Epilogue

It took awhile to get my check.  I learned later that if you are ever let go from a job by state law the employer is supposed to give it to you right then and there or by the next day at the latest.  I never got my

check, so I had to call them a few times to follow up.  The holdup was because they somehow didn't have my address.  Since I filled out all of the paperwork at orientation this shouldn’t have been a problem at all.  In fact I don’t even know why they’d be the ones mailing anything, corporate should have handled all of that. In addition if they didn’t have my address they should have contacted me for it instead of me having to track them down.  It was very frustrating but I didn’t even get mad because it didn’t surprise me at all.   I could only laugh at how incompetent this particular branch of the Tilted Kilt operated. 

It’s been a couple of years since I left.  For awhile I stayed in touch with some of the girls but being busy with school and other activities can cause anyone to drift.  I’m still friends with everyone on Facebook and can see what people are up to.

Avery still works there as far as I can see. She tried out for the calendar again the next year and I made sure to vote for her.  Avery is someone I can see working her way up the corporate ladder at the Tilted Kilt.  I wouldn’t put it past her to do that and be very successful there kind of like that lady on Undercover Boss

who was a Hooters girl before working her way up to corporate then leaving to become the CEO of Cinnabon.

Vivian left soon after me.  I saw on her Facebook that she was a server at some other restaurant.  You don’t leave a management position to be a server unless you don’t like where you work.  I’m pretty sure Vivian must have had some sort of falling out with Theresa; they weren’t even Facebook friends anymore. 

Kayla was cut a month or so after I left.  I couldn’t believe they’d be doing cuts that late in the game.  She had trouble getting her check as well and actually thought they might not give it to her. 

Katie got a job at a fancy smancy swank restaurant downtown.  The menu prices are very high; she probably makes a lot of money. 

I’m not sure if Shelia got cut or quit but she left soon after and became a flight attendant which actually seems

like it might be similar to working at the Tilted Kilt but with better perks.

I saw Christy in a tabloid magazine because she was dating some famous athlete.  In it I read that she was a model in Los Angeles.  That doesn’t surprise me, she really was that stunning. Good for her that she left to pursue her dream.

Leanne in the course of the year moved to a different state, got married, and had a kid.

Tara worked got promoted to a bartender but soon left when a bartending job opened up at her favorite club downtown.

Cindy still works there and is now a bartender.  Actually all of the girls that stayed there eventually became bartenders; it’s just the next step up.

Belinda not surprisingly got picked as the calendar girl.  On the restaurant’s Facebook page they made such a big deal about her and constantly posted how she’d be working that night and to come in to get a signed calendar from her.  They really milked it as much as they could.

Alexi continued to post pictures of themselves all the time on their Facebook. 

I had a fun and interesting time at the Tilted Kilt.  I think a lot of people would like working here but I also think just as many would hate it here.  It really comes down to personality type and prior job experience.  I think TK is perfect for girls 18-21 who don’t pay rent yet and don’t have any or enough serving experience to get hired anywhere else.  It’s a good starter job.

My likes and dislikes could have been completely different had I worked in a different location, with different management, or at a time when it wasn’t a restaurant opening.  From my personal experience I’d say I didn’t like the whole system of sitting down and talking to random tables constantly.  I always thought that was weird and uncomfortable.  I’m a very outgoing person and don’t have trouble taking to people but just to plop myself there and start talking was very annoying and always frustrated me because I knew I wasn’t getting tips from that table.  I think that has more to do with having too many servers on and I doubt it’s still like that there but while I was there it was my biggest dislike.  I also wasn’t cool with the entire picture taking which I did not anticipate I’d have a problem with because I’ve always loved taking pictures.  I think I just don’t want my photo out there on cyberspace branding me as a Kilt Girl forever and ever.  I also don’t want to be expected to kiss a guy on the cheek so he can take a photo like I witnessed with Lindsey.  That’s just me, I think a lot of people are okay with that but when I was there I wasn’t feeling it. 

I liked the people I worked with a lot.  I was worried about girls being mean, competitive, or catty but I didn’t really see that.  I actually kinda liked wearing the uniform.  It felt fun and festive like I was forever at some costume party.  I never had a problem with the uniform and pervy guys but I feel that if I had worked there longer it would have been something inevitable. 

All in all I’m glad I worked there it was an experience.

Cut

We were in our line to be inspected by the managers for uniform check when Theresa said she wanted to talk to me in the office.  I went into the office and Theresa got straight to the point and said I was cut.  WTF?  At that point I was almost relieved because it was getting to be too much with school and I knew it would be a long time if ever that I’d start making money here.  Still WTF?  Theresa left the office for something and left it for Vivian to explain.  Vivian said it was nothing personal but they needed to do more cuts and that Theresa chose me.  It’s funny how people will say it’s not personal but it actually really is.  Kind of like someone breaking up with you and saying ‘it’s not you it’s me’ when everyone knows it’s actually you.

She bent over backwards trying be nice and saying that I was smart and cool but they were making cuts as to who fit their brand the best.  I asked her if she could be more specific.  Vivian said that basically I did not fit the image enough.  She alluded to the fact that I wasn’t as flirty as they wanted people to be.  She even did a motion with her hair like an airheaded girl would do flipping her hair.  She said I wasn’t enough like that.  I know what she meant.  It was a compliment really.   I know my strengths and weakness and yeah I definitely don’t act like an airhead.  I also wouldn’t consider my colleagues to be airheads either but then I realized their ability to act like one and be one are two totally different things.

I was cool with Vivian, I like her a lot and I understand she was put in a difficult situation and I thought it was really unprofessional of Theresa to have someone else do her job for her.  That was really her responsibility.  I don’t know how many other people they are cutting but I realized that the last couple of days they’d call people to the office. I never thought too much of it because it was during uniform checks and I wasn’t really paying any attention but now I realize that’s probably what they were doing. 

I actually thought that they were through making cuts.  The first day they cut girls based on a uniform fitting and what corporate thought so I thought I had seen the worst of it.  After all that training and being on the floor some girls quit on their own accord for various reasons so I thought they’d keep who they had left.  I didn’t seem to make sense to cut people now after they had lasted this long.

I believe the real reason was that they over hired way too many people and didn’t know what to do so the easiest thing for them was to just cut people because the restaurant wasn’t bringing in enough money to warrant having that many people on payroll.

I had expected to work here for a few months and I was let down that it couldn’t be longer but it’s okay I’m actually really fine with it.  I will miss the other servers though. 

Another slow shift in the Game Room

Today as I was changing in the dressing room Bethany was telling someone about the Kilt Girl that didn’t tip her. Agh that sucks but that was a few days ago, girl let it go!

I was in the Game Room by myself and it was dead like normal. At least it was an improvement from before where there were 3 servers in the Game Room in the day with no customers. Brownie was in there doing some sort of paperwork so I talked to her for a little bit. Most of the trainers had already left but she was still here because we needed the help. Brownie had the coolest job; she traveled quite often to open new Tilted Kilts all over the country. She said that we were one of the biggest ones she had opened in terms of space and of staff numbers.

Brownie was a lot older, probably 38 or 39. In fact I don’t know how much longer she could realistically pull off being a Kilt Girl. She seemed to me like someone who had worked in sales for a major company and gotten laid off with the recession so had used those sales skills for the Tilted Kilt and quickly got promoted to trainer. I figured she’d probably end up working for corporate Tilted Kilt as her next step or going back into sales.

I was pretty much a second runner with Krissa.  It helped her out because the other servers were still being lazy asses as well as gave me something to do.  I also spent my time shooting hoops with some of the other girls who had absolutely nothing to do either.  I got a chance to talk to Cindy more.  She told me she had moved to our city specifically to work at the Tilted Kilt because the branch she worked at had closed.  Because it took so long for the restaurant to open she actually got a job at Hooters to pay her bills. Corporate made her quit when they found out because I guess she was under some sort of promotional contract and it was considered a conflict of interest.  I was really curious about the differences of the two brestaurants.  Cindy said that she made around the same money, maybe slightly more at the Tilted Kilt but she liked working there a lot better because she thought the girls were nicer and the managers more laid back.  She said Hooters really sucked in the way that the managers were extremely pushy on selling merchandise to your tables and you could get in trouble if you didn’t sell a certain amount.  I was mostly interested in how the dressing room compared.  She said it was actually around the same it’s just there were 1 million girls in ours at the same time so it seemed very small. 

I learned that that Belinda and Faith were chosen by corporate as calendar hopefuls. Belinda was very surgically enhanced and probably tanned every other day. She was extremely attractive and exuded sexiness and calendar girlness. Faith was pretty but not the type you’d ever think twice about being in a calendar. There were many other girls especially Avery who I would have thought would have been chosen over her. I kinda wished Faith would get chosen because she was the underdog but if they could only pick 1 from a store there would be no way she would beat out Belinda. The calendar hopefuls had their pictures on the website so the general public could vote. So it was sort of a popularity contest and I even saw Belinda working it telling people at the bar to get on the website and vote for her.

Tara was the only server in the patio and Anastasia had the fireplace.  Since no one went in either section Theresa had me take over their sections and had them organize the costume room.  They categorized all the bras, shrugs, and skirts according to size which took forever because the current state was such a mess.  It looked like a tornado of bras had hit the room.  It was a good idea to have someone organize and I’m

surprised no one thought of it earlier.   Everything was so out of order people had to rummage through all the bras to find their size and it slowed everyone down getting ready.  It took them almost 2 hours to complete the job.  They finished about the same time I did so we decided to stay and eat.  This time I got the Tilted Gilt which was a warm chocolate chip cookie topped with ice cream and chocolate sauce.  I’m glad I got it because I will mention this to every single table.  It’s so good!

Again I had no tables the whole day and made 0. I hope after today they’ll redo the floor plan and not schedule people for day shifts in the game room, fireplace, and patio. If a patron really wanted to sit any of those sections of complete barrenness a server from the main dining room could take that table. I wouldn’t be surprised if a lot of girls drop out of this place. I mean we were constantly told before opening they’d make tons and tons of money and now most people are looking around thinking wtf? I think it was very irresponsible of Theresa to tell young impressionable girls some who had just turned 18 and this was their first job that that they could make $400 a night. I don’t know how you’d possibly make $400 at a place like this. Sure at the Tilted Kilt you sit and flirt and might get higher than the standard 15%-20% tips but I don’t think you’d make more here than you would at a popular chain restaurant like The Outback, Cheesecake Factory, PF Changs, Applebee’s, etc. In fact I think you’d make more money at any of those places with a lot less bullshit.

Hanging with the Girls

Friday was my day off so I decided to go there to hang out and have some drinks.  Theresa always made such a big deal about how we should hang out there and bring all of our friends.  I met up with Tara and Lindsey but it turned into a lot of people because as girls got off they’d join us.  I had a lot of fun sitting there; one really gets to see the restaurant from a different perspective. Alex was our server and hung out with us for most of the night.  I think Alex is so cool and lively.  She is one of those girls you’d want in the station next to you so because you knew you’d both have a lot of fun together.  On the other hand, Alex isn’t the best server and you’d be doing twice as much work with her tables asking you for ketchup, refills, the check, etc.  One of the reasons is that she sits down with her tables too often and for longer periods of time than she should.  I get that’s that is part of our service but already she’s gotten some complaints for getting orders wrong and failing to really fix the situation with the guests because she was too busy chatting away with other tables.

Even while we were there a trainer checked on one of her tables and she had served the table clams instead of squid.  She was like, “oh I don’t eat fish so I’m not too familiar with the difference with all of our fish yet.”  Despite the fact that the Kilt Girls are in cute revealing outfits people still want their order right.  During the training the focus was solely on how we were very important and special.  It was emphasized over and over that people came to that restaurant just to see us.  It doesn’t surprise me that some girls are forgetting that at the end of the day even though we are called ‘entertainers’ we are still essentially waitresses.  Our job requires us to take correct orders and serve food as well. 

I ordered the Shepherd’s Pie and the Irish nachos.  I want to try a different menu item each time I work so I can become really familiar with the menu.  The Shepherd’s pie was okay, I love Shepherd’s pie but here it’s a bit more salty than normal.  The Irish nachos I wasn’t too impressed with.  They seemed so cheap and a small step up from something you’d get at a baseball game or a movie theater.  I know it’s pub food but I’m pretty sure the cheese was that shitty Velveeta stuff. 

 

I like everyone I work with but you could already see cliques forming.  Even Tara and Lindsey who were pretty chill and low drama were talking about people.  Apparently Tara didn’t like Katie because they had worked somewhere before and she thought Katie was a snob.  I thought Katie was cool but I wasn’t going to tell her that.  Alex pointed out a girl Babette a few tables over sitting and talking with an old man.  She sat extremely close to him where she was practically on his lap and was there a long time.  Alex said it was really creepy and she looked like a prostitute.  I thought that was kind of mean to say but rather hilarious because it did sort of look like that.

Shelia came and sat with us for awhile.  She was one of those girls that lived an hour away.  She had driven there to smooth things over with Theresa because Theresa said she didn’t show up for a shift.  Shelia had worked the same day as me when the schedule wasn’t up. I think it was a Wednesday. Someone had told her it was the exact same as last week but she called Theresa to make sure.  Theresa never called her back but Shelia normally had Thursdays and Fridays off anyway so she wasn’t too worried about it until she called Thursday night and Theresa said she didn’t show up that day for a scheduled shift.  Shelia was freaking out that she had gotten fired and drove an hour just to talk to Theresa who said it was okay but to never have it happen again.  Shelia went to the dressing room to write down the schedule and found out that she wasn’t even scheduled Thursday the day Theresa claimed she didn’t show up for.  She drove an hour for nothing!  Shelia was fuming mad and said  it was taking everything in her not to go off on Theresa.  She said she needed this job too much but she wanted to because Theresa was a complete idiot.  We all talked her out of it and bought her a shot but I could not believe that had happened.

I kinda looked at Theresa and I wondered what her previous experience was.   I know she had been a

makeup artist but I just couldn’t figure out how she landed the General Manager job at the Tilted Kilt. From my experience working in some high volume restaurants I would say her personality type was not what I was used to seeing for a management role.  She seemed too disorganized and all over the place.  She didn’t always seem to act professional or appear comfortable like she had done this before.  In fact she comes off as really inexperienced.  I don’t want to say she’s not smart but she’s one of those people that would write 'your' in a context when you were supposed to use 'you’re'.  I had already seen her do it on the Facebook page several times as well as fuck up 'to', 'two', 'too'.

Usually if you look at Craigslist ads for a manager of a restaurant like the Tilted Kilt they require around 3-5 years of experience in a similar high volume setting.  Had Theresa even been a manager before?  I wouldn’t be surprised if she had been a bartender or server but I can hardly see how she would have been a restaurant manager anywhere especially not at at a restaurant this big  Possibly she could have been a manager somewhere like a tiny café or dive bar.  She actually reminded me a ton of the manager Lil on Coyote Ugly, pretty much the same exact person but with different hair. I still saw her more of a makeup artist than a manager because she only focused on the look of the girls instead of logistics of the restaurant where structure, budget, and deadlines were important.  If you forget to order beer and have too many people on the floor when the restaurant is slow you are going to ultimately lose money for the restaurant.

I’m beginning to think that this particular Tilted Kilt was franchised by some guys who have no restaurant experience at all and think, ‘hey this is a cool chain, and it will probably make money because everyone likes pub food and scantily clad hot girls right? We’ll just open up and give Hooters a run for its money! We’ll hire a manager that’s a hot girl so she can relate better to the Kilt girls and it doesn’t matter that she doesn’t have any restaurant experience because she’s hot and used to be a makeup artist so she can help all the girls with their makeup. We’ll of course make money because we are in a good location and since it’s a big city the girls will be hotter here than a small town.’ I could be totally wrong but that’s just the vibe I got.

Not busy at all

When I arrived the dressing room was still as busy and disorganized as ever.   I look forward to the time when it’s not as hectic.  They put the schedule up so it added to the chaos.  My schedule was exactly the same as it was last week.  Looking at the schedule posted I noticed most girls there worked 6 days a week.  Since pretty much everyone was in school I don’t know how they possibly pull that off unless they’ve been neglecting their course work or skipping classes.  I was having enough trouble working 4 days.   I don’t know why they need to schedule people that many times a week especially since it’s been so slow.

Today I worked a day shift in a section called the Fireplace.  It’s a cozy room with a fireplace meaning you think night when you go in there.   As with most every restaurant there are sections that aren’t really open in the day especially if the restaurant is rather large.  That would be this section as well as the Game Room.  Today both of these sections had 3 servers in each which was a problem because absolutely no one sat there the entire day. 

Tara was in the patio and she didn’t have anyone her whole shift either.  When it’s slow that’s the time that it

sticks out more if you aren’t talking to other tables.  I’m kinda over talking to other tables.  It’s annoying and I find it rather obnoxious.   I don’t get tips from that table and I’m here to make money, not to waste time.  I eventually got switched into the Game Room because some girls didn’t show up and management had to totally redo the floor plan.  It appears every shift some people just didn’t show up.  I don’t know if they didn’t know that they were working or that they didn’t want to work here anymore but it was weird.  I’ve never worked someplace before where someone just didn’t show up to work.  I had the Game Room all to myself but it was just as bad because I did not have one single guest for the duration of my shift.

Even though they thought they’d be busier I still don’t understand why they would keep 6 servers in 2 sections that there was NO ONE.  To add to this unfairness is that the main dining room was pretty busy.  The restaurant was in an I or dumbbell shape.  So the middle was busy and the other sides were totally dead.  I think originally the hostesses tried to seat guests in the other sections but none of them wanted to feel like they were sitting in Bum Fuck Egypt with no one else sitting around so they requested to move.  After awhile I think the hostesses just gave up.

The restaurant is ironing out its kinks for sure but I can tell you right now it is not going to be nearly as busy as they hoped.  I think originally corporate or the franchisers thought they’d be busy all day long every day but that’s clearly not the case here.  It’s okay if you are not over flowingly busy on a Monday day shift, even very successful restaurants aren’t but I think though they thought they would be which makes me think they didn’t really do proper market research beforehand. 

To be open until 2am as a bar especially on the week days was rather overly ambitious as well.  This Tilted Kilt was located in a strip mall with a Red Lobster and a grocery store as neighbors.  It didn’t scream cool late night bar/band place especially when our city had a downtown area with numerous bars, clubs, and venues for bands.  The people that lived in the vicinity were college students, retirees, and families.  College students are going to be partying at people’s houses where they could drink for cheap or free.  If they wanted to go out to spend money they’d go downtown.  The retirees generally don’t stay out past a certain hour or see bands.  The families I would think would be the most likely going out for beers but I highly doubt they’d be out until 2am even on the weekends.  They’d most likely not be out that late because they had to get up for their kid’s little league game, soccer match, swim meet, or birthday party.   

I wanted to double check the schedule and realized it wasn’t there.  I remember that it was the same as last week but I’m one of those people that like to write everything down just in case.  Someone asked Theresa and she said that they were making some changes and to call her later for the schedule.  I found Theresa not to be the most reliable of people so I texted Anastasia who was working late and she gave me the schedule that was the same as it had been posted, no changes. 

When I went into the dressing room a girl named Bethany was complaining that a Kilt girl sat in her station the other night and gave her $1 on a $50 check. She hadn’t even realized that she was a kilt girl until she saw her the next day (there still are so many of us that I can see that happening). I think that’s totally shitty. So again I made no money this shift. It was discouraging.

UFC Fight Night

Tonight was the UFC fight.   I’m not a boxing or sports fan at all but I’m sure I’ll learn a lot working here.  I got here at 8pm because that’s when our shift started which normally would be incredibly late but our Tilted Kilt closes at 2am.  This particular Tilted Kilt is trying to be a bar at night and pretty soon we are going to start having bands perform.  I can understand the weekend but closing at 2am on the weekdays seems rather ambitious.  I looked at our website and the latest any of the other Tilted Kilts close is at 12 and that’s only on the weekend. 

So at 8 we did that whole switchover thing.  I took over from Leanne who was a little bummed because she had a big party and you could tell she had already done a lot of work for them.  What can you do that was just the system they had.  I thought since it was the UFC fight it would be crazy busy but it wasn’t.  No one ordered food just drinks and pretty much everyone left when it was over.  Tonight there were still some servers that I’d never seen before.  I think it might take weeks to memorize everyone’s name. The big party handed over from Leanne was a big group of young professionals equal girls and guys.  I noticed subtle lingering glances from some of the girls in the party.  It wasn’t bitchy but definitely sizing me up.  I guess it’s female human nature.  Vivian’s husband came in with his friend.  He said that since the opening he hardly ever saw Vivian so this was his time to hang out with her even though she was working.  Vivian and her husband were so cool, they were just chill and down to earth.  They had been together for years and I still couldn’t believe Vivian had 2 tween girls.  She looked so young. After them I had one more table and that was it for the night.

All my tables left after the fight so I really didn’t have anything to do.   I hung out in Lindsey’s section for awhile where there was a big group of work colleagues.  One of them had Lindsey kiss his colleague on the cheek and he took a photo and said that this would have to go up in their break room.  As a Tilted Kilt Girl you really need to ham it up with the photographs.  The whole reasoning behind looking ‘camera ready’ doesn’t just apply to being an ‘entertainer’ but it really means that at any time you could be in a photo.  I knew being in photos was part of the job but I never imagined the extent of how much they really played a part.  You spend just as much time taking photos here with each other or the guests than you do running food, taking orders, side work, etc.  I think that is sort of hard this day in age where everything can be posted on the internet.  I think many girls don’t mind wearing the uniform and taking a photo but some don’t necessarily want their photo floating around cyberspace for years to come.   

I know a couple of girls that actually got different Facebook accounts just for the Tilted Kilt because they had been tagged in some photos in uniform and conservative relatives or whoever got mad so they wanted their Facebook separate.   I think you actually signed something saying you are an entertainer and are okay with posing for photos and their distribution. 

When I was doing my side work Katie the girl who got the extensions for the photo shoot said she might quit because of this. She said she loved working there and liked all of the other girls but said she didn’t want her photo all over the place, she was going to law school next year and eventually planned to be a judge and said the last thing she’d want anyone to do would be to pull up an old Tilted Kilt photo which she believed it could ultimately undermine her authority as a judge. 

I made about $60 tonight which wasn’t bad however it was mostly from Leanne’s table.  After they left the restaurant was dead.

Tilted Kilt Lunch Shift

Today during the uniform checks Theresa also went over goals and expectations.  Avery was praised for getting a request from a guest and Theresa wanted to see more of that from all of us.  She said we needed to focus more on convincing our guests to come back and the end of their visit because we were there to be relationship builders.  We were also told to let her know if there were any problems with guests because she lost a couple of girls the previous night because they got grabbed and they didn’t feel comfortable working there anymore.

This day was the busiest yet.  Everyone was still on 2 tables each but somehow I ended up with 4 because a few girls didn’t show up for their shifts.  Normally that wouldn’t have been hard at all however there were still long lines to get on the computers which really slowed me down.  I think one of the reasons was that some menu items were listed a little differently on the computer so it was harder for everyone to find.  I also was still familiarizing myself with the vast menu since it’s not like I had gotten good practice the last couple of days.  The trainers had wanted us to focus more on talking to guests than actually learning the food better which I think will bite us in the ass when they leave in a few days and there will be no one to ask questions to because the management knew even less about the food than we did.

For me the best way to learn the menu items better was run as much food as I could.   You didn’t have to run your own food necessarily but it was suggested to run an equivalent of other people’s food to the amount

you ordered.  I already preferred running as much of my own food as I could because I think it made my tables feel like I was more attentive to them.  There was an actual runner there named Krissa who was this cute little punk rock girl with an Edie Sedwich haircut. She just ran food all day; she really worked her butt off.  Even though the servers were supposed to run food most of them pretty much just sat around and schmoozed with the tables or took countless pictures with each other so I really wanted to help her out.  Krissa said a lot of girls didn’t want to come into the expo line area and run food because they thought the chef was mean.  The chef Kyle would yell at anybody if they entered the kitchen expo line the wrong way.  I don’t think Kyle was any different than any other restaurant chef.  Actually he was so typical it was cliché.  Kyle was a no nonsense gruff dude with a lot of tattoos that worked hard and took his job very seriously.  He was probably a pretty nice guy but did not take shit in the kitchen, his kitchen (every chef in a restaurant acts like kitchen belongs to them like it’s their home; essentially it is because they are there the majority of their day). It wasn’t a big deal and it actually says more of his character that he was there to work not to flirt.  Pretty girls in Kilts was not going to sway him from hollering at them to prevent safety in his kitchen. 

I had a young father at one of my tables with 2 little boys and one girl who was about 12.  She looked very annoyed at being there.  Yeah I think it might be awkward at 12 if your dad takes you to a place like this.  She said she wasn’t hungry and didn’t want anything.  The whole time she just sat there and scowled.  Sure enough as most children do she decided she was hungry when she saw her brothers eating and finally ordered something.

One of my other tables was another family that lived right down the street.  They told me that before the Tilted Kilt this building used to be a steakhouse and they hadn’t even noticed it had closed until they came in today.  They had never heard of the Tilted Kilt so they thought they’d give it a try.  Most people I know had

never heard of the Tilted Kilt either despite the fact they now have scores of restaurants.  The weirdest thing today was we had run out of a million beers.  The father would order something and then I’d go to the computer and it was shaded out meaning we were out and you couldn’t order it. He literally ordered 3 different beers and I went back 3 different times only to find each one shaded.   It was like something out of a cartoon or a slapstick skit. I eventually had write down a list of what we

had because it was getting ridiculous.  When I completed the list I estimated that we were out of about 50% of the beers.  I don’t understand how they could have run out of half their stock in the first few days especially when they said they weren’t nearly as busy as they had anticipated.  So if they had met their volume expectations we would have now been 85% out of beer? 

Another table I had were these 2 guys their 40s.  I sat down and talked to them for a little bit and found out that they owned some sort of party supply company nearby.  I told them what beers we had left and one of them became totally incredulous that we only had half of what was listed on the menu.  As a big beer fan myself I would have been annoyed too but he was taking it a little too hard.  I took their drink order and of course the beer the surly one wanted we had just run out when I got to the computer.   I went back to the table and apologized profusely.   I tried to

joke around about it like we were so popular here that we had already run of beer haha, but Surly Sam got incredibly snippety and said he wanted to talk to Theresa.  He tried to act like he knew her personally because he had gotten a coupon from her.  Theresa had made special coupons for businesses nearby because she really wanted local businesses to come and be loyal customers.  I think he thought by name dropping Theresa’s name that I’d be able to magically produce whatever beer he had ordered. 

I told Theresa that my table wanted to see her and she gave me a look like ‘what do you want!”  I think she was really stressed because people didn’t show up for their shift, there were lines to the register, and we were out of half of our beer.  She barked that she was busy and if someone needed something to have Vivian the other manager on the floor go talk to him.  Vivian comes back and tells me that she doesn’t know what that guy’s problem was but he only wanted to talk to Theresa because her name was specifically on the coupon.  For some reason he really didn’t trust talking to anyone else.  Theresa went over and I saw her opening the menu for him and pretty much go over every single menu item like he spoke a foreign language and needed every word explained properly.  Some customers just need extra assistance and some like to exert their power over people that rely on them for tips.  I could tell she really wanted to get out of there and take care of other things.  Later Surly Sam complained that where he sat was way too loud.  There was a group next to him that was joking and laughing but they weren’t really that bad, they weren’t even drinking.  Surly Sam’s friend looked kind of embarrassed.  I wasn’t allowed to take on more than 4 tables so I had them moved and transferred to someone else.  Good riddance.

Like Hooters the Tilted Kilt also sells merchandise.  They have a calendar, mugs, and hats.  We had a calendar girl working at our branch which apparently was a big deal because she could autograph it if they bought it.  We were supposed to use that as a selling point.  I had noticed the calendar girl Cindy during

training because she had very delicate features like a porcelain doll and was a huge fan of heavy makeup and eyelash extensions.  She was also probably one of those people that took 2 hours to curl her hair, it always looked flawless.  At first she appeared a little stuck up and unapproachable.  I caught her a few times staring at herself on TV where a behind the scenes video of the calendar shoot was showing on repeat.  I got a chance to talk to her and found her to be actually quite down to earth and probably the sweetest girl on staff.  Cindy was really helpful to everyone because she was one of the few people that really knew how to work the computer well and could answer any question about the food. 

In the early evening there was a switchover when the new servers came in for the evening shift.  In every restaurant that I’ve ever heard of, the server would be cut from the floor, finish up with their tables, do their side work, and leave when their last table cashed out.  Sometimes if you had a table that was just there forever you could transfer it if you wanted to go home but that usually was your choice.  At the Tilted Kilt when all those new servers came in the manager had to transfer everyone’s section on the floor over to the new servers.  It was utter chaos.  My section had dwindled down to only 1 table that looked like they were going to be there for awhile so I had everything transferred over.  Tara was in the next section over but her section was full because a few of her tables had been drinking there for awhile and weren’t ready to leave.  We both thought it was optional at first to switch everything out.  The new server Amber came on to Tara’s section and Tara asked if she could wait because she had a full section.  Amber said okay but 10 minutes later as I was finishing up side work Theresa confronts Tara and asks her why she refused to give over her tables.  Amber was standing behind Theresa looking really uncomfortable.  I’m sure she didn’t accuse Tara of saying she refused but that’s how Theresa chose to interpret it. Tara apologized and said that she thought it was optional. It was just a simple misunderstanding that Theresa totally overacted on, she practically yelled at Tara on the floor in front of everyone.  

The Tilted Kilt’s system of switching everything over at once made it 10 times more complicated than it needed to be. The problem was that management didn’t want people to go over their 6 hours because legally that would be a break violation. They should have just had an unpaid break off the floor so they wouldn’t stress over people going over time and then the servers could close out like normal at the end of their shift. This way the servers got to keep their tips from the tables they did most or all of the work for. Or they could cut everyone at 5 hours instead and have the servers transfer their remaining tables if they were close to going over 6 hours. Instead the system in place required the manager to transfer every single table from every single server at the exact same time. Everyone was scrambling around. It was honestly the dumbest system I’ve ever seen.

Today I actually made a little more money but for a restaurant that was busy it wasn’t as great as they made it out to be. When I was cashing out in the managers offices there were a few members of corporate there saying how the numbers weren’t where they thought they’d be by now.