It’s here! The New Year! We made it! Well, that’s the good news. The bad news is this is not only a leap year (you’re going to have to work that shift you picked up for Feb 29th…) but it’s also an election year.
Brace yourself for hot takes, uninformed but long-winded opinions, and the internet being basically unusable due to a rising volume of misleading posts and comments. Given that, you should do whatever you can to vote. If you’re not, get registered as soon as you can – it’ll only get more difficult as the year progresses. Start here with Rock the Vote. It has the name of a music genre almost no one really pays attention to anymore, so you know it’s legit.
And enough of all that for now, here’s WTF for January 2024!
We don’t have to be around all these coffee shops.
We’re off to a great start to 2024 with an early entry for The Most Obnoxious Customer awards (also known as The Custies.) A wedding party in Indianapolis decided to take over a coffee shop and… have a wedding. Rather than, you know, check with the staff or make a reservation or anything a rational human being with a working sense of empathy would do, they just showed up and got married. I can tell you right now, the inevitable “pop-up divorce” that’s coming will be way more interesting.
I don’t remember Gene Wilder being so ripped.
Jeremy Allen White and Calvin Klein dropped their new campaign. The photos quickly got the attention of pretty much everybody for their accurate portrayal of line cooks taking a quick breather between shifts. We here at Poached applaud CK for bringing this dose of reality of life in the restaurant industry. Every single line cook felt represented for their work developing cut abs, biceps, and pecs, as well as having fresh clean underwear on.
If tipping less than 10% was a person.
Lauren Boebert was back in the news, but not for anything she’s done in Congress. She and her former husband met in a restaurant, but at some point things got physical. Police are investigating allegations that the former owner of Shooters Grill (where the servers open carried while on the floor) may have struck Jayson Boebert for having a totally unnecessary ‘Y’ in his name. Only a couple weeks into 2024 and we have tight competition for a Custie statute already!
Maybe just make it taste good?
We’re in the “age of Ozempic” and savvy marketers are worried about the impact of consumers using off-script pharmaceuticals on their health… Ok, no, they’re worried they won’t be able to sell as many neon orange crunchy triangles. Evidently, selling items on “cravability” is out, and selling items based on a TikTok collab is in. Meanwhile, you can now subscribe to Taco Bell Nachos. Good luck out there people. Consider voting for free health care.
