Being a waitress

I have always been afraid of becoming a waitress for many different reasons.  The thought of serving just scared the crap out of me.  Waiting on other people, messing up, dropping food, spilling drinks, getting complaints, having customers secretly judge you for every little thing you do, and just mastering the skill of serving.  It’s scary!! It is unreal how many people can be so darn rude to servers, and I just NEVER wanted to do that as a job.  I had two incredibly amazing jobs for around 4 years.  I worked myself up to become a manager at one of the jobs.  It was literally my second home.  I loved my job, and the people I worked with.  Sadly that had to come to an end so my parents really wanted me to get into waitressing, so I did.  I have been a waitress for about 8 months now and it definitely has its ups and downs.  I work at a local pizza place and I absolutely love it there.  My family and I have been going there my entire life.   We are obsessed with the food, and my family knows the owners.  I got the opportunity to work there and it’s been great.  I started as a hostess for a month, and then switched to serving.

Nervous doesn’t even begin to describe how I felt becoming a waitress.  I basically had a panic attack during one of my classes in school right before I had to go to work for the first time as a waitress.  I can find anything and everything to be nervous about, but that has never happened to me before.  Well it did get easier, more comfortable, and fun.  I’m a college student paying my own way through school, so serving tips is very helpful.  It is a very nice feeling waiting on a table with such nice people; you feel like you’re doing a great job and you made the customers feel good.  It’s wonderful!  

Since I’ve become a waitress, I learned a few things that I wanted to share.  Serving is a skill.  It most certainly is a skill you need to learn.  Everyone makes mistakes, everyone. And that’s just it…a mistake.  An action or judgment that is misguided or wrong.  Mistakes can’t be changed.  It happens and then we move on, but when servers make a mistake, it’s the end of the world.  When a waiter/waitress makes one mistake, does that make them a terrible server? The answer is no.  No it does not make them a terrible server.  EVERYONE makes mistakes; even the best server in the world did not start out perfect with no mistakes. Its life, it happens, but why on earth are all these servers disrespected or judged for doing one thing wrong.  It’s just not fair. 

It’s an awful feeling when a customer is rude to you when you’re doing the absolute best you can.  Or they blame you for something that isn’t even your fault.  For example, if you start to complain that your food is taking too long, why are you taking it out on the server?  They are not the ones cooking the food.  They take your order, send out the order, and bring you your food when it’s ready.  Servers don’t have any control over how fast or slow your food is being made, that’s the cook’s job.  So please please please keep that in mind the next time you want to judge a server for your food taking too long.  It’s not their fault.

 Odds are when you go out to a restaurant; you don’t know the server who is waiting on you.  You know nothing about them, only what they look like and probably their name.  That’s it.  How can some people judge them when they know nothing about them?  How can these people sit there and say, “He/She is a terrible server” if they dropped something, or didn’t ask if you wanted a refill, or forgot to bring you your side of ranch.  How does that make someone a terrible server?  You don’t know who that server is; you don’t know what could be going on in their life at that exact moment.  They could just be having an off day.  Either way, I don’t think that makes someone a terrible server.  My definition of a terrible server is someone who is rude.  Someone who makes it clear that they hate their job and clearly do not care about waiting on you.  That sounds like a terrible server in my opinion.  Not some poor innocent young adult who messed up that one time you had them as a server.  I have never dropped anything, spilt any drinks on someone, or messed up an order, but I would take those over a complaint or misjudgment any day.  Knowing that one person is out there who thinks I’m a terrible server is just an awful feeling.  This person didn’t even have me as a server, but I made one little mistake on one night, and now I’m considered a terrible server.  That person will probably go tell everyone about how bad I am at my job.  It’s not a good feeling at all.  And I can’t take it back.  I can’t explain to this person what happened and how it’s a big misjudgment.  I just get to sit and wait for two days until I have to go back to work and probably get yelled at.  Maybe I’ll even get fired for being a terrible waitress.

Serving can be a very fun and exciting job, don’t get me wrong.  I love serving people, and giving them a great experience after leaving the restaurant.  It makes me feel good about myself, but all that good disappears for me when I know I messed up.  I am way too hard on myself, and I really wish I wasn’t.  I take things to heart, and I can’t let things go.  I start to doubt myself, and lose faith in myself and it’s just not fun.   All I have to say now is that servers take a lot of crap from customers.  I don’t think they are respected in the way all servers should be.  It’s crazy how people have this insanely high expectation for servers.  It’s like searching for the perfect person. No one is perfect, everyone has flaws, but that’s ok.  The next time you go out to a restaurant, just keep in mind what they have to deal with everyday.  Servers can only take so many rude customers.  Take a second to think if you really have to judge them so harshly, and are they honestly the problem for you to be down right rude to them.  Give them the credit they deserve. 

xoxo
-GinaMarie-