For the Love of Bartending

Restaurant bartenders are a different breed than waiters. For instance, they make far less money than servers, yet often work twice as hard; and they’re usually under a lot of scrutiny from the serving staff.

That’s not to say that restaurant bartenders aren’t appreciated by their colleagues – they definitely are; but bartenders seem to get a lot of flack from servers during the dinner rush.

In order to survive a night of serving full table sections, servers have to work according to their own rhythms. When these rhythms are thrown off by something as simple as having to wait an extra five minutes for a strawberry daiquiri, bartenders unfortunately become public enemy number one. However, since many restaurant bartenders also work the odd serving shift, they’re usually pretty good about taking their ‘enemy’ status with a grain of salt.

A typical weekend bartending shift at my place of employment consists of:

• Arriving at 4 p.m. to stock bar fridges and ice trays;
• Cutting fruit for the garnish station;
• Counting and monitoring the bar till throughout the night;
• Polishing glassware and wiping down bar stools;
• Changing empty beer kegs;
• Making and preparing all drinks – one by one – for every table in the restaurant;
• Serving dinner and drinks to a [usually full] 14-seat bar;
• Answering phone calls for reservations and take-out orders; and
• Helping servers run food during their downtime.

All of these tasks are done by one person – sans help – on a busy evening.

While not every restaurant operates the same way, the basics of bartending remain consistent across the board. Bartenders do more work than they get credit for; that is why bartenders deserve respect, appreciation and a little bit of empathy from the serving staff.

On behalf of servers everywhere, I say: THANK YOU, BARTENDERS.

Servers: Underappreciated Labourers

Most waitressing jobs are labour-intensive. In an eight hour shift, a server may take up to 15,000 steps and lift up to 40 pounds of weight. Servers are constantly on their feet, and continually practice poor posture. And the list of work-related injuries servers endure on a daily basis include (but are not limited to):

• Burns, from touching hot plates and pouring boiling soup;
• Cuts, from handling sharp knives and cleaning broken glass;
• Bruises, from bumping into table corners;
• Sciatica, from the uneven weight distribution of carrying trays;
• Carpal tunnel, from carrying multiple plates with one hand;
• Achy neck muscles, from looking down to seated customers; and
• Emotional distress, from interacting with a wide variety of tempers and personalities.

For these reasons, waiters and waitresses fall into the category of labourers. However, the very things that classify servers as labourers are also the things that render servers underappreciated.

It seems as if the only people who can appreciate the strength and skill involved in waiting tables are fellow servers and restaurant staff. People who have never worked in a restaurant just don’t seem to understand the physical and emotional demands placed on servers – and we do it all for a mere 15 per cent.

So, the next time you go out for dinner, keep the following things in mind:

• When you ask your server to bring out a piping hot plate, she might burn herself;
• When your table of ten orders one drink at a time, your server has to run around taking unnecessary extra steps; and
• When you verbally undermine your server’s intelligence, you may have just cost her an extra $80 in therapy bills.

The Auto-Grat

Most restaurants have a policy in place whereby if a specified number of guests [or more] are seated at the same table, a certain percentage for gratuity is automatically added to their bill. Not only does this practice eliminate - for the customer - any uncertainty regarding standard tipping procedures, it also ensures that the server will receive a proper tip for her hard work, based on what is assumed to be a higher-than-average bill. In the world of waitressing, this is more commonly known as the Auto-Grat.

Auto-Grat policies differ from restaurant to restaurant, but the standard practice is to add a 15 per cent gratuity to the bill for parties of eight or more. In fact, this practice is so common in the restaurant industry that experienced large-party diners should automatically expect to pay the Auto-Grat when settling their bills.

Unfortunately, this isn’t always the case. Some customers feel insulted when they’re forced to pay an automatic gratuity because it takes away their freedom of choice. After all, everyone has the right to choose how much money they want to spend on good service. For this reason, most restaurants now include their Auto-Grat policies in the front cover of their menus – in plain sight – so as not to insult the customer’s intelligence.

Of course, there are times when the Auto-Grat isn’t expected to be paid; for instance, when a party of ten receives sub-par service, or no one at the table receives the correct dinner. In these cases, the gratuity is understandably left in the hands of the customer.

But when a party of ten receives exceptional service and has no problems with their food, they shouldn’t complain about having to tip their server accordingly. Customers who complain about the Auto-Grat [simply because it’s on their bill] are, more often than not, ignorant about the service industry as a whole. Standard tipping procedures are usually unknown to these types of diners because they just don’t bother to do their homework before going out for dinner.

So, the next time you and seven friends walk into a restaurant, please know that you will be charged that extra 15 per cent for service. And if that bothers you, split your party in half.

The Benefits of Waitressing

I believe that everyone should work as a waitress at least once in their lifetime. Even though there are some obvious downsides to working in the service industry, there are also a lot of benefits that can transfer to other areas of your life.

This week, I asked a few of my co-workers to come up with some beneficial, transferable life skills they’ve learned from serving in a restaurant. The top three answers they gave were: Patience, time management and communication.

1) Patience

The age old saying, ‘Patience is a virtue,’ might be somewhat outdated, but the underlying message still rings true: Patience needs to be practiced in all areas of life.

According to the International Business Times, there are four universal reasons why we need to practice patience: It builds reputation; it gives way to remarkable results; it leads to positive recognition; and it is your most formidable resource.

In any given night, servers will encounter a variety of personality types; and they all want their server’s attention at the same time. You might be helping one table of customers who can’t make up their minds, while four other tables glare at you from across the room.

Fittingly, The Bitchy Waiter claims that “patience is learned. And when your income is dependent on how patient and attentive you are, it’s learned quickly.”

2) Time Management

Time management is a beneficial life skill because it’s the act of planning and exercising conscious control over the amount of time spent on specific activities. As such, time management increases your efficiency. The skill of managing your time can demonstrate your value as a productive employee, student, parent, partner and friend.

Waitresses learn how to manage multiple tables simultaneously, each at different stages of their meals. Thus, servers always need to think one step ahead in order to keep a good flow of their sections. Furthermore, waitresses have a list of side duties to tackle throughout the night – a set of chores divided among staff members. In order to finish these tasks in a timely manner, servers quickly learn how to manage their time properly.

3) Communication

The art of communication is one of the most important life skills to acquire. Communication can be as simple as learning how to speak to others in a respectful manner, and as complicated as reading into someone’s personality through body language.

Acquiring good communication skills is vital to all areas of life, from the workplace to the home. Communication skills help to build important relationships by establishing trust and loyalty between individuals.

As a waitress, you can’t avoid communication. In fact, servers may have to converse with up to 75 people in any given shift. For this reason, servers quickly learn the art of good communication in order to emit a positive, caring attitude with customers, and to improve their overall dining experience.

There are many other beneficial, transferable life skills that servers learn on the job, but my co-workers ranked these as the top three. I’d like to thank Shelley, Topher, Leigh, Kat, Anne and Bri for sharing their insight. You helped make this blog post happen.

Restaurant Life

When people go out to dine, they only see one side of restaurant life: the deliberately staged ‘outside’ atmosphere that includes aromatic fragrances, welcoming faces and calming décor. What they don’t see is the other side of restaurant life: the chaotic ‘inside’ environment filled with frantic servers, overworked chefs and a pile of dirty dishes.

This is not to say that all restaurants experience the same level of chaos on the inside; but the basic elements of restaurant life are assumed to be universal. All restaurants – at one point or another – are faced with the hustle and bustle attributed to promotional specials and holiday weekends.

During moments of chaos, restaurant life becomes a place where ‘sink or swim’ is the main mantra. Chefs, line cooks and pantry help scurry to produce delicious meals in a timely manner, bartenders scramble to create thirst-quenching beverages, and servers hustle between the kitchen and dining room to satisfy customer needs.

If customers aren’t aware of how many people work behind the scenes to produce the perfect dining experience, they might take that whole experience for granted. For instance, on a busy weekend, popular restaurants will often over-book their reservations; in turn, customers have to wait extra time before a table becomes available. During these busy evenings, customers seem to only be concerned with what they see on the outside: dirty tables, lines of people, and frantic servers. But in these cases, staff members actually work twice as hard to ensure that everyone has an exceptional evening.

What people need to understand is that restaurant life does not merely consist of food, servers and customers. There’s a lot more that goes on behind the scenes to make their dining experience worthwhile. Each department of the restaurant – including servers, hostesses, bartenders, bus kids, managers, cooks, dishwashers and food runners – works in synchronicity to produce an exceptional product and flawless service.

The sooner people realize just how complex restaurant life can be, the sooner they can appreciate all the hard work that goes into their dining experience.

The Vicious Cycle

While there are both positive and negative aspects of being a restaurant server, sometimes the positive aspects can incite a negative, ‘vicious cycle’ reaction among servers; especially those who have advanced educational backgrounds or other career prospects. When I use the term ‘vicious cycle’, I am referring to the idea of getting trapped in a [subjectively] dead-end job, simply because it brings in a considerable amount of money.

For instance, one of the best things about being a waitress is the large amount of money that can be made with very little effort in a short period of time.

You may think, “How could anyone turn this [clearly] positive aspect of serving into something negative?” Wouldn’t most people jump at the chance to make a lot of ‘easy’ money in just a few short hours? Of course they would. However, when the money flows this easily on the job, it’s almost impossible to move on to something different.

A lot of waitresses become ‘career servers’ because they genuinely enjoy their jobs; but most waitresses I know become ‘career servers’ because they get trapped in a vicious cycle where they can easily fill their wallets in half the time it takes the average worker to do the same.

Servers like me, who have been trying for many years to pursue other job prospects, find it difficult to move in a new direction, because most of the time, the money just doesn’t add up. It’s hard for a server to accept a prospective job that doesn’t pay as well as a waitressing job, because over the years, we’ve become accustomed to making hundreds of dollars in one short shift. So, new job prospects often get pushed aside in favour of continuing on as a server – This is the ‘vicious cycle’.

But, despite the feelings of negativity that can get trapped inside this vicious cycle, I’m hopeful that one day the cycle will break – not only for me, but for any server who is working towards a meaningful career outside the service industry.

Staying Positive in the Negative

Working as a waitress can sometimes turn a positive mood into a negative mood. That’s not to say that every serving shift will break your spirit, otherwise, no sane person would ever consider waiting tables for a living. But there are several aspects of restaurant life that contribute to negative attitudes among staff members.

Here, I will outline three specific factors that often affect my mood as a server, and how to [try and] turn their effects from negative to positive.

1. Negative co-workers.

Even if you go to work feeling great about life, when your co-workers are grouchy, your mood will undoubtedly drop to a new level of low. We won’t always know what outside factors have contributed to a co-worker’s pessimistic disposition, but we can try to turn their mood around before their negativity rubs off onto the rest of the serving staff.

It’s far too easy to fall into a co-worker’s cynical trap, so try to stop their bad behaviour by telling an uplifting story or a positive joke; the rest of the servers will silently thank you for doing this.

2. Rude customers.

One of the biggest mood killers in the restaurant industry is rudeness. Servers make their living by waiting on other people; but some customers seem to confuse the term ‘server' with ‘servant’. When your section of the restaurant is filled with rude customers, it can definitely trigger negativity in your own demeanour.

If being friendly and helpful to your customers doesn’t change their attitude, try to keep your head high and remind yourself that dining times are averaged at an hour and a half; so they won’t be in your presence for much longer.

3. Terrible tips.

It’s hard not to feel bad about yourself when customers aren’t tipping well; after all, waitresses work for tips. When the cycle of bad tipping doesn’t seem to change directions, servers can feel anything from sad to angry.

Even though you can’t tell a customer how much they’re supposed to tip, you can be the bigger person by smiling politely and secretly wishing for karmic revenge. All jokes aside, try to grin and bear your terrible tips because at some point in the near future, you will serve a wonderful customer who will lift your mood and expand your wallet.

Click here to find out more about how to stay positive in negative work situations. 

Thank you for reading Serving for the Future.

**Warning: This video contains explicit language**

The Demanding Customer

Valentine’s Day is just around the corner. But as the level of romance rises, so does the level of customer demands.

Along with New Years Eve, and Mother’s Day, February 14th is the busiest night for dining out. More often than not, restaurant servers choose to forego their own Valentine’s plans in favour of working. People who haven’t experienced Valentine’s Day as a waiter or waitress might be thinking, Why would anyone choose to subject themselves to demanding diners on the most romantic day of the year? There’s only one simple answer to this question: Money.

However, even though servers have the ability to make a good living on Valentine’s Day, the money doesn’t always come easily. Servers have to work hard to earn tips on February 14th by putting up with a lot of customer demands. Everyone wants the most romantic Valentines experience in hopes of impressing their significant others; and as servers, we have to go above and beyond the call of duty to meet their demands.

To intensify an evening of romance, demanding customers want the best table with maximum ambience, the best bottle of champagne at a reasonable price, and premiere service with a great deal of privacy.

To waiters and waitresses, demanding customers appear annoyingly arrogant and supremely stubborn – especially on Valentine’s Day. But if you are able to look beyond your customers’ egos and make them feel special by giving in to [at least some of] their requests, at the end of the day, you just might find your pockets lined with wads of green, red and brown paper.

Serving isn't my ‘real’ job…

Many restaurant servers find it hard to admit to what they do for a living. Individuals who choose

a career in waitressing have no problem telling people how they make their money; whereas, others – like college or university students, or recent graduates – who merely see their serving jobs as a transition into a more ‘tangible’ career, often make excuses about their employment situation for fear of being judged.

I will grudgingly admit to residing in the latter grouping of servers. When people ask where I work, I often feel embarrassed about being 30 and still working as a waitress. I usually find myself tip-toeing around the answer by saying things like:

• “I’m a full time student;”
• “I teach university students, part-time;” or
• “I’m only a waitress on weekends.”

My co-worker, Shelley:
Unemployed teacher, full-time college student,
and unsatisfied waitress.

Every time these words escape my mouth, I feel a strange combination of relief and guilt. Relief stems from the knowledge that I will eventually leave the service industry (albeit not soon enough). Guilt, on the other hand, arises from the realization that as a server, I’m comfortably able to feed, clothe and house myself, while there are many people who can’t afford to do such things. It seems selfish to complain about working a “lowly” serving job when unemployment rates keep rising.

My point is: Whether you’re a server by choice or by necessity, try to remember that your situation could always be worse. Appreciate what you have now; and then appreciate it even more when you eventually land your dream job. 

The Verbal Tip

An actual credit card receipt from Friday night

It’s not uncommon knowledge that servers work for tips. We even have our own government standardized income category, which happens to be less than minimum wage. But some people either don’t understand the realities of Ontario labour regulations or they just don’t care.

Servers rely on tips as part of their income – this is a fact; and we expect at least 15 per cent. Before you start ranting about those greedy waitresses, it’s important to note that most restaurants take up to 3 per cent of a server’s net sales as part of their tip-out to the cooks, hostesses and management, regardless of whether the server made any tips that night. Therefore, it’s only natural to get upset when we receive a less than appropriate tip.

Sometimes customers try our patience with something called ‘the verbal tip.’ Some diners think it’s okay to compliment their server on a job well done in lieu of a cash tip. While we appreciate your kind words about our wonderful service, verbal tips don’t pay our bills.

As frustrating as verbal tips can be, especially when they seem to take over an entire shift, there is a way to get through the pain: Remind yourself that you – the server – didn’t do anything wrong. Instead, blame it on the customer’s ignorance. It’s not your fault they didn’t bother reading up on standard tipping practices.

However you see it, money is an important part of life; without it, we wouldn’t be able to eat, clothe ourselves or put a roof over our heads. So, what’s the moral of this story? Always tip your server…in cash. 

Welcome to Serving for the Future

As a Public Relations student, it’s important that I learn the art of communication; blogging seems like a good place to start.

Serving for the Future is my way of communicating the ups, downs and roundabouts of working as a waitress. While some people love serving, others can’t stand it. The thing that separates the lovers from the haters is the answer to the question: why are you a server?

Those who love serving, often choose to pursue it as a career. Why not? There’s a lot of money to be made in a short time; and if you’re a people-person, you can get to know some fascinating people.

Those who hate it are, more often than not, just trying to pay their bills while attempting to launch careers in other industries. For these people, it can be incredibly frustrating to find yourself working the same, menial serving job, month after month – sometimes, year after year – while searching for that breakthrough moment that will launch a fulfilling and lasting career.

While I happen to fall under the latter category, I do enjoy some aspects of being a waitress: I’ve made good money throughout the years, maintained great friendships, and sampled amazing foods.

Over the next eight weeks, I will take you on a journey through my 12 years as a server, covering such topics as: Staying positive in the negative, handling unruly customers, dealing with ‘verbal’ tips, feeling trapped in your job, and the benefits of being a server.

I recommend serving this blog with a glass of merlot. Enjoy!