Restaurant Tales

Everything about the restaurant business separates it from every other profession out there. Where else do you work evening hours and get paid directly by your customers? Here's some uncorrelated thoughts on the food service industry:

1. Kitchen's in restaurants are dirty. Get over it.

2. You basically make an hourly wage. Even though it's tip-based, we all know that no matter how friendly, caring, honest, reliable or timely you are, you're getting about 18%. Once in a while someone will randomly give you 25%. And you feel great, like you earned it. And then you get 10%, and think "what the fuck did I do to deserve this you rotten cheapskate." It all evens out. Good work on the part of restaurant owners to sneakily institute the idea that staff pay goes up with performance, when in reality it makes little to no difference. When was the last time you tipped your waiter extra because they were so damn good at bringing your food? Were you awestruck at how effectively they carried 3 plates at once?

3. The interaction between waiter and customer is horribly awkward. "Hi, how are you today?" "Oh great!" "So, let me tell you about our specials..." Interpretation: "Listen, I don't give a shit about you, I'll forget your face within 4 minutes of when you leave, but I have to pretend to care now so that you won't remember me 4 minutes after you leave, because if you do it's most likely because I sucked. So here are our specials today..."

4. The worst is when I feel like I really connected with the customer, we laughed together a little bit and shared glowing smiles. And then BOOOOMMMM!!! They drop a 12% tip on me. I've been hoodwinked! It's like a battle of who can be the fakest:

- "Oh, a great start their from the waiter, really dripping with comfort and enthusiasm. That will be tough for the customer to overcome."
- "But WAIT! Will you look at that? The customer has helped to tidy up their dirty dishes, an amazingly useless maneuver that almost makes them seem genuine."
- "And the waiter comes back over the top by offering a FREE iced tea refill! Bold AND daring!"
- "BUT THE CUSTOMER HAS JUST SLIMILY SLIPPED OUT THE BACKDOOR HAVING LEFT ONLY A 12% TIP!!!!! A great showing by both sides, but the customer took control at the end there when it really mattered."

5. Don't be a waiter if you have a tendency to zone out. Too many times have I found myself in the kitchen area with a pitcher of water in my left hand and a medium-rare burger with fries in my right, and had no idea why I was holding either of them or where they were going.

6. Little known fact about waiting tables: There's no time to pee. As someone who hydrates to the tune of 3 nalgene bottles a day (is that weird?), peeing is an essential and gratifying part of my day. Once the action starts, I forget that my bladder is screaming at me, but once the day ends, it comes back, meaner and louder then ever. If there was a guiness record for longest pee, I'd be right up there after a day of waiting tables. Hmmmm, is the Guiness book of records named after Guiness the beer? If so, maybe that record exists... I should look into this.

7. Kitchen staffs nowadays are purely Hispanic. The names of those I can remember at Zany Zinc: Romero, Enrique, Ernesto, ... , shit what's that dude's name... damn it. There's one more. It's like Pedro or something. Anyways, our conversations consist of this:

Them: "Hola amigo."
Me: "Sup playa."

I can't understand why they seem to dislike me...