Training Day

10:00 am - I'm here to report for my first day of training as a new server.

Typically, restaurant training as a server is fairly monotanous, and especially so if you've already been a waiter somewhere else. While I understand the need to cover all bases with new hires, one place I worked, the training consisted of 5 days of the manger reading the ENTIRE manual aloud to us, before we were ever allowed to wait on a table!

"This is the history of our restaurant... These are the presidents and officers of our corporation... Your uniform consists of the following ten items... Guests must be greeted within 2 minutes of being seated... Any guest appearing under the age of 30 must show valid ID for alcohol purchases... Serving alcohol to minors can land you and the establishment into trouble and will result in immediate termination... You must offer 2 specific appetizers by name before proceeding to the dinner order... Salads must be brought half-way through the appetizer... Never argue with a guest, but go get a manager immediately if any problems arise... Desert menu must be placed on the table immediately when clearing the last entree ... blah blah blah blah blah blah blah" -- complete with written tests on ALL of the above, and so much more.

However, it took awhile to sink in for me how many ways this place is really like no other I've ever worked. That's true in lots of ways, really, but ONE (as I've shared here before) is that we don't hire people who don't have a lot of serving experience already. In fact when I interviewed (and this was music to my ears after being told "Not hiring" so many times after moving here to Orlando) the manager literally said to me "Actually we're not hiring, but I'd be stupid not to hire someone with your experience and personality..." Wowsers, I needed that then, pretty badly. So that's how this place rolls. I did not realize however, WHAT a difference this would make in the training process...

So I'm introduced to my trainer, Bo (not his real name) who's been there several years. Bo looks a little sleepy actually, is looking around for a coffee cup, and had not yet been informed that he'd been "assigned a trainee" today. "OH. JOY..." just oozes out of his eyeballs as he sizes me up. (I've trained before, many times. We all hate it. I understand that he's less than glad to meet me at the moment. Really, I do.) The news wears off and he says "Okay, well..." and points, telling me to "Set up the beverage station while I ..."

Wait a minute. Did he not hear me right? I politely squeak out that this is my *first* day here .. thinking that maybe he needs to show me some stuff (!) rather than just telling me to start setting up a restaurant I've just walked into for the first time - while he goes and drinks coffee and works on whatever? Hellll-oohh??

And then I get the wake-up call. He looks at me completely non-plussed, and says "You would not have been hired here, if you did not already know how to set up a beverage station."

Light-bulb. I'm starting to get this place now, and answer him mostly confidently, with maybe just a slight question mark in my voice "Make coffee and tea, fill up the ice bin, put the soda machine together annnd .. cut lemons?"

"And oranges..." he replies "We also serve a flavored tea that gets an orange." And with that little reality check out of the way, he begins showing me around the place, for reals. Just now with the understanding that he will not be holding my hand through the experience.

(Bo's gay by the way, and doesn't mind me saying so here. It doesn't take long to figure out anyways. He's not a flamer tho, more of a manly macho type that doesn't have many gay friends (he's since told me) and that all the girls at work are still crazy about anyways. I only even mention it to ask you now to re-read what I said above, but now add just a touch of fag to the voice and inflection ... "He looks at me completely non-plussed, and says "You would not have been hired here, if you did not already know how to set up a beverage station."" Makes a little difference in the telling, huh?)

Bo even had me "splitting" a table of 17 with him my very first night, telling me to take food and drink orders, and ring them into the computer - before ever being tested on the menu. I'm thinking "Okayy... I just hope they don't have any questions..." They didn't. They hardly spoke English in fact, so it was cool. And it's not like Bo wasn't there with me the whole time, either. The point is, here you kind of get "just thrown in" and are expected to start swimming, so they can see what you've got. The "lifeguard" (trainer) is apparently there more for the customers' sake, than he is for mine. If I sink, his job is to rescue the customers from the clueless trainee.

The whole vibe of this place is very affirming however. I'm treated like an adult and a professional, with some trust that I'm either experienced enough already to know the right thing to do, or smart enough to ask the right questions. The clear message conveyed is that I've "already proven myself" to the staff and management, the trick from here is not to blow it. Professionalism clearly abounds (down to sweeping bread crumbs off the tables and neatly re-folding guests' napkins if they leave the table for any reason, I learn) but they're not interested in micro-managing or nit-picking my every move, either, which is quite refreshing.

After all the years I've worked for large corporations (Ruby Tuesday, Olive Garden, The Melting Pot, and of course Cattle Baron for 11 years - and this IS a huge corporation btw - just different from others in so many ways) that after this first day of training I actually came home and told my wife:

"Man, I need to RELAX! I am way too uptight for this place!"


I'm reminded of the Billy Joel song lyric "You can't dress trashy 'til you spend a lot of money" .. Maybe in this industry, you can't relax until you've worked your butt off. I've paid some serious restaurant dues in my day tho, and I realize I was hired mainly because of who I am, and that I am already considered an asset to the company, rather than being hired because they were short-handed and going to hire whoever walked in next.

It's a nice feeling, really.


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