Aye yes I have appeared out of the shadows again. I finally left my shitty job a month ago and joined a country-food restaurant with a close friend of mine. It's been... interesting. The only thing I've ever known work wise is being in retail--working a cash register, stocking, being a key carrier, the whole bit. I've never been in the food industry. This restaurant isn't a franchise, it is a small business that's steadily growing. They are pretty relaxed about things---us wearing black clothes and jeans, sneakers, we play some AC/DC and other classic rock over the speakers, etc. It's more of my kind of "speed" in that way.
Thing is we are currently short on waitresses, it's just me and my buddy. It's no big deal on some days where it's slow asf. But weekends? Holy shit. Especially when church folks come on Sundays. A lot of times we work where one server is there in the morning and the other mid-day to night (that second half is normally me). I can handle juggling at least 3 tables at a time. But I have been having a hard time getting easily overwhelmed when it goes beyond that. Especially if they have a lot of people. Sometimes I've messed up when getting the orders to the kitchen. I've dealt with a lot of impatient people alongside the phone ringing like hell for me to take To Go orders. It's hard when you can't split yourself up into five people. I've still been making good money, but it's been mentally quite a challenge. Can anybody who's had experience in this type of work give some advice (in general really) for this rookie? I also wouldn't mind seeing things from a customer perspective, like what's liked/disliked about service you've gotten before.
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First of breathe. They will get people in soon to help, but rn you have to try and keep calm. You need comfy shoes that are non-slip. I can imagine you are on your feet for 10 hours or more a day. Also, why can't the manager answer the phone?
And yeah shitty customers are part of the job. They are always right, annoyingly
With the manager, a lot of days she's having to help out with the cooking. She probably could be carrying the phone but she assigns it our responsibility I guess because we carry our handheld systems for placing orders.
Oh yeah, I know what it is like to work on short staff. I hope they find a host to do this for you soon!
Thanks! I'm definitely holding the faith that we'll get more people soon
You will ❤️
Just because it NEEDS to be done doesn't mean it CAN be done. Necessity doesn't magically make it possible for one person so do the work of five. You'll explode if you try.