This, I fear, will be a depressing post. Though I shall try my darnedest to make it into one of humor. (Spoiler alert: I do something stupid/embarrassing at work. Shocker, I know.) But here goes.
Yesterday, I had the worst day I've ever had at the restaurant, climaxing with me, wedged in a corner, crying silently as I stood directly behind the restaurant's owner. Life was stupid-awful yesterday, frankly.
I was tapped to work Marathon Sunday, the day of the New York City Marathon, at the restaurant, a day which was predicted to be pretty busy for us, albeit mostly at the bar. Only two servers were waitressing--myself and Jen. We've both been working at the restaurant for a good while, and we knew that making money probably wouldn't be in the forecast for us. The manager had taken all of the tables out of the inside of the restaurant, anticipating a large bar crowd that would want to mingle and use the dining room space.
Things started off rather slowly. Jen and I got to eat some delicious breakfast (I had oatmeal, if you must know. With cinnamon and bananas and walnuts. Delish, I tell you.) and leisurely take care of a a few tables. The booths--we have six of them--were occasionally occupied, and neither of us even needed the busser to run our food, really. As the bar started to fill up, though, the crowd began spreading to the booth area and then even to some of the dining room. It took some circuitous planning to get to our tables, but it wasn't impossible. When more people began wanting to sit down and eat, the busboy brought in some of the cafe tables from outside (damn those cafe tables, I tell you!). (I like to tell you things.) Which was a bit hard to navigate, what with the crowd getting larger and also drunker by the minute.
Now would be a good time for me to point out that I don't like people. As you surely know by now, I am socially awkward and become nervous when confronted with people I'm meeting for the first time. (So, yes. Waitressing is the single most terrible job I could have possibly picked. You are correct.) Being amongst large crowds of people, then, is akin to putting me and my super-hairy arms in a room with a bunch of beautiful hairless-armed girls who were never teased as a child for resembling a chimpanzee. It causes me great, great anxiety. This is a large part of why I hate Mardi Gras: many obnoxiously drunk people do not a fun scene make. For me.
So anyway. The crowd started getting out of control around by, say, 1:30. I had to work till 4, and I was literally counting down the minutes at this point. Jen and I would exchange pleasantries every time we had to wait for drinks at the bar, since we had ample time, as all three of the bartenders had their hands quite full juggling not only the crowd but our table drink requests. We joked about how frustrated our tables were getting with the wait for drinks, and how it was becoming more and more difficult to get to and fro the kitchen and our tables with food. The busboy had long ago been swallowed by the needs of the bar, so we no longer had a food runner. And it wasn't too much fun carving a path to our tables through drunkies who obviously thought they had dancing skills that required quite a large berth.
By two pm or so, though, the situation had gotten out of control. The bar was so incredibly full of people that I actually had to fight my way through hordes of people to make it to any of the following: the bar, the kitchen, or my tables outside. (We'd long ago stopped seating folks inside, as there was absolutely no place for us to put them. People were jammed against the booth openings, if they weren't already shoving themselves inside.) Whenever I managed to get through to the bar to put in an order on the POS or wait for drinks, I could feel several people pressing up against my back, either hoping to catch one of the bartenders' attention or else just smushed there because of the ever-growing crowd.
Now I was panic-stricken. I couldn't find our manager to tell him that I could no longer get to my tables outside. Each and every time I needed to move anywhere in the restaurant, I had to physically push people out of the way, yelling out "Excuse me! I need to get through!" as I went. (This was difficult for me at first. I am taciturn by nature. Within a few trips, however, I was just screaming. The DJ had the music up ridiculously loud, and I couldn't even hear my own voice yelling for people to move.) Unfortunately, all of the tables outside ended up being large parties--I had a table of five, ten, and eleven at one point. Because it was taking me between five and ten minutes to push through from any point in the restaurant to the outdoors (we're talking about travelling a fifteen-foot distance), I tried to consolidate my trips. But carrying eleven drink orders on a tray is hard enough in a reasonably empty restaurant. Pushing through this pulsing crowd with a huge tray of drinks was--all exaggeration aside--almost impossible. It was also scary. I was terrified of dropping drinks and scattering shards of glass all over the floor, and I had to take several deep breaths as I was shoving my way through in order to keep myself together. My chest hurt. It felt tight. When things got truly awful, I man-handled my way back to the kitchen (the day's safe haven, really) and did a few quick breathing exercises. Unfortunately, my manager also happened to be back in the kitchen when I did this. He now thinks I am crazy. Because I was taking very large, heaving breaths and counting aloud. With my eyes closed. And my hands clasped tightly in front of me. Oh, Rachel.
But as bad as things were at this point, I knew that if I could just push through until four o'clock, I'd be golden. I knew that things couldn't get any worse. I told myself that I could deal with hordes of drunk people for just an hour and a half or so more. Ninety minutes more of stupidity, and then I'm done. I could do it. Right?
Duh. You complete moron. Of course things were going to get worse, you dumbass.
I think things started to implode when that eleven-top's food came up. I can only carry three plates at a time, and this is a precarious situation in the first place. This meant four trips to and fro the kitchen. Through that awful, awful crowd. It was so very miserable. All I could do was hold onto the plates as tightly as possible and scream and push my way through the crowd to the side doors leading outside. Four times. And it took me at least five minutes each time. When I brought the first three plates out, one of the girls sitting at the table asked for extra ketchup, salt, and pepper. By the time I finally brought those out to her, on my now fifth trip, at least half of the table was finished eating. This table's frustration with me was indeed palpable. On my last food trip out there, I apologized profusely for the delay, citing the ridiculous crowd inside, but because it was relatively quiet outside the restaurant--as compared to the can't-hear-yourself-scream environment inside--I'm sure it was hard for the table to sympathize. One dude called me to his side and told me that the lettuce was bad.
"I just wanted you to be aware of this," he snippily said. "It looks brown and wilted. This is not good. They shouldn't serve this. Just so you know."
Oh, no. No, no, no, no, no. Nonononono. I could feel tears start to well up in my eyes. Immediately, I made some excuse to the table and hurried back to the doors to push myself through the throbbing mass. I knew that I couldn't let them see me cry, even though I had to return as quickly as possible to their table with a requested three more waters and a Brooklyn Brown beer.
I have never cried at work before. Never. People have tipped me terribly, fussed at me, yelled at me, and I have been overwhelmed with the number of tables I've been in charge of at once, but I have prided myself on never crying. I learned early on that the compartmentalization of emotions is a necessary evil in the waitressing world. I'd probably have no self-esteem left at this point if I'd let it truly get to me every time someone was upset with me while I'm working.
This was too much for me to handle, though. I was doing my best to keep my tears from spilling over as I fought my way back to the service bar to get those four drinks, but the thought of returning through all of these people with a tray full of drinks was so very, very disheartening. I managed to eventually make my way to the ice bucket, where I loaded up three glasses with ice on my tray and prepared to fight the final two feet to the actual bar to request the beer and pour the waters from the soda fountain gun. I know that it sounds ridiculous to say that I needed to "fight" my way through two feet of space, but it is the truth. At least three or four people were jostling in front of me at the bar, including the restaurant owner, who'd come in today to help out with the craziness.
And then suddenly, I literally could not move. I was jammed on three sides by what felt like a multitude of people, and it was all I could do not to spill my tray of ice-filled glasses as my left shoulder was forced into the ice-bucket corner. I was wedged in and I could not actually move. I was there for probably about ten minutes. Unable to move. Of course, I just started sobbing. There was absolutely nothing I could do, and I just knew that that damn outside table was cursing me for not returning with their drinks. The owner turned around at some point and observed my babyishness. He must've felt sorry for me, because he leaned down to me and yelled into my ear that he'd fight for a place for me at the bar as soon as the dude in front of him got his drink order. I just nodded and tried to cry less noticeably. (Brilliant response there, Rach.) Another waitress, Jules, who'd come in early for the evening shift, eventually sidled up next to me and tried making a joke about the stupid crowd until she noticed I was crying. A lot. She immediately assessed the situation, saw that I'd reached my breaking point, and went about making magic happen. She grabbed a water bottle that we used to refill waters at the tables and filled my ice glasses. She then took the tray from me and took off for the outside table. This left only the Brooklyn Brown for me to procure. Once I'd been cleared a space at the bar, Melissa, one of the bartenders, saw me crying and got me the beer as quickly as she could. I still had to fight my way through the crowd again, but this time it was only with one drink.
It would probably be a nice ending to this story if I could say that the day at least ended well. Alas, it did not. I had to deal with computer issues which wouldn't let me correctly process a big gift certificate, one of the guest bartenders accidentally fell halfway down the stairs behind the bar (very nearly injuring himself seriously), and I cried at least two more times that I had to fight my way through that crowd of people. I felt like a complete failure as a waitress. Ew. I was a complete failure as a waitress, actually. Truly an awful day.
I suppose there is humor somewhere in this, though. I must've looked like a bewildered orphan child, wedged in that corner, drinks in hand, tears coursing down my face. Amidst a crowd full of happy, dancing, drunk people. That was probably quite the humorous image, I'm sure. So nice that the restaurant owner got to see my meltdown in action, too. Lovely, really.
I have to go back to work tomorrow. I know it won't be at all like Sunday, but I'm still scared. Yuck.
You're, like, the Charlie Brown of bloggers.
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