Halloween

Halloween was a bust. If my costume wasn't so kick ass, I would call it a disaster. Michael Jordyn and Greg had a show at 171 Lombardy, it was a big Halloween party put on by the Pelly Twins. The band schlepped the equipment from our place to Greenpoint, and I met them there by train. Before they could play, the party was busted by the police and we were out on the street wondering what to do next. Some went to another show, but I went to The Wing Bar in Carroll Gardens. It took way too long to get there. The trains were backed up and the platforms full of Halloween party people. We arrived around three, and got some shots and a pitcher. Going home was a mess too, and we ended up taking a cab home. I'm eating a single potato for three meals a day, meanwhile I'm taking a taxi like I'm John D. Rockefeller.

Working as a busser has brought me back to when I was a young lad and had a couple jobs bussing tables. When you're hired as a busboy, you're basically hired as a scapegoat. Everyone needs someone to blame when things go wrong, and the busboy is at the bottom of the food chain. You have the management, who sit perched on their thrones, drinking coffee and shouting at the servers and bussers. The servers, the least empathetic of all, take orders and run food and generally slack off. The bussers are responsible for flipping tables for new patrons and keeping dining room shit stocked. The problem is I make $4/hour from the restaurant, and the rest I get in "tips" from the servers at the end of their shifts. I'm supposed to make 15%, but servers see that as a suggestion rather than a requirement, and they consider my tips to be gratuity rather than an owed percentage. As a busser, I have to make and serve drinks, pre-bus tables, hand out menus, and see people to tables. The servers love to hand me these tasks in an authoritative manner, but they hate to pay me for the work I've done. I would feel fine about these things only if the servers worked as hard as me. But when it comes to the end of the night, they begrudgingly throw me a few bucks and have no consideration for my actual worth.