The List - Page 2

glatt · 08-24-2006, 08:36 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by staceyv

I can't think of anything to bitch about

That's awesome, Stacey. I'm glad things are going well for you.

lumberjim · 08-24-2006, 09:32 PM

I think Jim Gaffigan has the best list ( I think it's him, anyway)

1> Others.

Trilby · 08-25-2006, 02:18 PM

Brooke, while I empathize mightily with how stupid the general public is (and I did wait tables for 6 years) I get a little testy when the restaurant is NOT busy and they try to seat my party at a shitty table (next to the kitchen door, next to the bathrooms, in a shitty little squeezed up area) when there are PLENTY of booths around. It's my money, after all. I'm a great tipper if I get the service that I would have provided the guest had I been the wait person.

Brooke of the Land · 08-25-2006, 02:24 PM

If, and only if the restaurant is not busy, requesting a better table is okay. I actually had a lady ask me why, when there is no one there, she always gets seated in the back of the restaurant. At the time, there were only two servers on the floor, and one was in the front and the other in the back. Of course, she didn't want to sit in either section, and had to go to three different tables before she found one she wanted. When I tried to explain to her the concept of bringing waiters on in stages, she looked at me like I had lost my mind. "Well why don't you just have them all come at the same time so that people can sit wherever they want and not have to worry about there being a waiter in that area?"

Thankfully, I don't have to work this afternoon.

Flint · 08-25-2006, 02:38 PM

The struggle, in any business, is that management has provided adequate staffing to respond to the needs of customers. Management wants to spend as little on payroll as they can get by with, before service suffers, or disgruntled employees cause other types of problems (like high turn-over). The employee is caught in the middle of this equation, responding to the needs of the customer with limited resources.

As frustrating as it is, it's not the customer's fault.

Trilby · 08-25-2006, 04:16 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Flint

Management wants to spend as little on payroll as they can get by with, before service suffers,

Oh, service is already suffering. From wait staff to paramedics to nurses on the floor to firemen, service is suffering mightily.

Brooke of the Land · 08-25-2006, 06:54 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Flint

As frustrating as it is, it's not the customer's fault.

And you're correct, it's not the customer's fault. I'm actually a pretty patient person, thus allowing me to put up with this job for as long as I have, and even enjoy it sometimes. It's only the people who seem to have zero clue about how the world works that truly upset me, even with as much as I may rant about the restaurant business as a whole. But there will always be dumb people, no matter where one works/lives... thus the point of this thread, I suppose.

Flint · 08-25-2006, 04:29 PM

That isn't really what I meant. "Before service [provided to the customer] suffers..."

Trilby · 08-25-2006, 05:31 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Flint

That isn't really what I meant. "Before service [provided to the customer] suffers..."

No, no. I didn't mean that wait staff, nurses, etc. are themselves suffering (though they are) I meant service to the customer is suffering.

BrianR · 08-25-2006, 11:28 PM

All I can rant about is stupid drivers. I have never waited a table in my life and I refuse to start. I understand about their frustrations though and rarely do anything to piss them off and tend to tip above 20% unless the waitperson is REALLY bad. For excellent service 50% is not unheard of.

Tonight, I nearly killed about a hundred motorists coming down I70 into Denver.

Not that *I* did anything wrong, but my brakes were just barely hanging on, it was too dangerous to try to stress them enough to stop, and all the while I'm trying to cool them enough to slow me down enough to keep my tach out of the redline. And here we have Joe Motorist, tailgating me through a cloud of brake smoke. If that wasn't enough of a warning of a truck about to run away, he passes me (no signal of course), then rides along my drive wheels (a HUGE blind spot), finally gets up the speed to finish passing, CUTS ME OFF!!!!! (again, no signal) and as soon as he's safely ten feet away from my bumper, HITS HIS BRAKES!!!!!!!!! Then he looks confused as to why I am hanging onto my air horn and flashing my lights and screaming at the top of my lungs to get out of there before he dies a horrible crunching death and is sent home in a Baggie!

Repeat as needed to age the trucker to Methuselah class.

I pulled into a truck stop a few miles from the foot of the last mountain with my brakes still smoking, manage to park in such a way as not to need to set the brakes (for fear of welding them to the drums, yes they DO get that hot) and go in to sit down, do deep breathing exercises until I calm down again and commiserate with the other drivers who can feel my pain. I was not the only driver with overheated brake linings there, which is about the normal state of things in this area. The winner of the hard luck stories was a driver bringing a D11 (a HUGE earth moving machine weighing over 200,000 lbs) up and over at ten mph, with escort.

I could go on and on about the dangerous things some motorists do around trucks but you'd all get bored.

Off to sleep!

Brian

dar512 · 08-26-2006, 09:29 AM

Brian, were you possibly hauling... bananas?

On a more serious note - I feel sorry for truckers. Most drivers are idiots and have no concept of mass.

DanaC · 08-26-2006, 06:02 PM

People being rude and shouting. That really annoys me. It especially annoys me if the person on the recieving end was just trying to do their job. I don't see how it helps to shout at someone.

capnhowdy · 08-26-2006, 06:22 PM

Assholes I find sitting in MY yard, on MY lawn furniture, fishing in MY pond when I come home. And yes, it is clearly posted. One of these days......

footfootfoot · 08-29-2006, 09:03 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by capnhowdy

Assholes I find sitting in MY yard, on MY lawn furniture, fishing in MY pond when I come home. And yes, it is clearly posted. One of these days......

A farmer in my area noticed a family pull over and get out of their car and have a picnic on the far corner of his property. He let it slide, but noted their plate number.
Later, he happened to be over near where they were picnicing and saw thay had left a pile of trash. So he bagged it all up and called a pal who was a cop and cashed in a favor chip and had the cop run the plate number.

That saturday, the farmer drove the 45 minutes to the family's suburabn home and emptied thr trash bag out onto their lawn, then drove home.

It's how we do things up here.

Undertoad · 08-30-2006, 11:25 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by footfootfoot

That saturday, the farmer drove the 45 minutes to the family's suburabn home and emptied thr trash bag out onto their lawn, then drove home.

It's how we do things up here.

Yeah but imagine if you were the guy whose next-door neighbor asked if they could borrow the SUV to take the family on a picnic!

08-24-2006, 09:32 PM	#2
lumberjim I can hear my ears Join Date: Oct 2003 Posts: 25,571	I think Jim Gaffigan has the best list ( I think it's him, anyway) 1> Others. __________________ This body holding me reminds me of my own mortality Embrace this moment, remember We are eternal, all this pain is an illusion ~MJKeenan

08-25-2006, 02:18 PM	#3
Trilby Slattern of the Swail Join Date: Jul 2004 Posts: 15,654	Brooke, while I empathize mightily with how stupid the general public is (and I did wait tables for 6 years) I get a little testy when the restaurant is NOT busy and they try to seat my party at a shitty table (next to the kitchen door, next to the bathrooms, in a shitty little squeezed up area) when there are PLENTY of booths around. It's my money, after all. I'm a great tipper if I get the service that I would have provided the guest had I been the wait person. __________________ In Barrie's play and novel, the roles of fairies are brief: they are allies to the Lost Boys, the source of fairy dust and ...They are portrayed as dangerous, whimsical and extremely clever but quite hedonistic. "Shall I give you a kiss?" Peter asked and, jerking an acorn button off his coat, solemnly presented it to her. —James Barrie Wimminfolk they be tricksy. - ZenGum

08-25-2006, 02:24 PM	#4
Brooke of the Land obsequious purple and clairvoiant Join Date: Jul 2006 Location: North Texas Posts: 45	If, and only if the restaurant is not busy, requesting a better table is okay. I actually had a lady ask me why, when there is no one there, she always gets seated in the back of the restaurant. At the time, there were only two servers on the floor, and one was in the front and the other in the back. Of course, she didn't want to sit in either section, and had to go to three different tables before she found one she wanted. When I tried to explain to her the concept of bringing waiters on in stages, she looked at me like I had lost my mind. "Well why don't you just have them all come at the same time so that people can sit wherever they want and not have to worry about there being a waiter in that area?" Thankfully, I don't have to work this afternoon. __________________ "...knowing only that we're vast and combustible, shifting, mostly hidden, probably messed up, but alive and mysterious while we last."

08-25-2006, 02:38 PM	#5
Flint Snowflake Join Date: Mar 2006 Location: Dystopia Posts: 13,136	The struggle, in any business, is that management has provided adequate staffing to respond to the needs of customers. Management wants to spend as little on payroll as they can get by with, before service suffers, or disgruntled employees cause other types of problems (like high turn-over). The employee is caught in the middle of this equation, responding to the needs of the customer with limited resources. As frustrating as it is, it's not the customer's fault. __________________ **************** There's a level of facility that everyone needs to accomplish, and from there it's a matter of deciding for yourself how important ultra-facility is to your expression. ... I found, like Joseph Campbell said, if you just follow whatever gives you a little joy or excitement or awe, then you're on the right track. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Terry Bozzio**

08-25-2006, 04:29 PM	#8
Flint Snowflake Join Date: Mar 2006 Location: Dystopia Posts: 13,136	That isn't really what I meant. "Before service [provided to the customer] suffers..." __________________ **************** There's a level of facility that everyone needs to accomplish, and from there it's a matter of deciding for yourself how important ultra-facility is to your expression. ... I found, like Joseph Campbell said, if you just follow whatever gives you a little joy or excitement or awe, then you're on the right track. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Terry Bozzio**

08-25-2006, 11:28 PM	#10
BrianR Cleverly disguised as a responsible adult Join Date: Jan 2001 Location: Dallas, TX Posts: 3,338	All I can rant about is stupid drivers. I have never waited a table in my life and I refuse to start. I understand about their frustrations though and rarely do anything to piss them off and tend to tip above 20% unless the waitperson is REALLY bad. For excellent service 50% is not unheard of. Tonight, I nearly killed about a hundred motorists coming down I70 into Denver. Not that I did anything wrong, but my brakes were just barely hanging on, it was too dangerous to try to stress them enough to stop, and all the while I'm trying to cool them enough to slow me down enough to keep my tach out of the redline. And here we have Joe Motorist, tailgating me through a cloud of brake smoke. If that wasn't enough of a warning of a truck about to run away, he passes me (no signal of course), then rides along my drive wheels (a HUGE blind spot), finally gets up the speed to finish passing, CUTS ME OFF!!!!! (again, no signal) and as soon as he's safely ten feet away from my bumper, HITS HIS BRAKES!!!!!!!!! Then he looks confused as to why I am hanging onto my air horn and flashing my lights and screaming at the top of my lungs to get out of there before he dies a horrible crunching death and is sent home in a Baggie! Repeat as needed to age the trucker to Methuselah class. I pulled into a truck stop a few miles from the foot of the last mountain with my brakes still smoking, manage to park in such a way as not to need to set the brakes (for fear of welding them to the drums, yes they DO get that hot) and go in to sit down, do deep breathing exercises until I calm down again and commiserate with the other drivers who can feel my pain. I was not the only driver with overheated brake linings there, which is about the normal state of things in this area. The winner of the hard luck stories was a driver bringing a D11 (a HUGE earth moving machine weighing over 200,000 lbs) up and over at ten mph, with escort. I could go on and on about the dangerous things some motorists do around trucks but you'd all get bored. Off to sleep! Brian __________________ Never be afraid to tell the world who you are. -- Anonymous

08-26-2006, 09:29 AM	#11
dar512 dar512 is now Pete Zicato Join Date: May 2003 Location: Chicago suburb Posts: 4,968	Brian, were you possibly hauling... bananas? On a more serious note - I feel sorry for truckers. Most drivers are idiots and have no concept of mass. __________________ "Against stupidity the gods themselves contend in vain." -- Friedrich Schiller

08-26-2006, 06:02 PM	#12
DanaC We have to go back, Kate! Join Date: Apr 2004 Location: Yorkshire Posts: 25,964	People being rude and shouting. That really annoys me. It especially annoys me if the person on the recieving end was just trying to do their job. I don't see how it helps to shout at someone.

08-26-2006, 06:22 PM	#13
capnhowdy Blatantly Homosapien Join Date: Mar 2004 Posts: 6,200	Assholes I find sitting in MY yard, on MY lawn furniture, fishing in MY pond when I come home. And yes, it is clearly posted. One of these days...... __________________ Please type slowly. I can't read very fast............... and no holy water, please.

Currently Active Users Viewing This Thread: 1 (0 members and 1 guests)

Thread Tools
Show Printable Version Email this Page
Display Modes
Switch to Linear Mode Hybrid Mode Switch to Threaded Mode