The week leading up, reservations. All told maybe 60, 70 people, 2 1/2 turns of the restaurant. Not too crazy, we should be able to manage fine.
A few days before, customer comes in for soup to go. She can see I'm unwell, not the best, and so is insistent that I get the chef to dish her soup to go out. I can touch nothing. Single-handedly I'm the plague, poisoning babies, killing villages, ...
I'm too sick to argue.
The same day, another lady, has a friend, can't eat gluten or rice, what do we have? I answer nothing. Not entirely true, but - close enough, and my patience for this is expired.
***
Valentines comes and it's a shit-show blown up beyond belief. Clearly and without precedent, without even a near comparison the worst Valentines I've worked in the industry. Ever.
There's a line up at the door all night. People without reservations, who thought they wouldn't need them, couples, families with strollers, people looking confused that a reservation might be required, "Why?", you can see it in their perplexed, offended faces.
The busiest day of the year, and why would you need a reservation? We manage to fit in perhaps 40 walk-ins, another 200 are left grumbling to go and try elsewhere.
***
Feb 14th, Saturday. Busy again, this time with people out to enjoy the live music and a few mocktails. A young couple come in, don't like their table, try and switch to a booth for 5. I tell them we're reserving that for a larger group, they get offended, leave, write an online review that calls me a "racist" for not letting them have the booth.
***
This industry, it's peak entitlement. Every idiot feels entitled to have their every idiocy pandered to. I'm done with it, maybe, at best, I've another 3, 4 months left, but I can't do it anymore. Now to begin looking for a way out...any commonality, of good manners, breeding, it's vanished and I'm exhausted.