Image by Ed Yourdon via FlickrAfter vanquishing the drunken rogue, she leaned in to me and said "I don't know why, but Sunday is always a freak show". And she was right.
I have probably toiled in at least two dozen restaurants over the years, and I cannot recall a time when I enjoyed working Sundays. Though it could be much worse, I could be working the most despised shift in all of restaurantdom, the dreaded brunch shift.
My current employer runs an excellent Sunday brunch, and I have the utmost respect for the people who stand guard in this most treacherous battle. As often as not, Sunday Brunch sales exceed Sunday night sales in a shorter time period, but in the world of brunch every nickel is hard won.
Picky clientele, refilling coffee, eggs done just so and couples with two weekend papers tucked under their arms so that they may ignore each other in sync, while blaming you for their loveless trap. And the strollers, don't get me started on the strollers, yet alone the cargo.
Brunch is nothing but a congregation that celebrates the death cry of hope, catered by a hung over mob of angry and bitter miscreants not unlike myself.
And Sunday night is not much better. Make no mistake, I don't worry about the customers I know on Sunday night, I worry about the people I don't know.
Its Sunday night, and I have the closing shift. As I take off my coat the debit/credit card machine crashes, and those heroic soldiers who work brunch are out of gas and trying to figure out their cash in the face of the fact that they have charges sitting in the crashed debit machine.
Just to add to the fun, we forgot to clear the till from the previous evening, so it takes awhile for all of us to figure out the algebra of what is going on financially. Enraged, I ask myself who the idiot was that worked last night? After a careful investigation, I discover it was me.
We went through three scenarios before me and the Ace Of Bass figured it out.
In the first scenario, she confessed that she had made $900 on sales of $1300. That didn't sound quite right.
In the second scenario she made crap money, but we couldn't find it. Being the class act that she is, The Ace was willing to swallow the loss and walk away.
And finally the realisation that, like a bad Star Trek episode, there was a charge stuck in cyberspace, an updated version of a grainy Spock showing up on our radar screen, trying to tell us something. A financial piece of data for which there was no hard copy, something that had been billed but not collected.
It is one thing to get screwed in this business, but getting screwed on a brunch shift is the most cruel thing of all, and I have the deepest respect for The Ace and Smasher and everyone else who makes brunch work at my bowl of rice. I'm not sure I could do it.
Then again, after this initial problem was dealt with I was then informed that the busser was ill and wouldn't be joining us and I had to kick out some moron who I had mistakenly served and was now cruising the bar, annoying all and sundry who help me pay my rent.
Throw in a call to a 1-800 number over a cheap cordless VOIP phone where nothing can be heard in a crowded bar in a vain attempt to fix an apparently unfixable debit/credit card machine. "For extreme anger press what?"
And that was hour one of my Sunday shift.
But, such is the nature of the business. If you want that Saturday night shift, you have to play a little ball and work Sunday night. Ditto for Friday and Monday. And ditto for brunch.
In a just world, the sun don't shine on the same dogs butt every afternoon.
The smart people who make schedules know that a balance must be struck between seniority, credibility and fairness. Some effort should be made to cut the pie fairly, while taking into account a number of divergent factors, including the fact that each and every name on the payroll has rent and bills to pay.
Luckily, I work for a person who strives to find this balance. That is why I work Saturday night and Sunday night. Ying meet yang.
It is also why I was able to book off fourteen weeks in the last twelve months. Working Sunday may suck, but not being able to go to Africa, Asia and Central America sucks quite a bit more.
I must admit though, once in awhile, I long for those puritan times in Toronto when opening on Sunday was prohibited by law.
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