An older campaign slogan for Outback was, "No Rules, Just Right." My guess is that people think when they come in to a restaurant this rule applies to their behavior as well. Do you really need to drink a half unsweet tea and half sweet tea? PUT THE SUGAR IT IN YOURSELF IF YOU'RE THAT PICKY! Or better yet, stay home. Part of what you pay for when going out to eat is the experience, and the more obnoxious you are the less pleasurable I will make your experience. Hey now, you aren't making my life any easy so why should I make yours, and chances are you won't tip approopiatly anyway.
This past Sunday I was taking care of a party of four, one woman at the table decided she wanted a cobb salad. We don't have a cobb salad. There is a menu for a reason. She's probably the same type of woman that will ask the hostess to seat her in a section that doesn't have a server in it.
On two seperate occassions I have had two guys sat at my table five minutes before we close. Both instances the guys took their sweet time deciding what they wanted to eat, and waited to place their order until they had been the only people left sitting in the restaurant because we closed 15 minutes ago. There's steak, chicken, and pasta; it shouoldn't be that difficult. After counting to make sure that they chewed each bite the appropriate amount of times, they paid and tipped less then ten percent. Thank you for forcing me to remain at work and not be able to clean up for 45 minutes so in the end I could pretty much just have that moment with you in my life.
Keep in mind, the tip you leave your server is what pays their bills. If you can afford to eat a porter house steak you better have at least $4 extra with you for that server. Believe me when I say that this is NOT something I do because I enjoy it, it is something I do because I like to eat and sleep with a roof over my head. Unfortunately for me, the fate of whether or not I can pay rent lies in the hands of my guests.
With that explained, how you're food comes out is not a reflection of how I've been taking care of you. The cooks don't get your tip, I do. Sometimes it would be better for you to understand that there is truelly nothing I can do about certain things. No we don't have corn, spinach, pepsi, chips or salsa, chop sticks, mojito's or any other flavor ice cream beside vanilla. The restaurant you eat your food at is not Publix, no matter how desperatly you want it to be.
People will get so aggrivated, they'll sit down and I will greet them with my name and ask them what they'd like to drink. "Ugh, we just sat down." I know. That's why I asked you what you'd like to drink. Sometimes when a single person is waiting for a party they don't want anything, no water, no bread, nothing. They just want to sit there and wait. There are places to sit in the lobby and no one would be offended if you sat up there and waited for them.
A word that servers use more often then they should is camper. When you go out to eat, you should be eating. When you're done eating but you still want to sit and talk, well there's a Starbucks up the road and they aren't losing money if you sit at one of their tables all night. Once the bill is paid your dining experience is over, hopefully.
Another night about a month ago I was serving another party of four. This table was certain that they could order things off the menu that weren't there. "No sir, we don't have a large dinner size portion of the Ahi tuna. We can do that for you but the cost would just be two appetizer Ahi tuna's." But he had it before. And I'm sure that is what he was charged. At the end of the meal they ordered food togo (FYI: just because you want it togo does not mean it will be ready when you are, the food still has to cook, make sure to order togo food before the end of the meal) and paid before it was done. When I got the slip back they had tipped me ten percent on quite a large bill. I had now forgotten about their togo food and just wanted them gone. The Ahi tuna dinner guy came up to me to remind me about their togo food. I grabbed it from the back, intentionally giving them no bread, and put it on the table. As they left they complained to a manager that I threw the bag on the table, "We tipped the standard 15 percent, maybe if she were nicer we would have given her more."
As a server I don't receive a quarterly raise, not even yearly. I don't get one. The standard is no longer 15, it is 20 percent. If the cost of gas is going up how could you not logically expect my tip to.
High school never ends, at least not at a restaurant
Outback is the fourth restaurant I've worked for in Tampa. There was also Bennigan's, Champps and Remington's (never eat at Remington's). When I began at Bennigan's the pretty blond, typical to the front door, told me that the restaurant was just like high school. A couple weeks later when she found out her boyfriend had cheated on her with one of the pretty dumb girls, the pretty blond only sat him with parties of two and minorities. I ended up leaving Bennigan's because I got myself in to too much of the drama. Passing time at two other restaurant's, I eventually found myself at Outback Steakhouse, only to learn that there is going to be drama no matter what I'm serving.
Realizing that the sole purpose of me serving tables is to pay my rent until I get my degree, I attempted to stay out of the drama when I first started at Outback. After being somewhere for two years that decision is no longer up to you. I have outlasted two general managers, a countless number of assistant managers, and a revolving door of individuals who claim to be servers, hostesses, bussers, bartenders, kitchen guy's, and takeaway. I've stood up to the girl who thinks she is better than everyone else. I was among the first to learn about the server who was pregnant with a kitchen manager's baby. I know alot about the dirty laundry that tumbles around in that steakhouse.
As I get older, and gain the experience of four different jobs in the "you're almost there" real world, I'm realizing that the pretty blond was right. It even transmits to the "now you're done with college but have lots of time til you can retire" real world. The upper class of society clique together, just like the girls at the restaurant who carry their Coach purses into work and are only there so it doesn't look like they are spoiled. The clique's are even obvious when the restaurant will go out as a group. For the first year that I worked at Outback I would always make sure to bring a friend with me when meeting co-workers out. I was nice to everyone at work, but never really had my clique to fit into. In the end, I really am ok with that though. Like I said, this job is to pay my rent.
A lazy co-worker, whom I outlasted, was snooping in on the needs of my table one night. It just so happened that he had managed to weasel his way in to not having to take any more tables even though we were still moderately busy, he could not leave the restaurant anyway and people (mainly me) had been there longer than him. So of course he had nothing better to do but to not inform me of the health needs of my table and then obnoxiously hover around and put his two cents in about what was said in on what was said regarding that table. In what was probably not such a polite manner I told him to mind his own business. The lazy co-worker then responded with "I don't like you," and a few more nice words. All I could do was laugh and retort, "Funny, I thought I was here to make money, not friends."
Realizing that the sole purpose of me serving tables is to pay my rent until I get my degree, I attempted to stay out of the drama when I first started at Outback. After being somewhere for two years that decision is no longer up to you. I have outlasted two general managers, a countless number of assistant managers, and a revolving door of individuals who claim to be servers, hostesses, bussers, bartenders, kitchen guy's, and takeaway. I've stood up to the girl who thinks she is better than everyone else. I was among the first to learn about the server who was pregnant with a kitchen manager's baby. I know alot about the dirty laundry that tumbles around in that steakhouse.
As I get older, and gain the experience of four different jobs in the "you're almost there" real world, I'm realizing that the pretty blond was right. It even transmits to the "now you're done with college but have lots of time til you can retire" real world. The upper class of society clique together, just like the girls at the restaurant who carry their Coach purses into work and are only there so it doesn't look like they are spoiled. The clique's are even obvious when the restaurant will go out as a group. For the first year that I worked at Outback I would always make sure to bring a friend with me when meeting co-workers out. I was nice to everyone at work, but never really had my clique to fit into. In the end, I really am ok with that though. Like I said, this job is to pay my rent.
A lazy co-worker, whom I outlasted, was snooping in on the needs of my table one night. It just so happened that he had managed to weasel his way in to not having to take any more tables even though we were still moderately busy, he could not leave the restaurant anyway and people (mainly me) had been there longer than him. So of course he had nothing better to do but to not inform me of the health needs of my table and then obnoxiously hover around and put his two cents in about what was said in on what was said regarding that table. In what was probably not such a polite manner I told him to mind his own business. The lazy co-worker then responded with "I don't like you," and a few more nice words. All I could do was laugh and retort, "Funny, I thought I was here to make money, not friends."
The Birthday Song
When I was younger my dad would take me to Chi-Chi's in the summer and have them put the silly sombrero on my head and sing "Happy Birthday" to me; my birthday is Oct. 6. I look annoyed in every complimentary Polaroid. I might be saying this now as a bitter server, but even if it was my birthday I still would have looked pissed.
Here's a secret about something that happens in the kitchen of a restaurant, don't worry nothing bad is going into your food. No one cares or wants to sing "Happy Birthday" to you. I understand that you may be trying to make this a special day for someone, but chances are you're getting a free scoop of ice cream and a bunch of kids reluctantly singing a song.
For a brief shining moment in my career at Outback we didn't have to sing the birthday song. The song was originally "Bonzer Birthday" with clapping, but the men upstairs decided that the clapping distracted other guests too much. The general manager of the restaurant decided that we sounded awful singing the birthday song with no clapping, so we didn't sing and just dropped off the dessert with a smile. I think it might be because of the restaurant motto "No rules, just right," but I take so much pleasure in telling my guests no. The shocked look on their face gives me such a satisfaction knowing there is nothing they can do about it. Then that manager quit.
Now we don't even get to sing the "Bonzer Birthday" song, we just sing the regular old "Happy Birthday" song. Sometimes, just to be naughty servers, we sing the "Bonzer Birthday" song. The new manager got so upset one night, he scurried around the restaurant attempting to find out whose decision it was to sing the wrong song.
Don't get me wrong, there are some servers that have a great time singing the birthday song. They'll shine the lamp from the table on them and sing the loudest of everyone in the bunch. Maybe it's just because of my multiple unbirthday experiences at Chi-Chi's as a child, but when I think of restaurant birthday singing I agree with the little kid who saw us coming around the corner with his free scoop of ice cream as he gasped "Oh no," and then banged his head on the table.
Here's a secret about something that happens in the kitchen of a restaurant, don't worry nothing bad is going into your food. No one cares or wants to sing "Happy Birthday" to you. I understand that you may be trying to make this a special day for someone, but chances are you're getting a free scoop of ice cream and a bunch of kids reluctantly singing a song.
For a brief shining moment in my career at Outback we didn't have to sing the birthday song. The song was originally "Bonzer Birthday" with clapping, but the men upstairs decided that the clapping distracted other guests too much. The general manager of the restaurant decided that we sounded awful singing the birthday song with no clapping, so we didn't sing and just dropped off the dessert with a smile. I think it might be because of the restaurant motto "No rules, just right," but I take so much pleasure in telling my guests no. The shocked look on their face gives me such a satisfaction knowing there is nothing they can do about it. Then that manager quit.
Now we don't even get to sing the "Bonzer Birthday" song, we just sing the regular old "Happy Birthday" song. Sometimes, just to be naughty servers, we sing the "Bonzer Birthday" song. The new manager got so upset one night, he scurried around the restaurant attempting to find out whose decision it was to sing the wrong song.
Don't get me wrong, there are some servers that have a great time singing the birthday song. They'll shine the lamp from the table on them and sing the loudest of everyone in the bunch. Maybe it's just because of my multiple unbirthday experiences at Chi-Chi's as a child, but when I think of restaurant birthday singing I agree with the little kid who saw us coming around the corner with his free scoop of ice cream as he gasped "Oh no," and then banged his head on the table.
Goofing off at work
This is me and Jordan. At the time she was only 17. When my co-workers are still in high school it makes sense that the restaurant is like high school.
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