Breaking News

This week I attended my Uncle George’s funeral. Uncle George was the one of the first photographers for Rhode Island’s WJAR news. I knew of his career as a news photographer. I also knew him as kind, funny, soft-spoken, interested, compassionate.

What I didn’t know before he died is how he got the job in the first place, how he created the position when there was none—by approaching the news station and telling them he could take pictures, develop them, and they could air them that same day; it was revolutionary at the time, far from the immediate accessibility of tweets and retweets. What I didn’t know before was how fearless he was.

Uncle George gave me my first camera and my first developing set. I still have the developing canisters and, knowing me, I probably still have the chemicals too, which I’m sure have gone all nuclear by now.

He inspired me to look at the world through a camera, to see things differently, to consider what might be framed, and how this act of selecting tells a story. I know now, too, that his entrepreneurial spirit is with me as well. That I’m not alone in wanting to make my own way in the world.

Thank you, Uncle George.

love,
Stephanie

Take-Out’s a Bitch

Dear Stephanie,

Sunday night, a man strode up to the bar. Immediately, I thought, Now here, clearly, is a man with an inflated sense of his own importance. It was the little things—the imperious curve of his lips, the perfect posture, the sense of purpose in his jaunty gait. He leaned against the bar, looked me purposefully in the eye, and announced, “I’m going to be placing a large take-out order.” He spoke slowly and clearly, infusing his pronouncement with a sense of gravitas, much in the way he might tell his broker, “I’d like purchase 603 million shares of Microsoft.” Clearly, he has little confidence in his broker.

“O-kay,” I said, looking him in the eye right back (I have a thing about making eye contact—it makes me seem less dangerous).

I then reached back for a take-out menu. Here’s the thing—this will be complicated, so let’s both agree to do our best (thank Krishna we’re both doctors!): Each food item on the take-out menu has a little number next to it. For example:

11. Vegetarian Fried Wontons

12. Szechuan Dumplings

13. Crispy Spring Roll

As opposed, for example, to a soggy spring roll.

So anyway, in order to place a take-out order, I have to punch the numbers that correspond to the desired food items into the POS system and press F9, thereby sending the order into the kitchen. There, a terribly clever machine prints out these items for the chefs in (wait for it) Chinese! None of the cooks speak much English. (This was a superfluous detail rather unnecessary to the story—I’m just telling you because I think it’s so cool when I go back to the kitchen and see all the tickets printed out in Chinese.)

There are approximately 100 items on said take-out menu. As you can imagine, I have in no way memorized all of these items, let alone their corresponding numbers. I’ve got your most common drink orders down:

Q12 Classic Martini

Q21 Saketini

Q26 Cosmopolitan

V44 Grey Goose

B081 Becks

Etcetera.

But the take-out menu, which I deal with maybe two or three times a week? Not really. My manager has told me how deeply important it is to memorize the menu. Each time, I nod my head gravely and agree to the importance of this in our quest to provide Awesome Customer Service. When the bar is quiet, I take out the menu and appear to be studying it diligently mostly because it’s more fun than windexing the bottles for the 6 billionth time. Really, as you’ve perhaps guessed, I’m thinking, Do I want the dumplings again, or should I go for sushi?

But the take-out cashiers are another story. They know the menu cold, in a photographic memory kind of way, and can type someone’s order at the speed of light, give or take. I however must rely on the hard copy. It’s quite simple, really, the system I’ve developed. It proceeds as follows:

1. Pick up take-out menu.
2. Locate desired food item.
3. Circle item number.
4. Punch number into POS system.

Believe it or not, I’m quite proficient at this task and am able to carry it out rather efficiently, if I may be so immodest. But Take-Out Guy was in no way assured of this. He seemed mildly alarmed at the sight of the take-out menu, as if I were proffering something dreadfully distasteful—a roach carcass, perhaps.

“Don’t you want to put it right into the computer?” he asked. He seemed almost to be encouraging me to make the right decision on my own, much like you might encourage a small child thusly: “Don’t you want to wash your hands after going number 2?”

I saw no point in belaboring this delightful encounter by explaining why I wouldn’t be doing things his way (I’m not a take-out cashier, don’t have the item numbers memorized, but if he’d like a Classic Martini…blah blah blah), so I just said, utterly expressionless, “No, this is how I do it.”

So then he said, “Oh God, it’s going to take 20 minutes to place this order,” the subtext of which was I’m an impatient, entitled jackass.

I wanted very much to laugh, but instead I opted to stick with the pretend-you’re-dealing-with-a-small-truculent-child theme by ignoring the undesirable behavior. Give it no attention whatsoever.

“So what would you like?” I asked, pen poised over the menu.

“I’ll take an order of BBQ Spare Ribs,” he replied, clearly agreeing to play by the theme.

“BBQ Spare Ribs,” I said, enunciating slowly and deliberately. “BBQ Spare Ribs [pause] BBQ Spare Ribs. Hmmm, let’s see where those are. … Ah, there they are.” I think we both know the subtext here: 20 minutes was a conservative estimate.

I circled the item with my pen, slowly and deliberately then looked up expectantly at him with a big, happy, lots-of-teeth smile. This was fun!

We continued in this vein.

Him: Buddha’s Feast.

Me: Huh, I don’t think I’ve even heard of that one before. Oh, there it is under the vegetarian selections. Right. Of course. Haha. Makes total sense.

I deliberately willed myself to feel as unhurried as possible; he went down his list of items; I painstakingly searched for them on the take-out menu. All the while smiling sweetly. Judging from the smirk on his face, I think it was pretty clear to both of us what was happening.

In the meanwhile, one of our more cantankerous regulars turned up, who I greeted with the usual question, “Will it be red or white tonight?”

“I’ll have one of your whites,” he said.

I reached up for a white wine glass (which are suspended from the ceiling) and placed it in front of him. “I’ll be with you in just a moment.” Oh how I wish I’d said, “in 20 minutes or so.”

“Take your time,” he said, uncharacteristically pleasant. “No rush.”

“Thank you,” I said with emphasis, “for your patience.” Then I flashed my sweetest smile, tilted my head to the side, and nodded appreciatively and meaningfully at the same time.

“What else would you like?” I asked turning back to Take-out Guy.

“Oh, are you talking to me again?” he asked.

“Mmm hmmm,” I responded. More sweet smiling and nodding, as well as ignoring undesirable behavior, ensued.

As I was typing his order into the computer in my typical, wildly efficient manner, he asked, “May I have a Coors Light while I’m waiting. Please?”

“Certainly. It would be my pleasure.” I was all sweetness and light as I pulled off the beer cap. “Would you like a glass with that?” I asked, my brow furrowed with concern.

“Yes please,” he said, suddenly verging on meek. He went on to chat pleasantly with me about the football game that was on in the background and stayed for a second beer even after his food was ready. I offered to go through the bag with him, you know, to ensure that everything was as he’d ordered it. But strangely, he declined my offer.

I should mention here that very few people who order take-out tip on the total bill, which is why I chose to, shall we say, passive-aggressively instruct the customer about Respect. Most customers tip on the drink total only.

Take-out Guy tipped me 20% on the whole order, food and all.

Funny, right?

Love,

Stella

Driving in Bars

Dear Stephanie,

Here’s what you need to do if you’re inclined to see humans behaving badly (perhaps for sociological reasons?):

1. Get in your car.
2. Turn it on, and put it into drive (or reverse—use your judgment on this one).
3. Put your foot on the gas, and drive…anywhere.

As you drive, you will be afforded the opportunity to observe these common human failings:

1. Impatience.
2. Self-Righteousness.
3. Self-Absorption.

Just be prepared. You may even discover these qualities in yourself!

***

I was already tired and cranky when I arrived for my shift. It was Sunday, a historically quiet, low-income producing night. I had spent the day in the city and the previous night out too late. Upon arriving at work, I found five customers seated at the bar and three co-workers (manager, server, and runner, in a moving show of cross-class solidarity) crowded around the service bar watching the football game.

First of all, I could barely squeeze through the mini-mob my coworkers produced around the entrance to the bar, and second of all, I couldn’t get to my drawer to count it because they were using my register to process take-out orders. Which they’re supposed to do at the front desk. Bu there was that football game to be watched, you see.

Finally, just because every sundae needs a cherry, I opened the cooler to discover…the previous shift’s bartender had opted against restocking the beers. This translates into three or four trips down the treacherous back stairwell to the stockroom for cases of beer (and back up lugging those cases), but nevermind that. I’m sure he had his reasons.

Because I haven’t mentioned it yet, and it’s important to the story, I need to tell you about the five customers seated at the bar. Four of them had arrived moments before me, and No-Boundaries (a server, described above as one of the football-game watching coworkers) had served them their drinks but not entered them into the computer, leaving them for me to enter under my employee id number. This means he’s left the tab and the tip for me. Don’t get me wrong: that was cool of him.

On the one hand, it makes sense because who knows how long they might stay and what else they might want? Given that No-Boundaries would likely have his own tables to manage soon enough, he hardly needed to worry about running back and forth to the bar to deal with a few drinkers. On the other hand, some coworkers will go that route, maybe because they’re greedy but most likely because they just desperately need as much cash as they can get. Servers, especially at Asian-Fusion Two, can’t rely on tables filling up like they used to in stronger economic times, so I wouldn’t blame someone for picking up every customer he or she could get.

As a final note, an alternate strategy he could have chosen would have been to not pour them their drinks, knowing that my shift was about to begin, trusting that I would arrive on time (usually, I’m five minutes early), and telling them as much. This wouldn’t have been the best customer-satisfaction strategy, but he could have gone that route, had he been lazy…or cranky.

What I hope to have communicated to you is the murky moral territory upon which we tread. Multiple strategies exist for handling a given situation. Absolutes, as comforting as they are, do not serve to illuminate the path of righteousness, in this instance.

But I’ve sort of tipped my hand about how I feel about my coworker, haven’t I? And in this sense, I’ve sort of stacked the deck against the poor guy, right? “No-Boundaries” kind of says it all, no?

Believe me, he’s earned his nickname. He routinely invades my personal space, taking things out of my hand—a lime wedge I’m about to put on a cocktail glass, a wine key I’m about to insert into a cork, even a soda glass I’m about to fill. “I’ll do it,” he’ll say before grabbing it out of my hand. I have a pet peeve about that.

He asked me for my phone number in a way that made it awkward for me to decline, had I so desired (and I did so desire). He asks about my after work plans in a way that makes it uncomfortable to not invite him, if I’m so inclined (and, sorry—I’m sorry!, I am so inclined).

He questions what I do in what I feel to be inappropriate ways. He will lean over my shoulder when I’m entering a customer’s order and comment on what I’m doing, in his view, wrong, even when I’m not doing anything wrong, and it’s none of his business anyway, because he should attend to his customers and leave me to attend to mine. He will question my pours on glasses of wine when, trust me, they’re fine as is!

And sometimes, he just offends me, perhaps by asking the other server to close then sitting at the bar eating dinner until closing time when he knows that the other server has to wake up at 5:30 the next morning for his day job. Then he’ll take it upon himself to walk around the restaurant turning off the lights and telling us how to close properly. Also on my personal list of his wrongdoings? He’ll ask me to pour him a soda when I’ve got five tables with drink orders to place or, even more irritating, he’ll ask me to make him an alcoholic beverage during his shift, which is a major no-no.

None of these offenses make him a bad person. Understand that I’m aware of that. What it really boils down to, in the final analysis, is friendistry.

I get that.

But anyway. I’m sort of getting away from the story, which is about the diner at my bar on Sunday night. The diner who was No-Boundaries’ customer. Remember, if you will, that No-Boundaries was watching the football at the beginning of this protracted narrative. He was still watching the football game when the diner asked for his tab.

Also keep in mind, if you would be so kind, that I still hadn’t counted my drawer, still hadn’t finished restocking (nevermind checking the garnishes and juices, lighting the candles, refilling the straws, plates, spoons, chopsticks, napkins, etc.). Please also understand that I had no idea which icon on the computer system represented the diner’s tab. Otherwise, sure, I could have printed it out. But instead, I said, “I’ll get your server,” then turned 60 degrees to my left and said to No-Boundaries, “Your customer would like his tab.”

No-Boundaries nodded at me expectantly, which I took to mean that he expected me to print out the tab, so in response, I said, “I don’t know where you put his tab” then resumed my tasks.

Unbeknowst to me, No-Boundaries printed out the check, placed it in a check wallet, and left it on the counter. I didn’t know this, you see, because I was in the stock room at the time, retrieving a case of beer. So when I returned, and the diner motioned to me again and again asked for his tab, I was confused. So once again, I turned 60 degrees to my left, where No-Boundaries was—I know I’ve mentioned this already—watching the football game while leaning against the edge of the bar. That’s when he pointed to the check wallet with the tab. No words. Just pointing. No eye contact. Just pointing. And watching (the aforementioned football game).

I wouldn’t know whose tab was on the counter because I hadn’t served the diner, therefore I did not know what he ate and therefore what would be represented on his tab. For all I knew, the tab in the check wallet could have been a tab from the night before. See what I’m saying here?

So I said, in a snotty, exasperated tone, “The gentleman is waiting to pay, and I can’t get into his tab. Can you take care of your customer so I can finish my side work please?”

Now here’s the thing about No-Boundaries: He does not have boundaries. Therefore, it is necessary to set boundaries for him in ways that are appropriate and constructive for all involved.

Keep in mind what I said about the driving thing.

Love,

Stella

Yes Ma’am

Dear Stella,

I just got off the phone with you, and my mind is aswirl with your bartending stories. I love hearing about the things you say to people who don’t have clue and, more importantly, people who try to take advantage of you.

As I ready myself for work tonight, I can’t help thinking: why are you getting stronger as a result of your service industry job while I’m getting smaller as a result of mine?

In this game of social relations, I am mad doggie-paddling; my legs are kicking, my mind is racing with strategies for how to hold my own in this fucked up service world, but I’m more on the drowning side than the swimming.

I’ve got a tentative hypotheses: bartending rocks and waitressing sucks. Literally, I think waitressing is sucking out my soul and, frighteningly, feeding my inner sissy.

Since I alternate waitressing and bartending at Hotel Bar, I have the vantage point of being able to experience both worlds, though I am waitressing more than I am bartending, and that’s a problem.

At the end of a waitressing night, I feel used and exhausted. I feel frustrated with humanity in general and overwhelmed by the sexism still prevalent (in 2009!) in the world. As a waitress, I’m all like, “Yessir, nomaam, sorrysir, rightawaymaam,” and if I’m not, then I’m seen as some sort of bitch. I feel like there’s no way to win as a waitress—if I’m acquiescing and subservient, then people treat me and tip me like a second class citizen. So being polite and kind is simply fulfilling my role as a lesser human being. But if I’m not all acquiescing and shit, then I’m not fulfilling my role, and people don’t like that.

As a bartender, however, I don’t have to do any of that creepy sucking up shit. I can be a hard ass; I can tease customers and they love me for it, like the time a customer took out a pile of crumpled papers from his bag and laid it on the bar for me to presumably throw away for him. I cocked my head and said, “What, you think I’m your trash collector now? Anything else you need me to do? Tie your shoes for you?” He blushed deeply as his friends burst out laughing. And of course: GIANT TIP. If I were waitressing and I said that, I can only imagine the scene that would ensue. “Guards! Take this peasant away! She does not know her place! Off with her head!” And then they stuff their pockets with leftover fried chicken tenders (“and at such prices!”) and scurry out of the hotel in their imagined royal regalia.

When it’s my shift as the bartender, I immediately feel a sense of ownership over the bar. I interact with customers, I’m polite, but I don’t erase my personality in the way that waitressing requires me to do. Even though I’m working really hard, my movements and interactions feel more effortless than the tremendous energy it takes as a waitress to suppress myself. It’s exhausting being invisible. But even more than that, it’s bad practice.

If it’s true that our habits change us and make us who we are, then waitressing might even be dangerous for me. I am trying to work against erasing myself. Trying to grow rather than shrink.

But this is what I’ve got right now. I need this job.

Thank God I have writing, one place I can practice being visible!

love,
Stephanie

The Honesty Problem

Dear Stephanie,

It wasn’t exactly a car accident. Even “fender bender” feels off. What do you call it when two cars (both parked, both turned off) mysteriously make contact?

When it happened, my little boy and I were sitting in my car waiting for his pop to pick him up.  Tae Kwon Do had just ended. We were sitting in the car. (This, by the way, is the language of a police report: simple sentences, simple subjects, verbs of inaction.)

I took the opportunity to collect the mountains of garbage that always seem to gather on the floor of the front passenger seat. So when I felt the pressure of two cars making contact, I wasn’t looking out the front windshield. I was bending over the passenger seat.

I looked up, confused, and saw a woman (in workout wear, natch) exit a super-sized Lexus SUV (natch) parked in front of my car. She had a pissed off, entitled look on her face (just the facts, ma’am). I assumed she’d backed into me just because—what else is one to think who is sitting in a parked car? But as I opened the front door to speak to her, the first words that came out of my mouth were, “What just happened?”

“I was parked. I was reading my newspaper,” she said. How can I explain how she said this? How does one account for tone and attitude. She did not seem confused but instead confrontational. It was in her stance and in which words she emphasized. It was clear that she assumed I had done something wrong.

She may have told me at that point that I rolled into her, but I can’t be sure. All I can be sure of is that I was confused and puzzled, and these emotions blanket my memory of the words spoken. I remember that I said, “But my car is in park, and I don’t even have the keys in the ignition.” I looked to my right, and sure enough, they were on the passenger seat beside me. I remember, also, her then indicating that whatever happened, it was my fault.

At this moment, Pop pulled up behind me. I was standing outside the car surveying the scene but not really talking. This is what happens to me when I’m confused: I get tongue-tied because I’m lost in my head, trying to figure out what’s going on and what’s the right way to respond. But the woman was yammering on, assigning blame to me. Because I’m very suggestible, I thought perhaps I had rolled into her. It’s possible, right? I may have started to say this, but Pop cut me off.

He got into my car and told the woman, using his dismissive, confrontational tone, “Her car is off, and the parking break is on. She didn’t roll into you.”

The woman used unpleasant words and tones to indicate that this was false, and Pop said, “Stop being a baby.”

I turned to Pop and said sternly, “Be quiet. That’s not helpful.”

She said some words that were as unhelpful as his, and he responded by saying she was acting stupid. I told him he should leave because he was not being helpful, and she said, “I’m calling the police!”

Which basically proved his point, but never mind that (still not helpful).

I was just standing there thinking what a ridiculous situation this was, still trying to figure out why and how two parked cars ended up bumping into each other. Something happened, but what? I was so not in the moment.

Meanwhile, she was on the phone with the police, telling them about the incident and saying that a man was with me who was being “verbally abusive” to her. There was a pause, during which time I assume the police officer asked her to describe the abusive behavior, and she said, “he’s calling me a baby and telling me I’m stupid.” I wondered the extent to which police officers appreciate irony.

I sighed because I now had to admit that there was no reasoning with this woman, who clearly has no perspective. What can I say about someone who actually believes that it’s necessary to have the police (who, in this town, do not have anything better to do anyway) come mediate a situation in which her SUV’s back fender has a 5-inch scratch and a man is calling her a baby (when she is in fact acting like a baby despite being 46 years old)?

I thought I was going to have an aneurysm just from the absurdity of it all. I remember thinking to myself, “this is so ridiculous that my head just may explode.” I remember thinking to myself, “this is so not the meaning of life. Why do I live in this stupid town? Why am I raising my son here? Why am I sitting here waiting for the police to come put a pacifier in this woman’s mouth when I could be doing something meaningful with my life?” I felt embarrassed to be implicated in this situation. I felt embarrassed by all the life choices I have made that led me to this moment.

I told Pop, “Leave. Please just leave. You’re not helping.” He complied, but as he was pulling away, he indicated that I should put my head in the window.

“Don’t say anything,” he said softly. “On the back of your insurance card, it specifically says to admit to nothing. Your insurance company will drop you if you do.”

The truth is that I have no idea what happened, but even if I did have an idea, and that idea meant that I had made a mistake, my insurance company wants me to lie. What a depressing thought. Even more depressing? That they’re probably right because if you admit that you’re wrong, who will protect you? The courts? The judges and the lawyers? Haha. Good one.

Some crazy entitled bitch could decide to sue you because of the 5-inch scratch on her fender and untold emotional damage resulting from being called a baby. And then where will you be?

So deny. Deny everything. Accept responsibility for nothing. You did nothing wrong. Ever. Everyone else is wrong, but you are perfect and beautiful.

I think I’m just a touch out of step with 21^st Century America!

Love,

Stella

Time for Tubby bye-bye

Dear Stephanie,

I’ve developed an evil little trick at work to deal with this particularly irritating customer request:

“Can I have a Diet Coke, no ice, and a cup of ice on the side?”

With the exception of people with sensitive teeth issues, what is this about? Cheapness? High-maintenance-ness? On the one hand, I get it. Two dollars is a lot to pay for 3 ounces of Diet Coke and 35 ice cubes, but isn’t this the deal you agree to when you dine out? It’s not like anyone can possibly be surprised.

If you’re very old, or I get the impression that this is your one big night out, or you’re very sweet to me, I won’t pull my prank, but if:

1. You roll up in a $150,000 Mercedes, and
2. You give me attitude, and
3. You order a soda with ice on the side, then

1. I will have to fuck with you.

I will have to put your soda in the most steaming hot, fresh-out-of-the-washer glass I can find. Same goes for the ice, which will be lukewarm water by the time it reaches you. Even if I have to go back to the kitchen and wash the glasses myself.

Yes, I know. It’s a petty display of my own impotence and possibly self-defeating, as, obviously, the customer will not be pleased. But this is not my primary concern. I will wrestle agency in whatever form pleases me.

***

The security cameras went up at Asian-Fusion One about four months ago.

“Someone’s been stealing beer,” my manager told me. “Plus, my ipod disappeared.”

He put up one camera in the stock room and one at the bar. It bothered me immediately. I hate the idea that I’m being watched. It makes me feel like a Teletubby. Sometimes, I have the urge to scurry about frantically, just for fun.

When I’m feeling a little bit evil, I’ll brush by the bar camera—perhaps by leaning over the counter to wipe it down for example—such that I disturb the angle. Hope y’all enjoy that view of the floor!

Tee hee.

Other times, I’ll lean over the coolers such that my ass is right up in the lens. It’s not exactly like mooning the camera, but it gives me the same satisfaction while preserving my modesty.

They must not spend that much time observing us, though, given that it once took Them a week to figure out that They were filming the bar mats and subsequently right the camera angle. Each day I’d take note, with petulant satisfaction, that the lens was still pointing down.

On the other hand, sometimes, I can use the existence of the camera to my own benefit. As, for example, the night Cranky the Server’s girlfriend came in for dinner. It so happened that the managers had a wine tasting that day and had a sample bottle of Chardonnay in the ice bin. They’ve told me to offer free glasses to our regulars as a courtesy. Cranky’s girlfriend is a regular, so I poured her a glass.

After she’d gone, my manager came over, opened the check wallet in which I keep my receipts, and proceeded to rifle through them.

“Where’s the receipt for the house Pinot Grigio you poured?” he asked me.

“I didn’t pour a Pinot Grigio. I poured a glass of the sample Chardonnay,” I said.

“Are you sure? Cuz it looked like a Pinot to me.” He’d been watching me not through the camera but from the take-out desk.

“Well then you weren’t looking very closely,” I said, looking him in the eye. He looked back. I opted to cut to the chase: “Why don’t you check the camera, if you don’t believe me.”

“I don’t want to have to do that,” he said.

“I don’t want you to think you have to do that,” I replied indignantly.

The moral of the story is that if you’re going to put cameras on me, you can’t also then harass me over a $9 glass of white wine I didn’t pour. It’s redundant. Plus, we have proof, provided courtesy of you. The honest shall not be needlessly harassed!

Asian-Fusion Two, where I bartend on weekends, is still camera free.

Love,

Stella

Panopticon

Dear Stella,

So, what up with owners and managers? Do you think they’re drawn to the job because they’re already wacko or do they slowly lose their minds over time?

Of course, I’m not sure the owner of my bar even exists. We have only written and oral testament of such Higher Power and well, let’s just say I’m not a woman of easy faith. We only ever see His henchmen, the managers, and I don’t think they’ve ever seen The Man Himself. The closest they’ve come is to the next level of henchmen, the upper middle managers, and then the cluster of interchangeable folk who go only by the name, “Corporate!”, a name almost always followed by an exclamation mark, as in “Corporate is coming!”

I’ve never seen Corporate personally; I always seem to be off that day, though I’m usually there when we’re getting ready for “the visit,” which could happen at any time, as apparently He/They thrive on the element of surprise. On these days we must scrub all the seats in the lounge, shine the stainless steel till we could see an errant food particle in our teeth in it if we so wanted. We date-dot the perishables, making up dates for questionable items (as food safety isn’t the issue here; it’s whether or not Corporate will find stickers on items that are supposed to have stickers.) We make sure the limes (!) are fresh, the sugar packets are well-organized, the glasses are polished to a screeching clarity. The managers breath their frantic breath on us, trying to convey the urgency of the situation. I imagine a room hidden in the back somewhere in which middle managers are strung up by their toes if one rotten lime is discovered.

Fear breeds prolifically in Hotel Bar. Authority, much like the lobby scent machine’s well-timed toxic mists disguised as frasia, gardenia, lilac, is diffused; it is everywhere and nowhere.

We encounter Authority in the barrage of sticky notes peppered with exclamation marks behind the bar, as if remnants from an epileptic sticky note fit. “Clean this!!!!” “Polish every night!!!!!” Or my favorite, the container of candy corn that appeared next to the register one day out of the blue, labeled clearly in a hurry (or burst of emotion), “For seasonal drinks only!!!!!”

At first I heeded the writing on the candy corn. Situated perfectly under the Camera That Sees All, I knew it must be a trick, like placing a raw steak by a dog with a sign “DO NOT EAT,” or a baby next to a grandmother with a sign,“Do not hold baby!!!!!” Every time I’d slip a bill in the register, that Candy Corn would eye me, and then there, the taunting message demanding I keep my greedy little paws out. It didn’t help that nobody ever ordered the Seasonal drinks (filled with sickly sweet liquors) and so the candy corn just sat, uneaten.

This could only be some sick experiment, like on Lost: someone must be watching me right now, keeping a minute-by-minute log on my activities, noting (with a smirk) how many times I pick up the candy corn container, shake my head, and put it back. Or how many times I pass the register to see if the candy corn is still looking at me cock-eyed. Or even more eerie—how many times I think about the candy corn.

I even thought about buying my own candy corn to place by the off-limits version so that when The Man Behind The Camera came to read me my rights, I’d whip out my candy corn package, put it against His and say, “But I’ve done nothing wrong!” batting my eyelashes innocently.

The candy corn began taking up so much of my energy and time—I’m not eating the candy corn, I’m not eating the candy corn, I’m not eating the candy corn—that I finally couldn’t take it anymore. One night, I ripped open the top, grabbed a fistful of forbidden waxy kernels, looked up at the camera, and shoved the whole shebang into my mouth. I stared and chewed and stared and chewed. That’s right, I silently dared the Camera, I’m eating the candy corn.

The problem, of course, is that Punishment at the Hotel Bar is not logical. It gets doled out randomly and at anytime. God forbid you actually get punished for the thing you intentionally decided to get punished for; that would send the message that Punishment is predictable, and that you might be able to control it.

Who will ever know whether last night’s surprise event—over 100 people which someone must have known about—was punishment for the candy corn. Or perhaps it was a reminder from Corporate that we must always watch our backs. Even the middle manager on duty—Nicemanager—was punished, as no one told her about it either.

After the angry mob (“We were promised plates of food! We were promised a waitress who would take care of our every needs!”) had finally left, I came across NiceManager in a corner of the kitchen, inhaling chips and spinach artichoke dip, shaking her head, whispering to herself, mouth full, “What a disaster. What a disaster.”

“Are you okay?” I asked.

She continued to eat, then suddenly her eyes widened. She looked up at the ceiling and darted her eyes at each corner. “There’s no camera in here, is there?” she asked, panicked.

I saw only sprinklers, so I shook my head. “I don’t think so,” I said, “I think you’re safe.”

Though I couldn’t shake the feeling that someone was watching us.

love,
Stephanie

The Great Lime Caper

Dear Stephanie,

 

I call my owner Vampira partly because she has a remarkable capacity for materializing out of nowhere.

 

“Boo,” I gasped conspiratorially to my favorite server one night. “I just went back to the kitchen for some ice, and Vampira just appeared there. It’s like she came out of nowhere! It’s like she oozed through the cracks in the wall or something!”

 

“Yeah, she does that sometimes,” he replied, taking a sip of his gin and tonic.

 

“It gave me such a fright! I think I threw up in my mouth a little. For serious!”

 

Her powers are so well honed that the moment you contemplate undertaking a potentially unprofitable activity, like taking a smoke break or sending a text or hitting up the kitchen for a snack—boom!—there she is!

 

On one recent night, I wanted to send a quick text, but literally every time the thought crossed my mind, I looked up, and there she was. It was eerie. The same happened on a dead Sunday night when I wanted to go out for a cigarette. The image of a cigarette would appear in my mental landscape, and Vampira would materialize in my peripheral vision.

 

Boo and I enjoy eating crunchy noodles from the takeout station when the night is slow, which happens more often than either of us would like. On one occasion, when we quickly polished off the first bag, which I had procured, Boo asked me, “how do we feel about the crunchy noodles? Do we feel like we need some more?”

 

“Yes, please,” I replied in a sing-song voice.

 

“What gives?” I asked him when he came back a minute later, empty hands hanging at his sides.

 

“She’s here,” he hissed, standing noodle-lessly beside me and looking deep into my widened eyes. “We have to nix the noodles.”

 

The other day at the start of the night, I was counting my drawer, which my manager had thoughtfully filled with approximately $35,657 in change. All of a sudden, I felt a cold feeling of dread creep down my spine. Instinctively, I turned around attempting to discern the source of this feeling. Seated at a table across from the bar was Vampira, menacingly staring at me. I made no eye contact, as I feared my eyeballs might burst into flames. I shuddered as I turned back to my drawer and its mountains of slippery change, which, incidentally, is hard to count when your hands are trembling.

 

She walks around the restaurants finding minute wrongs and berating the staff for executing them. A short list of my wrongdoings includes:

 

1. Cutting too many limes too late in the evening

 

1. Changing the roll on the service bar machine while there may very well have been enough paper to accommodate one more order

 

1. Living and breathing (this one is just a hunch)

 

***

 

I was minding my own business, performing my end of the night side work. This includes windexing the shit out of everything, putting away the wines and juices, restocking, and of course putting away the

 

garnishes.

 

Garnishes, just to be clear, include olives, maraschino cherries, orange wedges, lemon wedges, and wedges cut from

 

limes.

 

I am nothing if not obedient, and my manager had imperiously informed me during my training period that one of my (very, very important!) jobs was to ensure that the little plastic garnish bins were always full. On the night under discussion, I had done this with all the garnish bins involved. This is to say that all the bins were full. Including the one with the limes.

 

This is to say that I was doing my job. The one my manager told me to do.

 

If you would be so kind, please cue up the Darth Vader theme song in your head. Now play it at eardrum shattering levels.

 

This is to say that Vampira appeared at my side, just as I was pulling the saran wrap over the garnish bins.

 

An unpleasant encounter ensued. I would prefer not to get into specifics. Suffice it to say that she communicated extreme displeasure at my having cut such a large volume of limes so late in the evening. To be frank, she was quite rude about it.

 

I was indignant. I was doing my job, the one my manager told me to do…I’m sorry, did I already mention that?

 

It was like the time my manager told me to change the roll on the service bar machine. He told me to do this because two thick purple lines ran the length of the paper. This is one of those thoughtful details paper roll makers include to alert you to the fact that your paper will soon run out. Then when your service bar attempts to print out messages from the servers to the bartender—GASP!—you will be out of paper, and your whole operation will slow down. Diners will fail to receive their drinks in a timely manner. Servers will suffer their wrath in the form of poor tips, which owing to the “trickle-down” theory, will also negatively impact the bartender. It will, in short, be chaos!

 

Anyway, as I was in the process of taking the old roll out and putting the new one in, Vampire materialized beside me to bark, “no no, too soon” (despite the presence of the purple lines—Vampira knows things!). So I took the new roll out and put the old one back in. And my manager, who was sitting at the bar watching, said, “Put the new one back in.” So I took the old one back out and put the new one back in. I could not contain the smile, perhaps more accurately described as a smirk.

 

Get your shit together, people.

 

The great thing this job is teaching me, though, is how irrational and weird people can be. This is significant because knowing this means I don’t have to internalize their crazy shit as being a reflection on me. This frees me up to take pleasure in fucking with their shit a little bit. In innocuous ways.

 

For example, I will not let the lime thing go. I smirk each and every time I cut a lime. And speaking of cutting limes, I just won’t do it. Unless the tray is empty, and a customer or server is requesting one, the lime just will not be cut by me.

 

Here’s what I do: I take the lime. I place it on the cutting board, which is really rather large. I place the lime directly in the center of the board, as if I am plating an elaborate yet petite French dish on a super ginormous plate. Then I take the knife, and I place the blade across the lime so that the handle rests on the cutting board diagonally. It really looks quite elegant, if I may say so myself.

 

Then I announce, to whatever manager or server is in the vicinity, “This lime is on retainer. I’m not going to cut it. No sir. Not yet. No limes will be sacrificed needlessly! This lime will only be cut if a customer calls it into action. I won’t have a wasted lime on my conscience! I won’t do it!”

 

Then I chuckle to myself and check the paper rolls.

 

“Looks like we can print out at least one or two more orders on this one!” I’ll say to whoever is still listening.

 

Love,

Stella

 

Waitress

Dear Stella,

At The All-American in NYC, I was surrounded by wait staff and bartenders who wanted to be something else. Jessica would boom out Beyonce and Mary J. Blige songs every time she’d swing by the service bar for her cokes and sprites. Carl dreamed of recording an album and getting the fuck outta that place.

Isn’t it funny? I thought, Here are servers wanting to be artists, and I’m an artist aspiring to be a server. I’m on the backward track, wanting to be good at what they seem to do effortlessly. I felt comfortable, then, in my notion of myself as a writer doing this crazy thing for the “experience” and the “material.”

Things feel different from here. My novel has been out in the world for months, and no publisher seems to want it. A story I sent out to an editor who specially requested it from me was rejected, and I can’t remember the purpose of keeping a blog. Reasons why I shouldn’t take these rejections personally circle around me, filled with words like “recession,” and “layoffs,” and “the end of the book.” But I can’t really feel them.

Instead I feel as if Who I Am is a waitress—a waitress who is treated badly, is knee-deep in debt, and who aspires to be a writer.

love,
Stephanie

Upon further reflection

Hey Steph,

I’ve given it a tremendous lot of thought and come to the conclusion that my manager was right:

I am a sissy.

In actuality, I don’t actually have it in me to fuck up people who mess with me … Well, barring putting me or my loved ones in mortal physical danger.

I have a big heart and boundless love for humanity, flaws and all.

I’m cool with that.

Love and miss you!

love,

me