Waitstaff 1 Mario Batali 0

March 10th, 2012

Step away from the fork you fat asshole...

Every time something like this comes along it really pisses me off. Chef Mario Batali and his business partner have recently settled a lawsuit brought by over 100 waiters and support staff for restaurant practices that illegally took from them. This kind of stuff is happening all over the United States and it’s time for it to stop. I successfully sued a former employer for doing something very similar to this crap and I encourage ANYONE who works in the service industry to rigorously scrutinize the tip out and compensation policies of the restaurant where you work. I’m serious. There are federal wage laws in place to protect you and there are attorneys eager to help you understand these laws and hold your employer accountable to them. Waiting tables is hard enough without having your employer try to bleed you dry. Fuck off Batali… you already have more than enough….

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Valentines Day

February 15th, 2012

Dear Jesus God... will this table just leave so we can all go home?

2:17 a.m.

Another Valentines day has passed. An 11 hour shift.. no, a  journey really… that once again has come to an end. We arrive at 2:30 in the afternoon. Two hours of breaking down the entire dining room and swapping tiny rented tables to transform the restaurant into a tight fitting, cattle calling, eating machine.  There are 400 covers on the books for a restaurant that does less than half that many on the average weekend night. There’s a new menu to learn, an hour long pre-shift meeting, and a dictate from management that proclaims….

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Come With Us….

October 4th, 2011

What lies at the end of the tunnel?

My career in the service industry is on life support. I can hear a faint ringing in my ears and if I close my eyes, I can just start to make out the faint glow of that fabled tunnel of light that takes us all to the other side. My time here is coming to an end…

I’ve made it through the two week ‘boot camp’ of training at my new job in sales. 90% of new hires don’t complete the process and I can certainly see why. It wasn’t easy but at the same time,  everything I’ve ever learned from waiting tables has come to serve me very well in this new job. Whoever said waiting tables was a dead end didn’t look very hard at the wall in front of them for a secret door. Trust me, it’s there. The financial upside and flexibility of this new job is huge. I can earn 2-3 times more than I did waiting tables and I make my own schedule. Stuck working on Friday and Saturday nights while all my friends are out having fun? Not any more. Hunting down people to cover my shift(s) so I can get even one day off?  Not any  more. Stuck in a building all day wearing a tie and walking around in circles stressing over picky diners? Yeah, that’s gone too.

The downside is risk. Sales can be a feast or famine endeavor while waiting tables represents straight line stability. For the next couple of weeks I’ll use my schedule flexibility to work both jobs until my sales pipeline is built up and producing. When that happens it will be time to stop picking up shifts and leave restaurants behind. It has been quite a ride over all these years but it truly feels like my time in ‘the biz’ is finally over. A new career and a new life calls from the other end of the tunnel and they are saying, “come with us..”. My time here is coming to an end… and I welcome it.

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