An early May dinner shift...

...at the one (Thai) restaurant where I work now, like in the first half of May:

1) The weather is nice and the patio is open and the shift is very slow to start, but it's backloaded with many customers coming in at the end like at eight and nine o'clock at night, just like any summer shift where people are out doing other things than eating at a restaurant while the sun is up and the temperature is nice, but then once the sun goes down, then they start coming in.

2) A seven-top family of (South Asian from South Asia) customers and a (daughter's boyfriend) come in, the family being (Indian) but the (boyfriend) probably (Pakistani) or (Bangladeshi) because he orders fish cakes as an appetizer and then duck curry for his own personal entree, and the (mother) speaks with him a lot about classes and career as it's just her and him and the daughter as they wait for the rest of the family to arrive.

And, it's just after the slow period, too, so I'm standing at the host stand studying an ancient language with homemade flashcards, and my one (Chinese from China) coworker drops by and is like, "Go check on them, they are staring at you," and although I had been noticing out of the corner of my eye that they were all still reading menus, it turns out that the dad at the faraway corner of the table at the very very edge of my peripheral vision had begun looking at me, and so I went over to go check on them.

And, the newly-arrived grandma wants a coffee, and like I always do after every customer interaction, I double-check if anything else is needed right then, and they put in one more drink order and an appetizer order, and then, quite weirdly, they start putting in several of the entree orders, but leisurely negotiating others, and they do this once or twice, before I'm like, "It sounds like you need more time selecting entrees, so, if you want, I can go put this appetizer and beverage order in," to which they readily agree, and overall that interaction just leaves me feeling confused, because, it's like the dad wanted me there right then to get the grandmother a coffee, but then, somehow, that immediate want dissipated and they had me stand around for other less-necessary stuff while she was still there without her coffee.

And, as the dad ordered coffee for the grandma, he did so without looking at the menu -- "Do you have coffee?", he was like -- and, he also asked for it to be made with milk (like a latte?), which we don't have and don't offer, and when I said we don't have milk but we could bring out half-and-half to add to the black coffee, he said no, black coffee is fine, only for us to bring out the coffee and then suddenly they need half-and-half.

And, before entrees were served, I had asked how many people were sharing so I could bring out plates so they could eat family-style, and the dad said four, and then, after entrees are served, at that point they request another plate, and then five minutes after that, they request a sixth plate for the little girl who's been there all along and who I assume was going to eat off an appetizer plate or had already eaten kid food somewhere, and when I asked much like I always do "Is there anything else that anyone needs right now beside another plate?", the dad just gave me this look, like I was out of place to double-check their wants like that and passive-aggressively say "another plate," instead of just immediately running around and doing whatever they asked.

And, I didn't push it since we weren't too busy yet, but really, it's a reasonable expectation that someone can count how many people are sharing among a group of seven and give you a correct number, and sure, maybe one person later joins in, but two extra trips for that is just too many, it's like, c'mon, have your shit together, people, there's more people in the world than just you.

(Because they were a party of 6 or larger, there was an automatic 18% gratuity, and I did not check to see if anything was added on top of that.)

3) When the cook made a mistake and made a pad thai variant with the wrong noodle-type, I wasn't paying attention and just took it to go serve it, and my one (chubby) (Thai) coworker happened to be standing there and was like, "Look at you, what are you doing?!" and pointed to the noodle type, and so I immediately told her that her new haircut was too sexy and was distracting me at my job, and I immediately translated versions of that for my (Guatemalan) coworkers who were standing there, like, "Aiaiaiaiai, no puedo trabajar, miro siempre su nuevo estilo, no miro los platos y que se cocina" and "Su nuevo estilo es peligroso (which is something like, "Ayayay, I can't work, I always look at her new style, I don't look at the dishes and what is being cooked," and, "Her new style is dangerous").

And, they enjoyed those remarks, especially since everyone had been complimenting her on her new hairstyle all that shift -- it really is quite nice! -- and, one (male) (Guatemalan) guy had even told her that with it she was "guapa" ('cute').

After work, too, everyone else had cleared out, and she asked me to stay and then leave with her so she wasn't alone leaving the restaurant, and after we got out the door, I walked her to her nearby rentable electric scooter, and she said that I didn't have to do that, but I said that I had to, I'm her bodyguard, with her new haircut, random men were going to start following her, and she should be more careful when she's out by herself.