This week has been much more mellow than most. The reason is that Stressball Boss has been out of town on - vacation? Fuck if I know.

Don't get me wrong. I love my boss. She's wonderful and fun and maternal towards all of us young 'uns. But Dear God, that woman can stress like none other. And it's the contagious sort of stress, wherein every lunch rush, we'll be plugging along just fine, until...

"WHERE'STHECOFFEEETABLESIXNEEDSWATERINEEDACROQUEMADAMENOWNOWNOW".

And next thing we know, we're all likewise. It's bad enough that several of the baristas have started pulling her decafs to help ease the situation.

With SBB gone, however, things have been much calmer. Today was a bit nuts for awhile; not because of business, but because the Incredible Genius' of the Fridge People decided that, yeah, 12:30 is a good time to show up at restaurant to istall a new fridge.

Yeah. 12:30. You won't be getting in anyone's way THEN.

(Our old fridge was quite the curmudgeon, in it's own nearly-charming way. We'd had it repaired about three times before, but once every week or so, we'd show up to find all of our milk soured. A morning without cappucino is not a good morning at all.)

The whole week-without-boss theory was all well and good until today, which was supposed to be tipout day. I came back to work about an hour ago, as prescribed, to pick up my tips, and found that I'd only been left tips for yesterday, instead of for all of last weeks. Uh. No. But, since SBB was absentee and her husband had again left for their other restaurant, there was nothing to be done. So I pocketed my shitty tips, and vowed to raise hell tomorrow.