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Sunday, June 3, 2012

And to think I used to like Paula Deen.

So I have a little time before I am off to BBQ so I figured since it has been requested of me to tell the story about the evil Paul Deen look a like I dealt with at work last week I would put it out there.

As you all know I am a waitress.  I have been at the same place for four years.  It is at Gillette Stadium (yes, home of the New England Patriots).  We deal with a lot of crazy stuff over at the stadium, depending on what kind of events are booked.  Last week it was the NCAA Lacrosse Finals.  It was three days of pure hell.

On event days we are supposed to park over in East Bum fuck.  For anybody who has been to Gillette, we park at Bass Pro Shop on these days.  My restaurant is located as far away from there as you can get.  I give it a good mile walk.  So thanks to lacrosse hell that was our designated parking area for the weekend.  Seeing that I am a rebel I wasn't gonna deal with that so I parked illegally.  Hey, I didn't get caught so no harm done, right?

The managers were expecting a very busy weekend.  Actually, I was too.  It turned out to be a total dud.  It was beautiful outside so everybody was tailgating.  It was the slowest Saturday night I have worked in a very long time.  It was a good thing I brought Mr. Grey with me as I got to pound out a good 200 pages of my book that night.

We did have a private function booked for the first floor.  It was for the Maryland Lacrosse team that had played the late game of the day.  They had booked the event for 150 people.  The staff working the event was all ready for them.  What they weren't ready for was the 300 people that showed up.  The event ended up being understaffed and the food that had been ordered for it was not enough to feed the 300 rabid college kids that were there.

The managers were running around like crazy trying to prepare more food.  I really felt for Russ, Ryan, Pete and Greg as they were truly doing all they could to fix a situation that they had no control over.  They had two other floors of regular guests to take care of in addition to the mess downstairs.  I was working on the second floor taking care of my own tables but I heard about what was going on downstairs so I took a peek ever the railing to check it out.  Big mistake there.

Next thing I know the Paula Deen look a like comes running up the stairs.  I was so not prepared for her.  She runs over to me, gets in my face and the abuse begins.  First of all, let me put on the record that I really had no idea that Maryland was considered the deep south.  This lady sounded straight out of True Blood Bon Temps Louisiana.  She starts poking me in the chest with her index finder and shouting "Y'all need to get downstairs and cleaning my tables!"  My first response was "Excuse Me?"  She then followed up with "Y'all are standing up here doing nothing when my people need to be taken care of.  There is no food and the place is a mess.  Y'all get your ass downstairs now!"

Ok, first of all, I certainly do not deserve abuse from any guest like she was dishing out.  For one, I am not  a busser, I am a server.  Second, I had my own guests to take care of, guests that I am actually being paid to take care of.  Third, oh no you did not really just touch me!  That is my biggest pet peeve, there is no reason for a guest to EVER touch me.

I turned my back and walked away and found Ryan in the kitchen to deal with her.  Well, after I walked away she started in on Charlotte, the hostess.  Seriously, the hostess, whose job it is to seat people.  I love Charlotte to death and it really pissed me off that she was "Y'all ed" as well.  Thankfully for Charlotte, our executive chef Pete stepped in to sort the crap out.  Now I have seen Pete mad before, more times than I can count, and I have been on the receiving end of Pete's anger, it is not pretty.  I was siked that he was going to be the one to sort this crazy lady out.  Thankfully he was able to calm her down and send her back down stair to her people.

I seriously hid from her the rest of the night whenever she came upstairs with a new rant.  I have a short temper as anybody that works with me will confirm.  I somewhat like my job and I knew if I had come across her again I would end up fired.  I can only image what the poor staff that actually had to work the event had to deal with.

It all did have a happy ending however.  Maryland lost in the finals to Loyola so out PD look a like got her just desserts in the end.  Karma will always come back to get you. 


9 comments:

  1. congrats Heather for keeping your cool I really don't think I would have been able to. the finger in the chest would have done it for me. I don't think I'd make it through one sift as a server.

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  2. Damn, I woulda opened up a can o' whoop ass on her! You handled it well. I was a waitress and some people can be the biggest dick weeds on the planet.

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  3. I don't know what I love more - the fact that you brought Mr. Grey with you to the stadium to work (giggle blush) or the fact that Maryland lost. Lacrosse is on my last damn nerve (hubs plays and so does eldest - i swear they've been gone for 9 weeks!) ... I've had to deal with your Paula Deen-lady before. I like to say.."you know, when you point that finger at me, 3 more are pointing back at you..." lol. You handled it beautifully. Sorry you got blasted with 2x as many people as you were supposed to! xo DG

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    1. HAHA Lacrosse, we don't even have it where I am from. We were all cheering for Loyola in the final.

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  4. You should have decked Paula Deen right in the ovaries, kudos for staying calm..

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  5. My blood is boiling right now. What did the servers say about it at the end of the night?

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  6. Ugh, I hate people like that! It's like they think that if you're working when they interact with you, they can get away with being as obnoxious and rude as they like because you're being paid to take it!

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  7. So I thought maybe an award would bring you back into the world of bloggers, been missing my dose of a sister from another mister.

    Come on over and pick it up at my blog!

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  8. Oh honey, you handled that so very gracefully. I probably would have broken her finger the second she touched me with it and told her to stick it up her ass!

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