1000 Followers

It seems I've finally reached 1000 followers on this little bloggity blog.  It's funny how this was some grand goal for me - and that such a goal would occur today (more on that in a minute).  No horns sounded.  There was no confetti.  But I'm still pretty proud of myself.  The thought that a blog written by me actually has a following so great is astounding and humbling to me all at the same time.  I appreciate all my readers and hope that I continue to deliver the sort of content that makes you keep coming back; I'd hate to be a disappointment.  I'd also like to say a special thank you to those few who've been with me since my humble beginnings.  Way to stick it out.

It's my next goal to get more involvement on the blog.  More questions asked.  More reader comments and stories shared.  On that note, if you have any feel free to email them to me at girlandguitar@live.com.  Seriously, do it now.

Unfortunately, this momentous personal occasion had to occur to today.  Today I sit thousands and thousands of miles from home and found out my grandpa passed away at home.  He was 95.  A prairie hardened rancher who just lost his purpose there in the nursing home.  You just can't contain a man like that within the small spaces of an assisted living facility for very long.  Perhaps, eventually, I'll write about him, attempting to capture his spirit within words and phrases.  And I'll probably fail miserably.  Right now though, I am honestly lost within the idea of him.  I don't have him.  I don't have any grandparents anymore.  And here I am so far from home.  What does one do?  I don't know.

Hooters is Everywhere

So here I am in The Netherlands being (mostly) fabulous.  My Dutch fabulosity has included eating, shopping, museum visiting, eating, family visiting, Heineken drinking, biking, canal touring and a little more eating.  Basically it's been awesome thus far.  Well except for the part involving the fact that the Dutch aren't really equipped for serious snow removal causing sidewalks so icy even my Ugg boots are more like ice skates.  Oh and that reminds me, my $160 Ugg boots are like 250 Euro here.  NUTS.

Anyway, the whole point of me interrupting my fabulous vacay for you, was to share the fact that Hooters had one last laugh as I flew overseas.  There I was, crammed into my coach seat for eight hours forcing myself to watch B-list movies, when dinner was served.  Pasta was a choice and this made my freaking day.  Or as excited as one can be for airline food.  I mean I can smell pesto from seven miles away and I knew there was effing pesto on that damn pasta.

As the tray hit my foldout table, I was already planning my attack.  Salad first.  Save the pesto goodness.  I was just about to rip the plastic from my salad when I noted the dressing.  I laughed out loud, then snapped a picture.  Yes, I was that crazy chick who photographed her inflight meal experience.  I probably looked like an international virgin.

Here's my photo.

I now direct your attention away from the excessive use of plastic and the fact that my water has no ice and bring you to the dressing.  Yes, that is Naturally Fresh brand dressing.  If you are unfamiliar, Naturally Fresh is owned by Hooters and makes all their dressings and wing sauces.  It seems even somewhere over the north Atlantic Hooters still maintains it's steely grip on my life.  Well done, sirs, well done.

Man that must be one epic, money making contract you have with the good people of Delta.

Reason 1,894,652 Why I Love My Job

Most serving jobs probably wouldn't condone using the Island Oasis machine and bar fruit to build snowmen.  What a fabulously hooterific idea.

I know what I'm doing at work when I get back from Europe...

Automatic Creep

It seems that creepy dudes are often the worst tippers.  I perhaps could have led into that more smoothly and made it less blunt, but that's just the best way to put it.  Creepy guys tip like shit.  It seems that as cheesy pickup lines and thinly veiled innuendo increase, money making prospects decrease; it's a brutal inverse relationship.  Not only do I get the honor of serving a total douche, I get jack in return for it.  Maybe it's just their final asshole move. 

A few days ago, I had a real peach in my section.  Of course by peach I mean a man in his 50s who thoughts his mouth was a release hatch for "compliments" for me and my fellow Hooters Girls.  It's one thing if I am offended by your demeanor, if you manage to creep out the rest of the girls on staff you're truly a professional jack ass.  This guy was a certified, card carrying, doctorial candidate of douche.

After waiting on him and laughing off his varied comments, I was met by a sweet two dollar tip on a nearly $40 tab.  Unfortunately, I wasn't surprised but was - as always - incredibly disappointed.  It was about this time I did what I usually do in such situations, I started making a joke about it.  It didn't bring me the extra money I deserved, but it certainly made me feel marginally better.

My joking then evolved into a feature I wish actually existed in every Hooters (and more probably in any restaurant where woman are forced to serve men - which is pretty much everywhere).  Ever heard of automatic gratuity?  It's a featured used to add tip to large parties.  Basically, many restaurants will add a gratuity of 15-18% for parties larger than eight or ten.  The reason for this is to ensure that the server gets properly tipped for dealing with all the shit a big party entails.  And trust me, without it, big tables usually tip like complete and utter crap.  It seems that when the tab gets larger simple math goes out the window and everyone leaves 10%, or less if you're really lucky.

Anyway, the whole point of all that is that I wish that I could have an automatic creep function to apply to my tickets.  That's right, I wish I could call people out on their douchiness by forcing them to tip me properly.  Creepy pickup line?  5%.  Gratuitous boob/ass staring?  5%.  Ass cell phone pictures?  10%.  Just imagine how quickly that could add up to a nice 20% tip.  I think it's only fair.  You get to be an ass and I get paid. 

Just think of the creepiness such a register function would decrease.  If you can't afford a large tip, you don't get to be a jerk.  If you have the money, be a jerk all you want.  I'll take your money any day.  I wish the world could be so perfect.

I Will Do (Most) Anything for Hooters, But I Won't Do That (Unless They Make Me)

Today I was asked to do something at work that I have tried desperately to avoid for the past two years of my employment at Hooters.  I was asked to debone wings.  Before I start in on my varied reasons for hating wing deboning, please enjoy the following video of a Hooters Girl mutilating someone's meal.



Yes, that is wing deboning.  I will start by saying she did it totally wrong.  And don't even get me started on the fact that she isn't wearing gloves.  We ALWAYS wear gloves even if "you're not eating this one".  But that's not the point.  The point is, that there is nothing I hate more than having to sit down and remove the meat from the bones of a plate full of someone else's chicken wings.  But lets start with why Hooters condones this.

Hooters has a policy known as "hands off"  or "hands free" service.  Basically this means that Hooters wants it's waitresses to cater to the customer as much as possible.  The simplest example is opening ranch and other dressings for guests at the table - this example is also a nonnegotiable step of Hooters Hospitality.  However hands off service can go much further to include just about everything.  As my trainer from corporate put it, "imagine your customer has no hands, short of eating, what would you have to do for them to make them comfortable?"  Well I can open the door, pull out their stool, open menus, rip paper towels from the roll, pour beer and so on and so forth all the way to deboning wings.  I like the idea of this step of service.  It's just one of the many things that makes Hooters stand out.

So yeah, I get why Hooters does the whole deboning wings thing now and again.  I get that it's just another "above and beyond" way of delivering Hooters' signature service.  That doesn't make it appetizing.  And that's the thing, I don't find anything appetizing about a girl donning a pair of rubber gloves and ripping into my food as she burns the shit out of her fingers.  There she is tearing into a plate of wings, removing the sauce with her gloved hands like a clumsy, drunk surgeon as she turns what was ordered into something else entirely.

Wait, don't we already have boneless wings on the menu?  Yup, there they are.  Boneless wings that require no manhandling.  But of course if order those you don't get the pleasure of treating your Hooters Girl like a slave.  Or the pleasure of being freaking lazy.

And yes, I did debone his wings.  I just hated it the whole time.

Why I Won't be Winning the Merchandise Contest

I'm winning the merchandise contest with nearly $900 in sales.  Ironically, the total sales for the contest are just over $3,500.  You do the math on how much the other girls I work with suck at sales.  Or suck at trying.  Or don't try at all.  Regardless, I'm still insanely competitive.  It's just my way.

While I'm ahead of second place by just over $100 (do some more math on how much the other girls REALLY suck at sales) I probably won't be winning.  It's not that I'm pessimistic, it's that I'll be missing ten days of the contest at the end of the month.  Ten days is an awful lot of selling no matter how much I try to pad my sales now.

So where will I be for ten days of December (and ten days of January as it were)?  I'll be being fabulous in Europe of course.  Oh did I forget to mention that?  Yeah, I'm spending my holidays in the Netherlands.  I'm not mad about it.

So I might not win - though I'll still likely place - but I have to say I'm not too concerned about it.  Europe is an awful good reason not to win, after all most of the girls are losing due to laziness.  At least I'll lose because I'm on a different continent.  That's a real reason.

Now who wants to send me $50 and I'll sell you a gift card?

Oh and don't worry.  I'll be auto-posting some of my "greatest hits" while I'm gone in addition to *trying* to post some awesome posts from abroad.  If only there were a Hooters in Amsterdam.

I Want Her Job: Likes for Learning Campaign

A little over a month ago I was featured on a cool new website called I Want Her Job (IWHJ).  The site, which features interviews with woman across a broad spectrum of industries, is meant to inspire woman - and people in general - through the success of others.

When my interview appeared, I posted it HERE and simply alluded to the website rather than opening posting it as a way to maintain my anonymity.  Now, IWHJ has started an amazing new campaign that in my eyes is more important than a few of my readers chancing across a photo of me.  After all, my anonymity has more to do with my blog being an "any Hooters Girl" than actually concealing my identity. Who I am to prevent a cause for a personal ideal?

Today, Brianne - founder of IWHJ - sent out an email requesting help.  It included the following:

Yesterday I Want Her Job launched its first-ever nonprofit campaign. The goal is simple, I want our community to help raise enough money to sponsor a few girls in Guatemala with education and mentorship, so that they can be the first in their families to attend school, make a difference in their families and communities, and empower other women by doing so. As a community of women who are fortunate enough to have had an education, to have had mentors, and to have had the resources to make our dreams come true, I want to reach out to you for help.

So here I am, doing my part.  For every new "Like" on Facebook and follower on Twitter, IWHJ will donate 50 cents to She's the First.  I hope you'll join me in supporting this amazing cause!

"LIKE" I WANT HER JOB on FACEBOOK

FOLLOW I WANT HER JOB on TWITTER

Hans is MIA

Where is Hans?  If you've been reading for a while you probably remember Hans, the 63 year-old guest, lovingly named after the skate shop owner from the Mighty Ducks, who was my biggest fan.  He even wanted to buy me a couch once.  No joke.  Hans was a pretty regular fixture around Hooters, gracing table 83 with his presence every week or two.  Then Hans went missing.

Hans - absent for months - finally appeared in April only to tell me had experienced a heart attack.  Needless to say, I was worried, but slowly he began to get better.  He'd made the move from water to soda, but Miller Lite bottles were still out of the question.  Even without the beer he seemed to be doing well.

Then Hans disappeared again and suddenly I realize I haven't seen him since June or July.  Being a caring person, I was immediately worried.  Thoughts of hospital beds and defibrillators flashed through my mind.  I assumed the worst.

Yes, I assumed that Hans was - sadly - dead.  I wrote that just as bluntly as I thought it.  I skipped right past illness, extended vacations and moving.  I went right to death.

So I did what any good nerd would do and I Googled the shit out of Hans.  I searched numerous permutations of his name and residence.  I even searched the local paper just in case Google was sucking and missed some relevant piece of information.  My search was thorough and still I came up with nothing of importance regarding Han's current state of being.  I'm not sure if this made me more or less worried.

If you're out there, Hans, please come and say hi.  Or send a smoke signal.  I'm worried.