Monday, September 26, 2011

our love turns to rust

Perhaps some 'splaining about last night's blog post is in order, but I'm not going to spend much time 'splaining because I should be in bed. Needless to say, my Saturday took some unexpected twists and turns; I almost didn't go out at all after taking a mid-afternoon nap, but my decision to rally for Leland Tea led to a twelve hour descent into debauchery. As a result, I stayed over at Adit's and awoke in the morning feeling better than I deserved but worse than I preferred. Jess was staying over as well, even though she hadn't hung out with us until showing up at Adit's place at midnight looking for a place to crash since she had plans in the city on both Saturday and Sunday. I convinced her to cancel her Sunday plans, though (opera in the ballpark, which I and everyone else was bailing on due to precipitation and the fact that it's the opera - j/k, opera fans), and the three of us decided to get brunch together. We called Katrina and forced her to come with us, and it looked like it was going to be an awesome time...

...until we went to Samovar and my love affair with that place was irreparably damaged. Any longtime (or even shorttime) readers of the blog know that I love Samovar with all my heart, despite their occasionally bad service and their overpriced menu options. I went back through my blog and confirmed that I've gone 40+ times in the past two years (at which point I stopped counting), both alone to write/brainstorm and with friends. I had a Groupon for Samovar, which is part of why we ended up there today, but it ended up being a complete shitshow. Food for Adit, Jess and I came very quickly, but Katrina's food took almost an hour. The waitress's apology wasn't really an apology; she said that the kitchen was very small and had gotten swamped, and that we could look back in the kitchen to see how small it is (which is a terrible excuse, since Samovar has been open 10+ years and wasn't entirely full this morning anyway - they should be able to get a fucking bowl of rice with some salmon on it out of the kitchen in less than an hour). She also failed to bring us water until the third time we'd asked, which was also ridiculous. And the icing on the cake was that when we paid, she said there wasn't enough change to break a freaking twenty dollar bill, which meant that we had to break it amongst ourselves and then get change from the restaurant across the street because they were out of change.

So, I was unusually irate about all of this (note: my horoscope for today says: You might try to keep your feelings to yourself as the Moon returns to cool Virgo today, but you won't likely be able to prevent an emotional eruption. You have run out of patience and may think that you have to do something immediately or you'll lose your chance. Just remember that initiating action is easy now, but you won't be able to just hit the undo button tomorrow.). Usually I let such ridiculousness slide, and might not have said anything, but Katrina had been chatting up the owner (Jesse) earlier, and when he came by at the end, she very politely/cheerfully told him about the late food and the lack of change. He seemed totally sympathetic at first, and at first I calmed down. But then I walked out and realized that he hadn't really given much of an apologize. Nor had he asked what he could do the change the situation - if nothing else, I think he should have comped Katrina's food or at least her tea, and/or gone to get more change.

At that realization, I went nearly incandescent with anger. Samovar's service problems clearly stem from an owner who doesn't quite know how to apologize and doesn't attempt to make customers happy again, and who uses the 'zen' aspects of teamaking to excuse slow, sloppy service and food prep (their menu even says that the modern world is too hectic to appreciate tea, and that everyone should just slow down and wait). And if they stem from the owner, they're not going to improve. And, like so many things in my life (and this is not a trait I'm proud of), Samovar has disappointed me for the last time and I'm going to cut it out of my heart despite my love for it.

If you stuck through that rant, you deserve a cookie (I would give you a scone, but since I'm not going back to Samovar, you'll have to settle for a scone from somewhere else). Post-Samovar, I was too angry to continue to hang out and realized that, like a small child who hasn't slept enough, perhaps I needed a nap and some quiet time. So I abandoned my friends, came home, took a nap, did some dishes, talked to my parents (of course), and then finally started doing the work I was supposed to do this weekend. I didn't quite get through all of it, but I judged five contest entries, took care of some spreadsheet stuff, and thought a little bit about my upcoming agent conversation. The next few days are going to be hectic, but hopefully my rage will subside and clarity will replace it.

Now, though, I should really sleep; I have to see Alyssa tomorrow, and I've got a ton to do both before and after to get my week off on the right foot. Goodnight!

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