She's A Gem

Being that the facade of The Club resembles a mid-19th century home (because, coincidentally, it was a mid-19th century home), not very often do people wander in off the city streets. This morning was the exception to the rule. A few of the ladies were standing in the main dining room around 10:45 this morning, waiting for our lunch to be served. The doors to the dining opened and in walked a large man. When asked if he could be helped, he said "yeah, I'm looking for a job." Again, this isn't the type of place where people walk in off the streets looking for employment. One of the ladies replied with "I'm sorry?". The gentleman, acting as if the ladies were idiots said "A job?! Ya know, a G-O-B?!" Well, why didn't you just say so!

Said man was instructed to head upstairs to the offices to see what he had to offer. The story was making its way through the ranks at The Club and right before we opened the doors to serve lunch, it once again was the topic of conversation. At this point, CeeCee cuts in with her own little story: "my brother was an extremely brilliant man but he always insisted on spelling gem G-E-M." Apparently he got all of the brains.

CeeCee also has her own vocabulary. The only difference with hers is that she twists usual words/sayings into her own annoying bits. And she doesn't just try the phrases out once, trying to be funny and then move on to something else. No, the woman uses the same stupid phrase over and over again, beating the dead horse that wasn't even funny to begin with.

During the normal lunch shift at The Club, the members have 3 courses: soup/salad, main entree', and dessert. A lot of the desserts we have listed daily are the same, only a few key choices change. One of the mainstays is oranges, bananas and kiwi in one dish or, as we refer to it, an OBK. CeeCee, when ordering an OBK, always (and I mean ALWAYS) orders it as an 'Obi Kay Kenobi'. Ok, the first time may have received a few points for being kind of cute but after the 500th time, it gets very old. I really feel bad for the chef that has to prepare it.

Our tables in the dining room are topped with two separate linens and underneath is a felt. Instead of calling the felt what it is (a felt, and nothing more), she calls it 'the underwear'. "Here, I'll hold the underwear while you rearrange the top." "I'll fold the underwear." "I'll go get the underwear for this table." Every. Time.

One of the ladies I work with is from Poland. She only came to the US about 15 years ago and has since become an American citizen. She lives with her parents who only speak Polish so she still has a pretty thick accent. Being from Poland, she has some great jokes but sometimes has a hard time translating them. One that she was able to translate though, I honest to God wish that she hadn't. Not that it's a bad joke, it's actually really funny but CeeCee has since adopted the punchline and uses it every day. The Reader's Digest version of the joke is this: A man is a foreigner and takes an English class to improve his English. His teacher gives him an assignment to use the words 'yellow' and 'pink' in a sentence. The sentence ends up being "The telephone rang so I pinked it up and said 'Yellow!'" Cute, even funnier when a Polish woman tells it because she has the accent to help it along. CeeCee does not. When picking up any tables' order, instead of saying 'Picking up two beefs' she says 'Pinking up two beefs'. Really? Yes.

There's a need for Procreation Licenses

Watching Good Morning America this morning, they mentioned a little blip of a story that reminded me of another idiotic conversation I had with ReeRee around Christmas time. Here's a little back story.

One of the members of The Club is the great grandson (or great great, not reallY sure anymore) of the first du Ponts to come to America. The house that he and his wife currently live in was built by his father in 1923 when this said member was 3 years old. His father had it built so that every year on his birthday, the light from the setting sun would illuminate the massive hallway that stretches from one end of the mansion to the other.

Every year, The Club caters a family Christmas dinner at the mansion. While we were setting up, I retold the story to ReeRee. When I got to the part where I told her that it only happens on his birthday, ReeRee gazed at me with that utterly confused look in her eyes and said "doesn't the sun set the same every day of the year? East to west?"

I thought her head was going to explode as I told her about the earth shifting on the axis, which gives us our change of seasons, throughout the year.

She's a maaaniac, maaaaaniac (bad 80's song reference...)

I've lost a good portion of my material for this blog due to ReeRee's absence... but not all of it. Remember, I still work with at least 2 geriatrics who should have retired 20 years ago that believe that they can still do things that a 30 year old can do.

Case in point: tonight we're working a party that involves a lot of walking with a lot of stairs. Quite a few years ago LaLa injured her foot at a party that she was working. She even required surgery on it afterwards. It's never healed correctly and most days, she can barely walk during a normal shift at The Club. CeeCee, on the other hand, is a walking nightmare. For one thing, I've never known anyone to sweat as much as this woman does. I'm not exaggerating in the least, the woman sweats like 4 400lb men in a sauna. And that's on a relatively nice day (i.e. 75*). For another thing, CeeCee has smoked off and on for atleast 30 years. Because of this, she has chronic bronchitis. This chronic bronchitis causes her to hack up half of a lung in a 2 hour period. It's really appetizing to be served food by someone that could have left some lung butter on your plate...

B Man has been trying to weed these two out of working parties outside of the normal shift and has gotten an earful from both of them for it. Just yesterday B Man told LaLa that she would not be working the party tonight. Oh the daggers that were being thrown from LaLa's corneas. LaLa's first reaction, of course, is to challenge the B Man's decision and vehemently deny that she is unable to work such a party. A 10 minute argument takes place which ends in LaLa fuming. B Man has gotten his point across and LaLa still does not see it or understand it. Next she moves on to berrating the staff. -Well, if she's not working and CeeCee's not working than surely the New Girl who took ReeRee's place (who, mind you, is a timid 22 year old. She's a sweet girl and doesn't understand to the full extent how catty these two women can be yet.) is working and how could the B Man possibly put her on to work over them and it's an outrage and oh, of course the B Man is screwing them out of a paycheck again!- What LaLa and CeeCee don't realize is this: neither one can hear very well any longer, therefore they think that no one else can hear when they're "whispering" about someone else who is standing in the room with them. Whether New Girl overheard them I can't say for sure but I definitely heard them and, quite frankly, I'm sick of them shitting on people because they can't see their own incapabilities right in front of their eyes. I mentioned to the B Man what was being said and LaLa was taken aside to be told (again) exactly why she wasn't working tonight. She was also told that New Girl wasn't working in her place and to calm down.

What the B Man didn't tell her is that the only reason New Girl isn't working is because she doesn't have a babysitter for her son and that a part timer most definitely is working in her place. I really am kinda hoping that somehow she finds out...

Out with a bang

ReeRee may not be an employee at The Club anymore but she definitely didn't leave quietly. Like I said before, she gave her 2 weeks notice a few weeks back. Her last day was to be May 1. Or May 2. Or something like that. I just knew that she was leaving and it couldn't come fast enough. The Wednesday before her last day, she worked a party with the B man and myself. It was a small party, a dinner for 18 people. Simple enough. Yeah, the B man shot himself in the foot with this one...

Throughout cocktails, ReeRee did everything she possibly could wrong... And then some. I'm not sure if she was doing it on purpose or if she really is just that stupid. From her reactions to B man telling her when she was wrong, I'm thinking she's just that dumb. After the party while we were getting ready to leave ReeRee pulled the B man aside. I was getting in to my truck at this point and didn't hear what was said outside of the B man saying "it goes both ways, ReeRee. It goes both ways." and then rolling his eyes at me. The next morning I found out that she wasn't coming back and, according to what she said to the B man, that she was "tired of the abuse".

I only have one thing to say to that: you get what you give.

I lied, I have 2 things to say to that: good riddance.

Don't worry, the ReeRee story isn't over yet...

See no evil...

I think this one speaks for itself.

Hello!

Saying 'hello' to a far away friend!