1) Don’t rip a dude’s steak in half with your bare hands.
No matter how perfectly cooked you know a steak is and how infuriatingly obnoxious the customer is about its perfection, try to keep your cool. My favorite incident from working at the Crazy Woman Café last summer was when our cook, Steve, infamously lost his temper over a couple of snooty tourists traveling through (snooty being defined as: they sipped wine and had a small poodle shivering under their chairs and complained about the heat and flies and dirt and general…country-ness of the country-side.) The man insisted that his medium rare was too medium and not enough rare, and then went so far as to insult Steve's pride further by insisting not to pay for any of the food. Steve answered this by picking up the man's steak, tearing it into two pieces with his hands, and daring him to tell him if that red interior was not in fact medium rare. The man's face was still on the pale side of pale when I returned with their change.
The customers left in a disheveled huff and headed to the bar right away to tell everyone what had happened, in what I imagine was an attempt to gather a group to come back to the Cafe and confront Steve. I was alarmed for Steve's safety, but he just laughed it off, reminding me that no one likes a snooty tourist who can't handle his own.
2) Get to know your support.
Without the cooks, bussers, dishwashers and maintenance the whole operation of a restaurant would fall apart. I hate the waitresses who consider themselves higher than their support staff, and who cannot sympathize with them when the dishes pile up and things fall behind. My very first job was as a dishwasher in a Thailand food joint, and ever since those Wasabi-perfumed days I have developed great respect for the men and women that run behind the scenes. Often they work the longest hours, and the only kind of positive feedback they will get in a day will have to come from you.
Plus, in my experience, the support staff are usually some of the funniest characters you will ever meet.
3) If you plan on eating food at the place you work, don't watch how it's prepared.
4) The customer is not always right.
Whether it's the racist woman at McDonald's who demanded a full refund because her daughter's Happy Meal toy was African American, or the jerks who come in five minutes before closing and leave a large mess after loitering for an hour, or the wasters who will order five tons of food before deciding they weren't so hungry after all...it is my firmest belief that customers are wrong as often as anyone else in the world, sometimes even more so.
Of course, if you want to keep your job for any length of time you must still treat the yellers, the abusers, the hot-heads and the racists with a shred of polite manners and try to rise above your own emotions to solve the situation. They will test your patience. They will make it very very tempting to dump a plate of leftovers over their cars. They will even occasionally cause you to have violent daydreams. But stay strong, because customers can also turn your day around with a compliment, a smile, or a big tip. The vast majority of people you will serve will be alright, maybe even great, and you will come to love the regulars with the big hearts, the big stomachs and yes, I'll admit (but what waitress wouldn't?) the big wallets.
If all else fails, let the manager deal with the bad ones and move on.
5) You are not just a number.
You clock in by punching in a number. Your schedule may list a number rather than a name. Your day will be made up of numbers: head count, tables, totals, tips, change and paychecks. But you are not a machine. You are not merely the means to an order of fries or a mop when things get messy. You are a human being who deserves to be looked in the eye. You deserve to have your name remembered. You deserve to be thanked when you put in that extra ten percent and you deserve to be recognized after a long, exhausting day. But most of the time, you won't be treated the way you deserve, because hungry people are cranky people and when the place gets slammed everyone is on pins and needles.
But don't sweat it. When you get off the clock, go have some "me" time, spend some tip money on something for you and keep the good days in your pocket to pull out and remember when things seem frustrating.
6) Know the menu.
Even if you're new and have never tasted a bite of what your restaurant serves, know at least three favorites that people often order so when someone asks "what's good here?" you will have an answer. Also, families love it when you know the kids menu, the cheapest deals, and the healthier meals.
7) Like any family, coworkers can either be your best friends or your bitterest pains in the you-know-where. Learn patience.
I have befriended coworkers, dated them, avoided them, hated them, and loved them. There are some people that you simply will not be able to stand and some people that you will remain close with for your entire life. It isn't always up to you whether you work with people you like, but you can control how you deal with them. Be patient, be polite, don't gossip about them with other coworkers to create more drama, and as much as possible, try to keep an open heart. Sometimes they will surprise you.
8) Try to make things into a game.
When confronting stacks of greasy dishes, lines of ravenous customers, or a bathroom that looks like it ought to be condemned, don't lose hope. I have been in all of these situations, and I know that on the days I was angry, bitter or upset these tasks seemed like mountains that I had to move alone. When I could bring myself to think of them in terms of games instead--how many dishes could I do in five minutes, how many customers could I get to laugh in a day, or considering that bathroom a dragon's lair that I had to clean before the dragon came back and devoured me--not only did the work go faster but I was a little less grumpy about having to do them.
This will not work every time. Nor will it always make you feel better. But it's worth the little sanity it will save you.
9) If you absolutely hate it, don't work there.
Don't ever force yourself to work somewhere that you hate for too long. Keep looking and applying for other places rather than settle where you know you can't be happy. I have four years of food service experience ranging from dish-washer, busser, soda jerk, waitress, drive-thru, fast-food, and service leader. And aside from the odd bad day, I have loved all my jobs. Food service is one of few jobs where people are completely raw and exposed, either at their best or their worst. It is my humble opinion that nowhere are people more fascinating, more challenging, more quirky and bizarre or more generous than in food service.
