We're you a Waitress in your Previous Life?
One of my favorite lines to spit out is, “We’re you a waiter/ess in your previous life. Now how I get there… Let’s say you just put food in your mouth at the exact time someone says something… that’s when I spit out that line because it never fails, a waiter/ess comes over and asks how everything is just as you put food in your mouth. I swear it is a conspiracy because they don’t want to bring you anything. They don’t want to know something is bad, etc. On the other hand, I was a waitress at one time and tried not to catch people like that but it didn’t always happen, so maybe it isn’t a conspiracy after all…
Maybe I’ll ponder that a while…. Then again, maybe not.
I was a waitress in college. The restaurant I worked at was actually in a horse arena. Our big time was when there was a show going on, otherwise it was SLOW. We had big horse sales going on though and when we did, the restaurant was hopping. It was a good 15 miles to town… and we had food right there. We actually had good food at that. In the kitchen it would get hot so anytime the cooks needed something we all raced for the walk-in to get it for them because it was 10-15 minutes of pure cool sensation! The cooks would from time to time get stressed out and almost have melt-downs but it all worked out.
We also had a fast food side to the restaurant. It consisted of a few select things and they would cook it all in advance to keep up with demand.
Our manager at first, was HORRIBLE. Her father owned the place so that’s how she became manager. She was a nice person but terrible managering skills! In fact one day she yelled at me and 2 other employees in front of about 25-30 customers. It embarrassed the crap out of us. We were doing our job but we weren’t “doing it her way” which actually slowed us down so she yelled at us. Yelled at us that we weren’t moving fast enough, yelled at us that we weren’t doing it her way, yelled at us that we gave the wrong order to the wrong people, even though in fact we had the right order to those people. We should have walked out and quit right then, but we stuck it out through the end of our shift and then 2 of the 3 of us quit. Our mother’s told us too. Our mother’s were on the evening shift in the restaurant and they were ready to walk out and quit but decided not to, they weren’t the ones yelled at but both mothers told us to quit. That was a Friday. Our mother’s said they were quitting Sunday night. They couldn’t leave the owner short staffed, he was a good owner.
Sunday morning both mothers got a phone call (we both still lived with our mothers) from the owner asking us to all 4 come in before the dinner shift started. He wanted to talk to us. We all agreed. The manager, his daughter, walked out of her shift on Saturday night and quit on him. Said she’d had it and didn’t want to do it anymore and left. The owner begged us all to come back to work for him and we did. I never had a problem with another manager.
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One night at the restaurant we got slammed. It was on the night of a sale so it was only to be expected, but everyone came in at once. It was a MAD HOUSE!!! It sucked! Katie and I were working again together. So were our mother’s that night. Plus there were 2 other waitresses. That was the best night in tips I’d ever had and truthfully I didn’t deserve it. To tell you how bad it was, I had one table of 12 people (by the time it was all said and done) and they waited over 2 hrs for a steak. We were that busy.
I had actually been at work that morning since 6:30 am. There was a new barn manager and he was a cocky arrogant little sh*t. He and I didn’t see eye to eye and I flat out got up in his face and yelled at him. If you knew me, you’d know I didn’t do that type of thing but he pissed me off royally. He was so mad at me he said he was going to the owner and going to get my little waitress a$$ fired. I said good luck with that. The owner told him he needed to respect me because I was one of the best waitresses he had and if he didn’t like it he could walk.
So by the time that night came around and the kitchen was already swamped, that punk sat at one of my tables and I had to wait on him. I walked up with my most professional voice, took his order brought it to him the works. Ha, he left me a tip almost what his bill was. Haha, take that punk 🙂
My other tables weren’t nearly as bad… although I was their form of entertainment. They of course kept drinking and were getting drunker and drunker. To keep them happy I think I bought them a round on the house and gave them a free appetizer. We did that for a lot of customers that night. It was insane!
So one point one of them asked me where their steak was. I told them this:
Well it goes like this… we had to go and buy the beef from the feed lot and that was all the way over in Timbucktoo. And do you know where Timbucktoo is? I don’t but that’s where we had to go. Then we had to trailer it here… all the way from Timbucktoo. While they were driving they got to thinking about what it would take to “harvest” that’s the new word for slaughter, the beef animal once we got it here. Well once we started that process we saw the leather and really thought it was beautiful so instead of cooking your steak in the back, we are making leather couches. Would you like to buy one.
I had not only my table but the 6 other tables surrounding mine drawn in with my story. I had the whole restaurant in an up-roar b/c I was getting louder and louder and wilder with my story. So then later Katie came out and was singing (she was a music major) and so the guys wanted us to get up on the bar and sing. I told them I couldn’t sing and they said ok, she sings you dance! That one table I got close to $100 tip from. Their bill came to like $150 ish.
Ok I’m sorry, I’ll quit rambling! Have a Wonderful Wednesday!
Peace, Love, and Entertaining Wait-staff
What a life! I waited tables too (hasn't everyone) at A&W and the best part was the balloon I got to give to the little kids with the great Root Bear on them. Fun to remember back, eh?
haha that is one job that I truly respect. I know I could not handle the stress.
Hahaha! Nice tip! I have never waitressed – it's the one job I just don't think I could do!
that is SO true! sometimes they even come before you put food in your mouth like while you're sitting it and ask you how it is… hmmm good idea on their part though, I like your theory!