Stupid and Contagious (16 page)

“Here?”

“No, not here,” Phil says. “In California. They’re stil in school. They’re not on a national tour.”

“Not yet,” I say and smile at him. I’m smiling for two reasons. One, I am going to go to California next weekend to see what these kids can do live. If they’re half as good as the demo they recorded, this is our next signing.

And two, California is right next to Seattle. Sure it’s an hour or two by plane or . . . wel , I don’t know how many hours in a car, but it’s right there. I can check out the band and then head up to Seattle to meet with a certain someone. I hope Jonas has the mock-ups done. And I real y need to figure out the real address of Starbucks Corporate.

And like a gift from up above, I hear the ding on my e-mail. It’s from Jonas.

Subject: Re: Ad Mock-up

Date: 1/25/2004 5:54:39 PM Eastern

Standard Time

From: [email protected]

To: [email protected]

Dude—it’s rough, but it’s a start. Tel me what you think.—J

I click on the attachment and it starts to download.

We’d discussed what it should be. A hearty breakfast sitting next to a big tal glass of Cinnamilk. Eggs . . .

toast . . . waffles . . . bagels and cream cheese, maybe?

The download finishes and it’s . . . different. There’s a girl stretching in the background wearing workout gear. I like that. Nice touch. The Cinnamilk looks good, too. But what is that on the breakfast table? I can’t be certain. There are some nice-looking tomatoes. And then some kind of bread with a smear of something on it, and then rol ed up . . . something.

Some kind of meat. Whatever it is, it looks like nothing I’d want to eat, and more important, it sure as shit doesn’t look like breakfast.

I don’t want to make him feel bad because he’s doing this out of the goodness of his heart, but fucking hel . I write back, trying to focus on the positive.

Subject: Re: Ad Mock-up

Date: 1/25/2004 7:24:41 PM Eastern

Standard Time

From: [email protected]

To: [email protected]

Jonas—

Nice work, man. Excel ent color on the Cinnamilk. Not too brown, not too white. Just the right touch of color to real y look right.

(hey, I rhymed) Wel done, brother. And I love the workout girl. Real y great stuff. Thanks so much. Hey—just wondering . . . we’d talked about having the ad feature the Cinnamilk with “breakfast.” I wasn’t quite sure what we had there in the forefront. What exactly was that?

Subject: Re: Ad Mock-up

Date: 1/25/2004 7:31:32 PM Eastern

Standard Time

From: [email protected]

To: [email protected]

Thanks for the compliments. It’s fresh tomatoes, and bagels with lox.

Subject: Re: Ad Mock-up

Date: 1/25/2004 7:36:06 PM Eastern

Standard Time

From: [email protected]

To: [email protected]

J—

Again—real y nice work. I gotta say, though .

. . that doesn’t look like bagels to me. Or lox even. Are you sure? Didn’t we talk about . . .

like bacon and eggs or something?

Subject: Ad Mock-up

Date: 1/25/2004 7:41:43 PM Eastern

Standard Time

From: [email protected]

To: [email protected]

Dude—so sorry. Upon closer look I think it’s prosciutto on like some sort of focaccia bread. Not real y breakfast fare, I guess.

Ironical y, and this is just a coincidence . . .

Italians actual y consider prosciutto a

“breakfast meat.” I’l work on the bacon and eggs.

Breakfast meat? If I were to pick out the absolute last thing I’d want to devour with a tal glass of Cinnamilk, it might very wel be prosciutto.

But Jonas is awesome, and the fact that he’s taking time out of his busy day to create this thing for me far outweighs his inability to differentiate between an Italian snack and an al -American breakfast.

Anyway, the copy on the ad right now reads “You may outgrow sugar-coated cereals, but you’l never outgrow Cinnamilk.” It’s cute. Fun. But I’m not married to it. I’d like to have a few different taglines for options. And I need something real y clever. I need the guys who write the
Real Men of Genius
Bud Light commercials. Hel , I need a lot of things.

Heaven

I go to work an hour early to have my “meeting,” and Jean Paul and Bruce are already there and wave me into the office. This kind of formal sit-down isn’t good at al . It tends to bring out the Eddie Haskel in me. I mean, of
course
I’m going to be on the defensive. It’s already them—and apparently every person I’ve ever waited on—against me. They read aloud every complaint I’ve received and then have me sign each one at the bottom, to acknowledge that I understand and agree. What kind of crap is that? I may understand what they are saying. I understand because they are reading it to me in English, my native tongue. But agree? Uh . . . no. I most certainly do not fucking agree. And who even knew they wrote al these complaints down?

Al of my complaints were transcribed by the managers into this
incident book
I didn’t even know existed. They seem to relish letting me know I am the only one who’s made it into this little book. Quite an accomplishment. The book should just have my name on the cover. There is even one complaint typed on law-firm letterhead. They have to admit . . . I am popular!

So they’re sitting there reading me these complaints aloud, one after another. It doesn’t matter that there are just three of us in the room. I feel like I’m on trial and the charges are being read against me in front of a jury—ful of people I waited on and pissed off. I, of course, have a comment for each and every one of these complaints.

Jean Paul starts. “Table Eleven. A Mrs. Feldstein:

‘She—’” and he lifts his eyes up to me, “that means you—‘was very cold and rude. Bad service.’”

“Bad service how?” I ask.

“They didn’t get into it.”

“Didn’t you want to know?”

“Here’s the next one . . .” and he flips the page.

“From Mr. Giorgio: ‘Rude behavior. Bad service. Had been warned by the people at Table Seven not to sit in her section.’”

“What? Who was at Table Seven?”

“I don’t know,” he says, “but they warned him not to sit there.”

“Did Table Seven complain to you, too?” I ask.

“No. They complained to Table Eleven.”

“Table Eleven is nowhere near Table Seven,” I say, which is true. “And that’s insubstantial hearsay,” I proclaim. And al three of us seem to stop, marveling at my TV trial lawyer moment. “Unsubstantiated,” I correct myself quietly.

“Table Nine,” Jean Paul continues. “‘Rude. Said to us, and I quote, I only have two hands.’” I look at Bruce and Jean Paul and actual y hold up my hands.

“But it’s
true,
” I say. “I do. I only have two hands.

See?”

“You obviously are missing the point,” he says condescendingly. “We
all
only have two hands, but you can’t go saying that to customers.”

“And you don’t have to have an answer for everything,” Bruce adds. “Like this one . . . ‘When I complained that my food was cold, the waitress told me that cold was the new black!’” And so on, and so on. They ramble on about my bad behavior, misheard communications, misunderstood facial expressions, and the occasional cussword,
never
intended for customers’ ears. After a few minutes I sort of tune them out. Thank God they don’t know about the spitting incident—which I do stil think about and feel terrible about. Suddenly al these random thoughts start popping into my head, like the time my friend Franklin was on tour in Europe and he made it his Franklin was on tour in Europe and he made it his mission to learn how to say “eat a dick” in as many languages as possible. I think he told me the French say,
mange a bitte.
The thought makes me get the giggles because Jean Paul is French, and now I have this sudden urge to say it. I don’t, of course, but now I’ve got this panicked
what if
thing going. Like, what if I suddenly get Tourette’s and just blurt it out.

“I don’t know
what
you are doing out there, Heaven,”

Bruce says. “But something has to change.”

“Wel , what would you suggest?” I ask. Someone once told me that one way to avoid conflict is to ask the person what he or she suggests.

“I suggest you try harder to cater to your tables.

Treat the customers like they are guests in your home.”

“Guests in my home wouldn’t treat me like shit the way these people do.”

“If this is how you talk to us—your superiors,” Jean Paul heaps on, “I can’t imagine what you do at those tables.” My superiors? Oh my God, I need a new job.

You manage a
restaurant.
You are not superior to me.

Of course I don’t say this. But I have to bite my tongue this time to keep it in.

“I am speaking to you with candor, as my col eagues,” I say. “Believe me, if I did so at my tables you’d have a lot more complaints,” I say.

“I think you
already
have a lot of complaints,” Bruce says. “Look, we are in the service industry. This is the career that we chose. It’s nobody’s fault but our own when people treat us badly. And they wil , every day.

It’s what we chose. So you just need to learn how to deal with it better. Much better. Because nothing is going to change. The customer is always right.”

I want to scream. This may be what
they
chose, but it’s sure not, not,
not
what I chose. I do PR. I have a career. Things just got a little slow. I want to tel them this, but of course I don’t. I can’t. Because they
did
choose this as a career. This is their ceiling, pretty much. They’re managing a hip, successful restaurant.

What more could they want . . . besides my discontinuation of routinely offending their customers?

The end result of the meeting is I get a warning.

Wel , six warnings, if one were counting. And then a seventh, letting me know the next time I commit a restaurant sin (that they hear about, at least), I’m out.

I’m actual y shocked that they didn’t fire me, but I guess like they do in al professions these days, they’re keeping a paper trail in case they do let me go to prove I’d been warned and wasn’t fired unjustly.

Oh, and in case you should ever need it, “
Essen
der Gockel
” is “eat a dick” in German.

We’re wel into the night when Jean Paul sits these three ugly forty-five-year-old women at one of my tables which is a six-top. Three women at a table of six already qualifies as
not cool,
but to make matters worse they’re splitting everything. They’re splitting the spring rol appetizer three ways, two of them are splitting the lemongrass chicken, and the other one orders Ca Chien, which is a whole fried fish.

It’s one of their birthdays, and honestly, it’s a sad, sad situation. Here are three aging, lonely, and bitter women who have come to the über-hip restaurant hoping that maybe there wil be a table of three hot single guys who wil send over a round of drinks, and from there it wil be true love.

But this doesn’t happen. And every time they order another pinot grigio, they get a little more depressed.

I’m pretty nice to them al night long, trying to make them feel special and being extra attentive. It seems most of my complaints come from women, so on the offensive, I’m “kil ing them with kindness.” And then it comes time to serve their main course.

I have al three plates balanced on my arms. I give the two women who are splitting the chicken their plates first. The one who got the fish is sitting tucked into the corner, as far away from me as she can be.

Remember, this is a table for six people, so it’s a big, round table—but it’s positioned against a wal , and it’s impossible for me to walk around it. There is no way I can reach her to put the plate in front of her, so I lean forward and try to hand it to her. She doesn’t budge.

I raise my eyebrows a bit to say, “Okay, ma’am, this is your cue to take the plate.” Nope. Nothin’ doin’. She should have to manual y accept a plate from me? No, sir. I wil have to be the one to place this platter of fried fish in front of her, or she shan’t eat it.

So I reach over and stretch and manage, balanced on one leg, to place her plate before her.

Unfortunately, her fish manages to slide itself off the plate. Of course it does.

But
it only lands on the pristine white tablecloth. I’m at a total loss. I don’t know what to do, so I quickly stab it with a steak knife and put it back on her plate.

She’s not happy.

“I’m real y sorry,” I say. “I had been trying to hand it to you to avoid this, but . . .” She’s just staring at me with this icy stare. “I’l bring you a new one.” She squints her eyes at me, giving me a dirty look that could rival even my best high school dirty looks. She stil doesn’t say anything. I ask her, “Do you want me to bring you a new fish?”

“You mean do I want to sit here and wait for another half an hour while my friends eat? No.”

“Okay then,” I say.

“I would like another plate, though.” Huh?

I take the fish and the offending plate back to the kitchen and put it on a new plate. I even sprinkle a little parsley on it to make it look nice. I’m total y confused why she’l eat the fish but wants a new plate. Nothing was wrong with the plate except for the light skid marks that the fish made on its hasty departure. But
the customer is always right,
so I do what she asks.