Waiter rant

I just finished reading Waiter Rant, a book about the life of, who else, a disgruntled waiter. The guy has a blog, http://waiterrant.net/ but I found the book way more entertaining…

Anyway, in the back section he has an appendix which lists “50 ways to tell you’re working in a Bad restaurant”

I thought it was sort of ironic that the old job, which prides itself on being very professional but commits many of the offenses listed:

• 2. Your start working Friday and Saturday nights the first week (That’s because waiters quit with alarming regularity)
• 9. The employee bathroom is so gross it would be better just to have a hole in the ground
• 10. The toilet paper in the employee bathroom could double for sandpaper
• 12. There are always either too any waiters on the floor or not enough
• 16. Owner, GM or chef makes fun of a staff person’s significant others
• 19. You start drinking more
• 21. You have to pay the owner a percentage of the merchant fee on your credit card tips
• 22. The manager expects a share of your tips (illegal!)
• 24. There aren’t enough teaspoons, so you have to hoard them in your apron in order to have enough for dessert service
• 26. There’s never any soap or hand sanitizer around
• 28. The manager is constantly calling you to work extra shifts
• 30. Management tells you to work sick. (Good evening I’m typhoid Mary and I’ll be your server tonight)
• 31. If you lose a credit card slip, the owner takes the check amount out of your compensation until the credit card company transmits the funds into his account. You lose the tip.
• 33. Management makes you pay if a customer skips on the bill.
• 35. You’re working a double and management laughs when you ask to take a break.
• 37. The owner tells you that you’re part of a restaurant “family” and that “going above and beyond” to “exceed customer expectations” is expected. After a couple of shifts you begin to realize the Manson Family had more on the ball than these guys.
• 38. The restaurant is dirty.
• 39. Heavy turnover of staff. The place is a meatgrinder and you are the meat.
• 42. The fire exits are always blocked by extra chairs, tables or pieces of equipment
• 44. There’s no first aid kit
• 45. The owner’s never around when you need him and always there when you don’t

Yikes…..

~ by M. Hennigar on June 1, 2009.