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The age old saying, ‘Patience is a virtue,’ might be somewhat outdated, but the underlying message still rings true: Patience needs to be practiced in all areas of life.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