"Getting Hammered"

So after service today, I'm getting acquainted with one of the elders of the church I've been semi-regularly attending the past few months. (He approached me btw. I've taken pleasant note that the people here are real super-friendly like that...)

We're still in that polite introductory phase of conversation where I'm telling him what I do, when my phone vibrates in my pocket. It's my employer. I tell him "Wow, speak of.... I think I have to go." Experience tells me this can only mean ONE thing. I have about two seconds to make a decision we restaurant people really, really, really hate making.

If you work at a restaurant and you receive a call between 11am and 1pm, or say anytime roughly two hours before or after 6pm, you can guarantee they ain't calling about your paperwork, about your schedule request, or about your general happiness and well-being. Today was in fact the second such phone call I've received in the four months I've been at this particular restaurant. I take a breath, make my decision - and answer the phone (rather than letting it go to voice-mail) - knowing full well what I'm going to hear.

"Guy this is Mike (my top boss, the General Manager, and not his real name of course). "We're Getting Hammered. Can you come in?"

There's only so much any manager can predict a week and half ahead of time. You schedule your employees the best you can based on last year's numbers and current local events, but it's at best a hopeful prediction.. that the amount of staff you've scheduled and the amount of walk-in traffic for any given day will meet at a happy medium. But every restaurant person knows - whether based on a concert, a convention, a surprise blockbuster movie release, the weather, or some freaky phase of the moon.. sooner or later you're going to caught with your pants down, and there will be more customers walking into your restaurant than the amount of staff currently scheduled can humanly handle.

So whatever lucky manager finds him or herself at the helm on the day this happens (and it does) also finds themselves leaving the most obvious immediate needs of the staff and the customers behind for a few minutes, and finds themselves on the phone, calling in reinforcements to handle the next 1-6 hours.

Mike has been in this business as long as I have, and I think he knew solely by the fact that I answered the phone what my answer was.

My answer was not in question. My only questions - still feeling like I'm a new guy at this place - were along the lines of "Is he just going down the phone list of waiters hoping someone will answer?" (the most likely possibility) or "Did he especially call me because he thinks I'm a strong enough server to handle this big unexpected influx of business? Or is it just simply because I've said Yes in the past, and right now he needs bodies?" Yes people, these are my insecurities at present. But I do have to consider that beyond the most obvious phone list option, given that every second he spent on the phone was (relatively speaking) like minutes away from his guests' needs, did he really make a choice to call me...... maybe out of alphabetical order?

Was I at, or near the top of his list? Especially if he only had time to make few calls? In short, am I a "go to guy" already? And it's not just ego or insecurity that makes me wonder this. Go-to guys who come through when the manager really needs get the better schedules and sections eventually, you see. They get thrown bones, large parties, stuff like that. Proven dependability and flexibility, combined with competence, really pays off in this business. I answer the phone not because I "feel like working today," but because I know at this juncture in my career here, answering this particular call might make about a $2-3000 difference in my net income this year.

Well, I'll never know for sure, but (back to the story - sorry!) based on so many years of doing this, I walk in at about 1:00pm with my adrenaline already pumping, knowing good and well what I am probably about to face.

Happily and stupidly answering that call to walk into a busy shift already in progress is - in restaurant life - very much akin to happily and stupidly jumping into a mosh-pit. (Don't ask me how I know this.) The two possible outcomes are that you will skillfully thrash about riding some perfect wave of popularity and bliss, or - the much more likely outcome - is that you will fall, and be crushed underfoot by people who will never know your name. (I have in fact, once in my life, walked out of a restaurant shift only halfway through, crying, and didn't come back for an hour, leaving my tables hanging and my co-workers to pick up the slack. It really can be that bad at times.) Basically tho, in this mosh-analogy picture, you're the "new meat" - and for a few minutes it seems like every-fuh-reaking-body wants a piece of you.

Right off the hostess - who has been instructed not to seat anybody else because every waiter on staff has more new tables than they can even say "Hi! Be right with you folks.." to - sees you walk in and wants to seat you the two groups that have have been waiting the longest - right now and before you even clock in. Of course you say "sure" but the thing is, you don't even have a real section because you weren't on the "floor plan" for the day, and so she seats them about 900 feet apart from each other and tells you where to find them. Then your co-worker, your teammate.. (and in typical restaurant circles perhaps your upcoming or your "ex" romantic partner) sees you for the first time and says "Oh my God! They called you in?!? I'm so glad to see you!! Can you please take three cokes to Table 12, and greet 107 for me?"

And that manager - who called you in and hasn't spoken to the hostess in the last 45 seconds - observationally knows that some other overwhelmed server has not yet greeted a new table that was seated 110 seconds ago - and he/she instructs you to "Quick! "Pick Up Table 25"... And you're still just trying to clock in.

But you know that agreeing to this madness is a decision you already made, when you picked up that phone. In a way, you already decided NOT to be crushed underfoot if at all possible, but instead... Well.... You've kinda decided to "Go all Wolverine" on the situation.

Yes. I'm talking about the X-Men character.

You (well maybe not you, but I) walk into this situation willfully. I kinda get off on it in fact. I walk in knowing that all hell has broken loose, and I walk into it this crazy situation... Smiling.

Because a berserker rage sort of mentality is in fact, what is needed to fit this situation. At this point, I'm not even really "talking to" my tables (guests) - just grunting. I'm all instinct now.

There's nothing they have to say I haven't heard before, and I'm going to be walking away to the next three things I have to do even if they did. Whatever happens, I'm well-trained, I know the moves and will hopefully execute them as perfectly as I am capable of. And there will be quite a mess to clean up later.

THIS is what I agreed to when I picked up the phone, as does every server who does so.

Turns out, it didn't really happen this time. Last time I answered such a call (my second week here) I sold over $1000 at lunch, made $120, and from that point management knew that "I could hang." That day, you might say I became a man, here anyways.

Today tho, things had largely died down by the time I and another called-in server clocked in. I got two tables immediately and was asked to pick up another one. Then not much else. All adrenalined up, and no place to go. Occasionally it happens that way too. I made only $40, but something much more important happened. Mike stopped me early on (I thought to tell me to go pick up another table) and said "Hey - thank you. Seriously." and walked off to do whatever the next three things he had to do were.

And while I did later have a busy and stressful dinner shift, I also won a sales contest for the first time. I sold more of our Filet Oscar specials than anybody else, and got to take one home for dinner.

Boo-ya. Favor with management AND free red meat. A great day.

SNIKT!