My Last Post About Work, For A While- Promise

Last night, the unthinkable happened. I cried at work. That's not me. I can handle myself under the most stressful of situations. I may get flustered, I may get angry, I may ask for help, but I. Don't. Cry.

I had several tables- no big deal. I screwed up a big tables check- nothing that couldn't be fixed. I ordered the wrong food- table never even knew it, again, no big deal.

I lost my server book- REALLY BIG DEAL.

My server book had all of the money I had made that night. It held all of the money I had made for the restaurant, and was expected to turn in at the end of the night. It held all of the credit card slips, proving how much money I had made through credit cards. It held my favorite picture of Maddie.

I first noticed it around 8ish. By 8:30, almost all of the servers knew about it. The entire restaurant staff was helping my look for it. People were digging through trash cans. Others were going through all of the menus, hoping that it had been accidentally mixed in with them. Like I said, it was a big deal.

By 9:30ish, everyone had pretty much given up hope. We were all still keeping our eyes open for it, but didn't hold out much hope of finding it. Conspiracy theories were floating around- Who took it? Probably the new chick. I bet a customer saw the cash and grabbed it. Did you notice the new busser?

In all honesty, I have no idea what happened to it. And, that's not like me. At all. I may randomly wash money in the washer. I may forget the $20 bill in my jacket and leave it there, until the next season. But, I don't lose my server book, with around $300 in it. Ever.

And, then, after I thought I was done crying about it, the manager had another server bring me to the front of the restaurant. Lots of the servers were there, and I thought it may have been one great big joke, and someone had been hiding my book the whole time.

Nope.

Something nicer. He handed me a wad of money. "Here. This is from the servers. They collected money and wanted you to have it. Consider this your tip money for the night. We'll worry about the other later."

Pretty awesome, huh? What is even crazier about the whole thing is that it came from some people that I can barely tolerate. Don't get me wrong, I have lots of friends that work there. But, some of the people, I don't have anything in common with, and well, quite frankly, they get on my freakin' nerves. And, they chipped in so I would have money at the end of the night.

It was totally unexpected and I'm extremely grateful to each one of them. If it were to ever happen to one of them, I'll be the first one to toss in money. The manager on shift, helped me out and I'll be paying back the money over the next week. Just a little at a time.

I had a hard time sleeping last night. Did someone I work with take my money, without any second thoughts? Was it a customer that knows how to steal identities, b/c it also held my check stubs with my social security number on it? Did I, gasp, throw it away? Oh, crap, I forgot to look through that one trash can. That's where it has to be. I know it.

If someone did steal my server book, I hope the money was well spent. I hope they enjoy the pictures of Maddie on the front cover. They were my only copies of them, and my favorites, so I hope they value them as much as I did.

I hope they have a conscience and return my server book, money intact. So I can give back all of the money that the servers worked their butts off to make.

Because, you see, I cried last night. And, I don't want them to tell anyone.