(no subject)

Dinner at Underground was apparently a mess last night. Freddy was still furious this morning when I came in to work. I was annoyed too because they have all this shit they need but don't come in until an hour or so before happy hour starts. Ray and I come in two hours before service so we can get shit done. I don't know if it's that Fred doesn't want them in until 3, but that's not enough time, especially for guys like these. They're not the best workers, I think, and it doesn't help that the only one who's not new to the kitchen is Rich, who is Freddy's butt-monkey these days; that should be some indication of his work. Freddy doesn't ever complain about Ray to me, and he apparently doesn't complain about me to Ray, but he complains about Rich to the both of us, all the time. We joke that we keep him around to make us look better.

I don't know what it is with Rich. Before he worked at Underground, he was working at Parallax and all I kept hearing from my acquaintances who worked at McCoy was shit about how he was really great and all that. Freddy asked for my opinion because I knew Rich and everything, and I told him I'd never worked with him but he's a good person, and I've heard people think well of him as a worker. And now that he's here, he's apparently very... derpy. Freddy calls him "awkward," that's his exact word. "Rich is very awkward, he can't do anything without spilling shit everywhere."

Anyway, Freddy left at about 8:30 or so, and got a call about an hour later saying that everything was a clusterfuck, tickets weren't going out, people were waiting for an hour or more for their shit. They 86'd mushroom phyllo because they ran out of the first roll and didn't see the second, brand new log we'd just made, sitting right underneath in plain sight. They just didn't think. Freddy says they can't roll with the punches, can't be flexible, can't adapt to the needs of situations. Even if we have a hellaciously busy weekend coming up, Rich still preps the same amount because that's what he's always done.

Ray and I are doing great at lunch. We didn't have more than a ten-minute wait on any of our tickets, didn't have anything sent back or complained about. Dipped into the red zone occasionally, where we'd have to frantically run to prep something a la minute, but we still managed to survive. I don't know about dinner, but lunch crew is doing awesome, mostly because both of us work as quickly and efficiently as we can, have sharp minds, and think things through. I love working with Ray, he is probably my favorite person right now. He cares about shit, gives the place 100% (with Freddy's level cap haha), but we joke around a lot too and snipe like immature kids because otherwise we'd kill ourselves with how serious shit is. In other words he's pretty much me except better and more experienced. We and Agustine, the best server there, have formed an Ethnic Trio (Agustine is Mexican, Ray is half, and I'm me) because everyone else (except the dishwasher) is white.

Dinner service at Sushi Rei wasn't nearly as intense as last night. The sushi bar was busy, but probably because they only had two guys there most of the night. For some reason people have been abusing me more than usual. Fernando and Craig were hugging it out for some reason, and I was like, "GAY." They both stopped and stared at me for a long moment before getting all up in my grill; Fernando put me in a choke hold while Craig pretended to punch me in the guts a few times. Craig slapped my butt. Neil slapped me in the face with the seeds part of a cucumber. Abel and I played the butt-slapping game for most of service.

I have the next three days off from Sushi Rei. It's hilarious to me that working six hours feels like nothing, like I have half the day off. Whereas, as an example, it's longer than my sister's shifts at the coffee shop she works at. I've dropped five or six pounds since we reopened, which in itself is fine considering I have plenty to spare, but I'm a little concerned about why I'm losing weight so quickly; I lost about fifteen to twenty pounds over the entire winter, that's six months as opposed to the last two weeks. Obviously it's a combination of moving around a lot while not being properly nourished, but the thing is that I eat horribly. Jesus, I ate half a pack of hot dogs one night. I have to keep an eye on this kind of thing, hopefully I'll get a chance to set my priorities straight once Freddy gets shit under control, either gives Ray a chance to do what he was hired to do or hire more guys, someone to prep, or at least do the little shit things (like rinsing lettuce, kale) that just waste our time.