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Served: The Perfect Waiter Job

Posted by Hannah Howard, November 18, 2008 at 8:30 AM

I blog by day and wait tables by night. I'm excited to bring you Served, dispatches from the front of the house. Enjoy!

I remember winding down one of the first nights of service at my restaurant. We counted the money. To our happy surprise, it was a record-breaking night. We were all going home with plenty of cash.

We had opened just a few weeks ago, and we were still un-kinking the numerous kinks in our operation. My boss got to talking about how he hoped (and knew) his restaurant beat the many restaurants where he had worked as a waiter as a place to work. It beat them pretty hard.

“This is the best waiter job,” was the conclusion. Since then, I’ve thought a bunch about that proclamation, and concluded that in many ways, it is.

Here are my requisites for optimal serving conditions:

The Food and Drinks Rock

I’m not a great actor. If I’m really digging the crunchy, succulent wild mushroom arancini, I will tell you how awesome it is—with bubbly, sincere enthusiasm. If I think our new Japanese beer tastes like laundry detergent, any praise for it will sound half-hearted and unconvincing.

I am great at selling what I love. I think you’ll love it too. I want you to partake in the deliciousness. If I haven’t tried it, or if it is less than great, I’m not going to push it, and I’m certainly not going to push it well.

It’s so much more rewarding, too, to be serving food and beverages you can get behind.

We Wear What We Want

Maybe you’re thinking that it looks snazzy and professional when the waitstaff is dressed in matching skinny ties, or baby blue aprons. But it’s a slippery slope: first thing you’re sporting color coordinated polo’s, next thing you know you’re decked out in flair.

When J. first started working at my restaurant, a few weeks after we opened, she asked the owner permission to die her hair pink. She got it. “This isn’t fine dining,” our fine dining refugee boss declared, “you should be able to express yourself.”

J.’s hair has been spiky, pixie-ish, blue, platinum, red, pink, and black. She always looks hot. And she always looks like J.

I, too, once had to wear black suits, scratchy tights, and my hair pulled back. Perhaps it is leftover post-uniform trauma from too many years in my school’s little blue polyester skirts that makes me especially thankful that I can wear whatever I want to work. Within reason, anyway. I might get mocked for my short dress (“that’s a dress?”) or my favorite necklace (“are those Mardi Gras beads?”), but I am free to rock my wardrobe and my style. I don’t feel like I am playing a part in a play; I feel like I am playing myself.

It’s a Pooled House

It’s such a good plan. It breeds cooperation and teamwork. We all share in the pain of the heartless tourists who tip next to nothing, or in the abundant generosity of a table of friends. Over the course of the night, things tend to even out, anyway.

Where I work, the bartender seems to work equally hard and make a lot less in tips. Dividing things up is only fair.

Your Coworkers Are the Best

Even in a perfect restaurant, some of the customers will be less than perfectly fabulous. It is inevitable. Your emotional defense in these situations is always your fellow waiters (or bartenders, dishwashers, cooks, etc). It is extremely crucial that they get it, that they are cool people who have your back.

I am lucky in that many of my fellow waiters are obscenely hilarious. It’s always more pleasant to work when work is punctuated by the occasional fit of giggles. Also, the fits of giggles make the abuse from the abusive guests infinitely more bearable.

The single most important thing about work, as far as I’m concerned, is the people you are working with. If you’re saving the world, being creative, doing the most amazing stuff with utter jerks, it won’t be any fun. If you’re surrounded by people who you like, who you trust, who challenge you, and who support you, nothing can be that bad. Even an impossible rush, bratty children, and

You Want to Hang Out

I love working the “early” shift, although I do so rarely. After restocking the wine and doing my paperwork, I get to cozy up at the bar, rest my feet, chat with the cook, bartender, friends, and guests and have a glass of something wonderful. And maybe a bite to eat.

Since you spend so much time at work, it should feel like a second home. How much cooler is it to work somewhere where you actually like to spend your time?

Family Meal is Good

It’s hard to be serving food while hungry. One of the perks of working in a place devoted to the creation of quality food should be that you get to eat well.

This is sometimes the case, and sometimes sadly not. Regardless, I think it how the employees is fed says a lot about how the employees are treated.

Or maybe I say that because I am on my way to work now, very hungry, and hoping for something like pulled pork chipotle burritos, or pasta with greens and chorizo, or spicy chicken wings and a big roasted beet salad…

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