Administrative Professionals Day Sucks

Happy Secretarys Day! I mean, Administrative Professionals Day. OK, it was Thursday, and this post will be tagged Friday but it's still Thursday to me because I just got home from a 12-hour-long clusterfuck.

It's one of the busiest lunch days of the year, so the Powers That Be in their infinite wisdom decide it would be a perfect time to roll out our new menu, institute a new uniform policy, and update our POS system.

Heh.

The wrong database gets loaded, so right as the doors open and a bunch of hungry women brandishing gift cards come pouring in the whole system crashes, and when it is restored, all the prices are wrong and all the menu items are written in some sort of garbled shorthand. I didn't know we had a location in Serbia!

Fortunately, the Big Boss is on hand to help. He spends the whole shift in a corner booth hiding behind his laptop with a cell phone plugged to his ear, as far from the crashing kitchen as he can get and still physically remain inside the restaurant. Thanks for your help, pal.

I end up running food, as there is no bar business and we have eleventy dozen servers on the floor (if this is so, why can't they run their own damn food? Oh, yeah, because it's taking TEN minutes to ring up a check).

Ticket times peak at about thirty minutes. For people with 45-minute lunch breaks (I notice you can't call it a "lunch hour" anymore). Great.

After the rush dies down, we stop to assess. "That wasn't as bad as it could have been," the GM comments. I ask if I can share some of the crack he's obviously been smoking. On reflection, though, he's right. No one walked out and comps were amazingly low considering how inefficient we were. Not bad. Maybe it's the snazzy new uniforms, which feature NAMETAGS!

Later in the day, I'm handed a sheet of paper and asked to sign it. It states that I have received my nametag, a copy of the new employee handbook, and have been informed of the new uniform policy. I politely demur, noting that I haven't received a nametag or a handbook, nor have I been informed of the new uniform policy, so it would not be in my best interest to sign something averring these falsities. I am Frowned Upon By Management. I shrug. Get me a nametag and a handbook, and tell me about the uniforms, and maybe then I'll sign it. They should know me better than that by now!

Dinner was slow, the usual suspects dined at the bar and we watched "Lost" which was a summary episode. Right when it got to the part of the plot I needed to catch up on, my printer went crazy and I had to make batches of rum runners (1 oz dark rum, 1/2 oz blackberry brandy, 1/2 oz creme de banana, grenadine, sour mix, float 151, garnish with a flag and a lime wheel) so I missed it. The usual suspects were kind enough to clue me in.

Enough. I must sleep. Tomorrow is Mom's 81st birthday! I'm taking her to lunch at the restaurant of her choice -- I hope she picks The Bright Star. Yum.