I used to work at a restaurant in downtown St. Petersburg, FL called the Ovo Cafe. It's been closed now for years.
Servers always complain that waiting tables is the last legal form of slavery-- a hyperbole no doubt-- because American wait-staffers are directly responsible for the amount of money they procure for their service, and some patrons exploit that mercilessly to save a buck. It's a double-edged sword. There are others to whom you can do no wrong. I once tripped and dumped an iced tea all over a customer and the guy laughed about it, allowed me to help him clean up, and still tipped twenty percent. You can imagine how that might have gone with another kind of patron.
During my time, there were actually three Ovo Cafe locations, ours in St. Pete and one each in Ybor City and Sarasota. They were owned by a couple from Tampa, Ron and Marcie. Because they had three restaurants spread out over 60 or so miles, they were hardly around, but when they were, it was a nightmare.
Marcie was a wizened middle-aged woman, who from what I understand, never actually worked in a restaurant before she'd decided to open one. She was shrill, quick, and had a formidable temper that spared no mistake, no matter how small. Ron was three times Marcie's size, though clearly the subordinate in the marriage and the businesses. He gave the appearance of being a jolly, lenient soul, but a couple shifts with him, and you were quick to figure out he was even greedier than Marcie. He ran the books for her, and he'd watch us, and if we made a mistake, instead of saying something immediately, directly, he'd tell Marcie. You'd catch him watching you and he'd actually smile.
During my stint, business at the Ovo Cafe boomed. To her credit, it had a lot to do with Marcie's menu-- it was gourmet, healthy, ecclectic utterly unique, and people came from all over Tampa Bay for, say, the St. Petersburg pizza-- marinara, feta, artichoke hearts, capers, and shredded Mediterranean-style chicken. I loved the menu, knew every dish on it, and never got tired of it.
We servers loved the Ovo Cafe as if it were our own. If you've ever worked a time in a restaurant you inevitably become family with your coworkers. You depend on the speed and accuracy of the chefs and bartenders and they depend on your tip out. Everyone has a stake in how much money they make based upon their own personal efficiency and when it gets busy, it's a wondrous, well-oiled machine to behold. We could be an incestuous, raunchy, shit-talking drunken bunch, but we loved each other and we loved our restaurant.
That is, like I said, until Ron and Marcie showed up to run things.
I'd get the warning right away on the mornings Ron and Marcie were coming in. The two of them were utterly useless-- well, unnecessary, to be fair-- but instead of stepping back and letting us handle the lunch rush, they stepped in and threw a fat wrench into the works, which they'd see to be our fault, not theirs.
On an average afternoon between 11:30 and 1:30 there'd be five servers with five to six tables a piece-- a load, but we could handle them, the managers knew. Ron usually sat at the bar with his eyeballs all over us, and Marcie, for whatever reason sought to squeeze every last penny out of diners as she could.
I had a regular, Tom-- a lawyer who came in alone almost every day. Sometimes he'd bring a business associate. Tom drank water-- because he was an avid runner and health nut. He'd only had to tell me this once. As soon as he was seated, I'd arrive with a glass of water to his table. He'd say, Hi Jen. I'd say, Hi Tom, what's new? He'd get his usual Red Rustica pizza, or something different, and he'd tip twenty percent. If, on some days, we were short handed or out of something, or just slammed, he was completely understanding, no question.
Marcie, of course, had no idea who Tom was though he was in her restaurant practically every day.
One afternoon, I was being watched. I set Tom's water down in front of him and Marcie appeared out of nowhere, asking me gratuitously, if Tom knew about our famous black currant iced tea. I could have said, No, Marcie, Tom doesn't drink anything caffeinated, but since her question was more directed at him in a cheap sales attempt, Tom just said politely that the water was fine. But Marcie would not relent. Why don't you let him try it? She said to me, smiling at him. He then told her all he drank was water because he was a runner and preferred not to drink anything carbonated or caffeinated. Marcie walked away and I apologized. Who the hell likes going into a restaurant and having to defend their drink order? Tom was cool, of course, but others weren't.
It was fairly obvious that Marcie was looking to take advantage of that customer who couldn't say no. Funnily enough, She didn't even like the black currant iced tea. I, on the other hand, loved it. I drank so much of it, you could have hooked me up to an iced tea IV, and I'd have wheeled the bag around. I only recommended it, or suggested it, when I was asked. People would ask if it was any good, and I'd tell them, I'd guzzled six glasses in the last two hours. It was really delicious and I never served it to anyone who didn't end up liking it.
But large parties would come in and Marcie would salivate all over herself at the thought of selling 8-10 $2 glasses of iced tea. I could see where she was thinking further, about a $2 glass of iced tea in place of every water, and her bottom line going up, if even just a little. All I thought about was a pleasant working and a pleasant dining experience for me and my customer. I lived in the present, and even though it was work, it was my life at every moment. Marcie was always off somewhere in the future, she looked at diners as if they were each a piece of a new jetski or art piece. She would follow me ruthlessly to the tables to make sure I tried to upsell. That only made me look like I didn't know what I was doing, with her staring down the back of my neck.
I had an uncanny ability to remember people's orders, even in large parties, but when Marcie was around, I'd have to write everything down because I couldn't concentrate with her eyeballs all over me. During the lunch rush she'd actually hold us back in the kitchen, with two ready-to-go plates in our hands to wait until another server got back with a tray, because it was unprofessional, she said, not to use the tray. The place wasn't a five-star restaurant, and certainly wasn't known for its professional service-- it was known for its food, and speedy service if anything. It never occurred to Marcie that if we thought not using trays was hurting our sales, we'd use them. She could only see every "mistake" as a possible financial loss on her end. She had to alienate herself from us completely. She was so ruthless sometimes we'd get the sense she thought we were deliberately trying to sabotage her sales, which made absolutely no sense. Marcie made herself unlikeable because her position demanded it. That was true, and unfortunate, and she knew it. She was the one doing the least amount of work and making the most money. She never attempted to be cool, caring, or friendly. Her only friend was the bottom line.
A time came when we started hearing rumors from the managers that Ron and Marcie were thinking to sell the Sarasota restaurant because it wasn't doing well. A few weeks later, Marcie and Ron were down to two locations, and started frequenting our Ovo more and more. You can imagine how we all felt about that. The loss of their third location made the two uber-skittish about losing another, so they spent twice as much time in the remaining two. It was a disaster.
Ron thought up a brilliant lunch promotion where two entrees and two beverages received a half-price appetizer, when if you'd have asked us, it was completely unnecessary and not worth the cost or trouble. Diners order the least amount of appetizers during lunch, because they're in a hurry, they eat less at lunchtime, and they typically would rather spend the money on it at dinner. Plus, our customer base was a group of regulars who typically knew what they wanted to eat before they came in; we did a more than decent amount of business besides. But it wasn't enough for Marcie and Ron. They wanted to throw the goose into overdrive to squeeze out as many golden eggs as they could. They owned two condos in Tampa and St. Pete, and each drove a BMW SUV. A manager who had been to one of their condos once said the walls were packed with expensive art pieces including original French murals and a Warhol. They had more stuff than any person could ever want, but it wasn't enough. The appetizer promotion was a bust, and we were all pretty sure Ron and Marcie had lost money, printing all their ad flyers and giving away reduced-price appetizers to people who were ordering two entrees and drinks anyway. This only made Marcie crazier.
Dave, a forty-five year old lifer (in table service since he could hold a job) took personally what Marcie and Ron were doing to the business. He took his job very seriously, was an impeccable server and personality, and half of the time, simply ignored Marcie, which drove her batshit.
For me, waiting tables was a means through college, and though I was good at what I did, I let a lot of Marcie's shit slide. Dave had enough one afternoon, and when Marcie ordered him, at a table, to upsell, he simply ignored her. Marcie reprimanded him in front of the patrons, and we heard it from all four corners of the place. Dave apologized to the customers, took off his apron, handed it to Marcie, and walked out for good. We were all completely shocked at the end of the day after Marcie was gone. Our long time hostess Katrina actually cried. Later on, Marcie, self-righteous as ever used Dave as an example to those who would question her antics. Even though she'd lost by far her best most well-liked server, Marcie put money-making and her authority over the practicality of leaving Dave be. This is my restaurant! she'd say, as if we weren't aware of that.
I've been thinking hard about all of this because in a lot of ways, it reminds me of our current economic situation. On the surface, America is a well-oiled machine, powerful, thriving-- but just barely. 1 in 557 homes in America are in foreclosure, gas today is at a $3.59 a gallon national average, our military is spread thin across the Middle East for a war whose cause has been disproved, and yet more million- and billionaire corporate owners thrive than ever before-- the wrench is already in the works. The gears just keep slowing, grinding tighter and tighter, and any second now, the machine is going to stop. The mornings are going to come soon, when even upper middle-class workers will not be able to pay their mortgages, electric bills, or put gas in their cars to get around.
Our government for the past seven years has thrown this goose into overdrive and squeezed every last golden egg out of it. Instead of sharing the gold, they've hoarded it and further, broken into John P. Taxpayer's credit line, emptied it clean, and blown town.
Now there is nothing more to be plundered, and we are no longer prospering and thriving, but soon to be out of business and apologizing for the greed of our bosses. Unfortunately for them, they cannot be gone of us and our provoked insubordination. We can't be be fired, or quit like Dave did to seek prosperity elsewhere. They, on the other hand, can take all of our money and move to Dubai now, where the dollar they've nearly destroyed is thriving anew. I'm of the mind that they won't stop until they've tried to squeeze every last egg out of every goose on the face of this earth.
I wonder, if this situation had been transposed onto the Ovo Cafe-- if, contrary to what Marcie had to tell herself to exploit us, she were actually beholden to us the way our government is supposed to be, how things might have been different. At the very least, it shows that when a government runs a country like a venture capitalist business, exploiting its people to fatten its own pockets, respect for working individuals goes right out the window. By definition it must. I worked at the Ovo Cafe during the Clinton administration, and I might have come to this conclusion even then. How have we come to this, and when are we going to stand up and say enough? Will we wait till the very day it's either quit or be fired, when we realize that isn't an option?