Some 1-liners, and a pic

Two ladies I waited on were taking this
to their Dad, a BK founder it turned out.
I'm so honored they let me get a pic!

I use a lot of "lines" in my line of work, and occasionally some of the best have come from the very people I wait on.

Perhaps many of us in the waiting tables industry have heard some lame ones from guests.. such as when you bring the check, the host might say (older people say this, I've noticed) "Oh, we won't be staying for the drawing.." as if to say there's no reason to present them a check at the end. Like I said... LAME!

After about the third time I heard this one at age 19 or so, I finally fired back "Need not be present to win" and just placed the check in the funny guy's hand.

As another example, pretty much the worst customer line I've heard is when some redneck wants his red meat cooked extremely rare, and to explain "just how rare" he wants it, he says to me to "Knock his horns off, wipe his ass, and put it on a plate." Not funny, no not even the first time I heard it, much less the hundredth.

Conversely, I ONE TIME had a Cattle Baron guest who wanted his meat cooked extremely rare say to me a great line that I've probably re-told conversationally a hundred times or so since .. He said "I want it so rare (wait for it...) that a good vet could bring it back."

Now that's funny! And original too, which I can deeply appreciate. Just as part of making conversation and entertaining my guests, I re-tell that story at least once a week, when discussing cooking temps with guests. Just like the guy at my present job who looked over our desert tray and commented on the extremely decadent 4-layer chocolate cake that we offer "No. My insurance plan won't cover me if I eat that."

These are lines I can use, and often have occasion to repeat them to my guests, again, mainly just to keep them entertained and to keep the conversation rolling.

Anyways, I heard new good one this week from a customer.

It was a group of 8 (6 guys, 2 ladies) who had just arrived in town for a convention, and were here mostly to drink together their first night in town. I'm a big stickler when it comes to responsible alcohol service btw (read that "Stick-in-the-mud") so sometimes a group like this is not my favorite party to wait on. However, they did eat appetizers (very important to me with drinking tables, and they were walking back to their hotel, so I just wasn't too concerned about them "having too much".) Point being, they were there mainly to drink and let their hair down. They stayed about 4 hours doing just that.

Somewhere into the second hour, I learned a new funny response, that I know I will re-tell. I already have few times in fact.

Pointing at their nearly-empties, I ask these these two gentlemen "A couple more beers guys?"

"Yes" was the quick response.

"And by the way," he adds "...if we ever do say no, it's just because we didn't understand the question."

Haha. Good one. I like that, and will use it again.

More funnies coming up in Part 2, but I'm going in at Noon for a lunch shift right now.

Time to make the doughnuts.

My Most "On The Fly" Order, Ever

I've heard of it being done before.

I know a few servers who have actually done it.

But I have never, ever, in 25 years of food-service experience, actually done it myself.

Until tonight.

Normally, I might leave you hanging a bit. Regular readers know, it *would* be kind of like me to just turn this into a two-parter, and not even tell ya what STUPID thing I did tonight.

But I'm home pretty late (I closed again ;) - Doxy Lady's in bed already, so I'm just gonna keep typing, and tell ya.

I threw away a customer's remaining food, that I was supposed to be boxing up for them to take home.

Not good, I know. But nevermind all that, all I know right now is that I desperately need it replaced, "On The Fly."

For those that don't know our lingo, ordering food "On The Fly" basically means "Super-fast." It's our little in-house slang term for telling the cooks "I need this cooked and to the table - Yesterday. Or as soon as humanly possible, O please, o please o please o please, can you put this order above every other customer in the restaurant and hurry this above everything else that you're doing?! PLEASE!?!?"

Usually, the most common reason for ordering something "On The Fly" would be that.. well.. you totally forgot to order the customer's food in the first place. Just got busy and spaced it. Hey, it happens.

Maybe one in a hundred times for long-term vets, probably one in twenty tables with servers who have less than a year or three under their belts. Just guessing.

There you are, just sailing along, having dutifully removed the guests' appetizer or salad plates, or whatever, re-filling some drinks, waiting on the main course to come out, maybe kinda skillfully making conversation and.. perhaps.. just stalling until their food comes out.

You've other tables to wait on and all sorts of other micro-dramas playing out at any given time, so maybe it doesn't really hit you, at first. Finally it starts bugging you tho, and you think to yourself "Hey, these people's food seems to be taking a rea-llll-y long time to get out." So all non-challant-like, you start poking around in the back. You start looking in "the food window" for anything that resembles this table's order coming together.

Hmmm, No, don't seem to see it.

So then you study the Grill and the Saute' area, still trying to both look and feel just overall pretty casual about the situation.

Nope, nothing jumps out. Then you finally start reading all the checks closely (a "becoming obvious to others sign that something is perhaps wrong") to see where in line your/this table's food is.....

Hmmmm. Not good. There IS no check for Table 53.

Okay.

Deep breath. Keep your cool. Casually wander on over to the computer. Punch up Table 53 to make sure you actually DID ring in their dinners before panicking ... maybe it all went out 20 seconds ago, while you were walking into the kitchen. This too, happens.

Ummmm, No, no luck here either.

And that's when your heart sinks and your stomach feels about a million gallons empty.

O .......... Shit.

You stare at the computer for the three seconds it takes for reality to firmly set in, hoping that what you're seeing isn't real .. or that it will somehow change, the harder you stare at it. But it doesn't. You see drinks, and maybe appetizers or salads, but no entree orders. You just screwed up. With a capital F.

You keep your composure just long enough to ring everything you should have twenty or thirty minutes ago into the computer, maybe type "On The Fly" and then press whatever button to finalize things and make it print out for the first time to the cooks.

That's normally when the floodgates open, and you have to start explaining what you did, admitting your mistake to the cooks and management - and most of all - begin the process of honestly begging. Whatever disciplinary actions you might have to face with management - and maybe "comping the food" for your table, are minutes away still. Right now what has to be done, is begging the kitchen to get this food out, Yesterday. Or as fast as humanly possible.

I'm sorry to admit to my former co-workers in fact, that the few times I have done this in the past decade, I have more than once personally given cooks CASH-MONEY to take food cooking for someone else's tables, and piece together my order to get it out even two minutes quicker than might possibly happen if they had to start the whole order from scratch. Sorry to say so now, but yes.. your table's food has once or twice taken a bit longer to come out, because I bribed a cook or two to "sell" my order asap, just because I screwed up.

You think perhaps that I'm digressing, but I'm not.

The second most likely reason to have to order something "On The Fly" would be a kitchen error. Maybe they over-cooked something and have to start over, or maybe they forgot something and everybody but one person at a table is eating. Not my/your fault as a server, and while extremely annoying and potentially detrimental to your income, yes .. bottom line is that it's not your fault, and hopefully everything's being done that can be done to fix this one. You keep checking sure, but you've got other tables to tend to right now as well, and at this point management should be on top of fixing this one for you anyways. On The Fly is understood.

The third (oops, I'm sorry to you customers, to say) .. but the third most common reason for "flying an order" (more lingo for ya - self-explanatory I think) would be that the guest(s) themselves actually express some sort of rush for some sort of reason. Concert, movie, show, airplane, fill in the blank... Yessir okay whatever. We'll all do our best.

I told them you're in a hurry and even typed in On The Fly, so not much else I can do, maybe you should have thought about going fast-food tonight. We're on it, but you're going to have to just sit, wait, and take your turn. Seriously, what I just said does indeed reflect our mental process in such cases, I hate to be the one to tell you.

HOWEVER, what I did tonight, was just so totally new to me that I don't even have a mental box for it! This one equalled a type of On The Fly stress I had no idea what to do with!

Some kid doesn't eat even half of his "kid spaghetti with meat sauce." We dont even OFFER a "kid spaghettit with meat sauce." Just to get it done, I talked with both a chef and a manager, and ultimately had to ring in a "Lunch Burger SUB Kid Spag" and do some explaining to the cooks.

Not to mention the Dad. His kid HAD to have meat sauce with his spaghetti, but just to get this done (for inventory's sake - always an issue in restaurants today) I had to charge $15 for the meat. (Sounds high, I know, but we only use Angus or Kobe meat for our burgers, okay? A little high-end for some people I realize, but that's how it is where I work.)

"Fine" the dad agrees, no biggie. The meal progresses, the fam's about ready to leave, and as I'm clearing the table I notice that the boy didn't even eat half of his meal, and so I routinely offer to box it up to-go. $15 for a kid's meal? Of course they want a box! "No problem" I say .. I do this every day. Quite happy to.

Usually, I just walk into the kitchen, put the to-go food on a shelf, bang and scrape the other plates into our trash can, then wash my hands and box up the to-go food and print their check.

Except that I somehow reversed one of those details tonight.

I found myself with a to-go box in hand, staring at a pretty empty plate on the shelf, and thinking to myself "Oh no I just didn't."

Oh yes I just did.

Okay. Deep breath. Keep your cool. I wander casually back over to the trash can, and there's the first-I've-ever-seen kid spaghetti with some pretty expensive meat sauce staring back up at me.

On The Fly really doesn't begin to describe what it's going to take to fix this one. That's hamburger meat people. You can't just cook up more in 60 seconds and be on your merry little way. And these people are about ready to leave at this point.

I'm pretty ashamed to admit here what went through my mind next.........

But yeh, I thought about it. "You know I could just grab a box... then reach in, and take however much of it I can off the top of the trash..."

But no. I can't. Well I could, but dang it, there's coffee grounds all mixed up with the spaghetti, so that's not going to work. Seriously - again I'M ASHAMED TO SAY but it was just the heat of the moment - but except for those coffe grounds, I might have done it.

(And maybe (?) for the first time in this blog's history - aren't you glad I wasn't your waiter tonight, if I would even think this?)

I don't have a mental box for this. This has never happened to me before. I don't have any skill-set that can just make this right in 10 seconds, and it's damned frustrating. There's no one I can just hand five bucks to to solve this problem in any quick way either. I have to be immediately honest, and I have to fix this, asap.

THAT'S when the floodgates opened, and the begging basically began. I ran to the Saute' chef - whom I'll call "The Jamaican" for our purposes here. I tell him "Blah blah blah blah blah. On The Fly!"

He laughs at me, and - thankfully - puts down another burger. This is unusual, because normally (for the sake of inventory) he technically should not have done so until after I'd gone to the computer, and rang in another burger SUB KID SPAG - before he should have started cooking it. AND THEN, I would have had to go to a manager, tell him what I did, and then get him to void the second burger/spag off of the customers' check. That's just how the industry works today .. everything has to documented for the sake of inventory and the corporate's bottom line.

Yeh, but that would take a lot of time I didn't really have. Not to mention, make me look really stupid to that manger for what I just did. And that's just something else I don't need right now.

My other tables' needs notwithstanding, I keep checking back with Jamaican every 60 seconds or so. "Nope, not ready yet," but he continues getting a good laugh out of my situation, and my desperation. I keep waiting on my section, all the while staying as far away from this one table who just wants their to-go spaghetti and their check.

"La-dah-dee.." I wander by them a time or three while doing other stuff, without ever really looking straight at them.

Finally, I'm standing by the cook's line with my to-go box and bag in hand, and Jamaican is mixing the burger meat with the red sauce and pasta I desperately need. We pack it up all quick-like, and I know I owe him one. You readers aside, what just happened here is his and my little secret.

Out of nowhere I appear back at the table with their to-go kid spag, and check, in hand. I act like nothing out of the ordinary has happened, and I'm pretty sure they've fallen for it.

They pay, tip nicely, and get back to their lives.

As do I.

All this before 7:00pm.

Super Quick One: Wish It Had Been Me Working!!!

$20,000 tip makes the headlines...
  The news link reads:


"In the Dallas Mavericks' NBA Finals after-party, team owner Mark Cuban bought a bottle of champagne for his team, and then left a 22 percent tip. We also should point out that the bottle was nearly half the size of the 7-foot Dirk Nowitzki(notes), it cost $90,000, and his tip was $20,000...


"You can tell the measure of a man, or woman, by how well they tip. There are ridiculous and pointless unwritten rules about tipping that make the whole exercise frustrating to some who don't understand the practice, but at its core it shows a sincere understanding for what other people have to do at their jobs. Which is sort of the point of empathy..."




Hey maybe next year The Orlando Magic will win.


And maybe I'll wait on them!

And here I was worried about being fired for MY blog...

The following is not my story.

But it's a good one, complete with a few very important lessons for me.

The lessons learned for me are about the proverbial "power of the pen" (digital pen anyways), the "great power and great responsibility" inherent in becoming a popular blogger (not saying that I am yet), and finally, a good reminder to myself about how as a server, it is absolutely imperitive to remember to always be as nice to everybody as I possibly can.

If you can stand the f-bombs and attitude and want to read the whole story that brings all of this to my mind today, it's at http://thebitchywaiter.blogspot.com/2011/05/tortilla-flats-in-new-york-city-can-go.html

If you can't, or don't want to, here's the short version:

The Bitchy Waiter (blogger I mentioned previously) went out to eat on his birthday. The Bitchy Waiter unfortunately got extremely rude service. (Don't interpret that as "justice" btw; his self-titled appelation applies to his blog, not to his service standards while working.)

The Bitchy Waiter blogged about the expereince, mentioning the restaurant by name.. AND.. encouraged his followers to e-mail the restaurant!

The rude waiter, got fired as a result of the blog.

You might say he got fired as a result of his attitude actually, it's just that the blog brought A LOT of attention to his bad attitude. Scanning the comments on BW's FB page (he says that he now feels bad about the whole thing) the general consensus was that the rude waiter got himself fired, not BW or his blog. Others said that it's obvious the rude waiter hated his job, and should just thank BW for helping him to move on.

Wow. The power of the pen, huh?


Reminder to me: Better be nice to everyone...

You never know who you're waiting on.


BW lives and dines in New York City btw, so I don't think I'll ever have the pleasure.

But hey BW, if ever in Orlando on your birthday, let me know. Service with a smile and a free desert with candle awaits you.

Mercifully tho, I don't sing.

The Stress is Obviously Getting To Me

Being late for work totally sucks. Especially on extremely busy days.

Okay, so yes I've arrived. Yes, I'm a little late for my shift - sue me.

The restaurant sounds pretty darn packed, and the hostess points me to my regularly scheduled section, already in progress without me.

The first group (a table of four people) I go to greet seems irritated, claiming that they've "already been here five minutes, and nobody's even said Hi to us! Can we at least get some menus?" they ask.

No menus? Ah. I see. Well of course nobody's greeted you, jerks. You just walked in and sat yourselves, didn't you? Nobody knows you're even here, and I'm truly sorry for ya, but it's not your turn. I shouldn't even be talking to you people. Yeh... fine, I'll get you menus, but you're going to have to wait awhile, 'cos I've got two or three other tables I still need to get drinks for.

Twenty people in my section, and I seriously need to ask someone else to help me out. But dang, it seems like I'm the only server even here. And I have all these people to wait on. And they're all mad at me.

I start to line up the glasses to make drinks for the other tables. Then I look down, and there's no ice. I can't very well make drinks with no ice. "Who opened???????" I want to scream.

Didi walks by. Finally (!) I'm thinking.. someone who can help me.

"Guy," she says. "You have people up front trying to pay."

Aww no. Okay number ONE people.. we are NOT located on some Interstate exit. Number TWO... we do not serve breakfast. Those should be clues to you. You DO NOT pay up front at the cashier. THERE IS NO CASHIER! That's a computer monitor at the hostess stand for that matter, not a freaking cash register. You need to sit back down, and I will be all too glad to check you out, as soon as I have time.

Of course I don't say this. I want to, but then I remember that Didi was walking by me with a full tray of drinks when she told me this. Bitch. She took the last of the ice, and didn't bother to re-fill the ice bin.

Starting the lon-n-g trek all the way to the back to get a couple buckets of ice so I can proceed, I feel this odd moisture on my chest. WHAT is that?!

Ketchup? Wine? My own blood? My shirt is over a quarter soaked with a huge stain. I don't even remember how this happened, but I definitely can't wait tables looking like this.

Yes sir, I'll "bring you some mayonnaise."

And still the dark stain spreads, between your shoulder blades. A mute reminder, of the poppy fields and graves. So I have to ignore all the people waiting on me for something, 'cos dang it I need to run up to my bedroom to at least grab a clean shirt.

Throwing off this wet stained one, I start digging through my laundry, but I just find myself rejecting shirts one by one. Too dirty. Too wrinkled. Too stained.

This one has a button missing.

Hell with it, I put on a pullover t-shirt like our kitchen crew wears. Fire me, but I have all these people to wait on, and I have to wear something, right? At least it's clean.

I turn around from the closet planning to go back downstairs. Before I can even get back to my section, it turns out that my bedroom is already filled with people sitting at tables. They all looked pretty pissed off too, because of just how long I've made them wait. I go to take their orders, but then I start thinking... "Did you people just all sit and stare at me while I was half-naked and changing?"

That's pretty darn creepy. I'm about to tell them so in fact, when I see it.

Oh, please no. But yes. Some stupid, STUPID kid has spilled grape soda all over my bedroom floor. HOW did this happen? It's only a 12 ounce glass, but that has got to be at least two liters of grape soda on my carpet. My WHITE carpet. That's not going to come out.

Damn it!! We're never going to get our deposit back now. But I at least have to try, and so I'm on my hands and knees trying to soak the soda up with expensive white linen napkins.

Then the new host "Anakin" walks by and says "Guy you have a 9-top." Doesn't even tell me where. But no dude, there's no way I can take another table right now. I haven't even taken the orders for these people yet. And they're all so mad at me already. I just can't take yet another table.

I need to find a manager. He'll understand. Heck, I need to just call in sick. Well, not call in, because I'm already here. But I need to tell him I'm sick, so maybe he'll just let me leave and go home. I wanna go home. This is the worst shift I've ever been on.

I'm not really sick tho. I can't just lie about it.

Here's what I'll do. I just take off my left shoe and sock, and I start limping around the restaurant half-barefoot to go and find the manager, to show him the size of the callous on my foot. It'll be obvious I can't work like this. He'll have to send me home when he sees this.

I need to go home. I can't do this. Please just let me go home. Please.. this is just too much. Let me go home.

Please.


"Ding-dong. Ding-dong. Ding dong..."


It's 8:15 am. I work at 10.

Oh thank God. I'm not late.


I'll tell ya people.. and feel free ask any server you know...

We often have the strangest, most night-marish stress-induced dreams you've ever heard of.

Pt 2: How Stella Got His Work Ethic



:

IMPORTANT NOTE TO SELF!

Grown men who have accomplished so much in their lives as to be put in charge of multi-million dollar restaurants really don't appreciate pimply-faced teenaged busboys smarting off to them.

Is it possible that certain other people don't either? Hmmmm ... I dunno ... but I'll have to remember to look into that sometime.

So, for those of you joining us, my new boss had just invited me to "Sit Down" for a little pow-wow about my responsibilities as a busser, in response to a little comment I'd just made.

Now to be perfectly clear, this wasn't my first job - it's not even my first job bussing tables for that matter - and I think that I've always been thought of as a "good employee." A hard worker, even. Yes, I was indeed known as being perhaps more than a little sarcastic from time-to-time by those who knew me.. but it was normally in that intelligent/witty way you'd almost always laugh at.. not so much as in a generally disrespectful manner. I was very much liked by all my teachers while growing up, for that matter. I'll additionally offer that my former employers from my high school years would certainly say good things about me, if asked (I even moved here from Nashville with a great letter to prove this if you don't believe me, and I still have it today btw). What's more, as possibly most Southern Boys from my era might tell you - "I wuz raised raight" - and - whether by nature or by nurture - had what you'd call an overall decent level of respect for those in authority.

Nonetheless, my own personal little quirky "sense of humor" .. let's call it .. have "Yes Indeedy" gotten me into a little bit of hot water, upon occasion. This was turning out to be one of those times.

Mike's a tall gangly 6 foot 2 if he's an inch, sporting a classic Marlboro Man mustache. People don't mess with him often. Do you remember I previously (on Guy's Work Blog) mentioned that I've seen a guy fired for eating a cracker off of the salad bar? Mike's the guy that fired him.

We're seated across the table from each other, and I'm thinking that I'm about to get chewed out. He shoots me the opening volley :

"Look around. Tell me what you see."

Ummmmm ..

"A restaurant," I return.

He doesn't smile. "Be a little more specific," he counters.

"People. Lots of people, eating dinner at tables" I offer.

(To be straight with you, I absolutely DO very clearly remember Mike telling me to "Sit Down." The impact of the ensuing conversation forever altered my work habits. But from here I'm mainly ad-libbing the dialogue and the "spirit" of the conversation. The exact details are of course a bit sketchy now - it's been 25 years! So I need a little of that "willing suspension of disbelief" stuff I spoke of earlier from you to finish this off.. okay?

Thanks. Love ya!

Mike again: "I want you to pretend you're one of those people - a guest in our restaurant, eating dinner, at this table. NOW look around. Is there anything you can see from where we're sitting that you'd call ... messy? Out of place? Anything NOT PERFECT that might in any way interfere with your ability to enjoy your dining experience?"

Wow. He's not acting like he's mad at me. You might even say that he's actually being quite patient. My defenses slip, as I accept the fact that he's trying to teach me something ... something important, even. Meanwhile, in my heart of hearts, something else seems to tell me that whatever this is, I need to learn it.

I break eye contact with him finally, and do as I'm told.

I look around.

Nodding my head in one direction, I soon report to him "That looks like a crumpled up cocktail napkin on the floor over there, under A-4."

His lips might have just moved.. not sure. I keep looking around.

"There's a tea pitcher just sitting on that table over there" I add.

"It shouldn't be there, should it..." he .. asks ..? No, it was a statement.

He's totally right, of course. Tea pitchers should obviously not be sitting on un-seated tables. I'm a busser, and because of this I know that the hostess could walk up to that table any second with a new group of diners. They don't want to be met by a tea pitcher - moist with condensation - just sitting idle on the table they're about to sit down to - DUH!!! Some instinct tells me I need to go pick it up RIGHT NOW and make sure that the table is both clean and dry before this happens.

"No sir, it shouldn't" I (enthusiastically (?) .. (God, I suck) reply.

But I'm doing well. If this is a test, I'd say that I'm starting to get the hang of it. At this point, I even want to succeed. Squinting and straining my eyes for more, I finally realize (Eureka! Bingo!) "It looks like there's a light bulb out on the lamp above (Table) G-6."

By George he thinks I've got it. He asks me "Do you know where the light bulbs are?" I tell him No, and he stands up from the table. "I'll show you" is all he says. He doesn't ask or tell me to follow him. At this point, he doesn't need to. I just do.

The lesson wasn't over. Mike stops at the long wooden divider which separates the bar/lounge area from the dining tables in G-section. He asks me what do I notice about the divider? Absolutely nothing I can offer, at first. But I try to look at it with eyes that haven't seen the restaurant a hundred or more times already, and after second I realize that "It's dusty."

He doesn't have to tell me .. I just reach for the towel that's in my apron.. and wipe it down. While doing so, I notice there's a salt shaker missing from another table. Well that certainly won't do. I need to replace it, asap.

What I learned during this little excercise, remains with me still today. And at this strategic point where I seem to be already answering my original smart-aleck question all by myself, Mike finally answers it for me.

"Everything a customer can see.. THAT'S what your responsibility is."

Picking up trash on the floor of the bathroom while I'm mainly just in there to pee, or trash in the parking lot when I'm walking in or out. That's what I'm responsible for. What?!? I overhear from a table that we're out of paper towels in the ladies' room?? I need to get on that.

Someone walking around with a slightly lost look in their eyes? It's my responsibilty to see if I can help them. Maybe they're looking for the bathroom but are uncomfortable asking, or maybe they're just trying to find their server so they can pay and leave .. this too - if I see it - is my responsibiliy take care of.

And that's how I roll today, thanks to Mike.

There are other reasons I'm like this as well - reasons which I've only recently re-discovered in the past couple of months. They're more introspective, soul-searchy and self-analysis related reasons though, which I may share another time.

But now I know just exactly what my real job is, thanks largely to Mike sitting me down that fateful day in late 1986. This knowledge has served me well over the years, probably helping me to move up in most restaurants I've worked in since then in a shorter amount of time than it might take others to. (Hey as you already know, just six months here now and I'm getting closing shifts - cool). I look around a lot, I try to do what needs to be done whenever I see a need, and as a result of this I can keep myself pretty busy even on the slowest of shifts.


So, back to the topic of whether this blog is ever discovered by my current employers.. Whether I am fired or not for it I just want to say to you, "Mike" (my current GM, that is, not the original Mike of this story...) for the record ... and while I have your attention .. that

"Our bussers are not held nearly accountable enough for the condition and appearance of our floors! They look like hell sometimes, in fact!"

Mike, I know how you feel about trash on the floors (the same as I do, in fact) because I see you picking things up yourself at times, or instructing others to sweep from time to time, whenever you see the need. My point is however, that YOU SHOULDN'T HAVE TO.

Bottom line: once a table has been reset the bussers are responsible for the way a table appears, and everything a guest sees while being seated there. But more often than actually picking up the crayons and fries that landed on the floor under the table, our bussers seem to sweep crumbs OFF of the table and ONTO the chairs and floors. Dude... our guests should NOT have to see this crap.

You don't have time to be everywhere and instruct them on a case-by-case basis either. Nonetheless, these bussers we have are the last line of defense we have to make a good first impression, as people are being seated.

Please, you need to sit them down and give them a good talking to.

They may not like you for it, but maybe when they're grown men, like me, they WILL appreciate you for it.

Circa 1986 - An Early Lesson in Work Ethic

Image from this young busboy's blog

You've noticed that I call my current General Manager (aka "GM") "Mike" in these blogs. That's not his real name of course. I'm just protecting myself (and perhaps others, haha) by not *usually* using real names of *current* co-workers here.

(This policy of mine does not apply to past co-workers however. YOU are all fair game ;)

But I try to write from the assumption that sooner or later, this blog will get out to my co-workers, and my arse needs to be covered. We don't have a "No Social Media" policy here - yet - and I don't want to become "the incident" that inspires such either - and/or get fired to boot!

Anyways, I call "Mike" Mike after Mike Cochran - the GM of the restaurant where I first waited tables (Ruby Tuesday, Knoxville TN). Being my first GM, he probably left more of a lasting impression on me in some ways than most managers I've worked for since.

You've also noticed that I sometimes mention my "work ethic" and my tendency to keep busy when relating certain stories, and it comes to mind that I likely have Mike to thank for instilling this into me at such an early age. My parents' influence aside, I remember something he said to me that has probably impacted the way I work more so than any other person or event, before or since. I guess that's why I still remember it as well as I do.

And it goes a little something like this.

After graduating high school in 1986 but having no real vision or goals for my life then, I kind of just followed the majority of my friends and wound up moving from Nashville to Knoxville. I can't really claim that I so much "went to school at UT" like my friends, but I did loiter on school property with the best of them.

They all got dorms and meal plans; I got an apartment and a job. The job was much needed, as the $500 my Dad gave me to get started had run out. (In fact, I lost about 15 pounds my freshman year, rather than gaining the "freshman fifteen!")

So there I was 18 years old, living on my own, and supporting myself as a busboy. It was hard work actually, and not glorious or fun by any means. You watch for people to leave, then clean up their plates, wipe off the table and reset the silverware. This has to be done as quickly as possible when the restaurant is busy, because some waiter, hostess or manager is no doubt breathing down your neck to "get 'er done" asap, so that the next group of people can be seated.

The position also comes rife with strife amongst you and the wait-staff. Mainly it revolves around how many dishes a server left on the table. There's only so much room in that bus-tub or on that tray, and the more dirty dishes a server leaves on the table, the more trips you have to make to the dish-washer in the kitchen, and the slower you accomplish your job's primary function - which is cleaning and re-setting the tables. Arguments easily arise when a server - whether lazy, inattentive, or just overwhelmed, leaves every meal plate on a table, and you as the busser have to remove them all to get the table cleaned and ready for the next people that are waiting to sit there.

As you may recall from a previous blog entry, bussers are tipped out by the wait-staff for doing this, but this was back in the day before this process was automated. So I was constantly battling the line between wanting to do a good job for the waiters so they would give me money, and feeling shafted because I was often pulling more than my fair share of the load to clean their tables, when really, the responsibility for removing dinner plates guests are done with falls primarily on the server. You can't both fight a guy or girl for making you do all this work for them, and then turn around and expect them to pay you out some nice cash at the end of the shift. Nowdays in fact, I'm pretty appalled at how little most bussers do for us waiters, because they're going to get tipped out the same amount from us whether they work hard to earn it, or not.

But I digress...

About a month into the job, I remember Mike getting on to me for something. I think all of us in "The Ruby's Gang" from back then probably remember Mike as being, well... something of a jerk. Looking back, that probably had a lot to do with the fact that we were young, wild college-aged kids and he was just our boss, saddled with the responsibility of fighting through the sexual tension and constant making of after-work drinking plans that were the primary focus of all of our lives, and getting some actual work out of us, in-between our after-work partying.

Well I thought I knew my job pretty well after a few weeks, but now Mike comes to me and gets on to me for some sort of trash being on the floor. At first I didn't take it so well. After all, my job title was "bussing tables" not "cleaning floors" right? He explains to me that cleaning the floors around the table is also my responsibility. A no-brainer, in retrospect, but at that time, I was doing well just to get the tables cleaned quickly enough to not get yelled at by everybody.

I then made the perhaps providential mistake of (somewhat flippantly) asking him "Well then just exactly what else is my responsibility, that I've never been told?"

Bad move, Guy. Bad, bad move.

He glares at me, then turns his head looking for the nearest empty table. Pointing at a chair, Mike tells me to

"Sit down..."


Uh-oh. Am I in trouble?


To Be Concluded.

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An Early Lesson in Work Politics

This is from today

You may find it interesting to know that sunny Orlando Florida often experiences heavy rainfalls and even Tornado Warnings. Being located in the central portion of the state, we occasionally experience the edges of storms from both coasts, resulting in "perfect storm" like conditions, and swirling skies above us. Just don't let the Department of Tourism know I told ya so, btw.

This was such one night. There was a Tornado Warning issued, and the rain was so heavy that I was watching weather reports on the news to determine when would be the most opportune and safest time to leave the house and drive into work - whether this meant being extremely early, or being extremely late, mattered not.

Making it to work safely enough, I heard right off that our manager had called the corporate hq asking permission to close early, so that the employees could get home before things got much worse (and given that it would not be a profitable shift, even for the company). "Permission Denied" of course, and we settled in for what would undoubtedly be a slow shift.

The rains continued, customers continued not coming in the door, and we started to send a few people home knowing that just a few of us would be enough to handle things. Well, just as the final cut is about to be made (and I was going to be included in those that got to leave) "Didi" - who was this shift's "closer" - asks me if I wanted to stay and close for her. She says "Well I don't have any tables right now, and I'm not going to make any money, so I might as well leave."

My initial response was "Hey I don't have any tables either and I'm not going to make any money either, so..." Then I stopped myself. If you're not a restaurant person yourself, then you probably don't understand the benefits of being a "closer." In short tho, like it probably sounds, this shift is where the biggest money lies.

While things run differently in various restaurants, in long, our system is such that the closer comes in first (4pm) and stays the latest.. until we are closed, duh. Statistically, that person will get the most tables of course. At our place the closer is guaranteed the first two tables even - meaning that when other servers come in later - altho it might seem "their turn" to be seated - they won't be seated until after the closer has gotten a second table. This makes slower shifts a tad more profitable - for the closer that is.

Sweetest of all, if there are any "big top" reservations (large parties, like 8, 10 or 15 people) the closers are assigned those right off the bat, receiving both the most tables and the largest. Equaling bank, see? It's a very coveted shift overall, and among restaurants with a staff of around 25 or 30 servers, maybe only 4 or 5 are routinely scheduled the closing shifts. These are usually the servers who have been there the longest. This being only around my second month or so, there was no way I was going to be scheduled one anytime soon, but I think for a second about my long-term future here.

So I unstopped myself, mustering the best "make lemonade" attitude I could, and changed my tune mid-sentence, saying "Well if I'm not going to make any money, I might as well stick around and learn how to close." At our place, the closer also has the responsibility of checking out all the other servers, assigning them their individual sideworks and closing duties, signing them out when they're ready to leave - and then getting stuck with cleaning or correcting anything they didn't originally notice some slacker skated out without doing.

So anyways, in obvious suck-up-to-the-manager-so-I-can-be-thought-of-as-closing-material fashion, I stayed the entire shift, and learned how to close. But shortly after accepting the closing shift, another server comes to me with a lesson in the politics of working here..

It was Cassie. (You remember Cassie right? She took me under her wing, gave me all sorts of useful advice about getting on well here... her!) We're alone, and she says to me "Hey, some friendly advice for you.. Don't be too eager to pick up closing shifts." Hmmmm, this should be good. I ask her "Why not?"

"There's a lot of people who will be mad at you if you start closing." I'm like "Why?"

"Well there's not that many of those shift and it's the best money obviously. But a lot of people that have been here longer than you never get to close, and they won't like you if start getting closing shifts." Wellll, that's true I realize, but deep down I know I'm here to make money, not necessarily friends. But I let her keep talking without saying just that.

"For instance" she says, "I've been here three years and I don't get closing shifts."

"OH!" I exclaim. "So YOU'RE one of the people who would be mad at me if I get closing shifts."

"Well, I'd be hurt.."

We hugged, the night continued, I did an okay job, and time passes. I am of course never scheduled any closing shifts for the next few months, but I do manage to pick up one more from a guy who wanted to leave early - again just to plant the seed in management's collective brain that I can do it. And like Cassie bemoaned above, I sometimes hear murmurings from certain other servers along the lines of "been here a year and a half and I never get to close." That's restaurant life tho, it takes time and a lot of proving yourself to get there.

Well, the Spring-time Firing Spree Jamboree has continued and we lost yet another one. What you didn't know is that all three of these servers got closing shifts from time-to-time. A fourth server - who only ever worked nights and often closed - took a day job recently and only works one or two nights on weekends now.

Add it all up an-n-n-nd ... you guessed it - closing shifts have recently come available. We also have a different manager (I'll call him "Luigi") writing our schedules now, and he's mixing things up a bit it turns out. Luigi likes me I think, and apparently thinks I do a good job. I've been getting more night shifts than lunch shifts the past two weeks in fact, which is good.

You know where this is going I imagine. Politics be damned...

Ironically, it's raining pretty darn heavily now. I'm about to eat lunch, shower, iron my shirt, and go in for my first ever scheduled closing shift. And nary a week away from having been here only six months.

Wish me luck!