Ad Nauseum

This has bothered me for a long, long time. I'll be the first to admit that what I do isn't glamorous. No one marvels when I tell them how I make a living. I'd much rather be a pro baseball player, an author (hint, hint) or Warren Buffet's illegitimate lovechild whom he desperately wants to remain quiet. But that doesn't mean I don't work hard for pretty good money. Plus the hours are good so long as you don't mind foregoing prime time television. For better or worse I missed out on reality TV completely--on second thought, that definitely makes life better.

But when I turn on the television before or after work, I am bombarded by commercials that alert me to all my supposed shortcomings. Example? How about this little gem:

　

Now, supposedly, this is supposed to be funny and it very well may be to someone who hasn't waited tables. To most of the people I've worked alongside over the years it is offensive. Let's break it down the way I see it. The guy who is singing doesn't want to work in a restaurant. So why is he there? Oh, because someone stole his identity and trashed his credit report. (They don't talk about the other two in the band; they must be convicts or drug addicts.) Yeah, your credit score may prevent you from getting that job as a bank teller, but I'm pretty sure they don't run credit reports on MBA's fresh out of Wharton. And I don't recall working with any Data Analysts who were the victim of identity theft.

One more thing that irks me about this commercial may be a little nit-picky. If you really read between the lines at the beginning and end you'll come to the conclusion that they are employed at a seafood restaurant at a tourist destination. "Huh?" I hear you saying. Where are there seafood restaurants, tourists and pirate kitsch? Not in Iowa (and if there is a pirate-themed seafood restaurant in Des Moines, I'd caution tourists to stay away unless you enjoy gastrointestinal acrobatics. Then again, who vacations in the Corn Belt?). No, you live near the ocean. Buck up and get a tan!
Then there's this one:



First off, where does she work? Phillies? Not even the people at Waffle House wear that get-up. But it is a clue, along with the condiment bottles, that she works in a diner. Historically not the best of places to work towards that yacht you've got your eye on. Then she goes on singing (and does anyone else think they lifted the last half of the song from Cibo Matto?) that the solution to financial independence is a college degree. Oh, of course! That's the secret! But wait, I have a B.S. in Marketing. Shouldn't I have a six-figure job in a corner office and keys to the executive washroom? As it turns out, no. You see, the most recent (non adjusted) figures say that people with an undergraduate degree or above have an unemployment rate of 4.5% and doesn't account for the underemployed. The last time the (adjusted) overall unemployment rate--which includes all able-bodied adults 16 and over--was less than that was 2000. Maybe you should get better at your current vocation and climb the ladder to a more profitable restaurant before burdening yourself with massive debt.

I know, I know. These are just commercials and all these people are after is money. I get it. We all want more money. My problem is that you will never, NEVER see a positive portrayal of a restaurant worker outside of Coming to America, and even then they were royalty slumming it for women and comedic effect. We are not all bad people, just as all Wall Street workers are not Gordon Gekko. But marketers and writers--yeah, my ilk--seem rather cavalier about casting us as misfits and screw ups. Any time a minority group is stereotyped organizations come out of the woodwork to denounce it. It's time someone stood up for us.

Tipping - Not a City in China

Let's face it, waiters work for tips.

In my home state, the legislature, in it's infinite wisdom, deferred wages for tipped workers to the Department of Labor and left it at $2.13 (California's is $8).  To put it in perspective, that was the federal minimum wage in 1975.  At my current job, I've seen exactly one paycheck in six months.  Even then it was zero check.

So tip your waiter.  Tip them extravagantly.  And pay no attention to these people.

First off, you aren't just giving your waiter money.  All those other employees you see in the dining room need to get paid too.  The restaurant is allowed to pay them as tipped employees as long as they regularly receive $30 in tips a month.  To this end, a restaurant will make the waiters pay into a "tip-pool," either as a percentage of sales or tips, that gets distributed to the support staff.

Let's do some quick math.  My management has set the tipout at 4% of sales.  If you ring up a $100 check and leave me a $15 tip, I have to turn around and give $4 of that back to the tip pool and make $11 for myself.  So if you're a 15-percenter, you become a Canadian.  And if you're a Canadian, you become an asshole.  And if you're an asshole, I actually lose money on your table.,

While I'm on it, let's just throw that 15% business out the window.  I used to say that would be okay for the service you get at Denny's, but you'd have to be a prick to make change to tip on your $3.99 Breakfast Slam.  Yeah, I know the economy is in the crapper, but if you have enough money to go out to eat, you have enough money to tip well.

And enough with the verbal tip.  Nothing pisses us off more than you falling all over yourself, telling us what a wonderful job we did (usually accompanied by The Handshake) then finding out you failed math in grade school,.  How in the hell did you come up with 13%?  As much as I hate cliches, put your money where your mouth is.

All this being said, YOU SHOULD NEVER HAVE TO DEAL WITH BAD SERVICE.  Leaving a bad waiter a bad tip just propagates the problem.  If you're getting bad service, find a manager.  Don't ask your waiter for them (that will give them the chance to state their case first).  Actively seek them out.  There are plenty of people out there looking for work and who would love to serve you.  Don't think for a moment that a bad waiter will see that five percent tip and will instantly snap-to.  It is cheaper to train a new waiter than to lose a customer.

Our Glossary of Terms

First things first. I believe that waiting tables should be like the Israeli Armed Forces: everyone between the ages of 18 and 24 should be compelled to serve their country. Maybe then most people would treat us with a modicum of respect. "So are you in school and working here for the summer?" Screw you, I'm almost thirty and have a B.S. in Marketing.

 

Sorry, I just had to get that out (remember the whole "Angry" thing?). This is all a lead-in to our glossary of terms for those of you who never served. I'm not going to trawl the comments to answer all your questions. Every field has its own jargon--deal with it.

•  FOH - Front-of-house, this is what customers see in a restaurant. Also used to describe several positions including waitstaff, bartenders, bussers, foodrunners, hosts, etc. 
• BOH - Back-of-house, this is everything else, kitchen (or "line"), pantry, prep area and dishpit (yes, we call it that for a reason.) Also used for Chef, Sous Chef, line and prep cooks, and dishwashers 
• Support Staff - Usually bussers, foodrunners and bartenders. Some restaurants include hosts/hostesses so they can get away with paying them minimum wage which can be as low as $2.125/hour in some states. Yep they take that down to the half-cent 
• Door Whore - Unflattering term for a hostess, usually one who's good looking but terrible at their job 
• Store or House - The entire restaurant 
• Expo Window - Place where food is put after being plated and before being run to tables. Often referred to as just "expo," or "the window" 
• Books - Reservation books, can be used to described reservation software. It is always plural, don't ask why 
• Reso - Reservation, pl. resos 
• Covers - The number of diners for a shift 
• Rush - The hour or so when most of the night's business will be done, usually around 6:30 to 7:30 
• Double-Seat - Getting two tables at the same time (take a guess what triple-seating is) 
• In The Weeds - When a server is really, really busy. Usually after getting double- or triple-seated 
• POS - Point-of-sale, i.e. computers used to enter customers' orders (and yes, most of them are pieces of shit) 
• Ram - Short for ramekin, small cup used to put sauces on the side 
• Monkey - Like a ramekin but bigger, a small dish used for putting sauce on the side (I've asked for years and no one knows why this is the name for it) 
• ___-Top - Description of party/table size, i.e. a six-top is a party/table of six 
• Solo, Deuce, Tre - Respectively, a one-, two-, or three-top 
• Big-Top - Any party of more than six people, because no one has a table for seven. Usually made of two or more tables pushed together 
• Round - Round tables 
• Mis-en-place - French for "set in place," this has two seperate meanings: BOH - prepped ingredients and sauces. FOH - place settings that are on the table before customers arrive. Often shortened to "mis," or "meez" 
• Turn - Two meanings: n. a period in which one or more tables finish dining, v. getting a table in and out of the restaurant so it can be reseated 
• Flip - Quickly turning a table, usually done on small check totals or early dining menus so you can get a better table. Also called "turn and burn" 
• Auto Grat - Short for Automatic Gratuity. Usually 18-20% service charge on tables of six or more, or discounted checks applied to the subtotal. Often shortened even further to just "Grat" 
• Bumped - You know that line below gratuity on your credit card slip? Yeah, that's for leaving extra money which is not only allowed, but highly encouraged 
• Double Bumped - Same thing as above but usually done on cash tickets when the customer doesn't realize the bill has been auto gratted and leaves yet another tip on the total (no, we're not going to chase you out the door and point out your mistake) 
• Englished - This comes in many forms and is applied to groups of people who, historically, are notoriously bad tippers (no one said this was going to be PC), e.g. Canadians, Hispanics, the British, Europeans in general (but for some reason not Germans, go figure), Indians, blacks, doctors and women 
• Campers - People who think a restaurant is their personal lounge. Two hours is okay if you ring a decent bill and tip well, but three or four hours is not cool, especially if you are the last table in the restaurant 
• Paying Rent - You don't see this much but I'll mention it anyways. If you do hang around long after you've finished your meal, realize that the server is missing out on making more money. Even if you've paid your tab and tipped, throw some extra money on the table when you leave. That is paying rent 
• Cashout - A report that tells you how much you've sold and how much you owe to the house (or how much the house owes you) 
• Tipout - Percentage of sales or tips to be shared with support staff, we rarely get to keep all the money we make 
• Shift Drink - At many restaurants, employees are given a drink at the end of the night

 So that's all I can think of at the moment. I'm sure there will be addenda in the future as needed, but I've got to head to the store where we probably won't have many on the books until everyone starts making resos at 5 o'clock and we get slammed by the rush by a bunch or three-top campers who need an extra ram of every sauce known to man only to get Englished after I've missed out on a turn. See? You almost understood that, didn't you?

What the hell is this "blogosphere?"

One Angry Waiter is finally on the interwebs.  I never thought I'd see the day that I was one of those "bloggers," but this has got to be way cheaper than therapy.  Not that anyone is going to read this, but don't be surprised by a lot of cosmetic changes in the near future as I figure this whole thing out.  Somehow I don't think the "Awesome" template is appropriate for ranting.  Look forward to the glossary because unlike my customers, I'm not going to spend a lot of time repeating explainations for you.  Hey, I told you I was angry.