sort of steak, that the mozzarella is fried, and ask you what comes with the steak after you've told them that nothing comes with the steak. They aren't your savvy diners. Most of your white zinfandel people go out to eat on a Sunday.

On the flip side, you get your HBO Dagos who know EVERYTHING about Italian food. They say "calamaht", and "prozhoot" and ask if the veal parmigiana is a real parmigiana. They complain because we don't have spaghetti; probably because they were looking forward to complaining about the sauce. "Eh. It's ok." Go away HBO Dagos! Go terrorize the servers at Olive Garden, they probably deserve it. And by the way, it's proh-SHOOT-oh. You jag-off.

I really hate working Sundays.