Ice, Ice, Baby...Part Deux

So, I have this ice in my car, almost to the point of melting because I cannot find a parking spot. Then a wonderful idea popped into my head. Nobody would be occupying the four new motorcycle parking spots by the front entrance and I could park there temporarily. I was almost to the spots when the car in front of me stopped to let out their old mother at the door. I was fine with that as I waited patiently. A car zoomed up next to me in the oncoming lane and let out their old lady, who walked out in front of my vehicle. What do you know...that car moves right into the motorcycle spots...parking in the middle two, leaving no room for me. I was infuriated and parked in the furthest spot from the restaurant. I walked to the front of the building and by that time the woman was backing out of the spot. I had no clue what she was doing, but I was determined to run back to my vehicle and zoom up front of the building. I claimed the spots temporarily and asked another busboy to assist me in carrying the ice bags to the freezer. A Hispanic worker's help was solicited by my manager who asked the man to help carry the bags into the freezer. Apparently the man did not understand that my manager said "treinta" (thirty)...because he only carried "tres" (three) bags to the freezer and disappeared.

The rest of the day was hectic and when 3:00 rolled around I was ready to get out of that place. My replacement for the evening shift had arrived and I was determined to leave as soon as I cleaned two more tables. All of a sudden, the second busboy to arrive that day approached me asking where the morning closer was. I asked why and he replied that he needed to give him his clock-out slip. This infuriated me because I was the first one there that day and was supposed to leave first. I asked him why he was leaving and told him that he was not first in. He looked puzzled and insisted that he was first.

--"You were here before 9:45???"
--"No. I got here at normal opening time."
--"We opened early today, Jessie. I am first to go......just forget it."
--"Thanks!"

He left and luckily the second replacement came in earlier...so I was not stuck at the restaurant as long as I thought I would be. The thing I do not understand about his logic for leaving first was the fact that if he WERE opener...why did he not cut more lemons and scoop butter? Did he think that some magical fairy came in the evening and did all of his opening work for him? This boy is confused. Whenever we were in the manager's office, I asked him to follow me to the front of the restaurant and he replied "OK!" as he sat down. What is this world coming to?

Ice, Ice, Baby

Mothers make the world go round...which is why every mother in Owensboro was treated to lunch at Texas Roadhouse on Sunday morning. I was scheduled as opener for the day, a 9:45 am, which is an hour earlier than I usually arrive at work on Sunday mornings. Considering that Mother's Day is the busiest day of the year for my place of employment, I was in charge of scooping extra butter portions and slicing more lemons. Needless to say, these tasks took me a bit longer than usual. Just as I was about to finish with my opening work, my boss approached me and asked if I would run an errand for him. The brand new ice machine had decided to break on the busiest day. I quickly took the $50 to Wal*Mart and stood at the ice chest trying to calculate how much ice I could buy with the cash. I assumed that 12 bags would suffice and loaded it into the cart. My purchase was made and I quickly returned to work before I flooded my trunk with melted ice. Once I got to work I parked near the door because not many guests were at the restaurant at the moment. Servers came out to my vehicle to unload the large bags of ice and I went inside to grab a quick drink. Then I returned to my Jeep to move it back across the street to the employee parking lot. As soon as I had parked and entered the restaurant, the manager approached me again and asked for me to purchase double what I had during my first trip, this time at Sam's Club with his membership card. I walked BACK across the road to my vehicle and made my way to the store. I found the ice chest at Sam's and retrieved two flatbed carts to stack large ice bags on. 30 bags was what I could purchase for $100 and I proceeded to the checkout. The cashier took my boss's membership card and the register rang up as "Card must be renewed." What was I supposed to do? I only had $100 to purchase ice and renewal my boss's card would set me back $35. I quickly decided to charge the renewal fee to my own credit card and have my boss reimburse me, which is what he did upon my return to a hectic restaurant. Then I had the issue of transporting the ice into the restaurant which I will discuss in next week's blog!