My wife and I went out to dinner this evening to one of our favorite Caribbean restaurants on the West coast of Florida and as usual had a great feast, but with a touch of humor out of the ordinary.

Our waitress came by, introduced herself as Tammy and said she would be serving us this evening.

She asked us what we would like to drink and we ordered a Chardonnay and a Tanqueray on the rocks with olives.

Oh, about five minutes later our drinks came and it was a different waitress.

“I’m Tess”, she said.  “I will be serving you this evening.”

I said, “What happened to Tammy?

“Oh,” Tess said, “She got cut.”

I said. “You mean between the time she took our order and now she got cut?  Is she alright?”

“Oh, she’s fine she’s going home.”

My wife and I began to laugh, we had Tammy and in-between our drink order and its serving we had a change in a waitress who got cut and was introduced to Tess.

We were under the impression that someone got hurt.

I was talking about all of this with my wife when Tammy walked by and said she was sorry.  I said are you alright? She said she was fine.

Tess served our first course and I asked her about the change that took place in waitresses.  She said this was her first night on the job.

She didn’t seem to be the sharpest knife in the draw, but then again, after all that was happening, I wasn’t feeling to sharp either.

A bus boy came by to clean the table of our first course.

I asked him if he had ever been cut.  He said,”I’m the last to be cut.”

He said he was working in the construction business with his father, but he had to supplement his income with a second job.

Shortly, after we were wrapping up our main course, the hostess came by and asked how everything was.  I said it was great as usually, but I had a few questions.

We started out with Tammy then got Tess who said that Tammy got ‘cut’   I was ready to call 911 until I found she was not physically cut but it was something to do with a pecking order.

I said I thought Tammy had been put on injured reserve.

She said, not exactly.  Tammy started at 3PM and when we noticed that the volume of business did not support the staff on hand we reduce those waitresses that were working earlier.

Yes, I thought there was a protocol for all that I witnessed.  She then said that I was privy to  the underbelly of the restaurant business.

As we were leaving the restaurant, the hostess said to me, “Now you are going to keep your knowledge of this business to yourself?”

I said, “Oh, sure.”