Valentine's Day Purgatory

As my manager said,"What I thought would be a smooth night is so not happening." She even said to us,"Ok, everyone, smile, cause we're in serious trouble right now!"

Oy! To start, on of my co-hostesses came down with a bad bug during shift, so she was stuck in the bathroom for about 30 minutes then finally had to go home, which left more work for me and one other hostess especially with coat checking and seating people on a cold night. The main issue on Saturday night was that fricking couples were not getting up...get up dammit we need your tables!

Can you believe we got a huge hit around 9-10 PM because tables were so back logged? My manager had to comp one couple's bar drinks because of the wait. People were not getting up. Our maitre'd kept asking all us,"Tell me who is on dessert and on check!" and hounded waiters to get their tables to hurry TF up!!

So the night dragged, and dragged, and dragged. On top of that we ran out of certain dishes on a pricey prix-fixe dinner. Oy again! Then I heard something about the computers breaking down and not being able to print checks.

Around 9:30 PM a feeling of utter exhaustion came over me. I was in a serious dead zone running around trying to find a table that was getting up soon, to fetching coats. On the fashion side, the women were definitely decked out to impress their men. Notable coats included a Nanette Lepore and a Gucci. One customers saw me with a pile of coats, and he's like,"Like those coats huh?" I was like,"Yes, and I try them on when you're not looking." Oh ha ha ha...the irony...

I came away with $130 in coat check tips, which I suppose made the purgatory/hell night worth it. Unfortunately, I drank a vodka/mixer and red wine at the end of shift (we were all miserable) and got really sick.