Specifically, I blame this movie for all my delusions.
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| Hijinks and pranksters and overqualified servers, oh my! |
I mean, not everything was terrible. In fact, I'd say that 80% of being in that job was great - there were more days where I would jump out of bed to get ready for work than I would drag my feet to the back entrance wanting to kill myself. The people that I worked with, for the most part, were fantastic people who were hardworking. I liked the fact that I would have a chance to learn in an environment where I wasn't too familiar with anything. It would be like navigating a whole new world of people that I never knew and peering into a lifestyle that I wanted to scope out for myself.
Also, I needed money. Isn't money always a good reason?
Working a job where you make good tips on top of a heavy staff discount ON TOP of the fact that the restaurant that I had applied for (and gotten into!) back in August was-a-booming and seemed cool to work for made it a really fantastic experience. But with any job, there are the downsides that make you want to put a campfire out with your face.
So if anyone out there is thinking of taking on a service industry job, here's five things I learned from working in the restaurant industry.
5. Your feet will always be sore.
I take back everything bad I said about crocs. I had the pleasure of trying on a kitchen staff's pair of crocs and it felt like each of my toes were being massaged with a thousand tiny marshmallows.
I would have shanked an infant if it meant that I could have worn crocs for all my shifts instead of the death traps that were my work shoes.
If your feet aren't sore, it just means you've gotten used to them hurting all the time. Breaking in new shoes is a bitch. Walking around all the time from the front of house to back of house to all over the restaurant's different sections fetching this and seating that table really takes a toll on your feet. It took me about a month to get over the blistering phase where the skin where the balls of my feet rubbed against the soles literally gave me bubbly, watery blisters. The skin around my toenails started to crack and peel. I started rubbing my feet with vaseline and put socks on before bed just so that my feet wouldn't look like the hooved wonder.
Even then, my feet were always throbbing. During one double shift I thought it would be a good idea to air out my feet from its heeled death traps, only to find that my feet had swollen up and would not fit back in my shoes. Since we didn't have crisco and using pantry butter to slip nasty hobbit-sized feet into size 7 heeled flats is gross, I ended up jamming them back into my shoes and spent half an hour massaging them back in ice cold water once I got home.
A week passed since I quit my job, but I still felt the after effects. The callouses on my feet started to peel, flake, and crack - not in that order - and I realized how much abuse your body can take while working a physically demanding job, and how long it takes for your body to regenerate. You'd think that you'd be able to snap right back into your pre-work self. In reality, it took me a full month before I felt good enough to wear open-toed sandals and slippers in public. Don't underestimate what your body is capable of, but don't abuse your body to the point that you're falling apart every night after work.
Imagine that your job all throughout rush hour (not the traffic kind) was to either stay standing bolted to the front of house where all the hostesses are, or to be floating around constantly and consistently and your evening will never end unless a manager cuts you.
Wait, what? Managers cut you?
4. You'll learn a slew of new buzzwords and habits.
I learned more new words than I ever had since finishing university. I learned that to 'get cut' was not to be stabbed with a rusty dull fork, but to be allowed to leave your shift for the evening. If something was '86-ed,' it meant that we didn't have any more of those items. Rezos were reservations, campers were ladies who liked to order one tea and 5 pots of hot water while they sat yammering for 5 hours straight, and clopens were the shifts sent from Satan that no one wanted - staying as late until the restaurant shut its doors, then to be back early in the morning to do opening duties.
I was taught to call my location whenever moving around in a crowded area. If I was walking behind someone carrying a tray of empty glassware, I was to say "behind you" as an act of courtesy (also, cleaning up an entire tray's worth of glassware during the dinner rush is a total pain in the asshole). If I was coming out from a corner where people might not see me, I was to call "corner" so others would know that someone was coming round and maybe not rush in with a freshly sharpened kitchen knife or a pot of boiling water.
Sometimes I catch myself saying "corner" as I turn into my own kitchen, even though there's no reason to. When I eat out, I try to stack the dishes and minimize the mess that the server will have to clean up - large dishes on bottom, small plates and baby dishes inside the large dishes, with any garbage or leftover scraps scraped to the side of the plate so it would be easier for them to dump it in the dish pits - just so it will make their lives easier. I still refer to reservations as 'rezos' and no one knows what the hell I'm talking about, but it's too late. Those words and habits are etched into my brain forever, and some habits have actually helped me to become a better person.
3. You'll learn to read people and their needs.
One regular guest that we had would come in with his son to take brunch once a week, and then would read the newspaper while having a hot beverage. It was a clockwork routine. So one day when the newspaper didn't come, he noticed and I had to tell him that the papers hadn't arrived that day. The guest was very nice about it and didn't raise concerns at all. The next day, I set aside one of the copies and put it on the table where he and his son always sat. He noticed that I'd put it there, and came by on his way out to thank me for looking out for him.
As a general rule: If it takes you far less effort to do something that can make someone's life easier or make someone happy with no deficit to you, why wouldn't you do it?
If I happened to be on my way in the kitchen and another server was struggling with clearing some dishes quick enough so she could go greet her table, I had no problem carrying them in for her. If I happened to pass by the soap dispenser and it was running low, I'd just do it without being asked. And from my time at the restaurant, the best staff members were those who knew what others needed without even having to ask. They would sense that a fellow team member was about to donkey punch another staff member and cover for them so they could take a smoke break and take a goddamn chill pill. They would know that their neighbouring server was overwhelmed and would offer to take a table off of their hands.
Whatever made life easier for each other, you'll find that the best coworkers will be those who save you a slice of pizza and will have your back just as much as you have theirs.
2. There's zero room for negative energy.
Imagine being put through a particularly horrible dinner rush where everything goes wrong, none of your pens are working, and that penisface at table 65 left you 3 dollars in Monopoly money instead of a tip like a normal human being.
Just as you envision yourself burning the place down and salting the earth along with every other living person in the building, another server comes to you and makes a passing comment about how you need to do your side duties. And so you explode like a reasonable human being and f*** this and screw that and I'm quitting by the end of this night for sure! Except this time it's for real. Except it's going to be next time.
I had a few moments during my shifts when I wanted to flip the table over and march out, or at least argue with a belligerent coworker. But then taking a few seconds to think about the importance of the situation made everything seem so...temporary. Flipping out over things that are out of your control, I quickly learned, only brings bad energy. This too shall pass, and the guest who gave you the stink eye when you quoted them a 30-minute wait time will probably never cross your path again.
Being in a restaurant with fellow coworkers is like being on an island all together working on another day of survival. You don't have offices where you can lock yourself in, and there are no hidden nooks and crannies in a restaurant for you to hide in; there are busy hands and eyes everywhere. If you can learn to compose yourself during dinner rushes and still manage to look nice and speak nicely to guests instead of hissing at them like a feral cat, you can compose yourself in any situation.
Don't be the douche that ruins it for everyone on the island.
1. Keep a straight head and go for your goal.
I never intended to stay as long as I did in the restaurant industry. Unlike a handful of people who were actually in it to win it, I knew a lot of people who I worked with who have, since leaving, gone on to do what they really wanted to do. They go to teach overseas, they go to study abroad, they go to management positions that their education trained them to do, they finally find a career that they can truly call their own. I've yet to lock down the career that I want for me, but I assume that everyone is going through the same.
And that's the beauty of the industry, really. Anyone from any walk of life can cross paths in a restaurant regardless of age, background, gender, religion, social 'status' or whatever else have you. I've met great people that I would not have had the pleasure to meet and work with had I not worked in this industry. Your coworkers, even if for a temporary time, do start to feel like family.
No one is above or below their job, as it takes all parts of the restaurant to work together to be efficient. It used to be that people looked down on serving jobs, as the job was exactly as its title demanded you to be - to serve. But every time you go out to have a good time with friends or a special night out, remember that there are actual people and human beings with faces and names behind the scenes making it all happen for you. Your food doesn't cook itself, your water glass is not an endless fountain. By the time you've left your table, there's probably a busser already waiting to clean up after you. No one is more or less useful on the floor, and it's too bad that some people don't understand that. The dishwasher is just as important as the cook and the bartender and the busser and all other parts of service staff that make a whole.
For some people, this industry is where they want their career to begin. For others, it's a stepping stone that you're never too sure when you'll be stepping off of. I was fortunate in that I had other jobs to fall back on after I left the industry and found new opportunities to move forward. But one thing's for sure, if you can make it work in the service industry - taking care of yourself, being eager to learn from others, looking out for other people and keeping yourself positive - you'll be getting to those places that you yearn for soon enough.
So if anyone out there is thinking of taking on a service industry job, here's five things I learned from working in the restaurant industry.
5. Your feet will always be sore.
I take back everything bad I said about crocs. I had the pleasure of trying on a kitchen staff's pair of crocs and it felt like each of my toes were being massaged with a thousand tiny marshmallows.
I would have shanked an infant if it meant that I could have worn crocs for all my shifts instead of the death traps that were my work shoes.
 |
| Oh crocs, my sun and stars, I'm sorry for ever talking shit about you. |
If your feet aren't sore, it just means you've gotten used to them hurting all the time. Breaking in new shoes is a bitch. Walking around all the time from the front of house to back of house to all over the restaurant's different sections fetching this and seating that table really takes a toll on your feet. It took me about a month to get over the blistering phase where the skin where the balls of my feet rubbed against the soles literally gave me bubbly, watery blisters. The skin around my toenails started to crack and peel. I started rubbing my feet with vaseline and put socks on before bed just so that my feet wouldn't look like the hooved wonder.
Even then, my feet were always throbbing. During one double shift I thought it would be a good idea to air out my feet from its heeled death traps, only to find that my feet had swollen up and would not fit back in my shoes. Since we didn't have crisco and using pantry butter to slip nasty hobbit-sized feet into size 7 heeled flats is gross, I ended up jamming them back into my shoes and spent half an hour massaging them back in ice cold water once I got home.
A week passed since I quit my job, but I still felt the after effects. The callouses on my feet started to peel, flake, and crack - not in that order - and I realized how much abuse your body can take while working a physically demanding job, and how long it takes for your body to regenerate. You'd think that you'd be able to snap right back into your pre-work self. In reality, it took me a full month before I felt good enough to wear open-toed sandals and slippers in public. Don't underestimate what your body is capable of, but don't abuse your body to the point that you're falling apart every night after work.
Imagine that your job all throughout rush hour (not the traffic kind) was to either stay standing bolted to the front of house where all the hostesses are, or to be floating around constantly and consistently and your evening will never end unless a manager cuts you.
Wait, what? Managers cut you?
4. You'll learn a slew of new buzzwords and habits.
I learned more new words than I ever had since finishing university. I learned that to 'get cut' was not to be stabbed with a rusty dull fork, but to be allowed to leave your shift for the evening. If something was '86-ed,' it meant that we didn't have any more of those items. Rezos were reservations, campers were ladies who liked to order one tea and 5 pots of hot water while they sat yammering for 5 hours straight, and clopens were the shifts sent from Satan that no one wanted - staying as late until the restaurant shut its doors, then to be back early in the morning to do opening duties.
.jpg) |
| "It's 10PM, we're still on a wait, we're 86ed chicken, zero clean linens, and if those campers ask for another plate of lemon wedges I'm going to drown them in the dish pit." - standard nightmare |
I was taught to call my location whenever moving around in a crowded area. If I was walking behind someone carrying a tray of empty glassware, I was to say "behind you" as an act of courtesy (also, cleaning up an entire tray's worth of glassware during the dinner rush is a total pain in the asshole). If I was coming out from a corner where people might not see me, I was to call "corner" so others would know that someone was coming round and maybe not rush in with a freshly sharpened kitchen knife or a pot of boiling water.
Sometimes I catch myself saying "corner" as I turn into my own kitchen, even though there's no reason to. When I eat out, I try to stack the dishes and minimize the mess that the server will have to clean up - large dishes on bottom, small plates and baby dishes inside the large dishes, with any garbage or leftover scraps scraped to the side of the plate so it would be easier for them to dump it in the dish pits - just so it will make their lives easier. I still refer to reservations as 'rezos' and no one knows what the hell I'm talking about, but it's too late. Those words and habits are etched into my brain forever, and some habits have actually helped me to become a better person.
3. You'll learn to read people and their needs.
One regular guest that we had would come in with his son to take brunch once a week, and then would read the newspaper while having a hot beverage. It was a clockwork routine. So one day when the newspaper didn't come, he noticed and I had to tell him that the papers hadn't arrived that day. The guest was very nice about it and didn't raise concerns at all. The next day, I set aside one of the copies and put it on the table where he and his son always sat. He noticed that I'd put it there, and came by on his way out to thank me for looking out for him.
 |
| Something like this, except I wasn't wearing that hideous uniform. Blechh. |
As a general rule: If it takes you far less effort to do something that can make someone's life easier or make someone happy with no deficit to you, why wouldn't you do it?
If I happened to be on my way in the kitchen and another server was struggling with clearing some dishes quick enough so she could go greet her table, I had no problem carrying them in for her. If I happened to pass by the soap dispenser and it was running low, I'd just do it without being asked. And from my time at the restaurant, the best staff members were those who knew what others needed without even having to ask. They would sense that a fellow team member was about to donkey punch another staff member and cover for them so they could take a smoke break and take a goddamn chill pill. They would know that their neighbouring server was overwhelmed and would offer to take a table off of their hands.
Whatever made life easier for each other, you'll find that the best coworkers will be those who save you a slice of pizza and will have your back just as much as you have theirs.
2. There's zero room for negative energy.
Imagine being put through a particularly horrible dinner rush where everything goes wrong, none of your pens are working, and that penisface at table 65 left you 3 dollars in Monopoly money instead of a tip like a normal human being.
 |
| "We're so hungry!" |
Just as you envision yourself burning the place down and salting the earth along with every other living person in the building, another server comes to you and makes a passing comment about how you need to do your side duties. And so you explode like a reasonable human being and f*** this and screw that and I'm quitting by the end of this night for sure! Except this time it's for real. Except it's going to be next time.
I had a few moments during my shifts when I wanted to flip the table over and march out, or at least argue with a belligerent coworker. But then taking a few seconds to think about the importance of the situation made everything seem so...temporary. Flipping out over things that are out of your control, I quickly learned, only brings bad energy. This too shall pass, and the guest who gave you the stink eye when you quoted them a 30-minute wait time will probably never cross your path again.
Being in a restaurant with fellow coworkers is like being on an island all together working on another day of survival. You don't have offices where you can lock yourself in, and there are no hidden nooks and crannies in a restaurant for you to hide in; there are busy hands and eyes everywhere. If you can learn to compose yourself during dinner rushes and still manage to look nice and speak nicely to guests instead of hissing at them like a feral cat, you can compose yourself in any situation.
Don't be the douche that ruins it for everyone on the island.
1. Keep a straight head and go for your goal.
I never intended to stay as long as I did in the restaurant industry. Unlike a handful of people who were actually in it to win it, I knew a lot of people who I worked with who have, since leaving, gone on to do what they really wanted to do. They go to teach overseas, they go to study abroad, they go to management positions that their education trained them to do, they finally find a career that they can truly call their own. I've yet to lock down the career that I want for me, but I assume that everyone is going through the same.
And that's the beauty of the industry, really. Anyone from any walk of life can cross paths in a restaurant regardless of age, background, gender, religion, social 'status' or whatever else have you. I've met great people that I would not have had the pleasure to meet and work with had I not worked in this industry. Your coworkers, even if for a temporary time, do start to feel like family.
 |
| A very dysfunctional, semi-alcoholic family. |
For some people, this industry is where they want their career to begin. For others, it's a stepping stone that you're never too sure when you'll be stepping off of. I was fortunate in that I had other jobs to fall back on after I left the industry and found new opportunities to move forward. But one thing's for sure, if you can make it work in the service industry - taking care of yourself, being eager to learn from others, looking out for other people and keeping yourself positive - you'll be getting to those places that you yearn for soon enough.
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