It was a stressful night. One of the cashiers called in sick, and we were expecting Oaklawn at some point. (Oaklawn is a local private school. A few times a month, they call and say they'll be bringing a busload of 40-50 boys in for dinner. The kids are all about 10-12 years old, generally well-behaved, but LOUD and hyper. It's kind of sad, really. I always get the impression that the field trip to Fazuul is the high point of their month. That's probably not true, but they all seem WAY too excited about the whole thing.)

(Oaklawn sucks. Again, the individual kids are all very nice. But there's too damn many of them, and they all order the same thing but pay separately, which makes the kitchen cry. I don't know if I can explain this. If you've ever worked in a restaurant, you can maybe see our pain, but if you haven't, I don't even know where to start. The screen in the kitchen has 10 orders, all for two slices of pizza. You've already put in two whole pizzas, or was it three? The pizzas will take about 3 minutes to cook. Oh, wait now there's 15 pizza orders, but four of them are cheese. Wait, did I put in a cheese pizza? 20 orders of pizza, but two of them are three slices, instead of two, and some of them will also get a small spaghetti.)

(Then the pizzas all come out, and the person handing out the food has to deal with 40 zillion little receipts that all say pizza. The kids are all standing right there: "I had pizza! ME! MEE!"

"Ok, great, may I see your pager. See, this pizza is for number 16, and you have number 4. This is not your pizza. No, really. Please don't take that one. PLEASE leave that order there. I swear that when your pizza comes, (which granted, will look almost exactly like that one.) you'll be the first one to know. See? His pager is flashing and making noise. Yours is not. That means this is his pizza, not yours." Now try having this exact conversation five or six times simultaneously. Also, Oaklawn will say they're coming at say, 6pm, and then not show up till 7:30.)

So. Monday night. Asshole was working the dealing-with-receipts position (technically, we call it "Expeditor"), I was working the put-a-million-pizzas-in-the-oven position ("Sandwiches") and also the take-stuff-out-of-the-oven-and-slice-a-million-pizzas position ("Oven Coordinator"). He was having a difficult night. A random other bus showed up without calling first. Something went wrong with the printer. When your whole job is matching plates of food to slips of paper, and you can't get the slips of paper, sucks to be you. He dealt with it, apparently. I had my own troubles, and couldn't really help him. No one complained loudly enough for me to notice, and the first bus left relatively happy.

It was 5:45. Oaklawn could show up at any time, so I was making numerous trips to the cooler, to get the kitchen stocked and ready. OK, we've got 5 pizzas prepped. Excellent. Remember that one time when they all randomly decided to order lasagna instead? Let's put another pan of lasagna in, just in case. Hey, Steamtable, how's the meatballs? Do you have enough sauce? OK, I'm on it.

I came out of the cooler with an armload of pans of breadsticks, and found my cashier/2nd drivethru person (remember, I said I was short one person) with a strange look on her face. "Asshole's gone."

"Wha?"

"He walked out."

"Yeah, right." I laughed. "Hold these for a sec."

"I'm serious. He left his keys on the counter." I slowly realized that the look on her face was not "Let's play a funny joke on Jen, right before Oaklawn comes" but actual borderline hysteria. FUCK!

"Do you want me to try and call someone? Oaklawn will be here any minute!"

"I already called everyone, back when I knew we were short a cashier. There isn't anyone. I'll call another manager."

I tried the LRM first, because I thought she would be more likely to say "Oh, that sucks, I'll be there in 10 minutes" than Mr. J. He might be in the Oshkosh Fazuul, or visiting his wife's family in Chicago. If he's not in the restaurant, he could be almost anywhere. Instead, she said, "Oh, that sucks, let me call Mr. J." Dammit. Well, OK, that's means there's only four other things I have to do right this minute, so thanks. I called the other Associate Manager, but he didn't answer his phone.

So, yeah. In a perfect world, I would have had a staff of about eight. I had been scheduled six, and now I had four. The Breadstick Fairy was relatively new. She knew breadsticks, and she kind of knew Expo. The other three people were long-time employees, and two of them knew every single position. Looking back, it could have been so much worse. Oaklawn was right on time. Everyone did about six different things at once for two solid hours, and somehow, we got through it.

The two guys who had been there since 11am and who by all rights should have left about 8 stayed till 9:30, helping us get caught up. The Breadstick Fairy was scheduled till 9, but she offered to stay to help SuperCashier close. That meant the only real problem was that since none of the managers were returning my calls, I was the only one with a set of keys. (Ok, technically, there was another set of keys. Asshole left his on the counter, remember? SuperCashier was using them, and doing her own deletes and voids, because she although she wasn't supposed to know how, she did.) I was the only authorized set of keys. I was the only one who knew the combination to the safe.

LRM called back at 9. "How did it go?"

How do you THINK it went?? Fuckyoufuckyoufuckyou! Deep breath. "We survived."

"Mr. J. just now finally called me back. Neither one of us can come in"

Sigh. "That's ok. The worst of it's over now, and I've been assuming I'd end up closing ever since Asshole left."

I worked 11am-midnight. I remembered my last diary entry, and laughed. So that's how you get out of a restaurant job. Good to know.

I can't even imagine doing it, of course. Besides being incredibly inconsiderate to everyone else unlucky enough to be working that night, it's just plain stupid. Word on the street is that Asshole might have another job lined up, but if that falls through, or if they decide to call us for a reference, he's basically screwed.


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