Difficult waitresses 12/08/09

Madame cameriera came back last night, but was most unpleasant. When I arrived she was busy having a smoke outside with the other waitress we were trying out, and neither of them bothered to say hello, so engrossed they were in their gossip – probably about us. La cameriera’s low serious monologue, so convincing. The other waitress – I shouldn’t even call her waitress – had tried out a couple of hours the night before just to get a feel for things, but she had arrived in clothes that would have looked good in a club in Ibiza, but were just not suitable for serving tables. So today we gave her the black t-shirts the waiters wear, but half way through the evening she came up saying she was getting ‘bollicini’ little pimples on her chest, a heat rash. I could see no such thing, but you can’t force someone to wear something, so soon she was back flaunting herself. It’s just not the right image for the restaurant, I don’t know where she thought she was going. She dragged herself slowly up and down the stairs serving tables, and when she didn’t have a specific task, she sat watching us slyly on the stairs, moping around and complaining about the heat. Tell me about it, it is hell to have to work in this sweaty, humid heat, but you have to prepare yourself for it. I have had to take ‘polase’ the last few days – minerals and salts in tablet form to keep up energy levels. And cooling aloe vera gel on the legs, they feel heavy and bloated in this sweltering heat. She really had no idea about what she was doing, and had clearly no desire to work. She said at the end that she wasn’t suited to this kind of work, which was fair enough, we all agreed on that one.

Madame cameriera insisted on talking last night: any normal person would perhaps think of apologising for having left us in the lurch on the busiest weekend of the year, but no, she didn’t quite see it like that. She was still harping on about how she had sent the text message (to say she was going on holiday and wouldn’t come to work on Friday night!) and it would have been fine if mio marito had seen it ... We said again that you can’t send a message like that at such short notice and to communicate such important information. She harped on about all her usual problems, that the dishwasher had taken her work that week he gave us a hand, that my sister-in-law was able to take holiday time, that she wanted her time off (she only works 3-4 days a week …). Mio marito suggested she had some sort of complex: ‘no one wants your work and my sister told us in April she wouldn’t be here’. I said your commitment is with us anyway, it doesn’t matter what others do; and we have tried to accommodate you as far as possible. She was giving me a headache with her low droning voice. She kept interrupting me when I was speaking, talking over me with that low continuous voice. Nothing was good enough for her, she is just a complainer. She left in silence, still surprised that we felt she had been unprofessional.