I suppose ill start at the beginning.
Me, 14 years old.
It's 2003.
I need money.
I'm swimming at my aunt's house and she says, "when are you going to start busing tables for me?".
That, my friends, is how it all started.
My aunt and uncle owned and operated a casual Italian restaurant for 16 years here in Jersey. I spent the next two years busing tables, hosting the dining room, washing dishes, basically doing whatever i was asked. I even got to work the line preparing sandwiches a few times. This, to quote Waiter Rant, was my padawan apprenticeship. I knew that restaurant backwards and forwards before i ever set pen to order pad. Then the day came.
I was on my first day back from vacation and i instinctively went and checked the shift schedule. That's when i saw it. There was a W circled next to my name. Sunday 4pm-Close. I looked at my aunt and she nodded.
I was a waiter.
I was confident. I was prepared. And on my first day as a waiter i failed...epicly.
I thought about this for a while trying to come up with some witty segue way to this next paragraph. I just couldn't get the word "disaster" out of my mind.
By this time i was 16 and my aunt and uncle had sold the business to a man who did not have experience running a dining room restaurant. This was evident by the fact that he regularly left the business without any sort of management(my aunt was kept around to help show the new owner the ropes but she was not present this particular Sunday night, neither was she informed that no manager would be present). This was also evident in the sort of kitchen staff the new owner chose to employ. Any food service employee knows that lack of management plus poor caliber employees makes for disaster. This, plus my inexperience as a waiter, created a perfect storm for what was a catastrophic night.
Sunday was never a very busy night in our place. It was usually worked by just 2 servers on the floor. Given my tenure and the fact that i was on as a 3rd waiter on a slow night, when i was asked if i thought i needed formal training i said, confidently(arrogantly), no. I figured I'd pick up a table or two, ask the two girls that were on the floor with me if i had any questions...I'd be fine. In hindsight that was a bad decision. We got slammed.
I forgot which dishes came with pasta. I forgot which dishes came with a side of vegetables or a baked potato. I realized that in the two years i never learned how to use the order comp. When i finally did get my orders in my food took 2 hours(that's right hours) to come out. Remember the poor caliber kitchen staff with no management to watch over them i mentioned earlier? They decided they didn't feel like working that night. All in all it was a poor way to start off the job that, 4 years later, i still haven't been able to replace.
