Ten MORE Reasons Why You Shouldn't Be a Restaurant Server

You will be darting at darn near the speed of light from your section to the kitchen and back. You will feel that if you don't dunk your head into a bucket of ice soon you are going to vomit on someone. If you are a sweater, it will be worse, as every time you leave a table your guests will look up and wonder why they came to a place with such obvious roof problems. They will not understand the moist back phenomenon because they will be perfectly comfortable and will have come to you out of hunger rather than a desire to empathize with you. Of course, you are lucky if they are comfortable; folks with certain unspecified physical characteristics will unrelentingly complain of the heat, others, the cold. You will inform your manager of the issue and he/she will adjust the thermostat at an average of seventy times per meal shift. The direction of these adjustments will depend on the demographics of your clientele; pray for influxes of the thick-skinned.

Smiling

After you greet your guests, they are either going to tell you about something they want to eat, or about why they decided to eat out today, which has something to do with a hectic morning in which a wiener dog got into a batch of cookies baked fresh for the Elks meeting which means the wife has refused to cook anything else that day and for crying out loud, why she can't understand that that little wiener has a right to be in the house so the grandkids can at least have something to do when they visit is beyond the husband, but you look like a cat person - is he right? - so you probably wouldn't even understand but then again, cats have their own mischief about them and besides, if one crosses your path you get bad luck and that's what the wife's mother always used to say and as far as she's concerned that was the gospel truth and by the way, if that crazy dog had ever gotten into Mom's cookies, God bless her soul, she would have beaten that animal with a rolling pin until it couldn't bark anymore. She will laugh and inquire as to whether you catch her drift, and the muscles in your face will be twitching as your bright smile remains, your pen way beyond ready just above your order pad.

Bussers

Your success as a server will depend on how many people you are able to bring stuff to per shift. Much of the responsibility for this rests in the hands of your section's busser, an employee who is paid a "real" hourly wage (see section entitled "$2.13" below) regardless of how much or little he/she does. This is where the most futile incentive program in the world comes into play; it is called "tipping out". You will not quite understand this, but don't worry, no one does. In theory, if bussers do well clearing your tables quickly so hosts can seat those tables frequently, then you make more money, so some of those earnings ought to be shared with your busser. Depending on your restaurant, this is either mandatory or optional. Now, on the flip side of every theory is a reality, and the reality here is this: everyone involved is somehow convinced that if beggars beg from beggars, everyone prospers. To clarify, as a server you are bringing things to people and then essentially begging them to be fair about how much in monetary scraps they throw to you afterward. The hard-working busser who is dependent on scraps from scraps to pay even a single bill is one who is going to need a new, better job very soon; the one who gets by squarely on his/her hourly wage is content regardless of the level of energy he/she puts into saving your butt, and this contentedness will keep him/her there for a good long time. So either bus your own table or just have a seat, because the next scraps won't be coming for awhile.

Managers

There will come times when you need a manager to address a guest concern, to access some restricted computer function, etc. You will want to avoid this as much as possible because what they will not tell you on day one is that all managers are magic. This does not mean they will entertain your table with card tricks; no, the only function of their magic is to occlude themselves in mystical realms into which we mere mortals can find no passage. The magic is timed well with need, for when you do not require them, they are nearby in abundance, at the ready with inane criticism. Their ability to find fault may be a second function of their magic, but this is yet unproven.

Elastic Guests

These guests will tell you incorrectly what they want, or only some of what they want, or just about anything to send you away from their table though they really have no idea what they wanted. So a cup of coffee will magically become a request for hot tea once you have brought said coffee; a simple water with lemon earns the statement, "Oh, I meant to say I wanted ten or so lemon slices in a bowl on the side so I can make lemonade"; and an entire meal of salad and spaghetti with meatballs, upon being presented to the guest, will incite, "You know what? Turns out I was in a soup mood. And could you take this back and throw a steak on for me instead?" These guests will bounce you back to the kitchen immediately upon your arrival with their urgent flippantness; thus, they are "elastic" guests. Some, by the way, know exactly what they want at the outset, they just neglect to tell you that they are going to want more of it immediately and, furthermore, fully expect you to have thirds at the ready the next time they see you. These "elastic human vacuums" are most likely to see you as a tireless, thankless robot, and you will be lucky to receive ten percent from them.

Cooks

I want to stress that cooks are NOT a reason to avoid this job. I swear I am NOT under duress to say so. They are nice people that are never agitated by your requests or concerns and are NOT to be feared. You will NEVER have any problems with cooks. They are the best reason to be a server. They will never, ever hold a steak knife to your throat and make you say that.

Ebb and Flow

You will have bills every month that will represent a steady loss of your personal funds regardless of the unpredictability of your income. It will be tricky at first, but soon you will learn how to tell at the end of each month whether eating or avoiding frostbite is going to be more of a priority for you the following month. You will gauge your distance from the nearest body of fresh water to decide if having running water come directly into your home is really all that necessary. You will consider theft and drug dealing as possible methods of earning supplemental income. But not every month will sink you below the poverty line, as sometimes a few kind souls will consider your service stellar enough to reward you with money sufficient for more than the usual cup of gruel back on the ranch. Don't bother allocating this additional resource to anything useful. It will undoubtedly fatten the coffers of your local liquor store.

Drama

Your coworkers will have sex with each other. Sometimes they will solicit one another for sex and be turned down. Either way, the story will come to be public knowledge and someone will be angry about it. That angry person will say vindictive things about the other person to anyone who will listen, and eventually the listener will be you. This will not be the only consequence where you are concerned. You see, someone will be the relative or significant other of the supposed victim and, most likely, the alleged doer of harm will also have comrades in play. Friends of any of these individuals will come to the fore and before you know it, someone is spouting off profanity instead of cooking your food (though cooks are most often VERY professional), or someone is in the office with a manager for breaking something instead of bussing your tables, or someone is in the bathroom taking advantage of someone's now public victim mentality instead of seating your tables. You will want to throw yourself into the fryers, but don't worry, that sensation will pass as you either learn to embrace the chaos or become an active participant in it. (I make no explicit suggestions.)

Smoking

Smokers: you will be bug-eyed and twitching by the time you have the opportunity to step outside. If smoking is allowed in your restaurant, it will only be allowed for guests. Fate will inevitably have you in the smoking section, you will have to suffer the tempting allure of second-hand smoke in your face for so long you are going to want to burn your own eye out once you get a cancer stick lit for yourself. Non-smokers: if smoking is allowed in your restaurant, sorry for your luck. You will be breathing that crap at $2.13 an hour (see below). Even if it isn't, however, you will find yourself wondering why you are taking on far more tables than you can handle every time business begins to slack, even for a millisecond. You will wonder where so many of your coworkers have gone, and you will have hate in your heart.

$2.13 (continued)

This point bears mentioning once more. It simply cannot be emphasized enough that as a server, this hourly wage is all you can fundamentally depend upon. You may wish that your guests would ask you what makes a good tip, because you would be quick to tell them, giddily, that twenty percent of the check is customary. But they won't. Ever. They will operate in either blissful ignorance of this fact or in stubborn refusal of the rules of common decency in a civilized society. You will wonder how it could be that a person could still think of a dollar as reasonable compensation for the work you have done for them over the past hour, yet this will happen. You will not know whether to hate such a person or pity him or her, but since you have been given scarcely enough to purchase a ball of yarn, you will inevitably fight bitterness. You must not fret, however. You must remember that your currency is a different one. You thrive off of smiles, gratitude, compliments and the occasional birthday cake that's too big for your guests to finish. That will be how you get through the day. Because in the end, it was never about money. It was about you having no pride, and nobody can put a price tag on that.

Link to the first part of this series, "Top Ten Reasons Why You Shouldn't Be a Restaurant Server", at readmattbloom.com!