Friday, March 03, 2006

tart to tart

My job is a joke. I'm OK with that. People who use college to write papers about the Existential themes of movies like, "My Dinner with Andre" should end up with joke jobs. We had our "annual reviews" yesterday, which, surprisingly enough, was also a joke.
My Asst. Manager Tony, is just about the greatest guy around. I seriously love working with him. He's like an 8 year old and every time we work together, he's like, "what should we make for snack?" I have a severe weakness for questions like that. Inventing new snacks is what I do for about 7 hours of my working day.
Anyway, the other day when I came into work, Tony and two morning servers were each eating these huge amazing looking fruit tarts. I have a profound respect for pastry chefs and these were works of art. So I commented, they kept eating, end of story.
Not so much. When Tony and the guys went home, I got a call from our pastry chef asking where the fruit tarts were. I said that I thought I'd seen some around, and I'd send them down. 2 minutes later I get a call from a now very pissy pastry chef (come on, you work with sugar and chocolate, why the frown?) asking why she's short 3 tarts. I said, "I don't know, how tall's your dad" (snap). She didn't like it. Said I was sorry I didn't know, (yea, go me!) and she hangs up the phone all mad with her sticky chocolate hand.
So when Erik (server, hilarious) comes into work, I relay the story and mention we should put a note in the log book for Tony about the tarts to scare him. Erik agrees on the brilliance of the plan and puts a simple note in that reads, "Pastry Chef upset about tarts. Tony, please follow up." OK, giggle giggle, forget about it.
The next morning at 6AM I get a frantic call from Tony. "Jessica, I need to know what the chef said, I'm writing an email now to the pastry chef, and the Executive chef apologizing about the tarts.." yada yada..."I cannot tell a lie." Ok, so with this I burst out laughing. Hi? you ate a tart. Don't go all Cherry Tree on my ass. I told him we were kidding and he let out this nervous laugh, and it was ok.
So yesterday, I'm sitting there with Tony getting my review, ("Am I anticipating the guests' need for condiments appropriately?") and he flips to the comment page where I see writing in pencil. And he goes, "So I wrote here under comments that your abuse of the log book is grounds for dismissal."
Hmm, OK.
And in the way that an 8 year old can't hold in a smirk, neither can Tony. And he goes, "No, I'm only kidding. (thoughtful pause) Let's make green tea milkshakes"
Ahhh.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

i love tart to tart. that's where louise and i go whenever we go out to dinner. love it.