Prinses on… Waitering (Part I)

We’ve all done it at some point in our lives, right? Or at least, that’s what I thought. Working part-time at a local steakhouse to earn some extra cash seems like a pretty common thing to do as a young adult. The juggling of studies, work and an over-booked social calendar is certainly what my five years at varsity revolved around. The choice of working as a waiter seems viable as it is a fast way of getting cash (for an honest job, that is). All good, in theory. In practice, it is quite a rollercoaster of a lifestyle.

What ever can be so hard about taking out food to tables for tips? Steve Dublanica sums it up nicely in his book Waiter Rant, when he states that waiters today “are expected to be food allergy specialists, sommeliers, cell phone rule enforcers, eye candy, confessors, entertainers, mixologists, emergency medical technicians, bouncers, receptionists, joke tellers, therapists, linguists, punching bags, psychics, protocol specialists, and amateur chefs.” Yet, under no circumstance may a waiter imitate normal humans. Eating and drinking, smoking, checking your cell phone and small things like, sitting down in front of customers is taboo. But it is totally acceptable in the kitchen. This line of work is full of tears, mental breakdowns, tantrums, and that’s just the customers!

Look, it’s not all bad. I quite enjoy the you-never-know-what-you-might-get vibe of the restaurant industry. Having done this for over five years, I would like to dispense some of the experiences I’ve come across as a waitress. Mainly, because it helps to bitch, but also to give you some insight on what it’s like.* I hope this is educational.

*Please note, I have greatly generalised most aspects here, based on the average waiter’s working conditions. There are exceptions where waiters are treated like humans, where they get fed edible food for staff meals and where they are truly excited to go to work. It’s called their dreams.

The Machine

We have to go to work when everybody else is going home. Especially on a Friday, it’s a pretty crappy feeling to start your shift with, knowing that your friends are busy dressing up getting ready to go and party, while you will be in a generic uniform, putting on your best smile to make someone else’s night fun. I can just see the movie montage in my head a la Mr. Ritchie: Cross-cut editing between them suiting up vs. you getting into your uniform; fastening of belt vs. tying of apron; checking pockets for keys, wallet and gum vs. checking apron for pens, notebook and waiter’s friend; final look in the mirror, hoping you’ll get that guy’s attention tonight with your gorgeous red lips vs. final look in the mirror, hoping you’ll get at least some financial remuneration for your smile (and i called this an honest job!?) to be able to join your friends after work, because by some miracle your tables will all be gone by ten o’ clock. Pfft.

Also, waiters work on those special days you normal folks like to celebrate. Nice, relaxing days when, supposedly, everyone has a holiday. I vaguely remember a time, when I was little, family and friends would come together, eat and exchange gifts under a tree. Christmas I think they called it? Those memories have been replaced with sore feet and red wine stains.

Everything in a restaurant works according to a process. The FIFO-system is key: fit in, or fuck off. Ultimately, each process is dependent on another process. This, as you can imagine, is frustrating. Follow me here. For me to take out your food or drink like you ordered it, I need, firstly, a clean plate and cutlery or a clean glass. This needs to be washed by the scullery staff, who need a working dishwasher, which needs power, which needs to be paid by the owner. The food needs to be prepared and cooked in the right order for the different dishes to go out at the same time. The waiter needs to be in the kitchen when the plate is done to deliver it to your oh-so-anticipating table. The barman has to prepare your drink, along with all the other customers’ drinks. Simple, right? In a perfect world, maybe. There’s always something wrong. Shortage of forks, The sculler didn’t pitch for shift. You are busy pouring wine when the food is done. The sous chef burnt the last chocolate brownie, and it’s your fault that the customer now has to settle for ice cream & chocolate sauce. The amount of potential errors are endless. Restaurants are the textbooks for Murphy’s Law. The background music does nothing to soothe this tense atmosphere. If you work your average four shifts a week, the restaurant resembles the US Psy Ops’ torture chambers fit for acoustic bombardment, a technique in which they exposed Iraqi POWs to theme songs from Sesame Street and Barney for days on end before they finally buckle. (That playlist includes many pro-American songs such as Neil Diamond’s America. Damn, that is mean. Also included in this patriotic list are Bruce Springsteen’s, Born in the USA and Eminem’s White America. Check it out here, it’s pretty interesting…)

The Components

The Owner
It is said that, upon signing a contract when purchasing a restaurant, one undergoes a majestic personality change, converting the individual into an instant doos (Source Unknown). The Restaurant Owner is a rare breed, usually, though not always, male, between the age of 30 and 50, and single. Those facts should shed enough light when contemplating the extreme frustration the Owner experiences when at work. On the occasion that the Owner is in a relationship, the partner is known as the First Lady (man or woman) and is also to be treated in this manner. You, as waiter shall run all errands for her, such as making pedicure appointments and running to KFC because she only likes those rolls. General characteristics of the Owner include a short temper, the inability to see anyone else’s point except his own and an overall god-complex. The Owner is a heartless dollar-eyed businessman. Where his heart should be, there is just another savings account. Practices of the Owner include the exploitation of kitchen staff and the underestimating of waiters’ intelligence. He has no responsibility to his staff whatsoever. When the Owner feels intimidated, it is a common retaliation to threaten his workers with the tax law (as waiters, we quite like our tax-free earnings, thus making too much noise about our shitty circumstances might end us up in the labour court which might then decide that waiters need to be protected which might mean that we need unions and contracts and all that ‘real-job’-jazz which might lead to us paying taxes. Scary huh?). The Owner is the law, the police, the court and the jail of the community that is the restaurant industry. And don’t you forget it.

The Manager
Not to be confused with the Boss (although they would disagree), we have another breed of authority known as Managers. They can be found right behind the Owner, busy kissing his rear end. Some even attempt to enter it. In the event that there is more than one Manager, all hopes of clear, consistent communication vanishes. Managers take pride in the fact that, beside the Owner being, well, The Owner, they are the ones… (script note: pause briefly, do your best impression of John Black of the Days of our Lives-fame) …who really know what’s going on. Managers are the link between the staff and the Owner and they are extremely well trained to do a very, very poor job in this area. Managers tend to dish out discipline in a manner that reminds one of rejected school principles, linking your hair colour with your performance.

The Chef
This is an artist who is not so much misunderstood as just plain scary. Their easy access to deadly weapons combined with their drinking habits makes for plenty o’ kitchen-fun. In the ‘I-am-so-shit-scared-right-now’ kind of fun way, of course. A waiter would gladly polish all the glasses in the world, with a hangover, and no hands, just to avoid having to take back your overcooked steak, not to mention trying to communicate your ‘special request’ to the doomed hole of terrors that you, ignorant customer, would refer to as a kitchen. Think about that next time your waiter smiles and says “No problem sir, I’ll sort that out for you right away.”

The Waiters
My colleagues. Such a colourful bunch. The bottom feeders of society. Alcoholics. Depressed. Mental cases. Bound by the act of complaining, usually combined with the after-shift staff drink, relationships between co-workers lie somewhere between fellow sufferers, best buds and rivals. The complaining stops after a couple of beers and double the amount of that in tequilas. Then it just gets ridiculous (read, ‘a night of crazy drunk feeling-sharing, potentially hooking up with a co-worker and eventually passing out’). Future working conditions can get weird.

These bottom-feeding, dollar-a-day freaks come in stereotypes: ‘the one that’s been there the longest’, ‘the newbie’, ‘the one that’s screwing the owner/manager/chef’, ‘the one that’s screwing the customers’ (and no that’s not all of us), ‘the junkie’, ‘the shit stirrer’, ‘the emotional one’, ‘the over achiever’, ‘the one that doesn’t really need the job’, ‘the greedy table-grabber’, ‘the one that is probably going to do this forever’. See if you can spot your stereotype-server the next time you go out for a nice meal.

For people interested in becoming a waiter, some totally useless tips:

• Twenty Things You Should Do And Not Do While Imitating A Waiter
• Terrible Things That Can Happen While Waitering