When bad waiters happen to good people

Tonight I made my (not so) triumphant return to the restaurant after four sick days. I am in no way ready to return to work, but as stated in previous entries, no work=no money. So I mustered all the positive energy I could, drank an extra big cup of cough syrup, took a couple hits off the fun inhaler the doctor gave me and set out for my dinner shift on the patio. I have Bronchitis and a nasty head cold at the moment, so there is constantly an insane amount of pressure in my sinuses. It leaves me feeling sluggish, angry, and hearing things as though I'm at the bottom of a well. Only able to capture about half the things my guests said to me this evening, I frequently just shook my head at them while smiling and repeatedely saying, "Okay...Okay." Understandably, there were quite a few miscommunications tonight. "Oh, you wanted extra barbecue sauce? I'm so sorry I thought you said potatoes." I was constantly apologizing for bringing someone the wrong item. About halfway throught the shift there was a moment when my ears popped and I could hear everything perfectly! Then the hearing in my right ear went out completely and the hearing in my left ear took on superhuman or robot like abilities. Thankfully I could hear what people were saying to me, as long as it was all directed toward my left ear.

The high note of the evening came with table 717. While serving their drinks I misjudged the weight on my tray and dropped all of the drinks onto the table - more specifically onto a cell phone, into one man's lap, and mostly into another guest's expensive coach purse. I really did an impressive job of filling the purse with delicious Caribbean Long Islands. They were very understanding as two of my managers miraculously appeared at the scene instantly and began handing out cards and apologies. We got them dry and offered to pay for any cleaning or replacement costs and I carried on with the meal. Things were going great...until I spilled a beer onto another gentleman's steak and mashed potatoes. I had now spilled five drinks on two separate occasions at the same table. I'm not sure if they could tell I was having bad night, if I came across as mentally challenged, or if they were just nice people, but God love 'em, they went with it. They were able to laugh about it as I assured them I am actually a very good server and that I was most sorry about the beautiful purse. My managers comped their entire meal, which helped ease the mood some more at the end and also secure me the twenty percent tip I probably wouldn't have gotten otherwise.

Overall I was slow, unfriendly and looked miserable. I am shocked that none of my guests comlained and that I actually made twenty percent tips all night. It's terrible having to serve other people when you're sick but it certainly helps to be serving good people. Thank you to all my lovely tables tonight. Except for Sloppy Joe Rib Man, my last guest of the night. You sir, with your extra roles, your extra sauce, and your spooky ability to eat every ounce of meat off the bone while coating every dish on the table in barbecue sauce, as well as your .80 tip - you get no thanks from me.

Sick sick waiter

The silly waiter has had to give up two shifts this weeks due to illness, so I guess it's time to finally see a doctor. It's funny that I have put off seeing a doctor, in that I pay a small fortune every month for a benefits package. It's pretty cool that the restaurant offers us benefits - one of the few perks of the job. It's time to finally use them and get well. So no posts for a while, as I have arranged my schedule for the next four days off. It's time to lay on my couch, take medicine, watch a ton of tv I've been wanting to see, and eat PBJ's and drink calcium enriched orange juice (for some reason I find this food combo very comforting when I am sick). Check out the blog in a week or so - more gems to come.

Can I get steak instead of fries?

Today's diner is all about choices. Maybe they're on the south beach diet, or the atkins diet, or weight watchers, or the zone diet, or whatever wildly restrictive plan that seemed most enticing to them. I understand the importance of regulating calories and watching your carbs, protein, etc. But there has to be some margin of error allowed when going out to eat. Some restaurants cater to these diets and that is great. Others, actually most, don't. It is not the restaurant's responsibility to list calories for you or other nutritional information. If you're that concerned about your diet you should already know the basic nutritional information regarding the foods you most commonly eat. And you should be able to make an educated guess toward the number of calories in a sauce or side dish - is it creamy? is based in animal fat? These are some of the very basic questions you can ask yourself to help determine just how unhealthy of a sauce you are eating. Or remember this easy gem - the better the food tastes, the worse it probably is for you. I try my best to answer my guests' questions about the food and to be as helpful as possible in assisting with diet friendly choices, but there eventually comes a limit. One or two modifications on a dish are fine. Perhaps you'd like the sauce on the side, or the vegetables to not be cooked in any oil. Okay, these are reasonable requests. Maybe you'd like all white meat or a vegetable in place of those starchy ole potatoes. Perfectly acceptable requests that clearly have a dietary purpose.

It is not okay, however, to begin drastically changing the menu because the exact dish you once cooked for yourself at home is not on it. Why can't we make you regular mashed potatoes instead of garlic mashed potatoes? Because they're not on the menu! Why can't we make you a breaded chicken breast with pasta? Because there is nothing breaded on the entire menu and we don't even carry pasta in the restaurant!! The audacity of such requests amazes me everytime I hear them. This might have something to do with the anger that usually accompanies these requests. People who want to invent their own dish usually feel very entitled to this dish, and as such will not hesitate to bark and spit at anyone who keeps them from it. I LOVE these people. Nothing at work gives me greater pleasure than forcing them to order an item off the menu. Usually there is a lengthy discussion involving many inuslts hurled toward the server and the telling of many lies. "The last time I was hear they did this," "I'm a regular they always do this for me," "They always do this at your other location." These guests also feel the need to explain our job to us - "It's really not that hard, just do it," "I don't see what the problem is and I want my salad," "The kitchen will understand, it's no big deal." Oh really? You personally know the chef and line cooks making your food? You've already spoken with them and explained that while cooking for three hundred other people they should set aside the time to prepare you a completely unique and special dish at the exspense of everyone else's dishes? In that case why don't you just go ahead and put the order in yourself and run it to the table. You seem to know your way around our restaurant very well.

I've gotten off into a very angry waiter rant and that is something I try to avoid here. So Ill try to bring it all back together for a point and a few basic reminders: 1)Do not ask for more than two changes to your food unless you have a legitimate food alergy. You are wasting the cooks' time and causing everyone's orders to take longer. 2)Be friendly and polite when asking for major changes to the menu. If a guest is cool about it I have no problem going out of my way to get them the exact dish they want. The minute they begin raising their voice is when I start saying no. 3)Be prepared to pay. Just accept that changes to the dish often involve a charge. You are asking for something extra, and as such are paying an extra charge. It's how restaurants work. It's how all commerce works - more services cost you more money. And finally, in response to may favorite request to date - No, you cannot have a side of steak in place of the french fries. And yes, there will be an upcharge - the price of a steak. And are you serious?

Hey big spender

This evening was an exceptionally special one. I'm not feeling so hot as I am coming down with something nasty. The massive amounts of congestion in my head helped to me hear about half of what people said to me and it was difficult to project over the noise of the crowded dining room, thanks to the cough that kept me up all night. This is one of those unfortunate waiter moments. I'm always telling people how much I love making money and having a flexible schedule and never working overtime, etc. etc. And it's true! There are a lot of perks to working as a waiter, but there are a few disadvantages as well. One of the biggest is the lack of sick time. I can't call in sick and just expect to catch up tomorrow. There's no half days or paid time off. Calling in sick not only means I screw over my coworkers by leaving a hole in the roster, it also means I don't make any money - money I probably need for things like medicine and reassuing comfort foods or massive quantities of drugs to drown my sickly sorrows in. Calling in sick usually involves finding your own replacement. It's ok to be sick or have something come up as long as you get the shift covered, which is not always an easy thing to do. So, not wanting to deal with the three ring circus that is calling in sick, I took one for the team and donned my apron for another night of wacky antics and delicious steaks.

I'll share with you the highlight from my all star cast of diners this evening...
The trio of business associates - one gentleman and two ladies. They had very important matters to discuss. In fact everything was so important it was such a hassle to be interruped by the waiter to do tedious things like order food and drink. Thankfully though, I was able to make them laugh and thus my intrusions were forgiven. The meal ran smoothly, the meeting came to an end and it was time to pay the check. The lone male reached quickly for it as I brought it to the table and said, "I'll take care of that," as he slipped his mastercard into the book. Now, I've come to associate credit levels with the design on the card. If the card is a solid, unatractive color, I usally cross my fingers that there will be enough left over for a tip. But for some reason I didn't think anything of his beige mastercard with the hideous diamonds on it (I'm curious if other servers will agree with this - but I also suspect that shady credit unions go hand in hand with hideous logos. Check out your own card - you know what kind of credit you have - does your card match?) The card was declined...six times...on three computers. Great. I printed a receipt that said declined, circled this, and brought it back in the book, saying, "I'll be back with you in one moment," as I discreetly pointed out the declined receipt to our pick up the tab hero.

Great discussion ensued at the table that involved pointing at me several times and a lot of checkng through walets and head shaking. After a minute or two of this I returned to the table and picked up the book, now with another beige diamond faced card, this one bearing the name of one of the ladies at the table. "Sorry about that, this should be fine." "It's no trouble. I'll be back in a moment." I ran the new card and brought it back the table, wishing them a good night and thanking them for their business. Five minutes later I returned to the table to collect the receipt and my tip from the book. There, on their $124 tab was my tip...$0. Of course. It was my fault the credit card was declined and awkward moments ensued. My fault that he doesn't know how to manage his money and also feels compelled to impress his friends. And my fault that she got stuck paying for the meal. Of course it's the waiter's fault. I placed the receipt in my pocket and though about I just paid four dollars to wait on these people. Next time I'm calling in sick

Check it out

My friend Stephanie has entered the world of restaurants for the first time. And she has thrown herself into the back of house as well. Good luck Steph on your endeavors as a pastry chef! If you're curious about what it's like to learn the art of pastry making in a trendy New York eatery or how it is in your first weeks in a restaurant then check out her blog, pastry monkey (pastrymonkey.blogspot.com).

Thanks nice lady

Today's post is brief and lovely - a moment of calm, if you will, in the sea of chaos that is the restaurant I work in. During my shift last night I was carrying several plates to a table and had to pause in the aisle to let an elderly woman pass by. She looked to be roughly 712 and had the most beautiful braids. In fact, everything about this woman was beautiful and somehow peaceful. We locked eyes from a moment and grinned before I sped away to drop the freakishly hot plates I was carrying. Later that evening I happened to walk past her booth where she was seated alone. I stopped by her table and said, "Excuse me ma'm, but you have the most beautiful hair." She took my hand, which surprised me and replied, "thank you, you're very nice." We looked at each other and held hands for a moment before I told her that I was happy to meet her. "I'm very glad to meet you too," she told me, and we shared an extended moment of smiling and hand holding before I pulled away and rushed off to check on my onion soup for table 706. It was a strange, peaceful, and calming moment in a place that usually leaves you feeling wrecked and depleted. Thank you cool old lady for brightening my day and granting me one of those special human connections with a total stanger.

Ja, Gunther, do you vant some help vid zos beers?

I overheard the above statement while walking past the bar during last night's shift. Gunther was struggling to deliver four beers to his friends waiting at a nearby cocktail table, causing his companion to make this query in her thick German accent. I giggled to myself, partially over the name Gunther and the memories it conjured of the old SNL skit Sprockets, and also over all of the feelings waiters have about foreign tables. In the movie Waiting when the hostess informs one of the servers that she has sat her a foreign table, the server asks, "are you mad at me?" while another server screams, "foreigners, I hate foreigners!" Sadly, sometimes we do hate our foreign customers. It is a royal pain to take all that extra time explaining things to the table. As I slowly explain each item on the menu, over enunciating each syllable, I watch as my other tables grow anxious looking for me. Falling deeper and deeper in the weeds at the hands of this foreign nemesis is no fun. The language barrier presents some interesting problems. Typically each person at the table speaks about three to seven words of English, excepting the host of the table who has mastered our language and commands a vocabulary of at least two or three dozen words. The host will undertake the difficult task of ordering for the table, something that always amuses me. The host never orders for individuals, rather he lists an array of dishes that will simply be brought to the table. For example, "Please for to bring one steak, a chicken, the fish, and the vegetables." Thus begins the order taking adventure. We struggle way through temperatures and side dishes, substitutions and courses. It is no easy task explaining that the catfish comes with whipped sweet potatoes and spinach so they must choose which item to replace with fries, or that the BBQ combo sides trade out together and that you can't pick and choose.

Sometimes I fantasize about learning foreign languages just to better communicate with my customers. Then I realize what a wildly small minded fantasy this is - I am not dreaming about learning a foreign language to better myself or to travel the world, I am dreaming about learning a foreign language to bring people their steaks in a more efficient manner. After taking the order there is another guessing game. Which "American beer" should I bring the table, or which "vegetables" might they enjoy as their side dishes? Typically I bring Sam Adams and corn, as these both seem very hearty and American to me. If I could bring apple pie as a side dish I would. There is also the problem of figuring out where the food will go. Many times I have taken the order from a large foreign party and then must randomly assign each dish to a seat number. In these cases if I am lucky enough to see my order come up on the line I usually find some reason to go hide in the back. I'll save the thrill of auctioning off the plates for the food runner or one of my wonderful fellow servers.

Once the meal has finished there comes the final gem of the evening, the tip. Herein lies the reason we hate serving foreign guests. I understand that waitstaff are treated differently in Europe. They are paid a real living wage and do not need tips to live. If tips are given, they are small and more of a method of communicating the service was excellent. This is not the case in the States. I make something absurd like $4.12 an hour. My check reads, "this is not a check," because my hourly pay is so small it is eaten up by credit card tips in a matter of hours. I need your tips to pay my rent and feed myself - your tips are my livelihood. It is difficult to accept that Europeans don't know this. I know not to leave a large tip in a European eatery, that this is considered rude as I am flaunting my money. Is it really too much to ask to expect Europeans to understand our customs in turn. Sure, we have a stamp that we can put on the check, explaining in several languages that the tip is not included, or "non incloso." This stamp does not explain that the industry standard is twenty percent or that leaving me five dollars on a two hundrend dollar tab is actually more insulting than leaving me nothing at all.

At the end of the day it's best not get upset over something that will never change. My foreign guests will always want a well done filet with french fries and an "American beer," and they will always leave me five to ten percent. It's best to remember those diamonds in the rough - the rare foreign tables that know the ins and outs of our culture and tip well, order easily, and get in and out with minimum amounts of grief. So please stop by anytime you like Gunther. We'll keep the Sam Adams flowing and well done steaks coming.