louie, louie.

So a few months ago, I wrote an entry about my troubles with Louie. Despite my fervent prayers (okay, not really), we still share the same place of employment. Since the deal-with-it-until-he-quits plan is failing me, I'm trying a brand new plan. I am going out of my way to be nice to the man.

This is not to say that I was outright mean to him before. I don't think I let my dislike of him show. If I ever did, it was only when he was being particularly frustrating, and even then I stifled my feelings of distaste. The point is that now I am actively thinking of ways to be pleasant. And it's true that I employed the use of the plan in late October, but not to the extent that I am doing it now.

Okay, so the plan isn't brand new. I've even done this before with other coworkers. In fact, I was trying it with a fellow server when one day he said to me, "Sandra, will you do me a favor since you don't like me but are trying to be nice to me?" I laughed and hope that I played it off so he didn't realize it was completely true. I still don't know how he knew, since I hadn't mentioned my intentions of niceness to anyone.

To be fair, Louie has been easier to deal with lately because he's been waiting tables rather than hosting. Louie doesn't seem to like me, or girls in general, as he gave bigger and more tables to any guys that were working than he did the girls. I assure you, this is not a figment of my imagination. It was blatant. The guys that were being favored even noticed it, told me that it was unfair, but would never say anything. I suppose I should have said something, since during the busy Christmas season, the female servers would consistently walk out with as much as $90 less than one of the guys, even if the girl had actually worked a longer shift. But as a server, Louie doesn't have that kind of power. And people in general are much easier to work with when they have no sort of authority over you.

Part of the reason that being nicer to Louie came to me was because of Casey's recent employment. Louie likes Casey, liked him almost instantly. Obviously, I don't consider Casey unlikeable, as I liked him almost instantly, too. But I don't consider myself difficult to like. Then again, the unfair doling out of tables to servers and Casey's instant acceptance into Louie's circle of friends makes me think that this may be a sexism issue. And I may not be able to overcome some sort of deep-seated misogyny, but I suppose it won't hurt to try. What does not kill us makes us stronger, eh?

Yesterday was the first day I put my niceness campaign to work. We were slow; business was deader than the deadest of the doornails. Therefore, I had plenty of time to hang around, do nothing, and make conversation. Joe had gotten Louie talking about some things he did when he was younger, so I decided to continue the conversation.

The idea of getting to know him better was actually my sister's. My family ate at Vintner's one night, and Louie was our server. He said something about his grandchildren, and it occurred to me that I didn't even know he had children, much less children that had bore other children. My sister started talking to him about his grandchildren, and it was obvious that he liked to talk about them. People like to talk about themselves. I should know this better than anyone, otherwise I wouldn't have a journal where I write paragraphs and paragraphs about myself.

So Louie and I sat at a table and talked about bartending. I found out that he was the first legal bartender in the state of North Carolina. I would ask him questions about bartending "way back when" and he answered them. The conversation was interesting, so I didn't even have to force myself to look interested. And he told me other stories, which all led to pieces for me to add to my Louie puzzle.

I have no idea if yesterday was effective at all. Part of the goal is to make Louie like me more, thinking that he will then not be a jerk.

Otherwise, I'll just have to go back to hoping he'll quit soon.