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Hear No Evil

I HAVEN'T WRITTEN about work since I was hired there in January, so I suppose now is as good a time as any for a revival.

I've been an employee at Ruby Tuesday of Smithfield for a little over five and a half months now, which is exceptionally longer than most hired help there considering our restaurant has a 400% employee turnover. Although I'm known for taking a long time to clean up after being cut for the night, I think I'm well-liked mainly for the fact that I'm always in a freakishly good mood and I never rant or whine about my job.

Tonight was an unexceptional night, except for the fact that I seemed to have suddenly misplaced a suprising amount of money sometime during the night. You see, when I'm paid with cash, in all my years of waiting tables, no one's ever not given enough to cover a check. They may have ripped me on the tip, but they always pay for the meal. So, for the most part, I don't count my money and check what sort of a cash tip they gave me when they say, "Keep the change." I like to stay as unbiased to my guests as possible, so I can never say I started to treat them bad or ignore them because I know they've given me a tip below what I'd of expected...it keeps me moral.

But at the end of tonight I had made about $370 in sales, with a per-person average of $16.55, which is good considering our goal is usually about thirteen bucks. Figuring up the percentages in my head, I figured I should have made about $55 in tips, if not more, based on the evaluation that everyone left an average of a 15% tip. But low and behold, I count my money and all I made was $36, nine of which I had to tip out to the bartender, host and salad bar lady. That left me with $27 on a Friday night. Bummer.

Luckily the night started off with me taking a table of six, a collection of three couples, and they were all deaf! Not only that, but they couldn't speak coherently either, as most-to-all deaf people can't hear themselves, so they spent the entire meal signing to each other and silently laughing. They were wonderful people, the kind that remind me why I'm glad to be a waiter, and by the end of the meal I could even say certain words in sign. I was amazed with how much more emotion they could show with their arms and hands than most people can with their voice. They were a challenge to wait on, but they were really neat people I hope I can wait on again.