Dreams and Quitting

I now not only waitress every morning and afternoon, but also in my sleep.  I can't seem to get away from it.  I had a waitressing nightmare in which I was serving on a cruise ship.  The chef was the head chef from the Bar, and he wasn't telling me table numbers, and I was under a huge time crunch.  I had to run the foods literally a quarter of a mile to get to mystery tables full of people complaining.  It's always good to be stressed all day and all night.

The second was about the Mexican place.  They moved their location to a area under a tent, where recreational marijuana use was happening with a band playing.  I was mostly just confused and worried because the owner told me they moved there because I hadn't cleaned the tables well enough that evening (??).

Our tacos look pretty similar, but they are on double corn tortillas with pico de gallo and whatever meat you ask for, no lettuce.  Our fish tacos, probably one of the most popular items, come with lettuce, cabbage, chipotle cream sauce, and pico de gallo.

I was literally seconds away from quitting the Mexican Place the other day.  I am fed up with doing 80% of the work and splitting the tips evenly, one cook treated me quite inappropriately, one of the busboys texts all night so I have to stay late and do his work, and I HATE that it's there's no real system for the waitresses, it's far too casual, and therefore there are so many mistakes made.

I applied for another job at a breakfast location, and headed over to the Mexican Place to start the day.  I found out shortly after that the cook quit, and we're not pooling tips anymore.  On top of that, the other waitress is leaving, and we have hired a much more competent one (a retired woman who has 8 years of waitressing experience).  The other waitress was supposed to train the new one today, but she, as always, did nothing.  I helped Jody- the new waitress- out as much as possible, teaching her abbreviations, questions to ask customers on different dishes, etc.  I think I'll get along with her really well, she's super nice and a great worker.  She also gave me a ride home because it was raining.   So I'm still at the Mexican place.

Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday I'm working at the Mexican Place and then the Bar at night,

Friday and Saturday I'm working at the Mexican Place all day.

It's not like I'm working enough already, right?

-T.H.

Sunday Service

I had my first full non-training waitressing service at the bar on Sunday night.  Usually Sundays are dead because everybody is heading home for the weekend, so I wasn't too worried.  I had four tables, and there were two other waitresses that evening, neither of which I'm "close" to, but one of which is very friendly to me.  The other is very pregnant and can come off as very moody.  There was no manager on and the owner doesn't come in on Sundays (usually a good thing- he gets in the way).  The evening turned out to be hellish.

My first few tables were fine, but then one table came in where EVERYTHING went wrong.  I totally forgot about their drinks for like five minutes (forever time when you're sitting and waiting for them, I'm sure), and the kitchen took a really long time getting out their appetizer, a small Caesar salad.  They asked me for a burger that was pink in the middle, so I suggested medium and sent it to the kitchen.  Apparently it was TOO pink when they got it, so they sent it back to the kitchen, and by that time, they just wanted it packed to go.  The kitchen apologized to me for that, and I had to comp their salad.  I apologized to them many times over, and the woman was very sympathetic and said she knew it wasn't my fault.

Amusingly, a very young woman (early to mid 20s) asked me what the shy-i-take was on a certain pizza.  I had to contain myself as I explained that "shiitake" is a type of mushroom.

Another table consisted of three young men (early 20s) who came in and ordered a barrage of drinks, appetizers, and entrees.  One fellow asked if he could substitute the vegetables with his entree for the risotto, I said I would ask the kitchen.  The kitchen told me it would be a two dollar add-on.  I didn't head right back to that table, with three other tables, I had other things to worry about.  The young man flagged me down a few minutes later (his two friends were outside taking a smoke break) and asked me about the risotto.  I told him that we could do it, and about the add on.  When I told him about the two dollars, he seemed very hesitant.  "Oh.... okay... uhm... oh."  I asked him if he still wanted the risotto, and he said yes.  A little while later, one of the more assertive young men called me over, and said that they did not know that the risotto would be two dollars extra.  I could tell that they were trying to get it comped, and I was not fazed.  I told him that the kitchen let me know that it would be two dollars extra, and I told the man who ordered it.  Furthermore, the kitchen was still working on their entrees and hadn't even MADE it yet, so I could take it off now if they wanted me to.  They backed off, defeated.

At the end of the meal, they wanted their checks separated by seat (a pain in my ass, since I had to remember who ordered how many drinks, what appetizers, etc.)  When I brought the checks over, one man, the one with the risotto add on, said "Holy shit!", surprised by the price.  He had ordered  a vodka cranberry, crab cakes, filet mignon, and the risotto, and his check was $54.00.  The bar is pretty high end, I don't know why he would be so surprised when he ordered the FILET with the prices clearly on the menu....  They then requested that I put some items on different checks and swap things around, which we just can't do.  I didn't even look at whatever tip they may have left me.

It would have been nice to have the manager or owner in that evening, as one table got VERY angry.  I was thankful the table wasn't my own.  According to the customer, the pregnant waitress spilled hot food on them, made them wait an hour for bread, gave them burned food, and didn't apologize for anything.  They complained to the bar tender, who called the manager to find out what to do.  I'm not exactly sure if the whole meal was comped, or what exactly happened.  I know that they stayed for around two hours longer and ate dessert.  The complaining man did approach me earlier and asked me if I could bring bread to the table, because he had been waiting for so long.  I started to cut it, and told him that I would bring it to him.  He responded with "I've been spilled on, and not waited on, I can't trust anybody anymore, I'll just bring it myself!"  After all that (and I brought hummus to the table with the bread) the family was very grateful to me and thanked me profusely.

According to preggo, she spilled mussel juice on the ground and it splashed up onto the man's leg.  She apologized and asked if she could do anything about it, and they said no.  I don't know how that's going to be resolved.

The kitchen is supposed to close at 9:30, but for some reason the hostess sat somebody at 9:45.  I don't know WHY I got stuck with this table, a deuce that wasn't even in my section, but I had it.  They ordered apps, entrees, AND dessert, and while I'm supposed to be able to go home at around 10, I was at the restaurant until TWELVE.  The couple was very nice to me, and said they were so sorry about making me stay late, etc etc.  They didn't leave me any phenomenal tip, however.  I was the only waitress left, and the bar was cleaning up when I left to go home.

I went home and passed out from exhaustion.  Made about 100 in tips.  Worth it?

I'm baaack.

So quite a few things have happened since my last post. I am no longer working at the cafe, but now at a Mexican restaurant and a bar/restaurant.

I started not feeling well one day at the cafe, I knew I was coming down with something, my throat was hurting and I could sense this was not just a cold.  I told the managers about it, they gave me some tea and told me to drink it all night.  The next day, it hurt to breathe.  I called in sick, and they sounded less than sympathetic on the phone.  Since I have just moved and don't have a regular doctor here, I had to try to find someone who would take a walk in.  With no success, the next morning at 7 am we drove an hour to get an appointment with the CVS minute clinic.  The rapid test said no strep-- so I drove back to work, even though I was in agony.

I walked in, ready to start the day, when the managers dropped the bomb on me.  They were letting me go because they thought I was too overwhelmed with the work.  I was really upset about this-- I had done so much work for them, memorized absolutely everything, and was doing FAR more work than the job description required.

Disappointed, I went home and received a call from CVS saying that I did have strep throat.  They prescribed penicillin 2 times a day.  A week later, I was still awake at 4 o'clock in the morning, putting ice cubes in my mouth and crying because it hurt so badly.  I have never had strep before.  I headed back to my old home to see my regular doctor, and found out that I was being severely under medicated.  CVS should have had me taking the medicine 3-4 times a day.  I went on a huge dose of medicine with codeine and such, and after an extra full week, I was finally feeling better.

I job hunted for a few days, walking up and down the main street and applying to the few businesses that were hiring.  On a whim, I stopped in at a hip bar/restaurant which I was always too intimidated to enter before. I filled out an application and left.  Then I headed over to a new Mexican restaurant.  I had had their food before, it's super amazing with very fresh ingredients, and I had talked to the owner a few times before.  I asked if they were hiring, and he told me to start working that moment.  It worked for me.  I speak Spanish, so I can communicate much better with the Argentinian chefs, whose English isn't the greatest.  In the middle of the shift that day, I got a call from the bar-- the manager wanted me to start training the next day, even though she had never met me in person or given me an interview!

I just finished training on Sunday, and will work busing and waitressing shifts at The Bar (will refer to the establishment as such from now on) on Sundays and Thursdays and any other days that waitresses want off.  It's pretty easy.  Everything has a system, and it has a nice ambiance, even though the music is a bit loud, making it difficult to take orders.

The Mexican Place is very laid back.  No dress code, you work when you want and leave when you want, and there's no real system for taking orders.  That's the one thing that irks me, we don't have our own section of tables, and the owner insists on taking some orders-- and NEVER writes down what table they are going to, so we have to guess when they come out of the kitchen.  I get free food all day from the Place, and it's either extremely dead, or HECTIC as hell.  We also pool tips, which annoys me because sometimes customers find me specifically and hand me a large tip.  The other waitresses are less enthusiastic and personal with customers, which just hurts me.

Nothing I can do about that.
Anyways, I'll be posting when I'm not exhausted from working both jobs, as I do have some interesting stories to impart.
Muchas gracias,
T.H.