Wednesday, December 15, 2010

It's a Living . . .

Today we are going to go over catering etiquette.  This is the way to behave when attending an event that is catered.  

Your attitude toward the waitstaff is vitally important to the experience you wish to have.  This is different that being at a restaurant.  A catering staff is a very close knit group of people.  We turn blank halls into bar (and bat) mitzvahs, sweet sixteens, weddings, office parties and whatever you can imagine.  We can make your entire night a living hell if we want to, and more than likely, we already want to without you being a rancid whore.

If you are a skinny bitch who isn't going to eat anything, that's fine.  We are a little annoyed by that, but not completely.  What annoys us is when you pretend that we don't exist.  If we walk up to you with a tray of food (the tray is heavy, by the way) and smile and offer you a taste and you act like we're invisible, we are going to find a way to either spill something staining on your expensive clothes/fur coat or find a way to get you to ingest a human secretion.  This will become a game with us, and you will be known in the kitchen as the skinny bitch in the corner.  You don't even have to be evil to everyone, just one person and we will all know it.  And it is so easily rectified.  All you have to do is look us in the eye, say "No, thank you," and go on with your bitchy awful life with a husband who doesn't love you, kids who resent you and a gym membership  to fill the holes in your worthless life.

This is not the place to pick up women, so don't.  Especially not if you are an ugly, skeezy troll of a man with bad skin and a voice that grates like nails on a chalk board.  We are working.  We don't want to be.  We've been there for hours before you and have to stay a lot longer than you, and even though we're girls, we have to lift very heavy stuff.  The mood is not right for you to stop us on the floor while we are trying to pass food (again, with a very heavy tray) and try to get laid.  You won't succeed, and you will be targeted and laughed over in the kitchens in both English and Spanish.  If you are so struck by our beauty in our all blacks and ties and comfortable but unattractive shoes that you just must say something, just don't.  I know you feel like you know us because you've been staring at us from across the room all night (yes, we have noticed), but we have spent exactly two seconds on you, and you are just a creeper stranger who's had too much to drink and definitely doesn't make as much as he says he does.  We can also see where your wedding ring was. 

Catering is not like a normal job.  We don't have set hours.  So at the end of the night when everyone else is left and you are still clinging to the bar like a barnacle to a blue whale, we want to kill you.  We've been working for HOURS before you even thought about coming, and the longer you  stay, the smaller your chances are of getting home unharmed.  When we start closing up around you, GO AWAY.  If you see us clearing away the last of the food and pulling linens off the tables, GO AWAY.  When we take off our ties, let our hair down and start stacking chairs, GO AWAY.  Granted, these hints aren't the clearest to the most idiotic of the herd, but pretend for a moment that you care about someone other than yourself and move your ass out the door.

All in all, remember that your catering staff are people, acknowledging our presence is an awesome thing to do, and if you are an awesome person and get a catering staff on your side, we will take such good care of you you'll feel like this party was thrown for you by Jesus himself and not by your nasty boss who's begrudging every glass of cheap white wine at the sparse office party with the cheesy DJ and a room full of co-workers, drunk and dancing more whitely than ever in the history of drunken dancing.

Guess what I did tonight?

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