Since I was a child I have always been obsessed with dreams. I often make my friends listen with feigned patience as I try to recall the salient details of each one the next day. However, per usual, I get distracted halfway through the story and drift off into a blank stare. It happens. Out the myriad of dreams I have been visited with over my lifetime, the ones that have stuck with me the most, those whose details remain sharp and emotions acute, are my nightmares. As I got older my nightmares began to change. Instead of being chased by dinosaurs who could breathe fire and travel through time (scary, right?), I was shoved on stage and told that "Duh, Courtney. Didn't you know you were in this scene?" even though I was certain I was just the spot operator. I didn't know terror, however, until the waitmares started.
I am certain everyone has some sort of perpetual nightmare concerning his or her occupation, but I will venture to suggest that the nightmares associated with the waiting profession are among the worst. The general theme of these nighttime illusions usually coincides with something I have been frustrated with at work. While working at Carinos, I would dream that large parties kept coming in and, despite my best efforts, I could not surpass the velocity of molasses. No matter how fast I tried to make drinks and take entrees out, there was always more people at the table than I was able to help. When I started bartending, the dreams evolved. Never-ending waves of drinks would spew out of my printer and I couldn't find any liquors or wines I needed. In fact in one variation, each time someone ordered wine I had to climb up a ladder behind the bar and get the bottles from the roof. (There have been ones with zombies too, but I refuse to dwell on those. Eek.)
There have only been a few times in life that I have ever had a stressful enough shift for it to be called a living waitmare. The most recent, and the worst, was my shift Saturday night at Snookies. The fates, with their obviously ironic sense of humor, ordained an epic catastrophe. Usually on Saturdays we're slow until the late night crowd stumbles in, so to keep the employees happy and making money our mangers decided to stagger waiter arrival times. I was the first; I came in at five and had two tables until six when the second person came in. Since the Tech/OU game was on at 7 and we are generally slow during games due to our proximity to the gaybourhood, I found the crossword and settled in for an uneventful few hours. Then it happened. I had four tables when our POS system crashed. It was more of an annoyance than a hindrance at the time. Everyone was cool. It's happens every now and again and takes fifteen minutes to reboot. But the system never came back up. And I got eight more tables. At the same time. And the bartender went MIA, apparently he was upstairs to try to fix the computers, while I was left searching for Amstel Light in one of our six coolers using a broken pen light. Because the computers were down, I had to not only hand write every order for the kitchen but recall the exact specifications of my prior tables orders (whose average tab was 50 bucks of 3 dollar drinks) so I could calculate tax on an old 9 key and slide credit cards on the knuckbuster. On one trip back to the kitchen, I saw my manager pounding numbers into the calculator screaming "You have GOT to be kidding me! WE KNOW PRIMO!!!! WE KNOW!" while the cook slammed his fist on the bell to signify the growing number of burgers drying out under the heat lamps and watch my co-worker Erin fumble with a tray on the verge of tears saying "Why do they need water! They already have Diet Cokes!"
Thankfully the chaos was relatively short-lived and normalcy was returned. However, I'm still drained. Though I enjoy the flexible lifestyle I'm allowed by waiting tables (i.e. tutoring part-time at Huntington), it's nights like Saturday spur me to search even harder for a "real" job. I'm tired of smelling like french fries and vodka and getting home at 2:30 AM every Saturday and Sunday.
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