Hello, my name is Nicholas Jeff. Try not to make too much fun of my name, but I would agree that it’s pretty messed up. And so is my life. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t have anything horribly wrong with me, but I just get into these dumb situations that just drive me crazy.

Take today. I woke up with the taste of long island iced-tea on my breath and the sound of beeping from my alarm clock. In the process of turning off the alarm clock, I slipped on a hot wheel and broke my laptop. Cursing the toy, I told myself my daily lie, "It's going to be a good day," repeatedly. Then I flew to the shower, made a quick sandwich and arrived 33 minutes late for work.

“Nick!” my boss Donald yelled, “You’re late!”

Where most people say "Hello Nick, how's everything? How have you been? Nice hair cut," Donald's double chin, triple stomach, albino rat-looking jerk tells me everything I'm doing wrong, or he says nothing at all. Which is usually fine because the guy has the conversational style of a drill sergeant and the intelligence of my left pinkie. Not to mention he has a cotton backbone when it comes to customer complaints. Ok Nick don't panic, just tell him a lie based on the truth. “Yeah, I slipped out of bed and –”

“You have a write up waiting for you in my office. I need you to sign it! Try not to be late anymore because that’s your second offense.”

Umm, did I lie badly? 'Cause last time I checked, I really did slip out of bed. That fat mother-- never mind that, let’s just try to keep this positive.

If I didn’t mention it before, I bus tables at a restaurant called Shelly Sholes’ Bar and Grill. We serve pasta, pizza, ribs and, well basically American cuisine. But it’s very expensive; you could easily pay $50 just for a side of fries, half pound of tri-tip, cole slaw and a Coke. Even though I work there, I'd still pay 25 bucks for that crap, but that's another story.

Anyhow, I was walking around the semi-crowded restaurant to make sure that everything I needed to start my shift was done: fill up ice tea bins, fill up all the ice bins, and make sure there were clean rags everywhere. Well, everything was done except the iced tea bins, which required me to brew the tea in a three gallon pot, and move it to the proper section to cool off for its next use. As I started brewing, a customer screamed, “Hey, I've been waiting for over an hour to get some iced tea, how long does it take to freaking make some freaking iced tea?” Two things, one, it's the server's job and I'm not a server, two we've only been open for a few minutes, maybe fifteen. Buddy, you need a new clock or someone to teach you how to tell time.

“Okay sir, I’ll get you some iced tea as soon as it’s ready.” See, I can't say what I want to say because I have to be "professional" at all time. And by "professional" I mean "brown-nosing stuck up people so they feel superior and privileged.

“And how long will that be?”

“I dunno, two or three minutes, maybe five. I just start—”

“Hurry up, I don’t have all day.” He cut his eyes at me as he tapped his wristwatch. You know maybe it's me, but nothing I say seems to be important. I can’t seem to finish a thought to save my life.

Minutes later, the iced tea is finished brewing, but it's still very hot. The customer kept staring at me like a one-year-old wanting something you’re eating, but can’t seem to ask for it.

“Sir,” I told him, “let me just let this cool off and—”

“I don’t have time to be waiting, I’m very thirsty and I need something to drink now. Just pour me the glass with a lot of ice.” Okay, so I poured him a glass, with tons of ice, moved his full glass of ice water to the other side and placed his semi-cold iced tea on the table.

“Okay sir, is there anything else I could get you?”

“Thank you.” Translation: Get lost. You served your purpose.

“Umm, just out of curiosity, was anything wrong with your water, anything I should address to—”

He looked at me like I was an unwanted houseguest. “I don’t drink water. Thank you very much.” Translation: I’m serious, get lost before I call a manager. You’re in my way.

For the next few minutes, everything seems to be fine. That customer was not asking me for anything, but I was talking to my manager for some reason— whatever. I was clearing and resetting a table, alone, but effectively. Everything seemed like it was going to be fine. In fact, I started to tell myself, this is why I have to stay as positive as I can because good things happen whenever I’m positive.

“Nick,” the manager said after he finished his conversation with the Iced-Tea man, “I’m going to need to see you in my office.”

In the office, Donald started the conversation with: “So what do you think you did wrong today? More specifically, what do you think you did wrong with that customer?”

“I’m going to need you to be a little more specific. I have no clue what you’re talking about.”

“No clue whatsoever? Really?”

Really, no clue whatsoever. But I started to think out loud to figure out what I did. “Okay, throughout course of the day, I’m getting coffees, sodas, even food to any number of customers. I’m talking to about 3% of them, which is very high for a busser. But there’s no way I could possibly remember every single one of them or every single thing I’ve done.”

“You served a man iced tea today, correct?”

“I served a lot of iced tea today.” But why did that iced tea man come to mind all of a sudden?

“Let me be frank here, because you don’t seem to know, and I don’t know why, but you served a man iced tea today and it was lukewarm. It nearly burned his tongue and that made me very concerned—”

“I’m sorry, but how many people do you know of who have ever come close to injury from a lukewarm liquid?”

“Your tone of sarcasm is going to get you fired.” He fired two people this week for saying worse.

“I’m just trying to understand—”

“The point is that we at Shelly Sholes take pride in making sure our customers get what they pay for. He paid $4.75 for iced tea. He should get cold iced tea. You need to make sure that if you’re getting someone iced tea -- and I know you're a busser, that's really more of a server's job -- but you need to make sure it’s cold. Or I’m going to pull you back up here and I’m not going to be nice about it like I am now.”

Nice? He called this conversation nice? Man, I oughtta--wait--I can't say anything. This is the only job I've got, no one’s hiring, and he already fired two people yesterday for getting sarcastic. So I nodded my head, apologized and went back to work. Guess that was an omen this morning.

To be continued…