Snap. Crackle. I Will Pop Your Fucking Jaw.

So, there I was, with my gun in one hand and my knife in the other... Oh wait, thats a whole other story.

Actually, there I was, in mid-sentence when the person I was talking to popped their gum in my face. Twice.

"Is something wrong?," she asks when I stop talking and start staring.

Is something wrong? Oh...you mean something besides the fact that you have no fucking manners? Or besides the fact that we're in a kitchen preparing food for the public and you're chomping on a piece of gum like a cow chews cud, blowing bubbles, and generally spreading your spit like Angelina Jolie spreads her thighs? Nope, not a thing.

I've given up on the vast majority of people I work with. Most of them wouldn't make for decent Soylent Green. Its pretty fucking sad, and I need to find a new job. Fast.

Let's just throw caution to the wind here, and I'll give you all a glimpse of what has become my life...

The kitchen manager is currently pissed, and has been raping my ear for a week solid, over the fact that her newest idea for a Lunch Feature was shot down. A grilled cheese and jelly sandwich.

Folks, we're not talking about a nice brie with a fresh fruit spread on toasted homemade french bread. This fool wanted to serve buttered white bread with processed American cheese and imitation food service quality jelly for around $7 a pop. This. Is. My. Boss. I have to take orders from this person. I drive home from work looking for bridges high enough to jump off of...

The general manager bases her selection of menu items for the month based off what she, personally, likes to eat. Because, clearly, if she doesn't like it, who would?

We have a veritable cabaret of waitresses-slash-front of house assistant managers that are so terrified of the kitchen, we only see them when it's time for them to graze.

I have actually had servers pick up a dish, look me in the face and inquire, with no shame; "Is this fish or chicken?" And, let's talk about our servers for a minute, shall we?

We have three kinds of servers at work. The good, the bad, and the geriatric. The good servers are our current minority. The old folks home needs the majority of our waitresses home before 8:00, and the bad servers just seem to multiple like mogwai exposed to water. It's terrible. Tragic, even.

It may seem shallow, but as someone that has managed in the service industry for roughly 20 years, I'm here to tell you that you hire your servers on a 50/50 basis. 50% of them have talent, and 50% of them are simply eye candy.

We have an outdoor patio that is set to open back up next month. I'm sure business will be booming once our customers discover the parade of varicose veins and naval-high nipples that we have to offer. Oh baby...

Every single dishwasher we have thinks he's the next David Copperfield. The government had less trouble finding draft dodgers in Vietnam than I do finding a dishwasher when something needs done. It's like trying to find Bill Clinton among the mounds of flesh at a Weight Watchers meeting when I need someone to run downstairs to the walk-in cooler.

And our cooks? Well, they can't. There's me, the chef, a kid with the worst case of ADHD I have ever seen outside the mental health field, and one other guy that has made a career out of pretending he can. Beyond that, I'm surrounded by one-hit-wonders that stare back at me with blank amazement when I ask them for anything beyond the scope of what they've been trained to do. Because, thats exactly how you staff a full service kitchen, kids. You hire clowns instead of cooks and you don't bother to cross-train anybody. Makes perfect sense, if you don't stop to think about it.

I give up. I surrender. I used to care. Honestly. I used to be afraid that coworkers I didn't want to read this blog would hear about it and discover what I really thought about them. No more. I'm over it. I'm done putting on a passive face at work and pretending like the ineptitude of others doesn't affect me. I'm going to start calling spades spades and weilding the bigger club.

I'm done confining my witty retorts to the idiocy of the people that surround me to my blog. I'm going full-blown vocal. Morning, assholes!

Okay and yes...it did take a bitch blowing bubbles in my face to push me to the point of no return. I'm stubborn like that. But, now that someone dropkicked me back to a state of ass-kickery, there are a lot of people that are going to wish I had stayed in my self-induced coma of complacency.

I came here to kick ass and chew bubblegum. And, I'm all out of bubblegum...