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Illegal beefing…
Chefs, bless their little cotton weed holders, but they are funny people. They are mainly funny to look at but occasionally they come out with little gems, like this one a chap emailed me with recently... I used to be a chef at a carvery. We had a lovely piece of beef on med-rare amazing [...]
Look, you are not my father…
Sunday afternoon...again. It's always Sunday afternoons. I seated a chap and his delightful young lady friend. They weren't so much as pitching woo but rather hurling barbed comments and pointed insults. There was the occasional break in hostilities and not always when I was at the table. "Yer a fuckin dick wee lad..." [inaudible reply] [...]
Well Done Careers…
I would suggest positions like these don't come up very often - the opportunity to work with one of the founding fathers of modern cuisine, Paul Rankin, in one of the city's most celebrated restaurants, Cayenne. You'd be as daft as a horse in a swimsuit not to seriously consider this position. If you are [...]
When waiters attack…
From CourtNewsUk... Heh, the moral of the story being don't come between a waiter and his/your leftovers and his best pal. Clearly the judge thought so too. I think this gives me licence to threaten if not actually stab. Should have used a fork though, much classier. Overreacting idiots get-out clause (there have been a [...]
We have reached the critical point of no return…
As I stood in the rain on Sunday morning talking to a grown man in a Marvel Comics hoody, ill-fitting red trousers and food on his face waiting for a sleepy headed manager to arrive and let us in I began to wonder that somewhere, somehow my life had deviated somewhat from the carefully laid [...]
Retail Therapy #5
Another one from our friendly ex-post office staff member... Young woman comes in: do you have a form for when you have to change your provisional driving license to a full one? me: [hands her a form] her: so do I have to fill it in? me: [dies after face palm] yeah- really From a [...]
Oh really? Are you? How Nice…
Ah concerts are great aren't they? From the excitement of finding out your favourite band are playing in a venue near you to going through the unrelenting ball ache of trying to book tickets before every other Tom, Dick and snidey tout gets their hands on them it really is a whirlwind of excitement. Once [...]
Il Pirata – Review
So Il Pirata then. My nearly forty years shuffling about on this mortal coil, 22 of them spent in the service of the demanding and hungry, have left me a cynical, jaded husk of human being. I find myself more at home to misanthropic outlooks than rainbows and love nothing more than wallowing in a [...]
Call me…
So I asked for the stories of the Call Centre workers and they duly delivered...after putting me on hold for twenty minutes and asking me for my details five times. Heh, only joking. Being based in Belfast doesn't help... I was once a directory enquiries operator for a mobile phone company. Time was of the [...]
The less you know and see the better…
I've never understood people who watch behind-the-scenes extras on DVDs or worse, actually seek out the special five disc DVD with director's commentary and all that. What's the point in that? Surely it just ruins the magic eh? I made the mistake of watching the behind-the-scenes on the Matrix DVD. I mean all I see [...]
Retail Therapy #4
Today's Retail Therapy Submission comes from the ever delightful "Cashier #9". She or he has more dark tales than the Brothers Grimm. Seriously, I'm scared of my inbox now. Lifetime Warranty A colleague of mine was serving an old gentleman, trying to find him an appropriate picture capturing device. The gent was harping on for [...]
Cold Call Roulette
Are Call Centre staff the most verbally abused members of the customers service community? They really must be. I mean how many times have you taken a call you weren't expecting from some poor sod trying to complete a survey or something and you've pretty much or actually told them to shove their survey/phone/headset up [...]
Idiot…
So one night last week, not sure which one. I could hazard a guess but it's not really important, maybe it was Tuesday, maybe Wednesday, I dunno. Like I say it doesn't really matter. It was a cold night, the sort you might expect in early January or actually any month before May in this [...]
Dog on a Skateboard…
I was on the radio today, You & Yours on Radio Four. Oooh get me. I spoke at length about the joy of waiting tables and on the topic of customer service in general. My twenty plus years in the game have marked me as an expert in the field and the great and the [...]
Come on men, stop being tools.
Once whilst taking an order at a table I had a gentleman tell me not to take any heed of his wife as she was on her moons. I have always considered this to be one of the crudest things I'd ever heard from the mouth of a guest particularly given the situation - a [...]
Retail Therapy #3
This story needs no introduction, it's from a former retail assistant named Phil and it's a gem... Many years ago I worked in a shoe shop in a rural town in South Antrim. It is a big enough town, there are a few pubs, a couple of shopping centres (one on a hill) and a church [...]
Real life Mr Burns breaks waiter’s finger…
And people say I exaggerate the antipathy and aggression of some customers, pfft... From Gawker, John Castle, 76-Year-Old Palm Beach Plutocrat, Breaks Insolent Waiter’s Finger. On Saturday night, according to a complaint filed with the Palm Beach Police Department, he reacted to subpar service by calling his waiter a "schmuck" and breaking his finger. Castle [...]
Retail Therapy #2
So Retail eh. I've been banging on for years, nearly five whole years, about the joy and never-ending delight of waiting tables and yet I publish one post about retail and all of a sudden the BBC wants to do an interview. Proper journalist and everything, Julian Worricker no less. On a proper channel, Radio [...]
Ask Manuel – The problem with “miserly shirkers…”
A reader writes... Manuel, I am a huge fan and have been for a while, my long-suffering colleague and food freak put me onto the blog a couple of years back. If you ever get a moment I'd like some tipping advice please. I tip, I hope, adequately for regular service and heavy for [...]
Retail Therapy #1
Waiters eh, we are a rum lot. Sorry, I mean are full of rum a lot, especially at this time of the year when there is little else to do but drink rum. It's at this time of year my thoughts turn to other, less fortunate, beings who must fight the good fight with the [...]
