In addition to my full time job, I work a couple of nights a week at Buffalo Wild Wings. How I feel about this job varies by the shift but, on the whole, its not so bad. Slinging wings and beer to football fans is a far easier gig than serving overpriced, fancy food to the pretentious snobs at the country club I used to work at.
I'm not trying to toot my own horn, but I am a more-than-decent waitress. I've been doing it for about 10 years, if I wasn't above average by now I'd have hung up my apron. Over the years I have cultivated and eventually mastered the art of being a great waitress. This is a highly underestimated profession, most people do not realize the unique skill set it takes to do this job well. Today I am going to share my secrets for success to all of the 20 Something aspiring servers out there!
1) You have to be nice to people. You have to be nice all the time. You have to smile and laugh even when they are being so rude and hateful you want to throw Blazin' sauce in their eyes. Mastering this technique is probably half the battle.
2) Makes friends with the hosts IMMEDIATELY. These are the people that decide how many tables and the kind of people you get. If they don't like you, they will be far more likely to seat you with a family of 5 little kids who have been waiting for an hour. By the time you greet them the kids are crying, the parents are miserable and you can be sure their crankiness will affect your tip. Even worse, they can constantly sit you with teenagers who will take up your booth drinking water and sharing a basket of french fries for 4 hours. Being friendly with the hosts will ensure you get more quality tables and bigger parties.
3) Speaking of big parties, never, EVER turn on down because you think it will be too much work. This is just good economics. A table of 8 to 10 people can easily rack up a $150 check, which equals out to be $20 to $30 dollars in your pocket (depending on how good a tipper they are). Plus, most restaurants place auto-gratuity on bigger parties so you are usually guaranteed 18%. Would you rather make $30 dollars off of one table or kill yourself trying to take care of the 6 tables of teenagers demanding more water for the same amount?
4) Make friends with everyone in the kitchen, especially the chefs, food runner and expo. In the event of a mistake, the chefs are much more likely to correct it in a timely fashion if the server is nice and polite. When the server is rude and barks orders at them the chefs may take their sweet time in getting the correct order out. If you don't have time to wait for the mistake to be corrected, the food runner and/or expo will often help you out if your are nice, making sure the corrected meal gets out the the customer as soon as possible.
5) Keep a friendly distance between yourself and the other servers. Every restaurant I have ever worked at has been full of cliques, battles and drama. You should be nice to your coworkers and help them out when you can (if you're a bitch there will be no one to help you when you need a shift picked up) but maintain a respectful distance. This will keep you from being swept up in their drama and allow you to focus on what you're there for: making money.
People often ask me why I serve when I have a full time job, or ask me when I think I will stop. Instead of telling them to f*** off for asking such rude questions I just tell them all the same thing, "A dolla makes me holla honey boo boo chile."
I cannot speak for 20 Somethings throughout history for obvious reasons. I can, however, speak for 20 Somethings now, in 2012. We float through our 20s trying to balance the desire to behave in a way that was acceptable a short time ago with the mounting responsibilities of adulthood. Wrapping our minds around this balance is hard enough, but it seems our bodies are rejecting us as well! Long gone are the days of being able to drink all night and still make it (semi-coherently) to our 9 AM class. Now the hangovers are worse, the calories from those sugary cocktails go straight to your ass, and it is a nearly impossible feat to make it to work on time and in a respectable fashion.
Who said adults needed less sleep?
The further I venture into my 20s the more sleep I need! The recovery time after a night of drinking seems to have quadrupled. Should I indulge in a few cocktails (considerably less than what used to constitute a night of drinking) it isn't unlikely that I will spend the whole next day in bed, getting up only to dry-heave, put my feet on the floor to slow down the spins, and drink Gatorade.
20 Somethings are also having a hard time economically. I am lucky in that I have had full-positions since the day I graduated, but I have always had a second job to get by financially. Many are not so lucky and curse the $100,000 in loans they took out to go to college, only to be working part-time or still interning 5 years later. Many go back to school, putting off the job search until more jobs are available and hoping their advanced degree will give them an advantage. Most still live at home, using what they would spend on rent to chip away at their mountain of debt. While some are lazy, spoiled, or have an unrealistic sense of entitlement, the majority of us are doing what we have to do to get by.
20 Somethings struggle with relationships. Many of us are putting off marriage and having kids until our careers are (somewhat) on track. This isn't stopping us from having relationships (or flings...or dates...or one night stands) but it is extending the period of being able to date inappropriate people. We don't feel the pressure to settle down with Dave the accountant, buy a house and pop out 2.5 kids by the time we are 30. Instead, we are having fun pursuing the hot bartender who doesn't have a checking account. Maybe this isn't really a struggle, since (lets be honest) the inappropriate guys are always way more fun, but there is a problem. 20 Something women are always (at least subconsciously) on the prowl for The One. We all want to be Samantha Jones but deep down inside, most of us are Charlotte Yorks. So now we are dating inappropriate guys and trying to turn them into The One, which is an exhausting and frustrating process (for both parties) that will inevitably end in tears.
Putting off marriage and family starting has also lead to a huge increase in unmarried couples moving in together. This has been a societal taboo basically since the beginning of time and so now we have the added stigma of being a generation that can't commit. In our defense, the cost of living is at an all time high and salaries (at least for us) are at an all time low. If we want to move out of Mom and Dad's house we can either get a roommate and relive our years of living in the dorms or shack up with whatever inappropriate guy we're dating and hope he can cover his half of the rent.
I know 20 Somethings are dealing with a lot more, these just seemed to be the most looming issues. What are you struggling with the most right now?
