On Sunday, I ended up getting tossed into a "62 person" banquet. Tables are set up, there's five servers on it, one for each table. GM is very specific about us sticking to our tables, not overlapping with someone else's.

The party arrives twenty minutes late, turns out this woman has two kids with back to back birthdays and is hosting the party. Semi-typical soccer mom, although she seems nice. However, this party is anything but. Kids immediately start running in circles, parents are barking orders for beers and wine left and right, moving chairs and blocking the aisle with high chairs. Plus, they're too busy walking around and talking, which makes it hard to get anyone even started off with their complimentary sodas/juice/whatever. Ok, it's gonna be one of those parties.

As it turns out, this banquet is more like 40 people, not 62. So, I, along with another server, are kinda standing around the edges like ok, what now? Our tables aren't being used, and the other servers seem to have their tables covered. Then, the mom approaches us with this tight little smile on her face, and asks if she can ask us a favor, before telling us to start doing something, pouring drinks or whatever because she's been waiting for twenty minutes and nothing is happening.

I have no problem with doing that--but you've been waiting for twenty minutes because literally no one took a seat when you arrived, and it's kinda hard to pour drinks for forty people that won't stay in one place for longer than ten seconds.

It only gets better. Our banquet manager gets everyone's food orders (or so she thinks), and they start coming out, before things start going wrong. We use order cards that people put in front of themselves so we know which meal is going where (it's all very basic, cheese burgers, turkey wraps, or chicken caesar salads, cheese pizza, grilled cheese, or chicken nuggets for the kids), so this should be simple. Except for the fact that half these kids and their parents are switching seats and not taking their meal cards with them.

At one point, I go to drop off a salad to someone with the salad card, because I just see the green card which corresponds to that, and work accordingly. The lady immediately scowls at me and waves her card in my face, where I then see the 1.5-inch post-it attached that says 'no chicken' in 1/2 inch high letters. Whoops, ok. I go back, get the right salad, and ask her if I can get anything else. She waves the card in my face again. Ok, two salads without chicken.

I go and get the second one, and she asks "What's this?" "Did you not need a second salad?" "No, I need my kid's food," as she proceeds to wave her card in my face again. Hooookay.

"What did they order?" Woman scowls at me, like I should know this. Which I don't. I did not take your order. The kitchen literally just gives me the food and tells me to drop them off at the right person. She's missing a grilled cheese and chicken nuggets. Run back to get those, and there's another grilled cheese being carried by another server. I'm walking over to drop the kid's food, when another guest stops me, and points at me.

"I'm still missing my grilled cheese, you can leave that right here." Meanwhile, the other server is placing the grilled cheese he's carrying in front of her kid. "Your grilled cheese is right there, ma'am." "No it's not--Oh."

Drop off the other two plates, and go back to kind of lurking, as I truly have nothing to do besides wait to be snapped at for a refill. Salad lady, as it turns out, is a massive Debbie Downer, talking about the death of her mother, swilling wine, and talking about a million other subjects way too heavy for a three-year-old's bday party. The kids get a hold of the balloon place settings and immediately start a battle royale over the individual balloons. They're kicking and slapping at each other, two of them are rolling on the floor in the aisle, and the parents are just cracking jokes. At this point, this party is going on two hours, their reservation total time, and I've had zero other tables because the entirety of my section is being taken up on this banquet. In total, they spent two and a half hours there, it took us twenty minutes to get everything cleaned up and set back to normal, and I made $42.