Friday night the guys from work had planned to go for a meal together. Y'know, cos we do actually like each other. We're a good bunch, all in all.
We started off at The Atlas Lounge where the "Happy Hollycaust" colleague downed 3 double Jack Daniels and Coke. This is very much the norm. Whenever there is alcohol, he will knock it back as fast as he can right from the get go. Odd thing is, you canno actually tell he is drunk because he indulges in odd, inexplicable, not quite appropriate behaviour at all other times, too. The main difference that alcohol brings it that you can excuse it as being booze-induced.
I noted the waitress who served us demonstrated the worst bt of waitressing I have ever witnessed. First of all, as we ordered, she would write out everything in full in her little notepad.
"1 bottle of Corona, 1 orange juice, 1 pint of Carling, 1 glass of Pinot Grigio"
rather than the more sensible
"1 B Corona, 1 OJ, 1 p Carl, 1gl Pin Grig"
and she didn't even scribble it down hastily, she put her pad down and meticulously wrote each one.
When the drinks arrived, she didn't have a clue who had ordered what. Not even roughly who had ordered beer, who had ordered wine, who was on soft drinks. She drew a complete blank and it's not like the place was packed and her short term memory was under pressure.
When she put the drinks on the table from her tray, she would grip the top of the glass, fingers at the rim, rather than at the base, as is more hygienic. Yeah thanks, nice, you want to stir my drink with yoru fingers, too?
but worst of all was when she put the glass of red wine for redhead on the edge of the painted wooden table. The base of the glass was wet and made the glass slowly slip and eventually fall off the edge of the table and straight into redhead's handbag.
So what does the waitress do? She pretends not to notice and camly distributes the remaining drinks on her tray. Then she calmly turns to redhead and asks "Do you want another glass of red wine?"
well of COURSE she does!! Or is she meant to drink it out of her handbag?!!
It took a bit too long but the new red wine arrived and the waitress appeared with a cloth to wipe up the spillage from the floor. She did say 'sorry about your trousers and bag" as she offered to wipe it, but she ought to have displayed (or at least feigned) horror at what had happened.
I don't know whether we got charged for that wine, I didn't see the bill. I wouldn't put it past her to have done, not out of malice but out of stupidity.
As we left I muttered about how in this country, waitressing is not given the due respect as a proper profession. This lack of seriousness about it means the standards are low. Waitressing seems to be what you do as a filler, while in college or to earn a bit, you don't seem to need to know how to do it, you don't seem get many proper professional waiters and waitresses - ones who have been trained. Shame.
ANyway, we then moved to the chinese restaurant and here the service was absolutely faultless. I know what a table of 12 can be like, but they handled us excellently. I don't know if it was the comparison of the daft girl before, but this lot at the Chinese were fantastic.
I normaly enjoy big social events like this but I was quite depressed all day (maybe why I was so judgemental on the waitress) and I wasn't in the mood for redhead colleague to start waving her chopsticks about like batons and using them to tap hers and other's glasses. She was tapping mine with enthusiasm and I wasn't even sat next to her. I discovered most of my colleagues were chopsticks cowards. Out of 12, only 3 were using them and only one other was brave enough to give it a try before asking for cutlery.
I enjoyed the starters, I really enjoyed the crispy duck but byt the main course the whole thing was getting tedious. The conversation wasn't holding my attention, I was sat between two people who liked each other and were flirting, so was sat right back while they flirted away oblivious to the obstacle (me) between them. My mind began to wander to my Gorgeous Landlord at home and how I'd much rather be there than here.
Fortunately no one wanted to linger as clubbing or something was suggested for afterwards. no one wanted to coffee except the one who had been hitting my glass with her chopsticks, so while she had her coffee, I asked for the bill.
It came to £310 even though three of us (including me) weren't drinking. I was splitting the bill for the table and was already dividing the drinks bill among drinkers only but one of the non-drinkers was going on and on and on about how she hadn't been drinking and so was only paying for the food. She put in exactly what the food cost (if you factor in service charge) and stayed mum about the bottle of water and liquer coffee she had had. We were still quite a bit short and everyone just kept throwing in a quid or two until we had enough. Non-drinker STILL bloody harping on about how she was only paying for her food etc. One person suggested that we don't HAVE to pay the service charge but I argued that could they, in any way, fault the service? No. No one could.
Finally we left, I made myt excuses and left for home as fast as I bloody well could and looked forward to hugging my Landlord and squeezing my Landlord and kissing my Landlord. He had already got an email earlier about how down I was actually feeling and I explicitly told him "affection will cure anything - except maybe piles and I don't have piles" and he called me to see I was ok while in the restaurant so I was looking forward to his warm arms as I get home.
I got home but -where is he? no coat in the cupboard. He's out. He's OUT! and so I went to bed, all gloomy and miserable and squeezed out a little tear because how dare he be out when I need him here. How dare he be out God knows where and having a drink when he SHOULD BE HERE!!!
And then he got home. And he smelled of beer. And he kissed me and hugged me and asked how my evening was and held me close and soothed me with affection. I said nothing, just felt my mood lift and I was me again. I forgave him for being out and I felt annoyed at my hypocrisy. All night he stayed close and was always there for a hug if I needed it. I don't think he can know how much I appreciated that or how much that helped. Affection cures everything.
