So I’ve been reading some blogs on here pertaining to restaurants and restaurant servers, and some of the things I’ve read have upset me a little.  Some of these customers who presume to tell us how to do our jobs, when they’ve never done our job.  Working in a donut cafe’ does not a server make.  Regardless of what you think it is that we do, there are tons of things that go into serving.

Let’s just jump right into it shall we?

Greeting the table within 3-5 minutes.  I agree with the basic premise of this, and personally prefer to greet my table within a minute of them sitting down, 3-5 if they take a couple of minutes getting settled in or are talking.  I also must say that if it’s busy, and my hands are full, do NOT expect a full greeting or be mad if I stop by for a second to welcome you and inform you I will be right with you.  I can’t write your order down when I have dirty plates, and it is NOT the bussers job to prebus my tables or even to bus them all.  Take into account business volume when you come in.  The best service you’ll receive is the service you get on a slower night.

“Don’t try to upsell after I’ve made my order”.  I’ve read this on blogs, I’ve read this in pamphlets, I’ve even read this on comments on this blog.  Yes, suggestive selling and attempts to upsell suck.  We hate doing it.  If we don’t do it, whether you’ve made up your mind or not, we can be given disciplinary action.  It’s not always about trying to get our check average up just to get a bigger tip.  That is part of our job, and you as the consumer needs to understand that.

“Don’t assume that we need another refill”.  If we walk by a table, and see a drink that is half empty or empty, assume that we’re going to bring you a refill.  If you don’t want it, casually flag us down before we have a chance to make the drink, and tell us you want something else.  Otherwise, once again, we will get in trouble if we don’t do it.  It’s part of our job, whether we like it or not.

“Don’t make small talk with your tables, people don’t want to talk to the waiter, they want to talk to the people they came out to eat with.”  I have to say that only a few people do not enjoy a friendly server.  I personally would much rather have someone make small talk with me while serving than to take my order, bring my drinks, and avoid me for the majority of the experience.  Maybe it’s just that I don’t work in fine dining, or I don’t deal with TOO many snobbish people that think they’re better than I am, but most people enjoy the small talk, and after experimenting with some tables, I made more money from the ones I was friendly and talked with than I did with the ones I was friendly with but left alone.  Most people enjoy talking to other people.  That’s how most servers gain REGULARS.

“Bring back every bit of the change, even if it’s just a penny.  That is the law.”  You’d be surprised how many people in a more laid back environment are offended that we bother to try counting out every cent of change.  They want to leave, and sometimes it’s hard to get a bartender to break a dollar once we’ve given out every penny of our change.  Sometimes we round up, sometimes we round down.  We’re not trying to steal from you, and the fact that some of you have the nerve to get upset over 31 cents is beyond me.  Most servers are honest about it, they’ll tell you they don’t have the jingle change, and most humans don’t care.  As long as they get the bills back, they’re okay.  Besides, what are you going to do, call the cops over a quarter?  They’ll laugh in your face, just like any manager, server, attorney or anyone else.

“Don’t offer dessert until every person at the table is finished eating.”  This I do partially agree with.  I don’t necessarily offer dessert until the end of the meal.  I might say to a guest or group about halfway through their meal “Hey guys, make sure you’re all saving room for a piece of our cheesecake” or something else.  I don’t push it on them at that point, I merely mention it.  If someones on their last bites, I might ask if they’d like to see a menu.  Otherwise, I’ll just wait until the end.  Once again, it’s part of our job, and some places the servers are trained and expected to offer the dessert before the last bites of the entree are taken, once they’re done, most people just want to pay and leave, if we get to them before they’ve finished every bite, they may save it for that piece of cake.

“Don’t offer another margarita (or other drink) after the first margarita (or other drink) is finished, people may want to try something else.”  I have to say, if I see that someone is enjoying their margarita, I’m probably going to say to them “Can I offer you another of the same, or would you like to try ______ next?”  If they don’t want an alcoholic beverage, I’ll then offer a tea or something.

“Bring straws with every drink you deliver.”  I’m sorry, but most restaurants discourage or even tell their servers to NOT take straws automatically with either water or tea.  Especially in a fine dining environment.  That may be why some places the servers just don’t bring them.  THEY’RE TRAINED THAT WAY ON PURPOSE!  It’s the same with lemons on your water and tea.  Most places don’t automatically bring a lemon with your water unless you request it, because half the time it doesn’t get used for anything but table decoration and upping of food cost.  Also, a margarita with salt usually doesn’t merit a straw being that people who want salt usually want that taste while they drink their drink.  The same with glasses of wine, martinis, drfaft beer,  manhattans, mixed drinks (whiskey and coke, etc.), sours, coffee, alcoholic coffee, espresso, milk, juice.  They SHOULD be automatically taken with:  Frozen drinks (pina coloda, frozen margarita/daquiri,  milkshake/malt), fruity drinks (sex on the beach, absolut stress, long island tea and it’s equivalents), virgin drinks, and kids drinks.

Also, DO NOT assume that problems with your meal are your servers fault.  I know more servers who are honest about their fuckups than who blame them on the kitchen.  If the restaurant is busy, then expect that your food may run long and that it’s not the servers fault, especially if said server actually wrote down the food.  Also, if you see a server who is busy that is NOT writing down your order, you are more than welcome to ask them to do so.  Most restaurants require it, especially fine dining restaurants, because it’s very easy for servers to forget things if they are busy.  These days, you’d be hard pressed to find more than 1 in 10 servers who don’t write down orders.  If your server does write it down, and it comes out wrong, then either A)  YOU ORDERED IT INCORRECTLY  B) THE KITCHEN MADE A MISTAKE   C) THE FOOD RUNNER DIDNT READ THE TICKET CORRECTLY.  If it wasn’t your server who delivered the food, then you have no way of knowing if it was their fault or not, so don’t assume that it was.  Just because you are the “customer” doesn’t mean that you are always right.  That saying stopped having meaning LONG LONG AGO!  That saying makes people think that even if they ordered the wrong thing, they’re right in blaming someone else.

I hope this helps some of you with your preconceived notions of how you should be served, and maybe pissed a few of you off.  Either way, I’ve made a point.

Ribeye

So tonight at work, I knew it would be dead.  I knew I wouldn’t make much money on the floor, I didn’t have to close, so when the manager came to me and asked me to help the bartenders (who are actually cocktails, our bartenders had an all day company paid outing) with their service wells.  Now I’ve got bartending experience, and have actually considered trying to become a bartender at my job, but for now I’m just content to have some time back there, even if I’m not making tips.  I enjoy making peoples drinks, and being a recovering alcoholic, I know what many of them taste like and can tell my guests.  Not good with wines and import beers mind you, but drinks I can describe.  Anyway, we had two bars of the three open tonight.  My dept. leader was in the busier bar, which he’d gotten himself scheduled an open to close shift in.  In the dining room bar was a girl named “K”.  “K” has an attitude, and gets pissed off very easily.  VERY easily.  Easier than I do, and I get pissed pretty quick.

I go behind her bar, and apparently no manager has let her know that I’d be working her well for a while, so that she could focus on her guests and make more money.  She bitches.  Not my fault that she took over a bar that wasn’t stocked, and had empty bottles.  I’m not the one that worked it before her, and by the gods, she shouldn’t be taking it out on me.  Another thing is, she makes drinks based on her recipes, not the company ones.  I am formerly a trainer there.  I’ll get into the reasons for the formerly in the next blog, but it has to do with me losing my temper when I shouldnt have.  Anyway, I know a lot of our drinks recipes, but some of them I still have to look up.  Mainly ones that have call liquors, and which liquors to put into them.  If I tell you that you put the wrong liquor in a drink, don’t you dare go off on me, just make the drink right next time.  I wasn’t rude about it, I just mentioned it to her in passing.  It’s not my fault you THINK you’re infallible.  I’ve been at my job a year today, and I wasn’t even asked to work one of the shifts they needed to be covered.  However, they let my dept. leader, who has to look up the simplest drinks in the book, work an open to close in the busiest bar there.  Needless to say, I asked the manager if I could leave, as I wasn’t being used to my full potential.

Manager J asked me to go to the other bar, and help out the DL with his load.  Apparently, he was getting overwhelmed with drinks, and couldn’t keep up with the well.  He was snapping and going off on my fellow cocktail servers, and had the nerve to snap at me when I was TOLD to help him out.  I’m sorry that YOU CHOSE to schedule yourself an open to close shift in the busy bar after you stayed out drinking all night last night.  It’s not MY fault that you don’t know your ass from your head and can’t make a margarita without looking it up.  DONT FUCKING TAKE IT OUT ON ME.  I don’t think you deserve to be the dept leader, but what do I know.  I’ve only worked under your incompetent ass for a year now.  Your moronic scheduling, your getting out of working nights so you can troll the bar down the road for pussy that only wants you after 2 bottles of tequila and then only for a quick bj before you go home to your man.  Admit you’re gay and get it over with.   Don’t fucking snap at me because you came in hungover and had to work a 14 hour shift, that was your fucking choice you asshole.  I tried to lighten your load a bit, and I know how to stay out of your way better than the mgmt staff does.  This is why people quit on you, because youre an asshole.  I’ve been your right hand man, and you still think you’re the best there is.  You put yourself on the best parties, you get out of shifts that you should work because you want to go get drunk and you don’t give us days off that we need, even for medical reasons.  You don’t check the request off book, because it’s always in your car.  Grow up.

I could have helped out on the well, and made your life easier.  I should have done what the manager told me to do.  But had I done that, I would have ended up getting fired because if you would have snapped at me again, I would have hit you.

Everyone knows that bartenders are a little territorial, but let’s face it.  This guy is NOT a bartender anymore.  He was a bartender for 3 weeks, then he got the job he has now.  Yet he continually thinks he’s the only one worthy to set foot behind a bar when they need help, and has convinced the managers of that.  I’m going to talk to the manager about the problems I’ve had with my DL and his attitude, and we’re going to come to some conclusion.  I can’t be fired, and next post I’ll let you all know why exactly I can’t lose my temper again.

On a lighter note, I’m almost assured a bartending position in a couple of months, after I have my dental surgery and they put a new posting up.  I’ve got the experience, I’ve got the attitude, and I’ve got the drive to be good at it, and IF I happen to get the job, I’m going to have a whole new set of things to talk about here!

I’ve also learned that I have a few new good friends at my job.  A few of them have only been workin there for a few weeks, a few of them a couple of months, but I’ve found that I can still talk to people without trying to make money from them.  Some of them are awesome people.  Some of the people I work with are total assholes and worthless, but the ones who aren’t just make my day.  I love to come in when these people are working.  We work well together too.  There’s not many people that I’ve ever been able to work well with ever since I started working.  Some of these people are the best people I’ve ever worked with, and without them I’d probably be totally insane.  As it is, I’m only part of the way there =).

A big thanks to all those people at my job that make my days fun, and who help keep me in line by listening to me bitch.  I wish I hadn’t gone off like I did last week, and just talked to you all about it instead.

Ribeye

I’ve noticed after the last post that my hits have dwindled, and nobody has dared to comment on it.  Is that because I was a little politically incorrect, kinda like veal?  Whether I was or wasn’t, the post was full of truth.

I also asked a friend of mine that works at Kroger, her name’s Tralonda.  She’s awesome, and yes, she’s a black woman.  She wasn’t offended when I asked her about it.   She doesn’t tip.  No, I wouldn’t wait on her if she came in, because she doesn’t tip.  Does that mean I don’t like her, no.  She’s still my friend, and she knows I have to make my money.  Therefore, she rarely goes out.  Her reasoning? “I don’t tip because my pastor says we should tithe 10% to the church, and if you don’t tithe then you shouldn’t tip people.  I don’t tithe, so I don’t tip.”  I was taken aback.  You can’t tip if you don’t tithe?

I don’t know if that’s how a lot of the African American community feels this way, or if it’s just people that go to her church, but that thinking is a little off if you ask me.  I’m not going to bash anyones religious choices, but if you do feel that way, then don’t go to a place to eat where the social norm is to tip your server.

All that being said, I have to say that Sunday night at work was a great night.  I broke 200 in tips working the bowling alley by myself.  I realized that I talk about my bad guests all the time, but never my good ones.  I had one table stiff me sunday night.  Ghetto white kids, early 20’s.  Drinking Hennessey.  Hennessey is expensive as fuck at my job, huge markup on the price.  Well needless to say, a 90.79 bill, they left 90.80 and left.  I didn’t ignore them, I got them everything they asked for, and kept all the wing bones clean and off the table.  Maybe had I treated them like shit, or pulled out a crack pipe or a gold tooth, I’d have made a dollar or so.  Who knows.

Best table, a couple who drank margaritas and long island teas.  These guys tipped the food runner for bringing their food.  They tipped me for dropping off drinks they ordered from the bar.  They tipped me for dropping drinks they ordered from me.  They ended up tipping me 28 bucks on a 60 dollar tab.  For those of you who had the audacity to call me racist in emails, and you know who you are, they were a black couple.  They weren’t snotty, they werent all high classed, they were normal, every day working people, and they were fun.

I’ll put up a new post here later, but for now I have to start getting ready for work.

Ribeye

This is gonna catch me some shit, but I gotta ask.  Yes, I’m talking about some black people, not all black people, just the ghettofied black folk.  I just don’t get it.  It’s the ones with their 8 kids that come out and get drunk while their kids run around.  They’re the ones that bitch and moan and complain about an automatic gratuity on their bill.  It’s the ones who want to try out 6 different drinks from the bar, till they’re good and drunk, but don’t pay for any of them because “Dees wadn made right”.  The drink example is of the ghetto woman.  With her hair 8 foot above her head, with all the toilet paper rolls covered in weave, making about 6 holes that you could shoot spitballs in.  NOT EVEN BLACK SERVERS WANT TO WAIT ON GHETTO TRASH because it doesn’t tip.

Before you all start saying im racist, I’m not.  I have a ton of black friends.  I just don’t like having to run around the restaurant chasing a bunch of heathens around telling them to stop running.  I don’t like having to get all kinds of drinks comped off my check just becuase you drank half of it before you realized it wasn’t for you.  I really hate having to get comps for your food, after you ate it all and it just didn’t taste good.  and I, along with tons of other people, really fucking hate being stiffed by you because you think we owe you something.  Just because you could afford to eat doesn’t mean that you should come out and not tip.  If you have a pocket full of money, and you stiff us, you’re nothing but ghetto trash and should be drug out in the street and shot.

I just saw a video on the Red Lobster Blog, from this bitch named Cherise or something, who went out with her girlfriends, ran up a 160 dollar tab and left 8 bucks.  She didn’t think she had to tip anything more because the server in question CHOSE to be a server and work off of tips.  First, this Bitch presumed to know why he was serving.  Second, no server would actually follow someone out into the parking lot and still have a job, much as we’d like to.

If you only have enough money for the food, then go eat someplace cheap.  Don’t come out if you’re not going to tip.  This is why people still don’t want to wait on most black folks.  Me personally, I’ll wait on anyone.  I’ve gotten great money from black folks.  Not from the ghetto ones though.  If they have golds, thats a stiffed table.  If they smell like weed, thats a stiffed table.  If they come in with an attitude, thats a stiffed table.   We had a party come in a few weeks ago that actually moved someones food to another table, and when we asked the woman who did it to move to another table, she refused, saying it’s racist to ask her that in the first place.  We watched her move the tables food to another table.  The guest who the food belonged to was in the bathroom.

Don’t come in with your pants around your ankles, or your titties hanging out.  Noone wants to see you’re anorexic ass hanging out of that 2 inch long skirt you trashy whores.  Wear some fucking clothes, and be treated like normal people.

This goes for the rednecks, and the ghetto white folks too.  We don’t want to see your body parts, your nasty tits, your crack head stomach, or your crossed eyes for that matter.  Take your brother/husband back to the trailer.  If you’re a white person trying to be ghetto, let me just smack you across the face.  You aren’t even amusing, you’re just trash.  You tip like trash, you smell like trash, you look like trash.  You ARE trash.

To the black people who go out and tip well, thank you.  This is not directed toward you, and I know that many of you are embarrassed to be around those who treat us like they deserve something more.

To the black people on WIC and food stamps, we don’t accept either, and if you come out and don’t tip after spending all kinds of money, then don’t come back to my restaurant, because all the servers know who you are, and you’ll get the worst service of your life.  Sure your food might be free, but it’ll be so cold you wont eat most of it so it wont matter.  You’re trash.  You don’t try to get a job, and you spend all your time drinking and getting cracked out.  Stay at home, I’d rather wait on your mother who goes to church and is human, or your brother who did something with his life and got out of the ghetto you are going to rot in.

I’m sorry to be such a dick in this blog, and I hope you all return tomorrow for a much lighter hearted one.

Ribeye

This is totally off the topic of my normal blog.

I just woke up from a very disturbing nap.  I’ve never mentioned this to anyone before, mainly because I always thought nobody would believe me, until I looked it up on google.com and found out that it’s a very real experience.

Sleep Paralysis.  Some people say it’s paranormal, some people say it’s psychotic, either way, it scares me to death every time it happens to me.

For those who don’t know,  sleep paralysis is a temporary paralysis of the body, either in mid waking or mid fall asleep mode.  Mine happens in the mid waking mode, every time.  Lately it’s only been when I take a nap on my couch, with my head toward the door instead of where it’s normally at, which is facing the tv.  It happens to millions of people, and a lot of those people don’t talk about it because of how freaked out they were, or because they thought it was just a dream.

Well, let me tell you how it feels in my point of view.

I’m laying here on my couch, asleep.  I have a dvd playing in the background, and after a while, I can tell I’m about to fall asleep because the sound from the tv is starting to fade.  Next thing I know, I’m in the midst of a dream.  Something about my job and being fired is about all I remember at this point, this happened about a half hour ago.  Next part, suddenly the dvd is again playing in the background, I can hear the noise of Sex and the City playing loudly again, and even know what episode is playing on the dvd.  I’m starting to wake up, or so I thought.  I can’t move.  Oh shit, here we go again.  I hate it every time it happens.  I try to roll over, I try to lift up…Nothing.  I can open my eyes, but only a fraction of an inch, just enough to see light through the blur of lashes.  I try to yell for my partner to wake me up.  I can’t make a noise.  I cant even grunt.  No noise whatsoever.  At this point, I feel like I’m dying.  I try to wake myself up the rest of the way, but it wont work.  I try again.  Nothing.  My eyelids start to close the rest of the way, and as soon as they hit a certain point, I feel a little buzz throughout my body, with each beat of my heart.  From the middle of my chest to the tips of my fingers and toes, to the top of my head.  It’s like I’m being constantly shocked with a low voltage electrical charge, or a static shock, only it’s all through my body.   It gets harder and harder to breathe.  I open my eyes again, just to keep the shocking from continuing, but I can only hold them open for that tiny amount, and only for a few seconds.  I’m scared to death.  A few minutes later, I wake up, and sit up straight to make sure I”m actually awake this time, and I run to tell my partner, first time I’ve EVER told anyone since this started about 10 or so years ago.  Back when I first started smoking weed, and waaaaaaaaay before I went to rehab and got clean from everything I ended up on.  Is it something that happens to drug users and former drug users?  Even ones that havent used anything in over a year and a half?  I wouldn’t know, this is the first time I’ve gone public about it, and I’m doing it on my more or less anonymous blog.

I told my partner about it and he freaked.  Apparently it had never happened to him until one of his friends told him about it years ago, and since then it only happens to him when someone talks about it.  Psychological with him I’m sure, but with me?  I wasn’t expecting it.  I know it happens when I sleep the way I did on the couch, but I wasn’t thinking about that at the time…..

I’m open to suggestions, comments, questions….and I’ll get back to the normal blog later.  I may actually be fired, or at least losing my trainer position.  I’ll find out tomorrow but I’ll at least let you all know how it came about.

Thanks for ya’lls continued support

Ribeye