The Last Straw In The Coffin

There's a big chick that works with me. To protect me from lawsuits, we will call her "Bertha." Bertha not only a big chick, but also a big pain in the ass. If you are eating in the restaurant, she will attempt to eat your food. "OOOH! You gonna eat all of dat?" Is her trademark saying. She also has a tendency to pretty much molest the kids that come in there. She picks them up, has weirdo conversations with them and pretty much ruins any tip that you would have gotten from that table because the parents are now really uncomfortable. We are all waiting for her to yell "GET IN MY BELLY!" one of these days.
Bertha isn't annoying because she's freakin' huge and is constantly running people over, she is annoying because she has an intelligence of a 5 year old. Reason and logic have both never been utilized by this beast. No one in the history of the world has ever said "Bertha is really smart."
On Wednesday, I had a table of four people. I watch Bertha come barrelling down the aisle bringing their food. I wait a few moments to go and check on how much they are enjoying their dinner while Bertha goes and annoys one of her own tables. As soon as I get there, I toss out one of my many scripted lines "How's everyone doing? Things tasting great?" I then pause. "Oh, you don't have a meal. Let's find out what happened there." Mom was sitting there watch her family eat. You don't mess with mom. When mom is happy, everyone is happy. When everyone is happy, you get a good tip.
I run to the back to see Mom's meal waiting to be brought out. Bertha comes stomping into the kitchen saying "I was jus gonna bring dat one out." I glare at her and ask her why she didn't do that with ALL the meals. "Well, no one back here when dey was done." I translated this to mean that she didn't have anyone assist her bringing out the meals. I let her know that she should have WAITED 30 seconds for someone to come back there, FOUND someone to assist her or ANYTHING other than bringing out only 3 of the 4 meals. "But, no one back here." was all that her one-track (maybe only half track) mind could spew out. So, I grabbed mom's dinner and went back out to the table to smooth over the mistake of Bertha.
What happens the next day when I work with Bertha? The same thing. Only worse. This time, it was only two meals and a basket of fries. I wait 30 seconds or so for my table to test their food to make sure things are well. I then toss out the standard "How's everyone doing? Things tasting great?" Then my new one for when Bertha is working "Oh, you don't have a meal. Let's find out what happened there." Two meals. TWO MEALS! Is that so difficult for her quarter-sized brain to handle?!
Sure enough, when I get back to the kitchen, there is the chicken meal that should be out there. And Bertha is back there... with a spoon in her hand going after the ice cream.
"Did you not see this?!" I asked her as I pointed at the sole meal waiting in the window.
"Whu?" She asked, genuinely confused.
"Two meals and French fries. Is that so difficult?!" was my response to her stupidity.
"Oh, dat one wasn't on da screen when I bring 'em out."
I looked at her with such disgust. "Don't tell me that. Don't blame it on the screen. Hit the 'recall' button on the screen and tell me what's there."
She hit it. "Oh it der now." was her sorry attempt to cover things up.
"BULLSHIT! Don't play me for an idiot! It was there when you brought the stuff out! It didn't just magically appear!!! And if there are two people eating and one doesn't have a meal - don't you think you should have second-guessed what you were doing?! Perhaps checked up on it?! How the hell-" I stopped right there because I had lost her. The blank look on her face let me know that I must have used words with more than one syllable in them. "Just don't run any of my food ever again, you are no longer helping me, you are instead hindering me!" I then left the kitchen.
She didn't bring her error up again nor did she run any of my food again, so at least THAT got through her thick 58 pound head.
Needless to say, my day wasn't off to a great start. And it got worse. (It usually does.)
We have "Secret Shoppers" that come into the store. They test us on all sorts of stuff from whether or not we card correctly for booze or if we try to up-sell the more expensive menu crap. I got one of these people this day... of course.
Did I sell her on the four new margaritas? Nope. Because the bitch cut me off. I was going to go into my scripted crap about the new margaritas and the drink specials and the slushies and all the stuff that the ordinary person ignores so that they can order what they really want. She orders a "Coke." I say "Excellent. I will get that for you immediately." As I normally do, but instead she said "Actually, cancel that and let me speak to a manager."
The only manager there that I've had issues with, Samir. (You know him from the previous post titled "Nerve Damage Due To Brain Damage.) He came up to me after talking with her and asked "That yo table?"
"Yup." I responded knowing that I wasn't able to give any other response.
"You got dis." And he showed me a card that read something like "server neglected to notify the customer of new items and/or specials blah blah blah."
I looked right back at him and said "It's crap." He was a bit taken aback by my statement of fact. Then asked if I meant my service was crap. "Nope. The whole damn thing." It was the wrong day to start to lecture me on how to do my job. I had entered, from this point further, a "run out the clock" situation where all I wanted to do was get through this crap so I can get home.
Roughly a half hour later, I have a customer order a Kahlua and cream. So, I ring it in and head over to the bar. In the bar area, there is a section that the wait staff collects their drinks. There is a guy that makes drinks solely for the wait staff. His name is "Pedro." Pedro and I joke around a lot. Mainly cursing in Spanish at each other while he makes my drinks. He asks me "What is 'cream,' Way?" ("Way" is Spanish for "guy" or "buddy." It also has another meaning or two, but that's not important.)
"Better ask someone, Way!" So, he checks with "Hillary" about what 'cream' is. She reminds him that it is just milk. "See, Pedro! You should know this stuff!" As soon as I said this, Hillary turned on her heals.
"What gives you the right to say that? Who are you to critique one of MY bartenders?! What is wrong with you?!" This surprised me a bit. Hillary has never been a "people-person," but she has never went off like this before. I also found it strange that she feels that she has 'bartenders.' She doesn't out-rank anyone.
So, I say to her, "Hillary, calm down."
"No, YOU calm down!" she shouted as she began to walk away.
"Hillary, calm the hell down. This is between me and Pedro." She ignored me and kept on walking. I figured she was just being difficult, as usual and chalked it up to nothing as Pedro put milk in my drink.
Twenty minutes later, we were out of lemons for the ice teas in the server's soda stand. The extra lemons are in a cooler in the bar. So, I took our little tin over to the bar and looked around. All the bartenders were busy, so I went to fill up the lemons and get back to helping the customers that I had in the restaurant-area. Hillary stops talking with her guests to come over to me. I hear her say "Hold on a minute." and go to the other side of the bar where I had the first fridge open looking for the cut lemons. "What are you doing back here," she asked.
"Looking for lemons." I responded without even looking up at her.
She then put her back to the second fridge where they must have been. "I asked what you are doing back here." she repeated.
"Looking for lemons." I responded again as if she hadn't heard me the first time.
"You know you aren't allowed back here, what the hell gives you the right to-" this is when I attempted to go around her to get at the other fridge. "Don't push me out of the way! You aren't even allowed back here!"
I took the little tin, put it on top of the fridge and said "Fine. Ok." I walked over to the service bar, turned around, put my hands on the bar palm down and said "Oh, Hillary? May I please have some lemons?" With a scowl on her face that would make the Wicked Witch cower she maintained eye-contact with me while opening the fridge and taking out the tub of lemons and walked over to me.
She slammed it down in between my hands and said "You are never, under any circumstances -" I cut her off.
"Oh, Hillary? My tin is still on top of the fridge. Can you go back there and get it for me? Thanks." She pulled a military move spinning around 180 to storm off to my tin and then back to me.
"It wouldn't be back there if you hadn't-" I cut her off again.
"Thanks again, for being such a team player, Hillary. Your help is much appreciated in this matter." I then filled my tin. She stormed off and went back to the customers that she had left hanging in mid-order.
I asked around to find out if there was something going on in her life that had turned her into an uber-bitch instead of the regular one that she usually was. No one knew of anything wrong in her personal life. So, a half hour later I asked her "What is wrong?"
"Nothing." was her snappy response.
"No reason why you are as rude as you are today?"
"I'm not the one who's rude. You're the one making fun of Pedro."
"That's between me and him. We do that."
She had no response.
"The whole lemon thing - what was that?" I asked.
"You aren't supposed to be behind the bar. That's for bartenders ONLY!" (You see, at this restaurant, the bartenders feel that they are above the law. They are better than everyone else and thus have made up stupid rules like this. I refuse to obey them. Especially when it interferes with what I have to get accomplished for the day.)
"That gives you the right to behave the way you did." I asked.
"I was only expressing my opinion."
"Could we find a more constructive way to accomplish this next time?"
(Silence.)
I then got really close to her. "Hillary, I really hope that this attitude of yours is not a growing trend, because I used to enjoy working with you."
She looked away. I walked away.
It was shortly after this that I realized, I shouldn't be putting up with this. So, the next thing that sets me off like the BS drama with Hillary or Bertha or Samir, I'm leavin'. I'm done. Depending upon the severity of the situation, I may do something I've NEVER done at a job and just walk. Take my money, toss it on the table and walk away.
Anyone know of anywhere that's hiring?