Friday Eve at the Office

Tomorrow is Friday, kids! Not much to report by way of exciting office happenings; my job continues to consist of bouncing on a ball by the windows. Today I found a perfume sample in my bag and tried to lightly spray it on, but it chose that moment to become Niagara Falls. I do not approve of my new scent. I now smell like my grandmother’s curtains. 

There actually was something out of the ordinary the other day; the blood mobile was here doing a blood drive. I’m not sure what gave them the mistaken impression that I was going to give blood and then go back to work, but the woman at the table in the lobby kept looking at me expectantly every time I went to the bathroom. Lady, in order to get me on that bus there would have to be an exponentially bigger incentive than a couple crackers and a juice box. A tropical cruise comes to mind.

Also, I am now accepting donations for queen-sized bed to be installed in place of my yoga ball so that I can sleep while still pretending to listen to my coworker tell me about her husband eating chicken pot pie for breakfast and how he fills his lunchbox with so much food that she could do bicep reps with it. 

Speaking of which, the amount of food that materializes in this office is absolutely absurd.  Today just walking to my desk I was handed a banana nut muffin, some Watergate salad, and two Rollos.  Watergate salad is a devilish concoction of mini marshmallows, cool whip, pecans, pineapple, and coconut and makes me want to eat it by the truckload.  Also, did I mention what was sitting in the break room?  

This. This is why office workers are so sluggish and unhealthy. It's a country-wide ploy to get us to stay in these little cubicle jobs forever.

Now a word about actual patients: the American citizen award of the day goes to the guy this morning who, when I asked what he considered his race to be, answered loudly, “MALE!”

Oh, very good, sir. I take it you were not burdened with an overabundance of schooling. You are now permanently in the same category as the patient who wanted his emergency contacts to be "Obama" and "God."

Well, the week is finally drawing to a close, and here's to a lovely weekend and to no more babies being birthed in cars alongside highways in a 24-hour traffic jam because of three inches of snow. Cheers.

Adulthood and the Fletch

Well, it has been a veritable eternity since I have written a post. At least two years, which would be a shocking 14 years if you happen to be a dog. I apologize to all my canine followers for keeping you waiting for over a decade.

I have retired from restauranteurship and am now employed at Fletcher Allen Health Care in registration. I would be lying if I told you my job was glamorous and fulfilling; I spend over half my waking hours in a call-center cubicle staring at dual monitors. On the upside, my cube is right next to the windows, and I sit on a yoga ball. And nobody sees when I spill strawberry jelly all over my pants from the pb&j-in-a-jar-together that I've been eating at my desk.

I speak with patients by phone all day, registering them before appointments. Mostly it's a whole lot of repitition, having the same conversation with 80-plus patients a day, but every now and then you'll get a break in the norm. Some patients want to tell you their life stories, or try to regale you with tales of 14 colonoscopies (ma'am, please, I'm trying to eat my pb&j).

By far the most scarring experience of my phone life to date would have to be the time an older man called in to register. He started verifying everything I said with "that's correct," but sounded very out of breath. I simply attributed it to respiratory issues and was moving right along with the process when suddenly, barely waiting for the finish of my next question, he hollered, "THAT'S CORRECT!!!" in a mixture of a yell and a grunt. I was so startled I almost fell off my yoga ball and was trying to regain my composure when not 5 seconds later I hear *FLUSH*.

Who on earth thinks, "Hey, I'm pooping - now would be a good time to call registration!"

Men! I ask you. Disgusting.
Today I answered an incoming call from a gentleman who unceremoniously said in tones of greatest disgust, "How did I get you?"  Well, sir, you probably dialed my phone number. I understand your confusion, however; technology has indeed progressed at an astonishing rate.

And then you have the abnormal name spellings, such as "Ceilidh" with a note that says "name pronounced Kaylee." I wanted to call and be like, "Hi, is this Ceiling? It's not? May I speak with Ceiling, please?"
Obviously, adulthood has had a singular effect on me. That is to say, none at all.

Well, the Fletch is a many-splendored thing, and I am quite fortunate to be employed. I may not be so fortunate in my old hopes of a million-dollar tip, but I have not given up all faith. Someday in the not-so-distant future, when I am a black-and-white-clad server in a 5-star restaurant in the ritziest part of New York City, my long-awaited dream may come true.


Yeah, I won't hold my breath.

Summer's End

I knew I'd never be a Friendly's lifer. I enjoy time away too much and always have to drag myself back. I spent a week in Rhode Island at the end of the summer, and the ocean was all I could ever ask for. No grease, no grouchy customers, no flailing infants howling for ice cream. Sunburn is a small price to pay for the serenity that comes with a vacation from Friendly's.
And now, back at school, Friendly's is a blissful nine months away. Though I must say the hilarious moments almost outweigh the wretched slogans. Like the time with the chicken family.
A mother and her several kids came in one day for lunch. They sat in my friend Tim's section, and every one of them ordered fried chicken. When the food was ready Tim brought it out to them, and he was headed back to check on them a minute or two later when just as he reached the table he heard the mother saying, "Now let's all bow our heads and give thanks to the chicken."
And with utmost sincerity, they all held hands and did just that.
Talk about leading your children astray. Kids will believe anything. When I was young my mother told me that clouds are made out of marshmallows, and for years I couldn't wait to get to heaven so I could sit on clouds all day and stuff my face. I didn't believe my high school science teacher when he told us clouds were condensed water. Since when was he smarter than my mom?
Well, as far as million dollar tips are concerned, this summer was a disappointment. I think my highest tip was a twenty. But as far as old and new friends, family, and laughs go, it was a winner. People are much more important than money, anyhow.
Well.. maybe I wouldn't go as far as a million dollars..
Well, all right. A million dollars it is.

Burgers and Fives

The cute little saying goes that good things come to those who wait. Well, there was a lot of waiting for food going on at Friendly's the past two days, and the results were pretty disgusting. Yes, I was on grill. And let's just say that cooking was not how I remembered it. I learned grill last year for a little while and hadn't cooked since then until last night.
Of course, last year we had competent cooks. In the spirit of self-expression, I was used to cooking with people who knew what they were doing, not getting stuck running wheel on my first day back on grill because there was no one else who would even try.
I should have many humorous stories to impart about the grill side of the restaurant, but I've tried too hard to block all the horrific details from my mind to remember anything remotely amusing. I cooked so many burgers today that I shall probably have nightmares about them. And there's nothing that will rain on your parade more than feeling like a soggy French fry drenched in grease.
There was one slightly entertaining moment last night, though, when one of the other cooks putting cups of clam chowder in the food window looked away from what she was doing and slowly dumped two full cups all over the heating area.
"Um, why did you do that?"
"I got distracted by a cute guy in the dining room!"
Oh well, who wouldn't rather stare at them anyway.
But besides disliking the ridiculous insanity, I missed being clean.
I looked at all the nice neat little servers in their spotless black aprons and cute little pastel polos, and here I was on grill saying, "How the heck did I get mac and cheese on my butt?"
It's a man-versus-food world back there.
There was a spot of cheer in my day today, though. Some woman was apparently so impressed with the speed at which she got her food that she imparted a five-dollar tip to each of the cooks.
It's not a million dollars, but hey, I'm just a dirty little cook and I'll take it.

Soup and Slogans

"Ice cream makes the meal!"
If I hear that phrase one more time, I will take a sledgehammer to the nearest ice cream freezer and see that it is permanently out of commission. I swear it on my mother's grave.
Good thing my mother is a hearty soul.
But really, every now and then at Friendly's you'll get a week that will just kick your butt. Sometimes it's just the customers. Sometimes it's because it's hard not to bring your personal life to work with you. And when the personal seems to be going down the tubes, it's easy to let work get pulled down with it. Then nothing goes right no matter how hard you try.
But other times when appliances break, cooks are slow, fountain is even slower, and you've got someone yelling "Ice cream makes the meal!" in your ear every 25 seconds, you begin to wonder.
Is it that I'm a sucky server? Or is it just Friendly's? I mean, where else would we wait to fix a freezer until the ice cream is soup, and then bring all the squishy ice cream cartons up front where we have to serve customers? It's a fool-proof plan. What could possibly go wrong?
Now there's a good question. Perhaps it should be the new slogan.
"Bye folks, come back and see us where what could possibly go wrong!"
Definitely an improvement.
Friendly's isn't a bad job. It's pretty fun and unpredictable and the coworkers are great. But it's weeks like that where I almost lose sight of my million-dollar dream.
Almost.

Fountain vs. Serving

The lives of fountain workers at Friendly's are less than exciting. They run around in their little area like hamsters in a cage. I worked fountain a couple nights ago instead of serving and I must say, I was more tired from being in one area than I am working hard waiting tables. The most exciting part of my night was spilling the soft serve mix all over the bottom of the creemee machine.
There have been some memorable fountain moments though, back when I was that low on the food chain, not the least of which was one particular day when I was an eager young fountain worker.
It was around 10 in the morning, and they had me on a ladder cleaning the top shelves of the fountain area because, shockingly, no one was ordering ice cream that early. I was scrubbing away at the dust and grime while "Susie" the waitress was pouring coffee at the coffee machine. I happened to glance over towards the service aisle, and the trashcan next to the coffee machine had more smoke pouring out of it than a brick chimney. Susie looked down at it and went right on pouring coffee.
"Someone should really take care of that fire," she said.
At that second "Sally" the waitress came bombing around the corner with a bucket full of water twice the size of the trashcan, screeching "FIRE!!!" at the top of her lungs. She chucked the whole bucket-full onto the trashcan from like three feet away, flooding half the service aisle and sufficiently dousing the fire forever. Susie serenely finished pouring coffee while I remained on top of my ladder, avoiding the pond that was now the floor.
So you see, there is entertainment to be had as a fountain worker. I'm just not sure it equals the fun of pouring drinks on people. And who ever gave a creemee girl a million-dollar tip?

Lobster and Telephones

In my ginormous history of waitressing, never once had I spilled drinks while serving customers. I suppose there's a first time for everything. I was setting down the last drink on a table tonight when my finger caught the edge of a big glass of water and over it went. Fortunately no one got wet, and I covered the table with a billion napkins and as many apologies. The parents thought it was hilarious, and the three kids were oblivious. They just kept on coloring as their table turned into a small lake.
During embarrassing occurrences like that I hate myself for still turning lobster red like a schoolchild. It's an unbecoming shade on me.
Which, speaking of lobster faces, reminds me of the phone incident early in my Friendly's career. We had just gotten a new cordless phone in the restaurant with little screens on it for caller ID, and during a busy night the phone rang as I was rushing by. I grudgingly stopped to answer it and of course it was a dreaded carry-out food order, and to make it even more annoying, the guy wouldn't speak up. I could barely hear him; his already-muted voice kept trailing away like, "I want some chihhh.... and somhhhh..." I had to keep saying, "Sir, could you please speak up? Sir, I can't hear you... what was that?"
It seemed like I was on the phone with this guy forever, but I finally got his whole order down. I took the phone away from my ear to hang it up and looked up to find another waiter staring at me.
"Did you just take a whole carry-out order with the phone upside down like that?"
I looked down at the phone in my hand. Indeed, it was very much upside down. I had been speaking into the earpiece and listening to the mouthpiece the whole time. My face turned bright red. And in a ridiculously short amount of time the whole waitstaff knew of my heinous blunder and quite a lot of laughter ensued. Oh yes, I went to bed that night a happier person for having filled so many people's lives with hilarity.
And when I went back to work the next morning, I was walking past a cook I barely knew when he said, "So. I heard you took a whole order with the phone upside down last night."
Good thing I'm a grown-up now and don't do things like that anymore.
I fool some people.