Waiter Rant

When I decided on a blog topic, I thought my idea of talking about my experiences as a server was so original. Well apparently it was not.

Waiter Rant, a blog turned book caught my attention when I was telling one of my sever buddies about my newest creation.

One entry that really struck a chord with me was 50 Signs You’re Working in a Bad Restaurant. These are some that I’ve personally experienced:

2) You start working Friday and Saturday nights the first week. (That’s because waiters quit with alarming regularity.): Weekends are a privilege since this is when servers make the most money. But it’s so true, when you work at a terrible establishment, they are in dire need of bodies on the floor. This often causes more harm than good. They don’t know what they’re doing so they get in the way of the experienced servers, they make mistakes causing the restaurant sales to suffer and making for many disgruntled patrons.

9) The employee bathroom is so gross it would just be better to just have a hole in the ground: I worked in one restaurant where the employee toilets were so bad, several times throughout the day I took the risk of getting fired to use the guest bathroom.

11) The owner’s banging the hostesses. (How déclassé): Maybe not the owner in this case, but our assistant manager (in his late 20s and married with three kids) constantly flirted and sexually harassed the 16 year olds working at the front desk. Truly disgusting.

13) Employees threaten each other with physical violence: Serving really gets to people. You can be the nicest person in the world when you start, and turn into a misanthrope over the course of a night. Your coworkers essentially become like family to you, so they get on your nerves just as much as your family does.

15) Owner, GM, or chef screams at employees ALL THE TIME: Our GM once flipped an entire tray of food over because he was so pissed at his employees.

16) Owner, GM, or chef makes fun of a staff person’s significant others: This one drove me crazy! I actually worked with my boyfriend so it made it 10 times worse. The manager once called my boyfriend “impotent.” The result was not pretty.

17) If a waiter makes a mistake the kitchen staff would rather go on a power trip and watch the server squirm instead of fixing the problem. Of course, the customer suffers: Story of my life. This happened to me on a weekly basis.

19) You start drinking more: I noticed that a lot of the people I worked with went out to the local pub for drinks after work – every night. I joined them only occasionally. Shockingly the people who went drinking nightly seemed a lot less stressed during the shift. In the case of waiting tables, drinking is the answer.

25) There aren’t enough teaspoons so you hoard them in your apron so you’ll have enough to do dessert service: I gave up on this and started using tablespoons.

31) Management tells you to work sick. (Good evening, I’m Typhoid Mary and I’ll be your waitress tonight): See previous post, “Managers.”

50) Waiters tender their resignations by screaming “Fuck this place!” in the middle of the dining room floor on Saturday night. Classy. Could be me real soon: I’ve seen it a million times, and I have to say when you watch someone else do it, you feel empowered.