How I Got To My Fourth Waiting Job

Fourth Of July holiday is tomorrow. As I am taking a road trip up to Ojai, then on to Carmel – total five days off – I’ll drop a post on you before I leave.

Recap of the last almost two weeks:

Carney’s Corner (week ago) weekend roundup: Fri-Sun, $169, $195, $125. Then I yesterday (Thursday) and had a great night of $185. Only tonight’s shift to go before starting my vacation.

The previous week at Michael’s was a good one. Off Monday, then on-call (and not used) Tuesday. I worked Wed.-Fri. and averaged $117 per shift. This week I got four shifts, for which I’m grateful. However it was a bad week: averaged only $50 per.

But that’s now.

This is then:

In 1986 I was everything. Fresh out of college, young, good-looking (at least, as good as I was gonna get), poor, bereft in love, motivated, excited about the future, and moving to another place.

Get In The Mood – Right-Click Image <open in another window> To See or Listen To Sledgehammer Video

Southern California had been my home after high school in No. Cal. The parents had moved, and I moved with them.

I underwent college. I emerged alive. I got a job . . . three jobs waiting tables.

Six years into Southern California, I had made some real friends. I even resurrected my sex life – my big-time high school romance back in ‘79 yielded the end of my virginity, but also marked the beginning of a massive drought. The biblical seven years of blight and famine (lost virginity in 11^th grade) were punctuated by a slight cough in Year Four when I hooked up with a voluptuous brunette at a Roy Buchanan concert in Palo Alto.

We went to her friend’s abandoned dorm room on Stanford campus, as it was May or June and school was over . . . but I digress. It’s easy to do when you’ve been waiting that long . . .

I only bring up my sex life because it plays a major emotional part in the move away from So Cal. My situation begged the question: Why the hell would you move away when A) you’ve finally gotten some friends, B) you’ve finally started making some decent money, C) you’ve finally finished college, and D) you’re already living in the best place in the world?

Because heartbreak knocked me into an ‘early-life-crisis.’

My romantic affairs had become just about normal for a healthy single not-unattractive man of 24 years. I say this because there was no ‘normal’ ramping up like most would experience. I had a girlfriend in high school. Then nothing. One night in 1983. Then nothing. Until finally in 1985 I started to go out, date, ‘hook-up’ if you will.

At the peak of my new-found powers, I completely flipped for a young girl. We became official boyfriend/girlfriend. We never had sex. The meaty part of the ‘relationship’ lasted about a month. But I was totally smitten. As such, and having been barren for so long, I lost it thoroughly when she disregarded me. I just didn’t understand these things. She was just a high school student.

(Yes, I was more or less innocent. I met her working as a doorman at a nightclub. Her ID was reputable – which wasn’t hard in those days – so she was 23 years old to me. After romancing her, eventually meeting her parents, and then standing/observing as her house of cards tumbled, it came out that she was a 17-year-old in her last year of high school. To be honest, at that point, I didn’t care anymore. I was in love. I guess I can say now I’m glad we never had sex, because of course it would have been highly illegal, but at the time I didn’t care in the least. I did have opportunity, had I been willing to be persuasive, but that’s not generally my nature. And anyway, I thought this was the love of all time – so I was in no hurry. When she backed out of our ‘relationship’ and eventually slept with another full-grown adult, I was brutally traumatized. I just wasn’t ready – I’d had no experience in the normal ways of dating – to handle what I considered infidelity. Of course, what should I have expected of an 18-year-old? That’s why I wasn’t ready.)

That’s why I included Peter Gabriel above and the link to his epic Sledgehammer video. This was the internal theme song of my deepest love and yearning for this girl. Sheesh!

But it’s an awesome song. And a really great video that until now I hadn’t seen in years.

So here we are in 1986. It’s summertime in So Cal. I might have love interests, but I’m obsessed with my erstwhile 18-year-old girlfriend. Driving place to place, I’m listening repeatedly to the 12″ single cut of Sledgehammer on the tape deck in my 1979 red Honda Civic. All of ripe, juicy life beckons me . . .

Meanwhile, I had kept contact with good friends from high school in No. Cal. My best friend, Dick, was/is a funny, inventive, energetic type. Through various correspondence, we had trumped up the idea to write a novel together. We hashed out the general concept of a ‘woman’s novel,’ as that was the most marketable and (we thought) easiest kind to write. We hashed out a fragile bones of a plot, as well.

Well, I wanted to be a writer. I was through with college. I had been devastated by a heathen woman (actually a naive teenager, but who’s counting?). I had no decent career. As far as work went, I was waiting tables at Olive Garden (check here for that story) and making no money, having no fun, and not even eating any good food for the trouble.

Under those conditions, moving back to No. Cal. with my best friend from high school seemed an attractive proposition. Dick was ready to move out of the family home as well, so he lined up a place (with another good friend) for us to share. Memory is hazy, but I think the rent was like $750 a month for a three-bedroom house. The master bedroom guy would pay $300 and the others would split the rest.

I know what you’re thinking, and I thought the same thing: That’s pretty freaking steep!

But anyway, I did it. I packed all my albums and other possessions into my little Honda and made the trip. Do you realize I had three fruit crates of vinyl albums? (What’s a fruit crate of albums? It was 1986. You had to be there.) That’s like 40% of the storage space in a 1979 Honda, including the body of the driver. Oh yeah. I also had an Apple II computer with monitor (actually a clone made by Franklin), and of course an amp, speakers, and a Technics turntable to play the vinyl. And my whole wardrobe. I have no idea what I was thinking, or how I did it, but me and my stuff got up there.

I remember the night I left. That car was an empty driver’s seat, with the rest of the interior packed as dense as a black hole. There were no rear sight lines besides the driver’s side mirror. It was night. Before I left home, I topped off the oil. On the way to the freeway I stopped at a mini-market on the main boulevard (coincidentally only a couple of blocks from the Olive Garden) for salty snacks and Coke. It was about 11 p.m. Walking back to the car, I saw smoke shooting out of three sides of the hood like someone had forgotten about a grilled cheese sandwich on the valve cover.

I opened the hood and discovered the oil cap was missing. Engine oil had been splattering all over and burning on the hot metal. I couldn’t believe how stupid I was. At this point, five miles from home, I didn’t know if I could safely drive back without blowing my engine. I mean, are there any guidelines on how much oil you lose when your oil cap is missing?

It would be really embarrassing and irritating (not just to me, but to my family – who were probably ecstatic I was finally leaving for good) to return home after all the hoopla of my leaving. This just had to be a freakin’ joke . . .

So, in the mini-market parking lot, I took another look at my engine . . . and saw the oil cap nestled cozily in the web of spark plug wires.

Okay, so that’s a long way to go for a false ending. But that’s actually how my trek started. 11:30 p.m., at a mini-market with a tight oil cap, but a still-smoking engine, finally on my way to Northern California.

* * * * *

. . . I’m sorry, but that’s all for now. I ran a little long in the preamble. Check the next post, probably after I get back from vacation, to get the details on my actual Fourth Waiting Job.

Have a happy Fourth!

Big Hits

I know I haven’t posted for a long time. Well, the Lakers won the World Championship (aka NBA Championship)! I’ve been on a high, naturally. I was previously adhering to a no-drinking-till-after-writing rule. I dropped that system temporarily.

I remember the glory years (both five titles in the ’80s and the three titles from ‘01-’03), and the times between. If you’re not a serious (translation: of dubious sanity) sports fan, you won’t understand, but there is a major endorphin rush from winning the title (as a fan). So much so, that it colors your own off-season. You have a generally bright outlook. There’s a snap in your step. You feel more confident.

Likewise, when you lose (as a fan) you are actually depressed for a certain amount of time. It’s embarrassing and, really, unconscionable considering the true gravity of sports in your life and the world in general. But it’s real.

So when the boys took home the title this year, I decided to revel in the happiness and spend my next week or so reading everything I could find about them. I kind of went into vacation mode. You know vacation mode: You’d never consider having a drink at 11 a.m. under any circumstances in your normal life, but on vacation . . . what the hell?

For the record, I don’t drink in the afternoon, even when the Lakers have won the championship. Just an analogy there.

The other reason I haven’t posted is because there’s been a strange massive spike in my ‘readership.’ I’ve kind of been mesmerized by it. Which is exactly the opposite of the normal state of affairs – wherein I don’t post for awhile, hits go way down, and I get nervous and write something new.

For some reason, this post has gotten assigned a high-ranking search result for “Jack Daniels.” Yes, Jack Daniels whiskey is mentioned (and pictured) in the post, but it’s only the subject of a short quip. Some days traffic is up more than 500% from my previous normal. Most days it’s double or triple the old normal.

I don’t regard these hits as particularly ‘real,’ but they are hits and they might lead to new people reading my writing, so I’m grateful.

I’m also grateful that this seemingly random event has led surfers to what I consider one of my better pages (it’s the one about Real Life Waiter Nightmares). Hell, I could just as easily have ended up with a throwaway Tivo/Lakers post getting all the attention.

Anyway, if you haven’t read it yet check out Real Life Waiter Nightmare Type 2 (cont’d). It’s a good read. Everybody’s doing it. Come on . . . What? Are you chicken or somethin’?

Something In The Air

A furious day at Michael’s on Friday. Not me furious, as in my grumpy post about Restaurant Overstaffing, but furious business.

It’s funny that ideas and thoughts are just out there in the air . . . Have you ever had what you thought was a great idea for a movie or TV show, or a simple great invention, or just a new feature for an existing product – only to find out days or weeks later that exact thing in the marketplace? You thought of it on your own, yet obviously the parties bringing this idea out had been working on it well before you came up with the concept.

For some reason, after my post complaining about the overstaffing at lunch vs. dinner at Michael’s (which I concluded by saying I was ‘this close’ to having a sit-down with management on the subject), the next three days bore out exactly the result I was hoping for. And of course I never had the chance to talk to management about my objections.

Each day, management ran the floor with a small staff, forgoing the on-call server. Each day, we had relatively solid business – nothing enough to crash the system, but enough so we all felt busy enough – and the servers on the floor got another 30% more covers than has been usual. Instead of $40-60 days, we had $75-90 days. I was lucky each day, as I got some prime tables. I made $150, $155, and $194.

The last of these days, Friday, though, was a crusher. I had 29 covers, most of them in one seating (tables of 5, 8, 4, and 4). If you recall the last post, us lunch servers had been averaging 9 a shift. But it ended up proving my point magnificently . . . as if management really knew my exact ‘point.’

It was like a Christmas rush day. There were three of us on the floor, and we were all taxed about as far as we could go. We got some life-saving help from available management in running food or at least expediting it. We were totally selfless for each other regarding food-running. I was nowhere to be seen for entrée-delivery of several of my tables. Likewise, after checking back, I returned to several tables to find them cleared and crumbed. I did the same kinds of things for the other two waiters whenever I had an extra moment or hand – including refilling waters and drinks.

And we all got out of it with no more than the normal hiccups, and zero major situations.

Here’s where it proved my point: This was a blockbuster day for three servers to handle, but we did it. In other words, we ran into the absolute outside expectations for customer traffic and we still got through just fine.

I don’t warrant going with three waiters in a situation where you know business is going to be like that. It was hard on everybody, and things could have gone wrong. In that case where management has a pretty damn good idea, then bring on another waiter. But as I said, we saw the enemy, and we still beat him.

Meantime, I hope they’ve learned something here. Unless there are a tremendous number of reservations on the books, just let us go with what we have. There is excess production capacity here.

* * * * *

I haven’t written much about Carney’s here lately. A couple of things:

After our amazing hot streak from January through part of April, things have cooled off. Some weekends have been $120, $150 (Fri-Sat). Some have been $120, $185). But we haven’t been hitting $200+ each day like we were. (For those of you in other parts of the country, things are different where I live in California. I’ve discussed it before. Rent for a 2-bedroom apartment is about $1800 a month. A small 2-bedroom 1-bath house would be $2200. Mortgage on same house, even at today’s prices and interest rates and with 20% down payment would be $2900 a month. My own mortgage is almost $4000 a month.)

Ciera is always having the best time and the worst time. She’s flying to Vegas with a new boyfriend for two days, and she’s making a deal with her landlord to pay her rent weekly so she won’t get evicted.

She really hit a bad deal a couple weeks ago. Her cousin, who was like a sister to her when she lived back in Chicago, was part of a murder/suicide tragedy. The cousin had even been out for a week’s visit with Ciera only a couple of months earlier. The estranged husband killed her with a knife and then shot himself when he returned to his own home.

Of course, Carney tried to spin it as her own tragedy: ‘We have to cover her shifts so she can go back for the funeral. We just don’t know what we’re going to do . . .’

Ciera self-medicates religiously (actually, more than religiously) with pot-smoking and drinking. She usually portrays her travails in a kind of humorous, ‘what else can happen?’ manner. And it’s usually true. Hell, late rent, boyfriend-juggling, car trouble are part of living. And she understands she reaps what she sows, so most of the time she’s not bitter. She’s the kind of person who can have the most vile, screaming phone argument with a boyfriend, then hang up and start cheerfully making jokes about it.

But this. Her real vulnerability is pain and suffering. She always has between 3-7 dogs – all of them rescue animals. Kind of like her boyfriends, but I digress . . .

She has been understandably torn apart with this family disaster. Very sad. She went back for five days to grieve with her family and attend the funeral/wake. Because it involved a few shift-switches, Carney called it ‘her vacation.’

* * * * *

Finally, I would be remiss if I didn’t tip-off (pun intended) everyone to what I hope is the final game of the Los Angeles Lakers 2008-09 season today. Game Five, the Lakers lead the series 3-1 and can finish off the Orlando Magic today at 5 p.m. Pacific Time. If you don’t care, please root for the Lakers just because I’m asking you to.

Can’t wait till about 6:15 p.m., when I’ll fire up the Tivo (having buffered an hour or so of recorded game), shake up a New Amsterdam gin Martini, and watch it unfold.

Go Lakers!

Restaurant Overstaffing

Perhaps it is a sign of the times that I’m complaining again about restaurant management strategies. Remember my diatribes about Cover Counts? When the money gets tight, people (including me) start to look for something to blame. When business gets slow, every little detail gets more attention. I remember a wise manager back in the ’90s telling me, ‘Sales covers everything.’ I’m sure it was not original, even then.

My own precious mantra, ‘Be patient, things will even out,’ is hard for even myself to accept these days.

Today, yet again, the day manager at Michael’s utilized the on-call server – and, in addition, added an extra server! Okay, sure. That staff of four waiters was the scheduled minimum three years ago. But it’s different now. What it meant today was that there were 22 reservations on the books. Statistics show that at Michael’s covers quite often double the number of reservations.

***Background. Michael’s has strict policy that dinner servers have no more than 3 table stations. Lunch servers, because of the faster pace and less required ’service overhead,’ are allowed 4 table stations.***

So back to today. Business is down. Shifts are down. Floor staffing is down. But as I said here, about the hidden ‘benefits’ of Restaurant Industry Contraction, when it is slow, at least the natural cutting of staff generally allows those working to continue to make the average $$ per shift. You know: 30% less sales, 30% fewer servers, servers still make about the same money per shift.

Unfortunately, if you’ve been doing the math in your head, the current manager seems dead set on staffing so servers get about 10 covers per shift. Our check average is in the $40-50 range – though it’s probably dipped from that during the last six months. The result of this is that we’re being allowed to sell between $300-500 a shift, translating to walk-home money of $40-70. We used to make average walk-home $100.

My problem here is this: As servers, our workload is nowhere near full-capacity. When we’re getting our 10 covers each – whether it be two on the floor or five on the floor – we’re in no higher than second gear. We go overboard helping to run food and keep up on running sidework (teamwork stuff), but those are the only things keeping us from standing around for long stretches. We could be busy and productive all the time. If we had full stations.

The difference we’re talking about, on a day like today, was just for the manager not to panic and bring in the ‘bonus’ server. As it turned out, we each had nine covers. I sold about $380 and walked with $57. And, again, none of us were remotely busy. If you just remove that ‘bonus’ server, each waiter sells about $125 more, makes about $20 more . . . and we’re still not that busy.

The final point I have to make refers back to the standards of station sizes I mentioned. Michael’s posts daily tabulations of cover counts in Excel spreadsheet format. The spreadsheet even calculates the average covers per server. The pages stack up on the bulletin board for a couple weeks before being thrown away.

Because of my frustration, I took a look at these cover count pages. There are separate sheets for dinner and lunch. Going back two weeks, the general average cover count for dinner was 13 per server; for lunch it was 9-10. That’s pretty bad. Never mind that us lunch servers accept the dinner shift makes more money per cover – that’s just the way it is. But the lunch shift is getting 30% fewer covers per waiter than the dinner shift. That’s not fair, is it?

But wait. Remember the station-size standards? At lunch we’re allowed 33% bigger stations. Hey, all things being equal, we should be allowed 33% more covers. So if dinner waiters are serving 13 covers a night, we should be serving 17 or more at lunch.

What the F’ is going on here?

If I may extrapolate those 17 phantom covers I should have: x40x.085(tax)x.20(tip) means I should be grossing about $148 a day. And remember – we’re not busy – it can easily be done.

I am a firm believer in not challenging management. They have a lot to do, and dealing with griping waiters generally just makes it harder to do their jobs. I believe they are trying to make the restaurant run best it can and be profitable. But this issue gets into fairness.

It seems to me that our day manager is too scared for her shift to be busy, thereby exposing her to risk of bad service and complaints. (I won’t even go there regarding possible fear that she won’t be able to handle average to heavy business.) In doing so, she is sacrificing the income of her waiters. She feels comfortable at all times. We make bad money and are never working as hard as we can handle.

I am this close to asking for a sit-down with management . . .

A New Trend In Verbal Tips?

My last post was a sort of mini-essay about Verbal Tips.

It didn’t start out that way. As I said in the post, verbal tips are such an entrenched aspect of food serving, experienced waiters hardly give it thought anymore. It’s like seeing naked breasts on a Cinemax movie. You’re there on the couch, Cinemax is on, there are the naked breasts . . . you wonder, ‘What’s on HBO?’

It’s like that with verbal tips. You don’t not notice them, but you hardly dwell on it.

The reason I wrote on the subject in the first place was because I thought I had detected a new trend in the verbal tipping subculture.

    ‘Thank you for your service . . .’

This was a few days ago. It came from an obviously well-to-do gentleman in his 60s. The party ordered well, had good wine, were well-behaved – in general they acted like the veteran pro athlete in the end zone: they’d been there before and didn’t need to show off.

So the old man accepts the check presenter with charge voucher. I thank him again, using my most sincerest Thank You. (For one, this was a great table and they deserve it. For two, this was a great table $$$-wise and I need to impress as much as possible.) And then he says it in a clear, direct voice that underscores he really understands this has been very good service:

    ‘Thank you for your service . . .’

Well I’d heard this phrase, more or less, two other times in the last couple weeks. In fact, I had gotten poor tips on those other occasions. But I was still comfortable because this guy was . . . he was just the type, the class, of the demeanor of person who was a 20% tipper. Further, some people do adhere to the Ultimate Rule of Verbal Tips (linked again, sorry, but if you’re lazy, check the 2^nd to last paragraph). And he definitely seemed like that guy.

Tip? Sorry, Waiternotes. 12%.

So, to cut to the Check Drop, I think the recent poor economy has created a new breed of verbal tippers. People who used to be good tippers are adopting the policy. They can’t shake the good foundations of humanity they (used to) have, so they have created their own catchphrase.

The meaning is slightly different (but the result is the same) from classic verbal tippers. What these guys are saying now is:

‘Thank you for your service. You have been worthy of the 20% gratuity I used to pay. Times are different now, though. I am no longer paying 20%. In recognition of this fact, I am sending you the coded message that it’s not your fault, but you are getting less. (Maybe things will change in the future.)’

So what do you do? Nothing at all.

I can write about it in my blog, however.

Verbal Tips Are Fraud

The concept of the Verbal Tip is understood by any waiter who has been in the business for more than 2 or 3 . . . shifts.

‘You were the best waiter!’

‘Thank you so much! You were really great tonight!’

I truly hope some of these particular diners are reading this, so they can understand we know what they are doing. But then, the kind of diners who pull this shit are definitely not interested in how the waiter feels about things. So why should I expect they would seek out a waiter blog?

Verbal Tips are as intrinsic to food serving as:

1. Skating on sidework.
2. Getting free drinks from the bartender (during or after your shift).
3. Hitting on the hostess or hitting on the bartender (depending on your inclinations).

An exhaustive list? By no means.

The idea here is that every waiter knows about, understands, and has gotten Verbal Tips.

Frankly, Verbal Tips are one of the most reviled ‘features’ of food serving. Bear with me, but the most common refrain from the waiter is something like, ‘Everything was perfect! Nothing went wrong. They were happy. They said they were happy. The food was great. Nothing came out late. We talked . . . and F’n 10-percent!’

The Verbal Tip is fraud. That’s right. Just like Bernard Madoff said he was giving you a solid return in relation to your contribution. In reality he was keeping the money himself. Here’s how it breaks down for Bernie Madoff (and for Verbal Tippers):

• We give good faith (service or money).
• He keeps the money.
• We get the words.

It’s fraud because these people are redefining the interaction of service and tipping. Just like Madoff and his ilk redefine the concept of investment and returns. There is only one definition for tipping. The guest gives the waiter money commensurate with the quality of the job done. Notice there are no commas, or dashes, or parentheses in that sentence. There are no loopholes. This commandment is etched in stone as much as the Employee Manual Moses’ brought down from the mountain.

The Verbal Tipper has defiled this universal law and twisted it into: ‘I will substitute some kind words for a certain amount of money.’

Look, a commendation and a pat on the back is great from your mom or your kindergarten teacher. It’s also nice from your employer, but your boss doesn’t say, ‘Hey, great job today – and by the way, because I just recognized you verbally, I’m reducing your paycheck 10% this week.’

Besides being fraud, Verbal Tipping is ridiculously condescending. Think about the mindset.

‘The real prize for this waiter is not making money and surviving. It is the honor of serving me. If I leave mere money – heck, anyone can do that, and it’s just perfunctory – he won’t appreciate it. I’m going to give him something way more valuable than money. I’m going to let him know that I approve of him.’

Thanks, guy.

Verbal Tippers are also liars (as differentiated from being perpetrators of fraud, a bigger lie). They are liars because they espouse a ‘philosophy’ as quoted above, but the true motivation is not to approve or reward. It is to save money. Everyone knows that waiters make minimum wage (or less!). Are Verbal Tippers also going around ‘rewarding’ and ‘approving of’ the girl running the fitting room at The Gap? How ’bout our favorite, the cashier at the 7-11? I’ve never heard anyone give the old Verbal Tip to the 7-11 guy. Or the dude hawking flowers at the freeway off-ramp? Or the young man selling magazine subscriptions door-to-door?

Verbal Tippers reserve their special reward for only those situations where it can save them from withdrawing money from their wallets.

Let this be the rule from here forth – no, wait. This has always been the rule: A Verbal Tip shall only, and we mean only, be administered as a reinforcement or supplement to the real, actual, concrete money tip that has been given. If the guest feels there has been excellent service, then the statement will be the percentage of tip awarded. If the guest feels he wants to ’supplement’ the waiter’s tip at this point, then he can go right ahead and commend him verbally for his competence and his personality and his full head of hair. Anything at all. But the Verbal Tip is only to underline what his actual tip has already stated.

Thank you.

Advancing In The Industry – Quick Follow-Up

Waiterextraordinaire responded quickly to my last post. Based on his thoughts, it seems I’m probably off-base in the focus of my advice:

Great post waiternotes! Just as a follow up on the degree the girl is going for. Good for her and if she can learn a couple of languages work in Switzerland or better yet take some of her education overseas that would be even better. I am sure she has better plans than working with a corporate chain. Hey how about a spot in the Cayman Islands , Dubai , Australia , France. Get a degree and learn languages then the work permits will drop in your lap. Be pretty exciting.

Obviously, WaiterEx has a completely different concept of the breadth of opportunity in the hospitality business than I do!

And he’s right. The fact that our industry knows no boundaries allows us to potentially go anywhere in the world. Using some skill in ‘the business,’ we can transplant ourselves into a whole new life in nearly an instant. All it would take is some serious brass balls, a connection here or there, maybe a little money saved, and a plan for the future.

We get bogged down in our lives, feeling boxed in from all angles, seemingly fighting just not to lose ground . . . But who knows what any of us could make happen if we just pulled stakes and landed in, say, Australia (with a job, of course)?

WaiterEx emphasizes using multiple languages. That would no doubt make it easier to get taken on by an international resort (or resort town). Perhaps it’s common for ‘outsiders’ to have an edge over the locals in this scenario. The USA has a reputation as being the best of the best in a lot of areas. A hotshot, multi-lingual transplant might well be granted a sizeable ‘grace period’ in a new job ‘over there.’ He/she would ostensibly have a lot of knowledge to impart to the local staff.

I’m just guessing here, but it’s possible.

Thanks, WaiterEx for the perspective.

At the same time, I still believe my narrow take on this issue is fairly complete by its own standards. Still, if you haven’t read it yet, please do so and let me know if I missed something.

Advancing In The Restaurant Industry

Jeanie, in a comment on the blog, recently mentioned that after 18 years in the business as a waiter, she’s going to attend a college (University of Phoenix online) to get a Hospitality Degree. She wants to ‘do something else in the industry.’ I commented on her comment, but I thought I would expand on that comment here. It’s a very good topic for a restaurant blog.

Unlike most of my posts, where I expound as if I know everything there ever was to know on the subject at hand, I admit in advance I don’t have complete data here.

I do have a complete subset of data, however: my own.

The restaurant industry, for better or worse, is very old fashioned. You get your first job by meeting someone personally (usually multiple times), and it’s that contact that convinces your employer that you’d be a good hire. From there, it stays old fashioned. If you want to be a waiter, your best bet is to do your time as a host or a busser, impressing your bosses whenever you can, and wait for something to open up. Restaurants prefer to promote from within.

Likewise the jump from server to manager. Yes, all restaurants hire managers who have managed previously elsewhere. But those managers almost always get their first management job by being promoted from within their current restaurant. I’d also say a majority of GM’s come from the assistant manager ranks in the same company, if not even the same store.

Taken even another step, I’ve found regional managers are usually plucked from the best GM’s in a company’s stable.

Beyond that, I have no idea – though I would guess that upper level management spots do get filled by headhunters more than promoted from within.

The obvious moral to my story is that it’s probably more effective to dedicate ones time to climbing the ladder within the business, rather than getting a degree. At the very least, you’ll be getting paid for your ‘education.’ You’ll also have the ability to make more contacts as you move up.

Another factor is the consideration of where you’ll be after you get your degree? Likely, you’ll be applying for assistant manager jobs, just like you would have been getting almost automatically through working in the restaurant. The advantage of the degree is it’s possible that you’ll be ‘fast-tracked’ to a GM promotion – more so than the working slug who just traded in his apron for a $99 suit.

All that said, you’re still mired in the same hierarchy as the rest of the managers trying to get promoted into the corporate side . . .

But then, maybe I’m missing Jeanie’s point. Maybe she wants to get into banquet coordinating? Or hotel management (which is a whole other huge can of worms compared to running merely a restaurant). Or maybe she wants to become a chef? There, it would probably be imperative to have culinary school experience if she aspired to more than being a garden variety cook or head chef at a mom ‘n pop place.

If anyone has more firsthand information about the upper corporate echelons, let me and the rest of us know.

* * * * *

I’d like to thank the writer of the So You Want To Be A Waiter blog for giving me the Gold Standard of Shout-Outs: an actual blog entry commending Waiternotes and linking to the blog.

I poked around his/her site and couldn’t find a name, but I did try. Incidentally, the blog (fairly new) is excellent. The premise is ‘THE BEST BOOK ON WAITING TABLES THAT YOU HAVE NEVER READ – YET.’ As such, it covers in concise fashion a lot of basics about the food serving profession. There’s even been a ‘Glossary’ post, defining waiter jargon like ‘deuce, roll-ups, crumbers,’ etc.

He’s really on to something here. And it’s not a dry textbook in the making, as he has plenty of regular-style, more conversational blog posts as well. Not to mention, he/she was smart enough to recommend Waiternotes.

* * * * *

Yesterday at Michael’s wasn’t much of a day. I walked with $58. I’d had just two tables, and was down on covers, but Mickey was saving me for the 7-top reservation.

At one p.m. three ladies congregated at the front desk. They were in their sixties, dressed like dance hall tramps from the Wild West years, the ‘cherry on top’ if you will being gaudy wide-brimmed Crimson hats laden with feathers and ribbons. I had no doubt this was to be my 7-top.

Mickey led the three ladies to my meticulously-buffed table for seven, and handed me the reservation chit. It read like one of the best waiter practical jokes ever:

Party Size: 7. Table 12. Web Reservation. Notes: 1^st time diner. This is a group of Crimson Hat Ladies – our request is for separate checks. Some of our ladies do not drink. Thank you. REQ A ROUND TABLE. Ms. P’s bday. Has cake in fridge. Please don’t cut until the table sees it.

I would have looked around to see the other waiters and manager laughing at me, wondering if I was buying the gag . . . But here they were. The Crimson Hat Ladies!

Yeah, Just Like This, But This Lady Is A 10 Compared To Mine

Four rhetorical questions: Separate checks? Their own cake? Not drinking? Are you kidding me?

Perhaps they also expected to pay with an expired coupon, and intended to order just two entrees to share buffet-style. And brought their own hot tea bags?

It actually turned out they were just fine. Three of the seven had wine or cocktails. They all ordered entrees. They were very polite and easy to work with. Even the separate check thing wasn’t a big deal for two reasons: A) they let me know in the beginning, so I could make sure each item was on its proper seat, therefore making it a simple computer maneuver to print up the checks; B) They each paid in cash, with exact change. Frankly, because of those things, paying out the table was no more difficult than any other table.

Lastly, the final aggregate tip was right in the range of 20%. Thanks Crimson Hat Ladies!

Cover Counts

Counting covers is the practice of trying to give each server an equal number of guests per shift, thus ensuring in the long run that waiters have opportunity to make the same amount of money. Simply alternating tables doesn’t work because a table of six is not the equal of a table for two. Tables would be even at 1 to 1, but one server gets six customers to two for the other.

Because waiters are a naturally greedy and jealous lot, the system of counting covers is imperative to allay paranoia about management favoritism towards select waiters. Counts might vary a few guests either way, but because of the effort, these variances even out over time.

Many restaurants don’t use cover counts. They are bald-faced about their system of favoritism. Usually it has to do with seniority, and often who is sleeping (semi-secretly) with the manager. And that’s fine, too, I guess. If you know going in what to expect, you can decide if it’s okay with you, making below average money for a year or more, so you can eventually make above average money on the back end. People who complain about restaurants like this kind of bug me. Anywhere you work, the system being employed should be obvious to you after just a few months – if you didn’t know it already from Day One. Waiters have the option of being transient. If you don’t like it (and it’s working for the restaurant, as evidenced by its many years of operation), you should leave.

Michael’s, my day job, employs cover counts. Carney’s doesn’t, and it doesn’t matter because we pool tips there.

I’ve had an ongoing beef with the particular cover count system used by Mickey, the day manager at Michael’s for the last two years. It’s a small tweak she uses regarding the shift closer. My experience in every restaurant has been that the closer stays later, has more responsibility, and often has more work (checking other servers’ sidework, closing sidework, etc.). The reward for this is that he/she gets extra tables (and therefore, more money) after the rest of the floor has been cut. The other waiters almost never have a problem with this, as they recognize the extra work and later hours involved with closing, and because 95% of waiters always want to get off early. Meanwhile, the closers like it because they are the other 5% and enjoy making the extra cash, and don’t mind working for it while the other jackasses are out spending their earnings on cocktails.

Well, Mickey’s tweak – she believes, an improvement – is to manage the covers to take into account the late parties the closer will get. For example, she’ll cut the floor with Waiter X at 15 covers, Waiter Y at 14, and Waiter Z (the closer) at 9, because she knows there is a four-top coming in later, and she expects another possible table or two to walk in.

The first problem is obviously that this eliminates the ‘Closer Bonus.’ The second problem is that nothing is guaranteed. Reservations don’t show up; in fact, late reservations are more likely to no-show than any other. Expected walk-ins are just a roll of the dice. You could get five tables and run your ass off, or you could be chasing tumbleweeds for two hours.

I only close one day a week at Michael’s, so percentage-wise her system might serve me better because of my more numerous non-closing shifts. But I just don’t think it’s right. I’ve talked to all the other waiters about this, and they agree too: This is not the way it is done anywhere.

I (and at least two other waiters, separately) have addressed Mickey about this issue specifically. She won’t change. So we have had to accept it.

But it still doesn’t keep us closers from getting mad watching the other waiters get loaded up in a 4-to-1 ratio vs. the closer.

It happened today. Three on the floor (incidentally, as the closer, I nevertheless opened the restaurant as well). I got an early 3-top and that was it. The other two got numerous tables, finally totaling 8 and 9 covers each by the time it was 1:20. A slow day, obviously, with only one six-top reservation left on the books. I figured at this point everyone was pretty much cut, and I would get the six-top, and any walk-ins.

Sure enough, a quality walk-in comes in, Mr. Corelli. I had him last week. He’s a regular, good for a 30% tip. Another waiter normally gets him, by his request, but last time I did such a good job he said he wanted to sit with me whenever she was not working.

Because of the cover count and floor-cutting situation right then, and because his usual waiter was off, I immediately went to his table as he sat down. We said hello and chatted, I got the cocktail order, I referred to a dish he ordered last time that wasn’t made quite right (for him), and how we’d get it perfect this time. He was glad to see me and things were rolling.

I ring the cocktails, deliver them. These guys like to start slow and finish abruptly, so I leave them alone to talk and drink. Back in the side station I’m just dicking around, pretty much killing time. After a few minutes, Mickey comes back with a chit (for each party seated, a chit with a name and other instructions/info is printed and given to the server). She says, ‘I’m going to give this table to Chrissy, because you have the six-top reservation coming in later.’

I say no problem. I assumed another table had walked-in while I was back there. This would ultimately put me with at least 13 covers and Chrissy with 10 or 12, depending on the size of the ‘new’ walk-in. Fine.

After another few minutes I return to the table. Chrissy is chatting up Mr. Corelli, which isn’t unusual because he’s a regular, a nice guy, and a great tipper. As I get closer it becomes obvious that this is the table Mickey was giving her. It was awkward at the table because Mr. Corelli looked at me like, ‘What’s going on?‘ In fact, he even said that out loud. ‘We thought we were getting you.’

‘Yeah, well, Mickey has a way she runs things,’ I said, knowing better than to bring internal stuff to bear on the guests. I just told him this is the way it was, and Chrissy will definitely take good care of them.

But I was freakin’ flaming. Nevertheless, I immediately transferred the table (in the computer) to Chrissy. You need to obey orders or the whole system breaks down.

So now I was back to 3 covers. Back to zero customers currently in the restaurant. It’s 1:40 and the other waiters are doing their sidework. I complained to Chrissy herself, not because I wanted action or blamed her – just that she’s a friend and we all disagree with Mickey’s management of cover counts. She said she understood. She even said I could have the table if I wanted. I said no because I’m not a strong-arm guy. I didn’t want to steal the table; I was just upset because it should have been my table.

Mickey came back to the side station a few minutes later. I was fit to be tied.

‘I just can’t understand how you can do that to me,’ I said.

‘But you’re getting the six-top. They’re in the bar.’

‘Right, but now Chrissy is up to 12 covers and the six-top only puts me at nine. I’ve had three covers.’ If you can’t tell, I was super upset. ‘And the worst thing about it is you know Mr. Corelli is an $80 tip. And you gave it to her and she was already ahead of me on covers . . .’

Unfortunately, Mickey became upset and frustrated. She offered that if it was okay with Chrissy I could still have the table. As I said, I didn’t want that. So, having said my piece, I went back out to stand sentry over a (nearly) deserted floor.

Mr. Corelli looked over his shoulder, spotted me, and waved me over. ‘I hope you won the coin toss,’ he said.

‘Well, I wish I had too, but I didn’t.’

‘But we wanted you. You were already working with us. She hasn’t done anything,’ he said. ‘Isn’t there something you can do?’

‘The only way anything would happen is if you talked to Mickey, because it’s what you want that matters,’ I said, coming pretty close to, if not actually, crossing the line. But then, he did ask. And I certainly wouldn’t want him to think I didn’t care, which would be insulting to him. I continued, ‘But you if you do, you have to let her know I had nothing to do with it. You called me over here.’

At that moment, Mickey swung by the table, asked how it was going?

Mr. Corelli: ‘Oh, it’s fine. You know I called Waiter over here to find out why you were switching Chrissy on to us. She’s a great girl and everything, but Waiter has got us going. He’s been doing everything for us.’

Mickey quickly capitulated, putting me back on the table, making it seem like that was the reason she was coming over anyway. It’s possible that was true.

After that, Chrissy transferred the table back to me in the computer; Mickey pretty much didn’t talk to me the rest of the day; and Chrissy left without saying much. I went on to get the six-top and wait on the two tables.

The issue got a little more sticky when the six-top ordered a bottle of Paul Hobbs Beckstoffer To Kalon Vineyard Cabernet – $350. They proceeded to order appetizers, salads, and dinner entrees, and multiple bottles of water. Their check was $930 and I got a $200 tip.

Mr. Corelli had a big day even for him. Despite bringing his own wine (VIP’s don’t pay corkage), his party of four rang up a $450 bill. He tipped me $150.

So I felt even worse for all the ‘greedy’ drama. I wasn’t able to psychologically fall back on the fact that Mr. Corelli was the only saving grace of my day. Still, intellectually I have to realize that the good fortune of that six-top was just that. It would have been more likely that a random group of six people at lunch would run up only a $250 bill and I might get a $40 tip off it.

The real problem I felt I had to address was the screwed up logic employed in giving Mr. Corelli to someone else, at that exact time, place, and situation. It wasn’t consistent with even Mickey’s flawed concept of fairness; and it became more egregious – less acceptable to just let it go – when the table in question was a well-known big tipper.

I suspect I’m going to have to chat about this with Mickey when I return to work on Friday. My instinct is to apologize, but thinking it through, I can’t really do that. Although I am sorry a conflict and some hurt feelings resulted, the situation wasn’t my fault. I was initially victim to misapplied rules. I got upset and emotional, and merely voiced my frustration to the manager. What happened after that was kind of an uncontrollable snowball effect.

Final wrap-up: I walked with $350 for the day (I got a couple of piddly tables much later – score a half-a-point for Mickey, I guess – for an additional $30 tips. Whereas I broke out of my three-month stretch of $60 shifts a couple weeks ago, this marked breaking the $200+ drought that had been going on since December. And what a way to break it.

Our Inaugural Q and A!

We have a special event today here at Waiternotes blog: Our first question to answer! Ivy asked:

. . . what would you do when you saw a lot of food left on the plates , and your guest gave you an ugly face and ask for check, and as a wait staff ,you ask if they want a to go box, they commented the food is too spicy. At this point, you will just bring them the check , or see their comment as a complaint and make a deduction of the bill or anything to compensate your guests ???

Waiters – and I am one – love this kind of question. There are variables here; this guest has presented a bit of a challenge; it’s definitely a judgment call; and we get to show off some of our narrow expertise.

Since all my readers are good, professional waiters (if they are waiters at all), we must assume he/she has done the ‘Check Back.’ This is one of the universal steps of service. No matter what level of dining, if a guest sits at a table and a waiter takes his order and delivers his food, the Check Back is part of the program. Check Back is, once the food is delivered, returning in a few minutes/bites to check that the meal has been prepared to the guest’s satisfaction. If not, steps are taken to remedy the situation before the meal is completely over. For the ‘problem’ to get to this stage Ivy describes, the Check Back checkpoint was passed successfully.

Now. I’d give 50-50 this guest is bucking for a free dinner. The alternative is that he is resigned he’s going to have to pay, and wants to take home the food anyway – maybe someone else will eat it. The server, first (and maybe later the manager), must make a judgment call. Is the guest a lowlife, a sleazy operator? Has he demonstrated other shifty behavior, like complaining about prices or the strength of his cocktail? Was he apparently eating and enjoying his meal up until the end? Is it likely he just got too full (from eating two loaves of bread), and that’s the real reason he didn’t finish? If so, he’s trying to scam you.

What you do with a scammer depends on your restaurant and how it’s run. If you work at TGIFridays or Outback Steakhouse or some big corporate chain, then you will most assuredly notify the manager. The manager, feet up on his desk, will look up at you through a haze of cigarette smoke and tell you, ‘Comp it.’ Chains don’t f-around with possible complaints. A complaint that gets into the corporate hierarchy is like a virus that incubates and multiplies at each stop. When the local manager hears about it again, it’s been blown so out of proportion he’s lucky if he has a job when things get settled. And the guest gets a bunch of free food anyway, when all is said and done. So they just buy the food and move on, living another day in the rat race.

If you work at a Mom ‘n Pop restaurant, as I do at Carney’s Corner, there’s a good chance that guest is going to eat that food – with his wallet if not his mouth. Carney would go to the table and say, saccharin-sweet, ‘I wish you had told us when we came back and asked how you liked it. We could have made you a new one.’ And she would walk away. Maybe she would try to buy them some after dinner drinks . . . but maybe not.

The waiter is going to get a crummy tip, but in this case it doesn’t feel that bad, because A) you feel satisfied that this jackass didn’t get over on you guys, and B) the tip would probably have been bad in any event. Mom ‘n Pop places don’t have to worry as much about BS complaints. As the saying goes, ‘If this is the way you behave, we don’t want your business.’ End of story. Guest never returns; Mom ‘n Pop get no more fake complaints from this a-hole.

On the other hand, sometimes spicy food builds up on you. By your fifth bite, your mouth is burning, and you can’t taste anymore. This guest might be being honest. If the guest passes the bullshit test, and has otherwise behaved well, the first step is to apologize. Pack it up to go.

At this point, I personally probably wouldn’t comp the entrée. After all, you did proper diligence to make sure things were okay, with the Check Back. Plus, he ate some, and is taking the food to go. I would be inclined to either discount it (if the system allows) or give away a free appetizer voucher or free drink chips (if your restaurant has such things) for their next visit.

After all, chain restaurants aren’t misguided in everything they do. Repeat business is what sustains restaurants. Making a guest happy now with a free $10 appetizer might well mean $500 or $1000 more business from him in the next 12 months.

And, also, let’s not overlook the human aspect. We all know what it’s like to be disappointed in a restaurant. If this guest is a good guy, he deserves some real sympathy. It sucks to go out expecting a great meal and a great time and have some aspect of it go sour (or spicy). Hell, I’ve never worked a place where there weren’t ‘Nice Guy’ perks given out just because people were cool – and they had no complaints at all. Hey, we’re in the business of fun and good times. Let’s do that.

Thanks for the question, Ivy.