Well, I survived. It has been a long, long week.
Let me give you a bit of background. On a busy weeknight we'll do 150-180 covers. If we hit 200 we've gotten our asses handed to us. On the weekends that number goes up to 250. If we hit 300 covers we'll be doing really really well.
This past New Year's Eve we did over 500.
Earlier in the week I wrote this grumpy little post (and Lori was probably right... I probably needed a hug), outlining my schedule for this Valentine's day weekend. Well, Saturday night we did almost 400 covers. 400 people who couldn't get reservations on Valentine's day booked came on Saturday (which then inspired THIS grumpy little post).
Sunday, a day when we hope for 120 covers, we did close to 250... and then came the dreaded day.
It was long. We did about 300 covers, which was good, but a bit shy of what we did last Valentine's day (granted, last year it fell on a Saturday, but there was a snow storm that day too)... The unfortunate thing about Valentine's Day from a restaurant perspective is that it starts right when you open the doors and doesn't stop until you close. For a group of waiters who've gotten spoiled by 4 hour shifts in which you are busy for maybe an hour, this makes for a rough time.
Of course I opened the restaurant yesterday morning. I made things worse on myself yesterday night by starting to countdown the minutes at roughly 5:30, which dragged things out significantly. All the while, all I could think of was getting through this shift.
And then the inevitable realization would come to me that, once the shift was over, I had to be back up here, at the restaurant this morning looking forward to another 12 hour shift.
Seriously, no one told me this management business was gonna be longer hours and harder work.
But, I'm starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel. Once through this shift, I have two days off in a row. A virtual weekend, except better because everything is open and all the jackasses I've been waiting on all week will be working. It is entirely possible that I can go anywhere I want without having to have any human contact with anyone.
Perfect.
(Incidentally, just as I was finishing up this post, a lady called to make a reservation, and she called me "love." It made my day, and may have partially restored my faith in the beauty of random human contact).
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