Why I Was Fired

So, okay. Here it is, the details of The Firing (for those who I either don't know in RL, or haven't seen in ages). And for those of you who have already heard the story, I apologize, hopefully I'll be able to spice it up with some crazy metaphors and a flying nun or two.

It was a relatively slow Friday night at the good ol' Restaurant and a table of 3 women (very Southern, very made-up, very middle-aged but playing the Kim Cattrall card)walks in and says that 11 others will be joining them later for a surprise birthday party. They have balloons, they have cakes, they are obnoxious. They bully the hostesses into getting two specific tables which are from two different sections (mine and another waiter's), so in order to be fair, the other waiter and I decide to split the table between us and share the tip. Insert first flying nun.

An 90 minutes go by, and by now only 2 more have come in and together they've racked up a bar tab of just under $100. The Other Waiter and I smile - at this rate or grat. tip will be huge. Throw in another flying nun. 30 minutes later the birthday girl and her husband show up and they tell us that that's it, no more people, topping it off at 7. Other wiater and i are now a bit miffed to say the least. With only 7 people we can't grat. and it makes taking tables out of each of our sections completely pointless, and so we lose money because of that, too. But whatev. It's a slow night anyway, we think, and the way these people are going, we might still make it out alright. They've been nice to us, chatting, making jokes. Generally a good atmosphere.

The table has been there for nearly three hours and we're about to close. They are drunk. Belligerent, millitant drunk (which, to be fair, shouldn't have happened. Other Waiter and I should have kept more of an eye on this). And they fight with us over the bill and don't apologize when they find out that we (the waiters) were in fact right. They hang around the table for a while longer and while clearing off some plates, Other Waiter sees the tip amount. Less than 10%. And that's between the two of us. Fuming, she comes to find me over at the bar and tells me and the two of us start laughing at the absurdity of the entire situation; a few nasty remarks were exchanged, the term "drunk bitches" may have been used. You may be able to see where this is going.....

We turn around and realize the Birthday girl's husband is sitting at the bar. Fuck. Us. Other Waiter and I run into the kitchen to hide, Birthday comes and actually tries to fight us, negotiations between her and the manager ensue, Other Waiter and I are fired.

We knew what we did was wrong, but the thing that made it bad was that we were the Good Girls, the ones the managers loved, the ones who never did anything wrong. And this has happened to a few other servers and they'd not been fired. Basically, we were being made examples of. Which blows.

What helps is when your manager calls you when you get home from being fired and tells you to come back and get your job back in a couple weeks. What makes it even better is when they call you and ask you to come back sooner.

And that's it, that's the story. Hope you enjoyed it. I could have peppered it with a few more flying nuns and maybe even thrown in a velociraptor for good measure, but I'm a little tired.