I believe the words were... "I'm under no obligations at the moment... so I can decide not to come back after tomorrow and they won't be mad... but if I'm going to work... I want it to be steady... so unless it's absolutely horrible... or not enough money... I'll be asking for a permanent position."
So then why was it so HARD for me to quit today? I mean, god! I was supposed to be under NO obligations. The deal is this...
I was HELPING them today because they were so shorthanded... on account of those picketers who yelled at me as I walked in this morning. And they couldn't guarantee a position... but just come in and work for some quick cash right now. The guy, Joe, said he bussed the night before because of how short staffed they were and the waiters tried handing him his tipout in "hundreds"
So I came to the decision this morning... that I'm not going to be happy bussing tables... but I should do it the next three days to make some money to buy Christmas gifts for everyone back in FL. Three days of this and then there's The View filming and all of that. And heck, if I made $150 a day... that'd be plenty of money to cover the commuting costs, the Christmas shopping and money to sustain me until I find a local job after Christmas.
So once inside Oyster, I am immediately handed W2 forms. But all right, all right... even though I'm only working on a day to day basis, it still has to be legal. I fill them out.
And then there's the training. There were at least four other bussers working today. All Tibetan. Between the four, they know two english words. What these two words are, I do not know, because they never spoke them. So the two words are just theoretical.
To understand a busser's duties at Oyster, you must understand that the place is huge. Really, really monolithic folks. They have ten walk-in freezers in the kitchen. Ten. Market Street had one I believe. Now then...
Bussing here consists of being the waiter's bitch. You're in charge of getting everyone water, refilling water, fetching bread and butter, removing plates from each course as soon as the customer is done with them and then eventually clearing the table (balancing everything in your hands until you walk it to the nearest bus pan... no bus pans to the table) and then finally re-setting the table.
Resetting the table goes like this. You take all the salt and pepper and what not off the table. Remove the table cloth. Throw a clean table cloth over it. Replace the salt and pepper. And then, each corner of the table gets a bread plate. In front of each chair you stand a fancy-ass folded napkin (that we spent all morning folding) upright. To the right of the napkin, the butter knife... blade facing in. To the right of the knife the soup spoon. To the left of the napkin the salad fork. Behind the napkin a water glass face down. And then it's ready to be sat! And ready for you to pour the water! And then run into the back and create the bread basket using a very scientific bread to person ratio.
This ratio involves
X (number of people at table)
Y (number of buscuits to add to basket)
n (number of flatbreads to add)
Q (number of sourdough rolls)
P (number of oyster cracker pouches)
M (number of pads of butter)
Now Y and P are equal to X and n is 1 and 1/2 X. Q is 1/2 X and M is who gives a donkey dick.
But then... miscommunication arises. These bread formulas are all wrong.
But how can that be?
It seems I'm being trained by someone who is still in training himself. In fact, after extensive surveys... I come to the realization that sixty percent of the employees are on their first, second or third day. This is entirely due to those people outside, wearing sandwich boards and saying, "Don't work there!" as I walked in.
The absolutely unorganized atmosphere this newbie-laden floor had created was enough to make me wish I was drinking bleach.
Five bussers... and yet we all share the entire floor and all of the tasks. Nobody in management could think of splitting us into sections or keeping us to certain tasks? Without our own sections to survey... I found myself concocting bread formulas for tables that suddenly had bread by the time I got to them. I found that as soon as I had compiled the supplies to reset a table... One of them damn Tibetans was all ready on the job. This is just an awful and confusing way of working. And I told the manager that too... when I was formally quitting.
On to it then...
I come to find that I am full on in the hiring process and would be on training pay for the next three days. My three days of helping out for quick cash are three days of working twelve hours for one quarter the normal tips. And then... what are the normal tips? $40-$80 ... So let's see... a quarter of $80 is $20 and then we'll minus the $25 in round trip train travel and I'm making negative five dollars a day! But then... if I kept the position I could end up making as much as $55 after travel costs! $55 in 12 hours! Less than minimum wage! All right!
So you see... it had to be done. I had to quit. And I did it on my lunchbreak so as to not even bother with dinner. And I went home with nothing. Negative twenty five dollars. Not to mention all the clothes I had to buy.
A complete waste of my time.
On the way out, as the strike members yelled at me for working there I laughed and said, "Don't worry, I just quit."
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