I work really hard and am extremely well-paid at a soul-destroying job for this one reason: So I can go out and enjoy my life in New York City. Yes, I know, I sold my soul for thirty pieces of silver, but that's a topic for another day...
This means that I want to go to restaurants and bars and museums and movies and basically do what I want whenever I feel like it. Since I started the aforementioned SDJ in May, that's pretty much what I do. Because having a lively and active social life is what makes the SDJ worthwhile.
Now, I've been in this town (with the 1-year High Country Hiatus) since 1988. And I swear, the quality of people working in the service industry has been diminishing steadily since I got here. Remember when all those out of work actors and actresses were HAPPY to serve you? Well? Folks, they've been replaced by the disgruntled former web brats who lost their jobs when the bottom dropped out of the market six years ago. Honestly, there has never been a 22-year-old college graduate who was worth $100,000 a year, but for those few years, there were an awful lot of them around. And by sheer virtue of the fact that someone was willing to pay them $100,000 a year, they gained an inflated sense of their own worth, only to be bitch-slapped into reality when the stock market all but crashed in 2000.
So now. There are an awful lot of disgruntled and disenfranchised web babies or spoiled daddy's boys and girls out there waiting tables. And they are facing up to the hard reality of the service industry: it's hard work. It's backbreaking and the job is chock full of assholes who don't know how to behave in restaurants and bars. Yes, I acknowledge that most people don't know the first thing about how to be a good customer, either. Perhaps they were raised by wolves. Their mamas certainly didn't teach them any manners, either (these are the ones who snap their fingers at waiters and waitresses like they are dogs, don't make eye contact with the wait staff, act as if the bus staff is invisible, etc., etc., etc. Note, gentlemen: If we are out on a date and I see that you are not very nice to the waiter/waitress, that means that you are not a very nice person. I'm paying attention to that.)
I know that in many, many ways, and in many areas of my life, I am a HUGE pain in the ass. But when it comes to being the customer, I'm great. I'm fucking Gandhi in a restaurant.
I know that you are busting your asses for not very much money. I know that the proportion of assholes you encounter is far higher than nice customers. And I try to behave accordingly. I acknowledge wait staff, be it in a diner or at the Four Season, as fellow members of the human race. That means eye contact and good manners. I am never abusive or mean. I have never once in my life sent back a plate of food, though I once did send back a glass of red wine that had turned to vinegar. To top it all off, every meal STARTS with me at the 20-25% tipping range. When I return to a restaurant after my initial good visit, I want the wait staff to trip over themselves and get into fistfights to serve me because they know a nice fat wad of cash is going to be in their hands after I leave. (Yes, this means I always tip in cash, so you don't have to give it all to your friends at the Eye Are Ess.)
Bartenders love me because unlike most women (yes, I will stereotype, because after all, as everyone knows, stereotypes don't get invented out of the air), if you make me a $9 martini, I'm throwin' down an extra single or two on top of the $1 change.
But lately, it seems I'm seeing a decline in service levels OVERALL, no matter where I go.
Is it a training issue? Restaurateurs, take note of these things. Readers, if your friends are waiters, waitresses, bartenders, or owner/operators, please, please pass this on. Their tips will go up. They will be happier little waitrons, and give better service to their customers. Trust me.
It's just one little customer's rant.
1) You are working in a restaurant to serve me. I am paying not just for food, but to be served. This means, you act pleased to be doing the job for which you have been hired. If you are going to act like I am bothering you when I ask for another napkin or more bread, perhaps you should get a job at McDonald's where they are REQUIRED to be pleasant. Surly Service TIP PENALTY: you are docked immediately back to a flat 15% on the tab BEFORE you've added the tax.
2) Learn the proper way to pour a glass of wine. This is not a fraternity party. If I am ordering a $40 bottle of wine with dinner, it shouldn't be emptied on two glasses. True Story: I was at DuMont, in Williamsburg, and my companion and I watched in horror as the waitress filled my wine glass to within 1/8" of the rim. This is, clearly, nothing more than a training issue. A bottle of wine for two people is four glasses over the course of dinner. You are not trying to get me drunk and get me to go home with you. I want to savor my wine. Not guzzle it. Pour with dignity and restraint. TIP PENALTY: I won't dock for this the first time it happens, but I will smile and tell you not to pour with a heavy hand. You just don't know. If I come back and you do it again, instant 5% less.
3) Yes, I do want my change. Two incidents at Mo Pitkin's in the past two months. One night, I had an $18 bar tab. The bartender took my $20 bill -- and never came back. I waited, and waited, and waited. And he never came back. Now, keeping in mind the aforementioned tip amount that I start at -- I was all set to give him the fiver I had in my hand. But, since he decided that he was going to decide what his own tip was, I decided to go with it. Congratulations buddy, you not only cheated yourself out of a 25% tip, but any and all future goodwill that may have existed between us was destroyed. The other night at Mo Pitkin's (again, why do I go back? Occasionally they have pretty good live music downstairs in the back) - a $26 tab came my way. I handed the waiter two twenties. He looked at the money, looked at me, and with a perfectly straight face, asked, "Do you want change?" My response was, of course, "Uh, yeah." Restaurant owners, tell your staff when you hire them, asking a customer "Do you want change?" is a fireable offense. Allowing them to say that is tantamount to them saying, "Well, I've worked as hard as I'm going to with you guys, so now I'm too lazy to walk back to the cash register to get the money that is coming back to you." TIP PENALTY FOR THIS OFFENSE: Immediately docked by 10%.
4) I'm really lucky in that I am friends with many good looking people. My friends are also of the gregarious sort. This does not mean that we want you to hang out next to our table and have long conversations about the state of Congress in 2006. Make pleasant conversation and move on. If you want to hit on my date, do it later, in a bar, on your own time and on your own dime. You just don't know which of us is the one picking up the tab. If it's me, and you've spent fifteen minutes chatting with my date, girly, you can pretty much kiss anything more than a flat fifteen goodbye. If my date is any bit responsive to you, you're getting 10, I don't care how good the service was otherwise.
5) As a corollary to number 4, if it looks like we are in the middle of a really intense conversation (i.e. if either one of us is crying, looks like we're ready to kiss the other one, you overhear the words, "my wife," "divorce," "murder," etc.), don't steamroll up to the table with your cheery little "And how is everything here?" Pay attention and pick your moment.
Well, that's just a little taste of what I've been seeing out there in the restaurant world. Would love to hear others' experiences...
Thursday, September 14, 2006
Wednesday, September 13, 2006
Monday, September 11, 2006
9/11/06 - Five Years After
I have nothing pithy or wise to say today. Just sadness and anger.
My new job is two blocks south of the "9/11 Memorial Hole in the Ground" and all I felt coming in on the train this morning was a growing sense of anxiety. Not fear, but the same sickening feeling that I had on that morning five years ago.
Didn't sleep much, up at 3:00 am, I think because of what day it is.
Despite all of the solemn pronouncements of that day and the weeks that followed, it appears to me that NOTHING has changed.
We Americans remain as self-centered and self-serving as ever. Hey, as long as I have my SUV and my cable TV, everyone else in the world can go fuck themselves. We refuse to look past our rhinoplasty to see that there is a whole world out there.
When we should have been called to sacrifice and service, we were instead called to go shopping.
Instead, we continue to send the sons and daughters of the poor and minorities off to fight in a war that has NOTHING TO DO with what happened down here. NOTHING. NOTHING. NOTHING.
As the war rages on, I just want to ask my friends whose children were tapdancing into adolescence in 2002 and are now approaching young adulthood and service age -- those who still avidly support the war: Will you send your sons and daughters off NOW?
My new job is two blocks south of the "9/11 Memorial Hole in the Ground" and all I felt coming in on the train this morning was a growing sense of anxiety. Not fear, but the same sickening feeling that I had on that morning five years ago.
Didn't sleep much, up at 3:00 am, I think because of what day it is.
Despite all of the solemn pronouncements of that day and the weeks that followed, it appears to me that NOTHING has changed.
We Americans remain as self-centered and self-serving as ever. Hey, as long as I have my SUV and my cable TV, everyone else in the world can go fuck themselves. We refuse to look past our rhinoplasty to see that there is a whole world out there.
When we should have been called to sacrifice and service, we were instead called to go shopping.
Instead, we continue to send the sons and daughters of the poor and minorities off to fight in a war that has NOTHING TO DO with what happened down here. NOTHING. NOTHING. NOTHING.
As the war rages on, I just want to ask my friends whose children were tapdancing into adolescence in 2002 and are now approaching young adulthood and service age -- those who still avidly support the war: Will you send your sons and daughters off NOW?
Friday, September 8, 2006
Pre-Review Review: Marshall Stack
Having known about the owner's dream (once the love of my life, now a dear friend)to open his own tavern in New York City for over a decade, I felt undeservedly like a proud mama when I entered Marshall Stack for its "soft opening" last night.
Formerly a Spanish restaurant in a once-dicey neighborhood, Matt and Justin thoughtfully started with a complete gutting of the space, unearthing the beauty of the original room down to the brick walls and discovering a glass door that's now a decorative touch behind the bar. You never know what you'll find behind sheetrock, do you?
They then added just the right touches to give it a classy pub feeling -- no hammer-back-shots sports bar, this. Even though it's not "officially" open, it's clearly meant for a more grown-up crowd than you'll usually find on the Lower East Side. A brand-new-though old looking tin ceiling (hiding five layers of soundproofing, from what I'm told... the community was less than welcoming to our friend Matt.)
I hope they don't introduce happy hour drink specials -- I firmly believe that such things lower the "class" factor of a bar, and encourage a fly-by-night, drink-to-get-smashed mentality (think about all those open bar events you go to, or the always-loathsome ladies night). If you have that two-for-one mentality, all you are doing is opening the door to a) drunken frat boys trying to get laid, b) pathetic should-be-at-a-meeting-instead-of-happy-hour sad local drinkers or c) a fly by night trade that vacates at the stroke of "happy hour prices are over." He could actually do himself a favor by adding a buck to the price of every drink. Matt, do you want to be Costco or Tiffany? You can buy a diamond ring in both places, but do you really want to go to your grave knowing you bought your girl's ring at a place where you can buy 100-packs of Charmin at the same time?
The jukebox is a little bit twee, getting big style points for its kitsch, then losing some for its dearth of selections. That's the problem with the old jukes -- this one holds just 30 discs or so, and I can see the selection will get pretty stale fairly quickly, unless Matt stays vigilant and keeps it rotating. If I know him, and frankly folks, I know him pretty well (and not just in the biblical sense you big bunch of pervs) he'll manage to keep it fresh AND classic. The man he do love his music.
I understand that since I started writing this little plug, the sidewalk has been repaired, here's hoping the Board of Health has given them all the requisite approvals for their kitchen to start operating.
I can't wait to see it OPEN open, because honestly, the Lower East Side is ready for a place for the grownups to go out and play.
The Marshall Stack
66 Rivington Street
at the NW corner of Allen
F train to 2nd Avenue
Formerly a Spanish restaurant in a once-dicey neighborhood, Matt and Justin thoughtfully started with a complete gutting of the space, unearthing the beauty of the original room down to the brick walls and discovering a glass door that's now a decorative touch behind the bar. You never know what you'll find behind sheetrock, do you?
They then added just the right touches to give it a classy pub feeling -- no hammer-back-shots sports bar, this. Even though it's not "officially" open, it's clearly meant for a more grown-up crowd than you'll usually find on the Lower East Side. A brand-new-though old looking tin ceiling (hiding five layers of soundproofing, from what I'm told... the community was less than welcoming to our friend Matt.)
I hope they don't introduce happy hour drink specials -- I firmly believe that such things lower the "class" factor of a bar, and encourage a fly-by-night, drink-to-get-smashed mentality (think about all those open bar events you go to, or the always-loathsome ladies night). If you have that two-for-one mentality, all you are doing is opening the door to a) drunken frat boys trying to get laid, b) pathetic should-be-at-a-meeting-instead-of-happy-hour sad local drinkers or c) a fly by night trade that vacates at the stroke of "happy hour prices are over." He could actually do himself a favor by adding a buck to the price of every drink. Matt, do you want to be Costco or Tiffany? You can buy a diamond ring in both places, but do you really want to go to your grave knowing you bought your girl's ring at a place where you can buy 100-packs of Charmin at the same time?
The jukebox is a little bit twee, getting big style points for its kitsch, then losing some for its dearth of selections. That's the problem with the old jukes -- this one holds just 30 discs or so, and I can see the selection will get pretty stale fairly quickly, unless Matt stays vigilant and keeps it rotating. If I know him, and frankly folks, I know him pretty well (and not just in the biblical sense you big bunch of pervs) he'll manage to keep it fresh AND classic. The man he do love his music.
I understand that since I started writing this little plug, the sidewalk has been repaired, here's hoping the Board of Health has given them all the requisite approvals for their kitchen to start operating.
I can't wait to see it OPEN open, because honestly, the Lower East Side is ready for a place for the grownups to go out and play.
The Marshall Stack
66 Rivington Street
at the NW corner of Allen
F train to 2nd Avenue
Wednesday, September 6, 2006
Verily, I am Fucked Unto the Lord
So interesting.
To go back and read an old old chart and find a couple of things --
1) Remember I mentioned how people with dark energy seem to be attracted to me? They find me, seek me out? Well, apparently, there's a reason for it. It's because I have Scorpio ascendant. Anytime I tell anyone I have Scorpio as my rising sign they take a step backward and look just a little... afraid. Because here's little miss sweetness and sunshine and it's like I lifted up a rock out of the mud and showed them something nasty. I'll have to pay attention to that.
2) The most interesting thing was to see that people with my particular alignment of planets are destined to lose their faith.
Now.
I've been realizing lately that rather than being a person who believes, I've actually been a person who has been clinging to the idea of being a believer. See how pervasive our conditioning is from childhood? Someone waved a magic wand over me when I popped into the world on that Sunday morning and said, "Poof! You're a Catholic!"
And even when I stopped being a Catholic, I still held onto a belief that I believed in God. So lately, as I sit back and really consider it, I realized, more with a sense of curiosity than fear, "Hm. I don't think I believe in God."
Not, "I don't believe in God anymore." But "I don't think I believe in God."
And in retrospect, I realize that I haven't, not for a while, and I really wonder if I ever did. I think about my half-assed Catholicism growing up, the fact that I spent most of those Sunday mornings daydreaming about how cute Father Bill was, or if Ricky Pfeuffer liked me (turns out he didn't -- not until senior year), or was I going to the mall that day -- I wasn't really practicing my faith.
This is not to say that I don't totally groove on the ritual. I'm a big fan of ritual. The smells and bells. The sit down, kneel up, stand up, sing out, shake hands ritual. In fact, put a little churchy incense smell in my vicinity and I can recite the Apostle's Creed word for word. If someone randomly approached me on Bedford Avenue and said, "RECITE THE APOSTLE'S CREED," under pain of death, I honest to Pete know I couldn't do it. But give me just one whiff of that good old religion stank and I become a trained monkey.
So, this is some kind of weird, I've been carrying it around like a little secret, wondering who I can try it out on. The natural choice would be my favorite athiest, W, but that would be like preaching to the choir, wouldn't it? I know my sister doesn't believe, so that's no big deal. I kinda feel like it needs to be a secret, but not a secret. Sorta the way people of faith used to just do their thing without preaching it out to everyone they knew. (Frankly, I find it annoying that our receptionist needs to give glory to God in every fucking sentence. Hey, nice that you believe, but is this really the place?)
I think that the assumption that most people carry is that you DO believe in God. They just assume that even if you don't practice your thrust-upon-you-at-birth religiion, you are just "lapsed" or "non-practicing."
So to be one of the non-believers, hmmm. It's interesting. And once again, I've chosen the path of the outsider.
I'm still finding out what I do believe in.
Free will.
Natural selection.
Maybe nothing is the safest thing to believe in.
More on this later. It's very interesting.
I don't know if it's as interesting as fucking other people's husbands, but I'll definitely come back to it.
To go back and read an old old chart and find a couple of things --
1) Remember I mentioned how people with dark energy seem to be attracted to me? They find me, seek me out? Well, apparently, there's a reason for it. It's because I have Scorpio ascendant. Anytime I tell anyone I have Scorpio as my rising sign they take a step backward and look just a little... afraid. Because here's little miss sweetness and sunshine and it's like I lifted up a rock out of the mud and showed them something nasty. I'll have to pay attention to that.
2) The most interesting thing was to see that people with my particular alignment of planets are destined to lose their faith.
Now.
I've been realizing lately that rather than being a person who believes, I've actually been a person who has been clinging to the idea of being a believer. See how pervasive our conditioning is from childhood? Someone waved a magic wand over me when I popped into the world on that Sunday morning and said, "Poof! You're a Catholic!"
And even when I stopped being a Catholic, I still held onto a belief that I believed in God. So lately, as I sit back and really consider it, I realized, more with a sense of curiosity than fear, "Hm. I don't think I believe in God."
Not, "I don't believe in God anymore." But "I don't think I believe in God."
And in retrospect, I realize that I haven't, not for a while, and I really wonder if I ever did. I think about my half-assed Catholicism growing up, the fact that I spent most of those Sunday mornings daydreaming about how cute Father Bill was, or if Ricky Pfeuffer liked me (turns out he didn't -- not until senior year), or was I going to the mall that day -- I wasn't really practicing my faith.
This is not to say that I don't totally groove on the ritual. I'm a big fan of ritual. The smells and bells. The sit down, kneel up, stand up, sing out, shake hands ritual. In fact, put a little churchy incense smell in my vicinity and I can recite the Apostle's Creed word for word. If someone randomly approached me on Bedford Avenue and said, "RECITE THE APOSTLE'S CREED," under pain of death, I honest to Pete know I couldn't do it. But give me just one whiff of that good old religion stank and I become a trained monkey.
So, this is some kind of weird, I've been carrying it around like a little secret, wondering who I can try it out on. The natural choice would be my favorite athiest, W, but that would be like preaching to the choir, wouldn't it? I know my sister doesn't believe, so that's no big deal. I kinda feel like it needs to be a secret, but not a secret. Sorta the way people of faith used to just do their thing without preaching it out to everyone they knew. (Frankly, I find it annoying that our receptionist needs to give glory to God in every fucking sentence. Hey, nice that you believe, but is this really the place?)
I think that the assumption that most people carry is that you DO believe in God. They just assume that even if you don't practice your thrust-upon-you-at-birth religiion, you are just "lapsed" or "non-practicing."
So to be one of the non-believers, hmmm. It's interesting. And once again, I've chosen the path of the outsider.
I'm still finding out what I do believe in.
Free will.
Natural selection.
Maybe nothing is the safest thing to believe in.
More on this later. It's very interesting.
I don't know if it's as interesting as fucking other people's husbands, but I'll definitely come back to it.