Amateur Diners and Wet Work Uniforms

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Valentine’s Day weekend largely recognized as one of the worst weekends during the year to work in a restaurant. From an outside perspective, the customer’s perspective, one might say “it’s worth it because you make a lot of money, right?” Nope. The money isn’t even worth it, and I now have proof of it all.

Saturday night I begrudgingly made my way to work, only to discover that we had 689 reservations. It’s a big restaurant, but still. Doesn’t that number make you want to gag a little? Every nook and cranny would be packed with uncomfortable looking couples, clasping sweaty hands across much too small tables.

The other servers warned me earlier in the week about the kinds of people that would come to the restaurant this particular weekend. I didn’t believe it—they had to be fabricating horrific stereotypes to scare me (it wouldn’t be the first time). Nevertheless, my coworkers claimed that the majority of people coming would be:

 1. The kind of people that never eat out and feel obligated to take their significant other out for the holiday.

 2. Young couples who aren’t old enough to drink.

 3. Old couples that split one measly meal.

 4. People that tip horribly.

It might---no wait---it definitely comes across like I’m cynical and unfair, but after seven hours of slinging food to less than pleasant people who refuse to unlock hands (so you can put down a plate food), you’d feel this way too.

There were no generous tips on Saturday night.

While that on its own may seem like enough to deal with, I ran into a rude awakening near the end of the evening. I innocently grabbed a tray of glasses and half-eaten cake to carry downstairs to the dish area; but what I didn’t expect was the dish-boy to be joking around the one of the cooks by spraying the heavy-duty spray gun toward his dirty-dancing form around the kitchen. I don’t mean dirty dancing in the movie sense; I mean that cooks are physically unclean and they have a penchant for dancing.

It’s safe to say that I was the one who got soaked. Boy, did that put a damper on the night from hell.

It was a sort of culmination of the evening, if I’m being honest. Getting drenched by a hose in the middle of the kitchen was the perfect way to end what I now deem to be the worst night of the year to waitress.

Lesson learned: If you are a server, leave the Hallmark produced holiday to the professionals. If you’re a customer, always leave a twenty percent tip (you don’t understand the trials of working in a restaurant).