A disorganized Wednesday at my new job…

…at the (Irish-y) burger joint in the first floor of a historic hotel where I work now:

1) Napkin holders are in weird places and chairs aren’t pushed in and in one of the lounges there’s a cardboard box in the corner and two tables are shoved together and another one is missing and a sideboard is missing as well, and I think it’s from the wedding that previous weekend, but then I find out that there was a small reception the previous night, too.

The front door has smudges like knee-height and below, and I check with my one (affable) coworker who was in the (military), and he confirms that yeah, there were some toddlers at the wedding and they were really running around.

Later, too, he points out that they were even by this other glass pane that forms like a wind-shelter inside the front entrance, since you could see smudges there, too, and not just on the front doors.

2) Like twenty-five minutes before we close two (late college or early graduate school) (South Asian from South Asia) girls with (princess) vibes come in, and the one orders one thing and then the other one isn’t sure and I am confused and I say that I can put the first order in if the first customer is hungry, or should I wait for the other person, and she says to put it in now, and then I tell them that the kitchen is closing and we need the other order soon and I will check back, and I check back after like three to four minutes and the other girl says she’s ready, and she starts giving me her hamburger order but substitutes mock chicken and I start to clarify toppings with her and she says she likes it hot and I’m in the middle of taking her order and the other is like, “ – and I’d like a diet Pepsi – “, and I turn to her and am like, “Excuse me, I am not finished taking her order yet,” and I’m still taking the ingredients when the other one is like, “Can we move tables? These chairs are uncomfortable,” and again I politely but firmly tell her that I can assist her with that, but I need to finish taking the other order first, and the other girl has all of these questions about some sauce that she remembers that came with a different dish and I figure out what it is and I say it’s fifty cents extra because it’s complementary with that other dish but not with this one, and she says she wants it but then she doesn’t, and then the other girl points out that the burger she's ordering has jalapenos and she doesn’t like jalapenos, so she looks at the menu and switches to something else, so I have to delete everything that I just entered, and then she wants a black bean patty and not mock chicken, and I finish taking that order and confirm it and I ask them to please listen because once I send it to the kitchen there will be no more changes and it’s okay so I send it, then I tell the one to try to go to the bar and try a seat there and see if it’s more comfortable and if it is I can move them, and she asks about the other rooms, and I say that some are usually available but not late at night, it would be different if they had arrived at seven, and I go get the Diet Pepsi and bring it back and they want to move and so I help them move, then when I’m in the kitchen the one (straggly-bearded) (thin) (white) (stoner) cook reminds me that that special sauce automatically comes with the black bean patty and so I have to go get a manager to take that fifty cents off the bill because I had inputted it as an extra sauce before the one girl changed her order, and then I bring out the first dish to the one girl and she says they need plates to split it because apparently they’re splitting it, and they want the sauce from the second dish with the first dish and not the second, and so I go get that, and overall by this point I’ve spent like twelve-to-fifteen minutes on a two-top where they just ordered two entrees and 1 drink, and plus when the first dish comes the one says that it’s not plated like it was in the past with a range of sauces and sides and I say it’s always been plated like that and it’s a new special this month so maybe she’s thinking of some other dish and she says no, it was that dish, they ordered it here several weeks ago, so I just kind of shrug and then I go off and do other things because I don’t want to deal with them, though I do check with the cook and yes, it’s always been plated like that and those girls are wrong, and at some point some time later the (quiet) (introverted) (tatted) (white) manager calls out to me and asks if I have aspirin and I say that I don’t and she speaks to them and the one girl who was interrupting me leaves, and then the other one packs up stuff in one to-go box and leaves the other one unused and then she asks if I have ApplePay while she’s on the phone and I say yes and I can meet her at the front and she doesn’t respond and so I ask if she is ready to pay now because I can help her now, and she is and so we go there, and I think maybe at that point I help her take her to-go box up to the front because her one hand is full with her to-go cup and her other hand is busy with her phone at her ear, and then she gets the check and it’s $58 and leaves a $3 tip, and I notice that her cup is on the box and it looks like a lot to carry so I’m nice anyways and I ask if she needs a bag and she says yes and so I get one from the cupboard behind me and lay it on the counter and right away she asks me to put the things inside it, and I speak to her firmly but I also mis-choose my words because it’s late and I’m tired and I’m like, “That is not a typical service provided at a restaurant in America,” and she seems a little shocked, and she then says that she is having trouble with her arm as she continues to hold her left hand up by her ear, and so I don’t know what’s going on and who knows maybe she’s handicapped somehow and so I pack her bag for her, and then her hand emerges from behind her ear and she puts her phone in her pocket and her other arm is moving normally and she takes her things to go meet her friend wherever her friend went.

. . .

(I do not miss the high number of [South Asian from South Asia] customers from the one [Thai] restaurant that I used to work at… It’s not “all of them,” but it’s certainly a noticeable amount of them, and it’s just a pain to deal with, even more than “those white ladies” that we get at my current workplace… It also makes me think of what my one [chubby] [Thai] ex-coworker would say a lot, she’d just shake her head and be like, “I don’t know why Indian people are like that,” and sometimes she'd add, "Picky.")

. . .

(I will have to prepare for students like this in the future who ask me to bag stuff imperiously, and be nice and say that they didn’t intend it like that, but they should be careful with that behavior towards staff in the future, if they ever behave that way like at a meal at their place of employment or internship or whatever, they will be judged harshly for it, like set it up like I’m doing them a favor to clue them in like that.)

Ethiopian food.

I've had (Ethiopian) food a few times, and it's never bad, but I'm never in love with it, either.

Like, maybe it's just the dishes that I've had, but somehow it just never works for me, although it's not like I'd actively avoid going to a(n Ethiopian) restaurant.

It's like always six out of ten, to put it like that.

A (programmer) friend said maybe I just have to find the right dishes, but I'm not so sure about that...

Either way, I guess I'll find out, since  I do hope to patronize the new (Ethiopian) restaurant in town a few times, to give the small business owners some more business and support them, which is something that I do believe in.

Two out-of-place animals...

...back in later June:

1) One afternoon a gold finch flits into some tiger lilies and sits on the stalk of one of them, creating a clash of colors against the blossoms.

2) Another afternoon on a long strip of campus business-district sidewalk where the buildings come up flush against the sidewalk and even the little barren plant beds by the curb are fenced in with small little fences on top of the large blocks of the raised beds, a thin brown juvenile rabbit tentatively hops down the sidewalk even in the face of occasional pedestrians, as it stops now and then to cower against the small running wall of the concrete of the raised plant beds.

A conversation with my mother on her 80th birthday.

After seeing mention of them in the news, she tells me about once seeing the caves where the Dead Sea scrolls were found, although they didn’t get up close, they just saw them from afar.

She also says that 80 isn’t just a big birthday in terms of a nice big round number, she’s also glad to have just made it this far, and she says that when my great-grandmother turned 80 I wasn’t quite born yet but she traveled downstate to be with her, and they brought her a cake to her house, probably store-bought.

Three neighborhood happenings…

…this spring:

1) Looking out my cottage window, something catches my eye in the yard, and it’s a squirrel turning himself around over and over again in the dust in the bare space beneath the outdoor table that sits out in the middle of the front house’s backyard, and there’s like grooves in the ground there where he’s doing it, perhaps from so many dust-baths, or perhaps from some natural phenomenon conducive to creating grooves in the ground in which a squirrel can take a dust-bath.

2) As I leave the one local brewery with a plate of like three cupcakes left over from a birthday party there, I see from afar some people gathered outside the local music bar to smoke and gather before leaving in a group or whatnot, so I cross the street to go offer food to them, and the group by the curb is like six-to-eight (dressed up for a night out) (college-age) females who are out celebrating one’s twenty-first birthday – “I just had my first legal drink!”, the (white) (blonde) birthday celebrant is like, over-exuberantly – and anyhow they are stoked to take the cupcakes that I offer, and when they ask and I explain to them where they came from, the one (Asian-American) one just smiles and nods her head in satisfaction and is like, “I love that,” and she then explains that they’re all in this environmental-focused major, so it’s great, they all hate food waste, and like two of them who seem decently drunk are already grabbing the cupcakes and unwrapping the paper from around their bases in order to devour them when their Uber arrives, and they continue to do that as they all start stepping into the Uber, like both unwrapping the cupcakes and trying to step into a car at the same time, all while in short skirts and wearing high heels.

3) In the yard of the new-ish neighbors on the corner who turned their backyard into an open-air kennel where they keep up to 3 dogs at a time who are sometimes barking nuisances to the point where I’ve kept records and truthfully reported them to animal control twice over the course of one year for noise violations, there’s now like heavy black plastic tarps covering most of the wire fence, so that the animals cannot easily see passer-bys or other dogs as they pass by, so they bark less.

Some odd customers all in one day…

…at the one (Irish-y) burger joint in the first floor of a historic hotel, where I work now:

1) When I deliver a salad to a(n older) (white) couple, the lady looks at her salad and immediately asks me to bring out a side of ranch dressing, after saying dryly but somehow in-your-face, “There’s not much ranch on the salad.”

2) At a three-top of two (white) moms and their (developmentally disabled kid), the one mom requests more ice for her drink, and then adds, “This drink isn’t cold,” and later they ask me for two to-go boxes but don’t use the one, and when I give my spiel about how we can’t reuse it so do they want to take it with them or do they want me to throw it out, she’s like, “Oh, just throw it out.”

3) From these four (late 20s) (white) women sitting in the lounge area, including one in short short jean shorts and a t-shirt that’s too tight on her, one of them wants to know if we have this one cocktail with crème de menthe like she once had somewhere, only she can’t remember what it was, and so she asks me if I could get the bartender to put together those ingredients, and when I go to ask that of my one (middle-aged) (white) (remarried) mom coworker who’s the bartender on duty that night, she’s just bluntly like, “No,” and then she explains and says, “Because that would taste like toothpaste.”

Work…

…at the (Irish-y) burger joint in the first floor of a historic hotel, where I now work:

1) At a big chaotic table of (white) women and their (white) daughters, my one (white) (young) (gay-ish) (ponytailed) coworker steps in to help them when they need to-go boxes, and he asks them how many, and the one (mom) says “Oh, just bring a stack,” and so he brings a stack of 6 for the like 8-10 of them at the table, and they end up using just one.

So, when I clear the table, I’m asking them if I can clear food, and when it’s clear that they’re not taking any more food with them, I’m like, “Because these were on the table, we can’t reuse them now. Would you like to take them with you, or would you like me to throw them out?”

(Some people... That was at least a few bucks worth of stuff, which really cuts into the profit margin from the table, besides being so wasteful.)

2) At  a small chaotic table of like four people, the one (Asian-American) girlfriend who picks up the tab slips a giftcard behind her credit card without telling me when she hands me the bill, and so I run the bill on the credit card and it’s only then that I see the giftcard, so I have to go get a manager to void the transaction so I can re-run the bill with the giftcard.

And, when I bring it to the table along with the receipt showing the voided transaction, she says she knows, since credit card transactions show up on her space-age internetted watch and she got notices for both times that I ran it, and she says this a little bit suspiciuosly, like wondering why I wasn’t on top of my job to see that giftcard there in the first place.

3) Everyone is kind of mopey at work from how the local university lost in the big recent athletic tournament, so I’m like, “You know, we should really call it March Sadness,” and multiple coworkers comment to me that that’s a joke like my one (skinny) (bearded and balding) (pun-loving) coworker would make, and he does in fact love that joke when I get around to telling it to him.