Ultimately, it's all out of our control anyway...
Showed up at work today bright and early at 10:18 am (hah..."early"...). With the addition of Dawn, we had the patio and the inside set up by 10:45, with a nice comfortable cushion of time between that and our opening 11am time. So when Mike shows up at 10:55am, Dawn and I assumed he was there to open the inside. Instead Mike tells us he was actually another 10:30er, and we go through a classic 'No, I'M Spartacus" moment until we realize that....d'oh! I mixed up today's and tomorrow's schedule and I'm not even supposed to be there today. Still, the weather was nice enough and it was busy enough that I stayed. All is well with the world and I walked with 55 extra bucks. Wee!
Meanwhile, in other 'my restaurant's management is retarded' moments, most restaurants have a little thing called 'Fresh Talk'. It's generally used as both an introduction to any new dishes the chef has come up with, lists of things that are 86'd for the day, and any other sundry announcements managers may have to make. So imagine my surprise when I request that today we sample a new dish I haven't tried yet only to be told that we would no longer be having food during fresh talk. This both makes no sense on it's own (how, exactly, am I supposed to sell an item as delicious convincingly if I've never seen it, let alone tasted it? Yeah, ok, I'm a great liar and a fabulous actress to boot, but that doesn't mean I want to be doing improv while making minimum wage), but made even less sense when the manager brought out a bowl of soup during Fresh Talk that we've all seen and eaten hundreds of times before, for no discernible reason. We were also 'quizzed' on both our uniform requirements and our service procedures, except midway through we were all wondering if these were trick questions. None of the 'answers' we were given to choose from on the quiz (multiple choice!) were correct. No, not a trick quiz, just a clumsy last minute attempt to apparently confuse us further regarding the mental health and efficiency of our managerial staff.
Sigh.
More Borders time put in today:
Luckily for me, Mr. Cahill has a lovely way of integrating engaging story telling with historical facts. Interspersing words like 'ugh' and 'heebie jeebies' with a few thought-organizing charts and maps goes a long long way to untangling what I would love to be a very interesting topic. It does require actual paying attention, but with all the Red Ink Brain KandyKorn I've been ingesting lately, I don't think that's a bad thing. I'm still working through it, but I'm enjoying the trip.
