Friday, October 29, 2010

Dear Jebus, It's Just Not that Complicated!

 Picking up with my theme from Monday, I will continue to share the most common characters that enter the cafe. Like great literature or film, my day-to-day life at the CONFIDENTIALITY CLAUSE Cafe is made of up about 10 types of people that find old and rarely unique ways to make me regret all of my life decisions leading up to this point. We've already met the field mouse and the rat, so let's move on to the next two animals:

The Ostrich - Most commonly a man (although I use the term lightly), the ostrich appears incapable of making simple decisions on his (or rarely her) own. The cafe caters (pun intended) to a broad clientele but we do have more than our fair share of couples or varying ages or families. Children under the age of 12 are my easiest customers - often polite, sometimes sweet, always absolutely sure of what they want to eat and commonly confident enough to place their orders. Men, especially when traveling with a partner, are the opposite. Too frequently I ask my regular follow-up questions ("Would you like cheese?" "chips or salad?" "small or large?") only to receive a blank stare, followed by a look of panic and then the inevitable turn to the mate and the question, "Dear?" Common foods for the ostrich are the hamburger, a side order of french fries or whatever his mate tells him to order.

The Vulture - The vulture may sound like a terrifying creature, strong and swift, maliciously feasting on the decaying remains of any vulnerable creature in sight, but the cafe vulture is more pitiable and less disgusting. First of all, the vulture is neither neither strong nor malicious... he or she is just naive, lazy, uninformed or downright stupid. And the vulture doesn't pray on decaying remains, no no. Rather, the vulture feasts on someone else's tasty meal with a healthy dose of my patience on the side. You see, I've come to realize that most people don't know anything about food - the food they order or the food they eat. The vulture is a person that waits in line, places an order, and then takes the first plate of food sent their direction regardless of what's on the plate. Here are a few examples:

  • This week, I called out an order for and placed on the counter a cup of soup while finishing the previous customer's shrimp quesadilla. This is pretty simple. A cup of soup takes no time for me to serve while a quesadilla requires approximately 4 minutes of prep and cook time. In case there is any confusion, a cup of soup (in a to-go container) looks like this:


And a quesadilla looks like this:
When I finished the quesadilla and called out the order, placing the plate on the counter, I looked around and couldn't find the customer. Meanwhile, there was an impatient customer glaring at me. I asked what she was waiting for and she replied, "My large cup of vegetable soup." What happened? Well, my quesadilla customer either forgot his order or is so amazingly stupid that he doesn't know the difference between a cup of soup and a quesadilla. The answer to this age-old question matters not. This was just another example of a vulture swooping in and feasting on another person's food and, not least important, my patience and that of the irritated customer.

** For anyone wondering about the title, Jebus is a reference from one of the funniest Simpsons episodes that I have ever seen.

2 comments:

  1. I just had to stop for awhile and breathe after laughing so hard at some of your posts. I worked in a restaurant before and I can relate to the type of customers you've shared here.Really made my day. Keep these posts coming :)

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  2. Thanks, Alisa, for reading and the high praise. It means a lot to me, especially coming from an industry pro!

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