Slinging Food for Tips

There is a great website that is a few years old, but still a good read. My friend S introduced me to it. http://www.bitterwaitress.com/.

During my ten years with the airlines, I always had some kind of second job to make ends meet. This phase of my life thankfully ended about a year ago when I finally found a job that could pay the bills. I spent the better part of the past ten years working for CPK (California Pizza Kitchen) as a server and a bartender. Waiting tables is definitely a love hate relationship. It is a fast paced business that I was very good at. You have to be patient, efficient, and able to juggle several tasks at the same time. There is definitely a burn out factor and the majority of my friends and I all left between the eight and twelve year mark. The last year I had really lost my interest in the business, but restaurants were always a consistent source of extra cash for me and I was reluctant to leave before I could start working OT at my current job. In California, employers have to pay you minimum wage plus tips. In most other states, you only make two to three dollars per hour plus tips. Normally, you make decent money. On bad days though, sometimes the reverse is true. If a big party walks out on you without paying or something, you might be paying the restaurant rather than them paying you!

I am still close friends with a lot of my compadres from the biz. We all suffer from a form of post traumatic stress. Food serving is quite the lifestyle. Working in such close quarters, laughing and joking through constant hard work and rude customers who don't tip you well, learning Spanish the hard way (Que es la palabra para bacon?), the ongoing drama of what the managers want you to push that week or what 24 steps of service you have to hit that week in order to keep your job. Equipment that does not work, lazy servers who do not restock what you need, items you run out of EVERY Sunday night without fail, the kitchen crashing, and on and on. I got together with my girlfriends last week and we all were discussing our recurring restaurant nightmares. Mine is that I am standing in the side station of the restaurant in front of the computer where I would enter orders. I have three or four tables that have all been seated at the same time (in restaurant speak getting triple sat or more likely you will hear "The fucking host just slammed me!") I have taken their orders and tried to remember them all in my head, but for some reason I cannot remember any of them. I have a couple of servers behind me that are impatiently waiting to use the computers going, "Come on! Hurry up!" My manager then walks into the side station and starts yelling at me. "What is going on? All of your tables are just sitting there with nothing on the tables! No drinks, no bread." I am frozen in place and cannot move. I keep trying to make it back to my tables, but something prevents me from doing so and there is chaos all around me.

bitterwaitress.com is a cool website because most of the people who post on there are servers or restaurant staff and reading a few posts brings me right back to the trenches. They debate such important topics as Shouldn't there be a charge for water? to How much do you tip out? to Have you ever screwed someone else over on their sidework? One of the other major debates is fine dining versus non fine dining. Most of the servers who upgrade from Applebee's to Aqua are looked at with a certain amount of envy or fascination by their peers. "She made the jump..." is one phrase you will hear or the excited statement "Marvin is working in fine dining now!" is another. For me, I am not and will never be a fine dining kind of a guy. Though I put up a good front for the most part, my white trash roots always end up showing through. I do not care where the shrimp fork goes versus the salad fork and what truly comes first, soup or salad? I was always a big fan of the turn and burn mall restaurant type places. Quick service and easy in, easy out. You cannot keep up working at this pace forever though and that is likely why I burnt out. You can only argue with so many mothers about why their stroller cannot block the emergency exit door or why you cannot stand there for ten minutes while their child decides what they would like for lunch. bitterwaitress also has a forum on celebrities and what it is like to wait on them. Are they polite? Do they tip well? There is no way to verify the stories, but they are good reading nonetheless.

To all my brothers and sisters in the restaurant biz, I applaud you and encourage you to keep the faith. Coming home caked in ranch dressing and pizza sauce is a character building experience. So is waiting on a table of East Indians. "I would like water no ice. Can you tell me what is vegetarian on the menu?" Along with the pain, there is always laughter.

Cuidate a todo.