UGH!!!

Hi.

I often wonder how I manage to be up so late every night. Even when I try to get to bed early I end up going to bed later than I want to.

It’s been one of those days.

First, my little encounter with Paul was canceled today. He’s from Philadelphia and had to leave earlier than expected. He apologized and told me he would call me when he’s in town in a couple of weeks. I’ll keep you posted on whether that happens or not.

I’m officially NOT going to be a bartender at work. I was offered the position today, but I’d already decided that based on how I was being treated I didn’t want to work for the new manager. I’ve also realized by talking to the bartenders that I would take a serious pay cut to be a bartender. At least in the beginning. I would get all the shit shifts and would end up working mostly days. I hate working days and I don’t think I could live on the money they were describing. I also realized that I have it easy right now. I get the schedule I want. I work in the stations that I want. If I need a day off it’s no problem. If I want to give up a shift it’s no problem. And all that would change if I became a bartender. So I told the manager no. We’ll see if he’s mad at me over the next few weeks.

Tomorrow is my big Broadway day.

A friend of mine is working on the new production of Gypsy with Patti Lupone. She’s going to walk me into the show tomorrow afternoon so that I can watch for free. I’m excited. Gypsy is one of my favorite shows. I think it’s because it’s the first play I was ever in. I played Pop, Rose’s father. “You ain’t getting 88 cents from me Rose.” At 16 I was very believable as a 65 year old man. Really I was. Anyway, so I get to see the show tomorrow. As I said it’s one of my favorites. Hearing the overture live, is worth the price of admission. It’s considered the best overture in musical theatre. If you didn’t know I was gay. You do now. And then on top of all of this is seeing Patti Lupone again. I think she’s great. And it’s a role she was born to play. I’ll report in tomorrow night on how she is.

And then tomorrow night I’m seeing The Little Mermaid. When I got to work tonight they were giving away tickets to everything. Concerts, plays, etc. I could care less about the concerts but who wouldn’t want to see The Little Mermaid, even though I’ve heard it’s bad. It’s Disney. How bad could it really be? So once again I’ll report in tomorrow night and let you know how it is.

That’s a wrap.

My first night back…

I’m annoyed.

Actually I’m very annoyed.

Did I mention that I’m VERY, very annoyed.

First.

I worked tonight for the first time in nine days.  My last shift was  last Tuesday.  I was off on Wednesday and Thursday and then got sick on Friday.  I called out of work on Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and Wednesday.  Which is a lot when you don’t get sick days, and you only make money when you are working.  But when you are sick.  You are sick.  I’m not one of those martyrs who thinks the world can’t do without them.  I’m just a waiter.  No one is going to miss me, and there’s nothing that I do that someone else can’t do instead.  So I called out.

So tonight was my first night back.

And I’m not as well as I thought I was.  Thirty minutes into my shift, I realized that I might not be 100%.  I was suddenly dehydrated, I was sweating profusely, my head was pounding and my voice was gone.  And it was only 5:30.  How was I going to make it through the next eight hours of my shift?  Ugh.

Then around the same time I was figuring out that I didn’t feel completely well, I walked into the manager’s office.  Just in time to see the NEW bar manager printing out a sign announcing that they were looking for servers to move into the bar.  For those of you new to my blog.  About six weeks ago, I was approached by the old bar manager and asked to be a bartender.  It took me a few days to decide but I decided that I would do it.  AND then I was told it HAD to be okayed by the General Manager.  Then I was told if he said yes training would start mid-February, and it was NEVER mentioned to me again.  While I was in Maine I called to see if the GM had okayed everything.  I was told he had, but that the bar manager had decided that the bar was over-staffed and that it would be at least mid-March before training occurred.  And so tonight when the sign was put up, I commented that it was interesting that they were looking to “audition” people, when I was told that I was a sure thing.  The new manager told me I could apply like everyone else.  I laughed and told him, thanks but no thanks.  I make plenty of money being a cocktail server and that I don’t really like being hung out to dry.  And with that I turned and walked out of the office.

And then I actually had to wait on people.  I’m trying to decide something, maybe you guys can help.  Is it better to get a bad tip from people who are rude to you, and make you run for things and are generally unpleasant.  Or is it better to get a bad tip from people who are nice to you, that chat with you for 20 minutes while you are trying to wait on other tables and who tell you that you are a great waiter.  If I had to choose, I think I’d rather get a bad tip from the assholes.  I don’t expect any better from them.  The other side of the coin makes me want to drown kittens.  Or push small children in front of a bus.  Or stab the very sweet British ladies that were my last table and left me ten dollars on 142.00 down the stairs and kick them in the stomach.  Does anyone have a Valium?

And then some idiot in our sales department thought it would be a great idea to have a party of 170 people sat at 11:30 tonight.  It shouldn’t have effected me at all.  But it did.  My last order took almost 40 minutes because it got to the kitchen after the big order did.  And then suddenly my cocktail area was filled with people who were pissed that they couldn’t get drinks from their waiters.  Who knows?  My guess, some lazy waiter who was upset because they had been asked to stay all night just to wait on this party and were only going to make about 75.00 for the night.  And then all of my tables were gone and all of my closing duties were done and I started to do my checkout, which is where you turn in the millions of dollars you are carrying around in your pocket from where people have paid you all night.  But alas, I couldn’t do my checkout because the 14.00 check for MY dinner earlier in the day had not been discounted.  So I asked the manager to discount it.  And 10 minutes later I asked him to discount it again.  And 10 minutes later I asked him to discount it again.  Finally I plopped my ass down in the manager’s office and stared at him while he was finishing up his paper work until he discounted my check.

And then I get to the subway only to discover I just missed the train.  And yes, there will be another, but it means I have to wait 20 or 30 minutes just to get on a train.  And then it will go “local” which means it stops at every stop instead of skipping from 59th street to 125th street.  So that will take another 40 minutes.  So now that it’s 1:30 it means I won’t be home till 2:45 or so.

And now it’s 3:349.  And I would have been in bed about 45 minutes ago.  But our internet connection is fucked again.  It took me almost 45 minutes to get my grocery order to process because the connection kept flaking out.  I had to restart the box twice before it would let me start my blog post.  I’m terrified that I’ve done all this typing and then won’t be able to post my entry.

Did I mention that I’m annoyed?

Very annoyed.

Really.  Very.  Annoyed.

Actually the whole night would have been fine if I had felt better.  It’s so hard to be nice to people when your head is pounding and they can’t hear you because you have no voice.  And so I’m taking my cold medication, sleeping late and hoping that tomorrow night is better.

Otherwise you might hear about me on CNN Headline news tomorrow night.

Maddog’s Day Off

I was off today.  I’m off for the next ten days.  I had originally taken off to do a show on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday but due to some certain circumstances I resigned from the project.  By then it was too late to change the request so I’m off.  On Thursday I’m flying to Maine to do another drag show and to drink beer and relax with the lesbians.  I get back on Tuesday, February 12.  Then on Wednesday, my ex-boyfriend Curtis is coming to visit and there you have it.  12 days off.

I have to admit that I’m looking forward to it.  I haven’t much felt like working the last week or so.  I think it’s because I haven’t been making much money.  It’s hard to get motivated when you are making about an 1/8th of what you were making before Christmas.  I am looking forward to getting behind the bar when I come back.  I am a little nervous though.  How will I ever remember what’s in all those drinks.  A sea breeze, a tom collins, a gin and tonic, a blow job.  I have no idea.  Perhaps I’ll just make it up until I have them all memorized.  It hasn’t been announced yet at work that I’m transferring departments.  I know a lot of people are going to be annoyed by the announcement.  Especially since I haven’t been back that long.  But what can you do.  I think once I’ve been doing it a while it will be fun.

I went to Ikea today.  I had to buy two new dining chairs so that I can seat six at my table.  I was a little nervous that they wouldn’t have the ones I wanted because I’m having dinner for six tomorrow night.  But I was worrying for nothing.  They had a bunch of them.  Of course I couldn’t just walk in and buy the chairs.  I had to start upstairs and wander through all the rooms.  And I bought a lot more than I needed to.  I bought some candles (they are cheap there, although they didn’t have the ones I usually buy), I bought some pendant lamps to hang over our little bar, and I know I bought other things but I don’t remember what it is.  I always enjoy the trip so it was fun to go.

Lydia, the cleaning lady, is coming tomorrow.  That means that I have to be up around 8:00 a.m. so that I can prepare dinner and get it in the crock pot before I leave.  I also have to explain to her that I need her to turn on the crock pot before she leaves.  She doesn’t speak a lot of English so it might be a little hard.  But I know enough Spanish, I think to get by.  This also means that I have to be out of the apartment for most of the afternoon, so I’m going to have to find some things to keep me busy.  The three things I have to do are  get flowers, coffee and pick up the rest of the groceries.  I don’t think this will take all afternoon though.  I plan on taking a book with me so that if I find I have time left I can stop in a coffee shop and read.

And with that I have to get to bed since I have to be up early.

Maddog’s Ramblings…

It’s 12:20 and the muses have gone to bed.  I have no idea what to write about tonight.  So here are more Maddog ramblings.

The Democratic debate was interesting tonight.  Hillary and Barack actually seemed to be having fun and were nice to each other.  The only real barbs thrown out tonight were from Wolf Blitzer, and Hillary quickly reigned him in.  Now I just have to figure out which one I’m voting for since Edwards dropped out of the race.  Tonight I played a drinking game during the debate.  I took a swig of beer each time the candidates mentioned Edwards.  I’ll probably be drunk for days.

My friend Caleb came over tonight.  He sent me an email wanting to talk about life.  He arrived and finished watching the debate with us.  We chatted afterwards.  I think he’s having a midlife crisis.  He’s only 26.  Ugh.

I think I’m taking the bartending gig.  I spoke to the manager tonight and as soon as he checks it out with the GM it’s all mine.  I’m still not sure if it’s the right decision, but as my friend Lee pointed out to me it’s a very marketable skill.  If I can bartend in a high volume Manhattan bar, I can bartend anywhere.

My ex-boyfriend Curtis is coming to visit in two weeks.  He’s interviewing for a job in New Jersey and is going to be staying with me for two days.  It will be nice to see him, since I haven’t seen him since Thanksgiving 2006.  My roommate thinks he’s a little dull, but he is VERY cute so I guess that makes up for it.

I’m going to Maine next Thursday to do another drag show.  I’m actually getting paid this time which is nice.  They are flying me up, feeding me, and giving me a stipend.  Not to mention I get to drink beer while I work AND get to spend time with the lesbians.  What more could a gay boy want.  Doris if you are reading this, I love you.  I’m secretly praying that it snows while I am there.  The last time NYC saw less snow than this year was 1933.  Damn global warming.

I work the next two days and I’m hoping that there are more customers than there were earlier in the week.  It has been a very slow week and I NEED to make some money.  After Saturday I am off for 10 days and it would be nice to not be in the hole when I come back.

I went to Costco today.  It’s the cheapest place in town to get prescriptions without insurance.  It takes me an hour 15 to get there.  And an hour 15 home.  That’s why I was upset when I got there to discover the pharmacist wouldn’t be back from lunch for 30 minutes.  It wasn’t my fault he got to lunch late.  Why should I be punished.  When I initially asked for my drugs I was told no.  When I asked to speak to the manager and pointed to the sign that said the pharmacy reopened at 2:30 not 3:00 they were suddenly able to get my medicine.  Damn I can be grumpy.

On Sunday I’m going to Ikea.  I have to buy two more chairs for my dining table.  That way I can seat six at my dinner party on Monday.  I’m a little afraid that when I get there they won’t have the ones I want.  What will I do then.  The people are already invited.  Where will I have them sit.

Yesterday (1/30) would have been my father’s 79th birthday.  He died five years ago.  I still miss him, but I know my mom misses him more.  I called and left her a message yesterday to let her know I was thinking about her.  It’s funny we talk almost everyday now and before he died, we only spoke every couple of weeks or so.

I’m not going to get  to go to Hawaii after all.  My friend Lee is coming back in just three weeks.  There’s no way I can afford to go before he comes back.  I guess now I’ll just go to San Diego in March.  It will be fun to see my friends there because it’s been a year since I was there.

That’s enough ramblings for one night.

A Working Girl…

Our Internet connection has been fucked lately.  Last night there was no hope of getting it to work.  I tried rebooting, unplugging, disconnecting all to no avail.  My roommate finally got so frustrated that he called Time Warner Cable to see if they could do something.  We now have an appointment for Wednesday for someone to come and “fix” it for us.  If you don’t hear from me for the next couple of days you know what’s up.

Work has been kind of interesting for the past two days.  Last night started with the new server manager cornering me in the kitchen to tell me what a great job I was doing.  As he put it, I’ve been on top of my game since I started, I’ve done everything they’ve asked me to do and I’m fun to work with.  I was kind of floored because this guy’s not known for his niceties.  Of course a mere four hours later things had changed a bit.

As I’ve mentioned I only work in the cocktail section.  I should also mention that I’m the only guy who does this.  All of the other “cocktailers” are girls.  Not only are they girls but they tend to be bitchy, pushy, and sometimes difficult to get along with.  I luckily am not bothered too much by this.  I do my job, and they leave me alone.  One of the girls, Gina, has decided that I’m a pushover.  For the last several weeks she’s been a little more bossy than usual.  She also does things like tell me to run drinks to her table, or drop a check, or give her a pen.  All of these things are told to me.  She’s never asked me to do something ever.  And it’s never accompanied by a please.  I usually do what she says, because I like to think that I’m a nice guy and usually it’s not a problem to help her, even though it would be nice to be asked.  She also does things like badger me to switch sections with her.  There are three cocktail sections.  Two of them are equal in their money making capabilities but one is easier to work than the other because of it’s layout and location.  The third section just sucks and I’m hardly ever scheduled in it.  Gina always wants the “good section” and I always tell her no.  But it doesn’t stop her from telling me that she’s a better server than me so I should give it to her.  I usually laugh and ignore her.

So last night, she was her bossy self as usual.  And around 9:00 the bad station got cut and so that made my station bigger by two tables.  I was going about my business when I noticed I had people at one of my new tables.  I went up to greet them only to find out that Gina had pulled her table and my table together so she could wait on a large party there.  In our restaurant that never happens.  They never mix stations.  If they are going to sit a large party at the same table they have to be in the same section.  Otherwise the party gets split up into different tables.  I questioned Gina about this and her response was she forgot it was my table but to make things balance I could have her empty table.  I was annoyed by this but I let it slide.  Fast forward two hours.  The table she gave me has paid and left, and so have the customers at our combined tables.  The bussers have bussed them and everything is back to normal.  And then I turn around and she’s pulling the tables back together again.  At this point I’d had enough.  I went over to the tables and explained that this wasn’t happening again.  It was my table and I was not allowing her to do this.  I had to say this to her about 12 times, and finally I pulled the tables apart told her the discussion was over and walked a way.  The conversation was intense but it was not out of line and it wasn’t inappropriate.   Yet.

I head to the kitchen to get some drinks and Gina corners me in front of the salad station.  She starts bitching at me, getting louder and louder.  Eventually she’s almost yelling at me.  During the entire exchange, I just keep calmly saying, “Gina, it’s my table.  And I don’t care.  It’s my table and I don’t care.”  What Gina doesn’t realize is that the manager’s office which is right next to the salad area is currently filled with every manager that is working.  They are hearing the entire conversation.  Finally in frustration Gina screams at me…”Well I guess that’s why you have stick up your ass.”  And walks away.

Unfortunately she didn’t get very far.  One of the manager’s on duty stopped her, pulled her into the office and closed the door.  I didn’t see any of this happen.  The next thing I knew someone else was waiting on her tables and she was gone.  Seems the managers told her to transfer her tables to someone else, cash out and go home.  They also told her that she couldn’t come back to work until the incident was discussed with the GM.  And that he didn’t take kindly to incidents in the restaurant that create hostile work environments.

WOW.  What an evening.  Gina cornered me around 30 minutes later at the bar and apologized.  She explained that she needed money and was being unfair and that she was sorry.  I accepted her apology.  Unfortunately I can’t do anything to make it better.  She did all of her yelling in front of the managers.

I did get talked to later about the incident.  I was told that next time something like this happened that I was to come to the manager before it got out of hand.  What’s funny is that I didn’t realize that it was going to get out of hand.  I thought it had all been settled.  I wasn’t expecting to get yelled at.  I also think Gina was surprised that I said no, and didn’t let her have her way.  I certainly hope that she doesn’t get fired.  It seems like a minor offense.  But I also think this might teach her a lesson.

And then tonight I was about two hours into my shift running around like crazy.  All of the managers were gathered up near the wait station.  As I was running by to get drinks, the bar manager stopped me and said…”Maddog, do you want to be a bartender.”  I was completely taken aback.  Bartending positions at my restaurant are VERY coveted.  There aren’t a lot of them, they make great money and they don’t work as hard as the servers.  The other notable thing is that their money is more consistent.  They don’t have the extreme ups and downs that servers have.  The take is usually always withing 50 dollars or so every night.  And that’s not true with servers.  I sold the same amount tonight as I did last night but made almost 150 dollars more tonight.  It’s a complete crap shoot.

I have a couple of days to let him know.  I’m going to discuss it with everyone I know and see what they think.

And that is work for the past two days in a nutshell.   I have one more day till the weekend.  I just hope that I can make it.