The 25th of February was a pretty normal day to start with. Except for the fact that the nights and days before I quite struggled to fall asleep because my head was just wide awake and this state lasted until Tuesday morning. I tried to catch some sleep before having to work at 14:30 but still wasn’t able to. Sure enough as soon as I got to View my eyes became sleepy and tired. Good thing my body is familiar with perfect timing.
As always our tour groups came in early and stormed the bar to all get their drinks at the same time. On that Tuesday I didn’t spend as much time in the bar as I usually do and when the lights in the henty room turned off I was just grabbing an old man’s empty plate. We laughed about the weirdo who turned off the light switch and I carried arms full of plates into the kitchen where on light was turned off as well. The moment when I started wondering was back in the bar when the eftpos machine was blank. And then the power went out.
It wasn’t a big drama. This probably happened between 7-7:30 when it was light enough outside to see everything. The kitchen worked on their back up power and everything was fine. Concerning the till we just had to manually write down orders so they could be put through later and write down credit card details. Ten or fifteen minutes later the power was back and a huge sigh of relief and applause went through the restaurant. Well done, maintenance men. Except a few minutes later the lights flickered again and this time I was in the kitchen. Andrew let out a big moan because every time the power went out his dish washer wouldn’t work.
“Great! Now, when the power comes back the whole cycle is starting again.” We did our best to stack the dishes in a very space saving manner. The short power outs kept continuing. Every once in a while the lights went out and then turned back on. Just until we fully lost electricity. And then the craziness began.
First I couldn’t understand why we kept letting people into the restaurant. Usually we don’t take anyone in after 7:30. But then I realized, no other restaurant could provide food because they all cooked to order. We, on the other hand, provided a buffet! So we reset tables and let people in while the sun was steadily sinking. Glass trays started covering the bar because our bar dish washer obviously didn’t work either. Soon I was buried behind a wall of dirty glass every time I served a customer in the dim light until it got to the point when I had to search blindly for beer glasses in the fridge, because at least the beer tap still worked. Naturally.
Soon maintenance showed up again and provided us with candles. We stuck them on each table, a few in the bar and a few on the buffet so our customers, who were now coming up from the other restaurants, could see what they were loading their plates with. Luckily these customers also brought up Hamer’s staff to help us out. Soon the kitchen became my favorite spot because the back up lighting though not very bright was much more comfortable for the eyes. Andrew and Yuno had started hand washing all the dishes and they weren’t going too badly. My favorite moment was when I turned around to the desk and saw my friend David standing their with his mate. I was supposed to meet them later on and hadn’t expected to see them up at View at all.
“We hear this is the only place in town where you can have a meal.”, David greeted me with a large grin and I smiled back and took them to their table. From that moment on I had an oasis in our restaurant. I was sweating and stressed, tripped over my own feet a few times but every time I saw David and Aaron they smiled and winked at me and I noticeably relaxed.
Soon we came to turns with the fact that we would have to hand wash glasses, too. And so Kana and I took that task on. To be honest I feel like we were faster than the dish washer. Usually you need to rinse them, stick them in there, wait a minute for them to wash, wait another minute till they aren’t glowingly hot anymore etc. And you do it by yourself! Like this I was rocking my pink gloves, washing every glass. Kana rinsed them and put them in glass racks. Once they were full she packed them away, drying the wine glasses and while she did that I rinsed the foamy glasses and so on. Quick as nothing! At some point we switched with Nadja and Monty though, because they didn’t know how to set up the breakfast buffet for the next morning. I smashed my head on the glass heaving up the heavy cereal containers and Dee gave me our big flash light so I wouldn’t blindly kill myself. Very soon I had to hand that over though because I heard a long, frustrated screamy groan from the kitchen. It let me know that our two hour back up power had run out. The chefs were long gone of course. But poor Andrew and Yuno were still stuck in the kitchen on the dishes. There went the big flash light.
Probably about a half hour or twenty minutes before we had everything set up all the lights turned on all of a sudden. This obviously made it easier to get all the little things done and so we swept everything away. My tiredness had long left me. That is a definite reason why I prefer busy nights. On those you don’t notice how time passes you by and you have no time to be tired.
Surprisingly we were all done by 22:45. So much better than what I had expected and only fifteen minutes later than our usual finishing up times. I hope todays 7-8 hours will pass just as quickly.
My oh my that was an exciting day that started quite boringly. I can’t believe by the service we delivered the man from table six had the balls to ask for a discount because it was dark and the food was cold. Hey you dick head. Half our buffet IS cold. Maybe you should have tried the hot foods because they were still warm when I ate them a half hour later than you. Idiot. Most complimented us on coping very well though and rightly so. Without us they wouldn’t have had dinner at all ;)
Today is a little less exciting. I am baking a cake because Courtney turned 18 this week and I went for my first bike ride in 4 months. Other than that... I just want to have a day off again. And my last day off was Wednesday.
Keine Kommentare:
Kommentar veröffentlichen