JJ: A letter of complaint.

There are a lot of uses for the Internet. Most of which surrounding the exhibitionism of Asian women and donkeys and some of which pertaining to legitimate knowledge (wikiquote, askmen.com, etc). But some people use this web of world...wide...ness...as a social networking tool. I am using this medium to explain my displeasure with a man named JJ. So if you're out there JJ...this is about you, and if you want to sue me for defamation of character, go right ahead because I have 3 witnesses to your atrocious behavior...perhaps I'm getting ahead of myself, perhaps I should inform all of you readers what has exactly happened, perhaps I should stop saying perhaps...

Between posing as a 14 year old girl on MySpace and enjoying the occasional game of Kerplunk! I find myself in need of nourishment. This entails going to restaurants, sometimes with other people. On this night--yes this night--as in May 4th, 2008 a few friends and I partook in the classiest of Italian establishments outside of Fazolis: The Macaroni Grill.

Now in my limited experiences at TMG I've received concierges service, usually from a cute waitress who is able to write her name in crayon on the white-paper tablecloth UPSIDE-DOWN and put little hearts around it to accent the name "Ashley" it is quite a neat trick--it's not Copperfield--but lets get real, she makes $3.45/hr.

Me and my company (1 man, 2 ladies) were seated and told that our waiter would be with us shortly. Waiter...as in man. Needless to say I immediately let out a large sigh and began hoping for some gratification under the table from the ladies in attendance. And then he came: all decked out in his white collared shirt, his ravishing tie, and his shag haircut with scruff beard--hardly the hygiene of somebody I want handling my food.

"I'm JJ, I'll be your server tonight.:

and....
and....
and..........

nothing.

He didn't write his name on the paper table cloth or ANYTHING. I was absolutely stunned, disgusted would be a good word to use in this instance. Who is this JJ? Why does he think that he doesn't have to adhere to Macaroni Grill protocol? I could only make one assertion: He was on LSD. This is not a generalization. 10 times out of 10 if you work at a food service restaurant and you don't follow the guidelines of said restaurant, you are on hallucinogens. Don't believe me? Ask my friend Chad why he got fired from Cold Stone...hard to remember the tip song when you're tripping balls on mushrooms. And my (now ex) friend Shawna? Yeah, apparently if you don't rock the birthday song at Happy Joe's your ass is out! (They also don't take kindly to drinking on the job or stealing from the register we found out).

So Mr. "I'm too good to do my job correctly" took our orders. 3 diet cokes and an Iced Tea...I was planning on consuming hard alcohol, but this guy was already on my bad side and I didn't want to risk having to go back into treatment for assaulting a food service worker, even if he didn't write his name on the tablepapercloth thingy.

We place our orders and things are going fine. Naturally, we're in Nebraska and the table of elderly citizens sitting behind us are engaging in a highly racist conversation while their black waiter brings them refills. This kind of thing is more common in the Midwest than you'd think...of perhaps you think we're all bigoted racists...to which you'd be more or less correct.

We too received refills as we finished our drinks, but there was something not right about the situation. As we sat there...new drinks in hand, our old glasses just hung out. Sitting on the table...4 glasses full of ice with straws in them...cluttering up the place. I occupied my time by stealing crayons from the kids at the table behind me and drawing a rocket ship and a calendar from the year 2001...this was all very symbolic and I topped it off with an Ingmar Bergmann quote. At least somebody is using the crayons and the paper, JJ sure seemed above it.

Our dinners are then brought out...with nearly no room to put them...JJ just pushes shit everywhere. He also mistakes everybody's order and came without one meal entirely: mine.

I sit and wait...wondering why it takes 25 minutes to prepare spaghetti when I could make it at home....blindfolded....for a fraction of the time (and price). But alas, I sit quietly...not wanting to hurt poor JJ's feelings on account of his LSD-induced fragile state of mind. After another 5 minutes my food has arrived. At our request he takes some of the glasses back, saying "whoop, here we go" as he stacks each one. Now we are left with 3 glasses, all in need of re-filling, I do not have a glass all together and I have received only one meatball on my spaghetti, even though I paid an extra $3 to have them.

I eat the entire meal without a drink...which was a lot harder than I thought it would be. I got it in my head that my meatball was some kind of animal testicle (they are large and round and could easily be mistaken for such) and I need something to wash it down. Where is JJ? Where the fuck is my soda? He comes back about 15 minutes later (I've finished) and tells me that they ran out of meatballs (shouldn't I have been informed of this earlier) and that his manager will come out and talk to me--as if this is necessary. He also says that my meal will probably be comped (I'm not even 100% sure what that restaurant jargon means) and that they will bring me some meatballs out later. As if I have the time to wait around and have testicles dropped on my plate...*insert your own joke here*

So by this time it's pretty much your standard "get me out of here" situation and he brings the checks out. Now instead of doing this in literary form, I will break down the ticketing situation in list form to help you understand what the hell happened (I'm still confused).

The first time JJ brings us our tickets.
1 check.
Problem: we want it split up.

Take two:
2 checks, mine is $28, the other is $30. We put our cards down.

After scanning them:
He gives the receipts to the women, which makes no sense, they give them to us.
2 checks, mine is $28, the other now has a top copy of $30 and a bottom copy of $42.

We inquire....

After taking the card and re-scanning it:
He gives us receipts...again to the wrong person.
2 checks: mine is $28 (I felt like I was donating to the handicapped so I left him the abysmal tip of $3, my friend was going to tip $6...this was not a smart move).

The ladies ask for boxes, he brings them tins with lids...which isn't a box at all...I begin wondering if my soda was in fact Diet Coke or if I was duped into drinking Diet Pepsi...I actually like DP better...but he should have been honest with me.

I don't think I will ever go to another Macaroni Grill in my life...for 1 the service sucked, for 2 I don't like eating testicles.

I will also never trust a food service worked that goes by initials. Sketchy shit, people.

So if you're on the net, JJ and you decided to google your profession and your name..." JJ + "The Macaroni Grill" + "Lincoln, Nebraska" " I hope you find this....I also hope you find a new line of work...and quit the LSD. We all suffer because of it.


Oh, and I never received my extra meatballs...and the manager never showed up.