I know I said that this would be a regular Monday feature, and I intended for it to be so. However, Blogger kept giving me error messages yesterday when I was trying to post, and I finally got frustrated and gave up, so it's a Tuesday feature this week.

I don't have much material this week, as I only worked two days this past week. A lot of the college kids who had been out of town for winter break came back and wanted a lot of hours on their first paycheck back, which gave me a much-needed break from the bar. I decided I would do a quick rundown of the names and roles of everyone I work with. From here on out, I will only post the names of those related to the stories. Nicknames are used wherever possible to protect the silly.

Brian: The owner/good friend of mine/Best boss ever.
Kelly: Co-owner/Brian's wife.
Moses: Bar manager/bartender
Cap'n: Delivery manager/delivery driver/my partner in crime
E-rock aka E-Slide: Manager/bartender/cook
JT: me/everything but delivery driver, waitress, manager, and owner
Mo: Cook
Mike: Cook
Rusty: Cook
The Nuge: Cook, received nickname of "The Nuge" because he was "New Josh" and we shortened it.
Drew: Cook/Delivery Driver/Waitress (he hates it when we call him a waitress.)Harris: Cook/Delivery Driver/Avid Ron Paul supporter to the point of being obnoxious.
Robert: Delivery driver
Eric: Delivery driver
Twan: Door guy
Wilbur: Bartender/door guy
Chris: Bartender
Stephanie: Bartender
Billy: Bartender
Janet: Waitress
Amy: Waitress
Meredith: Waitress
Randi: Waitress
Susan: Waitress


Now, without further ado...let the Idiot Speak.

I know that I've mentioned that I'm the oldest employee other than the owners. Saturday during the day, Aerosmith's Pink started playing.

JT: Man, I used to love Aerosmith, but I can't stand anything after their Pump album.
E-Rock: Of course you did. You were probably around for their first album.

On Saturday during lunch, it was obvious that Drew had partied a little to hard Friday night. He was staring off into space, not paying attention, couldn't understand what we were trying to tell him, and his hair was standing up in places. There's no real story or conversation to associate with this, we just had fun picking on him by randomly yelling his name and pretending we hadn't, or by throwing mushrooms at him so he could look around and wonder what the hell just hit him in the back.

One of the lids that we use to cover our pizza toppings is loose and occasionally falls backwards onto the floor, resulting in a loud crash. This happened Sunday night when there was no music playing due to football being on.

CRASH! (most of the customers look towards the kitchen)
JT: (looks at Brian) I quit!
Bri: (looks at me) You're fired!
Chris: (looks at a guy walking out the door) And stay out!

Since Brian wasn't actually working Sunday night, and is a Giants fan, he got to drinking a bit more, a bit earlier than usual, which made for a very entertaining night on my part. He was waking around after the Giants victory, telling jokes and introducing himself to any new customers. His standard line after each joke?

Bri: The entertainment is free, but you gotta pay for the booze!
Bri: Hey! That should be our new slogan! Josh - put that on the website! Stat!

I've been put in charge of redesigning the website, I'll let you know when it's done.

A little bit after 10:00 Sunday night, Brian was standing in the kitchen, talking to me. Suddenly he pulled out his phone, and looked distressed.

Bri: Holy shit! (takes off running to the bar, I went back to making pizzas. He returned about a minute later with a beer in his hand.) Here. I just realized it was after ten and you weren't drinking with me yet.

Did I mention he's the best boss ever?

We had a rather odd request in the kitchen Sunday night. A guy ordered a small cheese pizza, but didn't want it hot. When we pointed out that he could just let it sit on his table for a while before eating it, he insisted that we cook it, pull it out of the oven, and sit it to the side until it was barely lukewarm before sending it out to his table. He sent the waitress back after he got it to tell us it was perfect.

I know I'm always bitching about the waitresses never paying attention to our 86 board (the place where we list everything we are out of so that they will know and tell customers when they order so that everyone knows ahead of time.) I decided I would prove a point Sunday. At 9:00, I put "86 Kittens" at the top of the board, and set the message to blink in all caps (it's on the computer at the wait station.)

No one ever said anything.


Enjoy your week, kids.

JT out.