Chapter 1: The Food Industry

Chapter 1

The Food Industry

            The wonderful world of food:  how I love it, yet how I loath it. It was the summer of 2009 when it happened. I was looking for a job because I was fresh out of college with my bachelor’s degree and like every other college graduate, couldn’t find a job in their field. Being that my degree was in radio, naturally the first place I looked for a job was a restaurant.

 I applied to be a waiter which for some reason was something I always wanted to try. As odd as it sounds, I have always admired the people who work in the food industry because of their hard work ethic and it seemed as though they always had a swagger about them. Little did I know how frustrating it was. First and foremost, I still can’t believe they hired me. I must have made myself look like Jesus incarnate because there was no way in hell I knew I was going to be good at that job. Either that or they needed people badly.  But needless to say in the end I got the job. This was an exciting day for me. Technically this was the first job I had ever gotten on my own. I didn’t know anyone who worked there, my parents didn’t refer me, and it wasn’t a charity job. I was finally a man… working a job predominantly possessed by women.

My first day was kind of intimidating. It was a job I had exactly no experience in and a job in which the multi tasker reigned supreme. Though I can be 100% honest in saying that I have done my fair share of multi tasking, I was nowhere near the level of these people. Some of these people could literally carry 6 glasses with their hands while carrying two other plates on their arms. It was unreal. They had hands like Andre the Giant and the balance of Mary Lou Retton. Me? I have hands that are a little bigger than Vern Troyer and the balance of a zombie. So I had to work on that.

            Throughout training, the people who were doing the training made everything look so easy. Pretty much everything I will be complaining about later in this chapter never happened to these people, I swear to God. I don’t know if this made me a bad server, or I just got the shit end of the stick. Either way it sucked. For example… These people never had problems having more than 4 or 5 tables at a time. It was like a cattle rancher rustling up their cattle. It looked like they have been doing it for years, and in some cases some of them were. It amazed me how good they were at there jobs. I struggled having more than 3 tables at a time. Forget it if I had a table with more than four people at it either. That meant it was panic mode time for me. People actually laughed at the fact at the way I would get so frustrated. I am an emotional person, what can I say?

            After my training was done, it’s like I was in another world. I thought I wouldn’t be that bad at the job, or as bad as I once thought. I mean how hard could it be? And then my first table came in. I remember like it was yesterday. Before I talk about the couple you have to understand one thing, people over the age of 40 have to eat three square meals a day. Breakfast is generally anywhere from 6-7am because they get up absurdly early. Then by the time they watch there stories, they go to lunch. This is typically anywhere from 10-11am. Then they have to eat their supper somewhere between 4-6pm. There is some leeway here and this also matters from old person to old person. At the place I worked at, we usually got most of our elderly patrons during lunch because of the lunch special. The restaurant opened at 11am on the dot, and typically at 10:55am there was a line of old people outside banging on the door. I am not even exaggerating. Then they came in. For people who have never worked in the restaurant business, the person at the end of the seating rotation gets seated first. I was in section 8 which in this case, was the last section in the restaurant, so I got the nut jobs banging on the door.

            At first glance they looked like a normal couple in their late 50’s or maybe early 60’s. A nice old couple you would see likely spending most of their time scrounging around the local Goodwill or bouncing around from flea market to flea market on a Sunday afternoon. Don’t ask me how I knew this, its just one of those instincts people have. The nerves were starting to get to me now being that it was my first table on my own EVER. They sit down… not one on each side, but both on the same side. Now in my opinion, that’s strange. I think the proper etiquette, known all across the wide world, is that if there are only two people in a booth or a table, you sit on opposite sides. That’s just what ya do. Being that most people in our society base a lot of what they think about people on their first impressions, I obviously was in for a treat.

            I walk up to these people after I give them a few seconds to get settled and I say my spiel. First of all, the place I worked at had this shtick that was insane. It literally took at least a minute out of these peoples time just to hear everything that not only you HAD to say, but you got penalized if you didn’t. It consisted of suggestive selling, which again in my opinion is a complete waste of time and oxygen. I would estimate that from my time working at this place, about 90% of the people that came in already knew what they were getting. It didn’t matter that you had to suggestive sell a couple alcoholic beverages because no one in their right mind, especially in a semi hillbilly town, wants to spend $8 on sangria. That’s just how it goes. Not only did we have to suggestive sell those alcoholic beverages, we had to also had to suggest at least two appetizers. This is just in the first part and you have to do this throughout the meal. I know when I go out to eat I am not trying to make friends with my server. Honestly I could tell in most of these people’s faces that they were annoyed by the whole premise. Anyway back to these people.

            After I say everything that is needed and about 5 minutes has passed, they order their drinks. Now at the time I had absolutely no problem with this but it is every server’s worst nightmare. Literally the server’s kryptonite is a guest who orders water. Not only does it make your blood boil because it’s bringing your check average down, it just screams that the people are cheap. Well, either cheap or health conscious but who’s counting that. So I go get the damn waters and bring them out. Little did I know that these people needed lemon with their water. Apparently this is a universally known thing; you are supposed to serve lemon with water. Who knew right? Not only did they ask for one slice of lemon, they asked for extra lemon. For what you ask? So they could make their own lemonade obviously. Cheap asses… You may be asking yourself, who actually does that? A lot of people actually. Not only did I have people who do that on numerous occasions, I had a regular customer that would actually make me bring him out 4 glasses of water. Now that is four glasses of water FOR HIMSELF. The guy was a God damn camel. I don’t know where he held it. I would have to refill them at least once or twice during the meals to. The dude was a nice guy, he just drank waaaaaay too much in my opinion.

            On the same level as the whole water issue brings me to another drink that may have been just as annoying, chocolate milk. Kids love this stuff. It’s like their crack. I may have been the only person who despised making this drink or I was the only one who actually said anything about it. After all I am writing a book about things that piss me off. As a server, you sort of have this biological clock going in your head. After you get in a groove you kind of know when your tables are going to need something. But there is always something that throws you off. One of those things that always threw me off was some stupid kid coming in and getting a fee meal. Why would this throw me off? Because kids are so friging specific, that’s why. They always want stupid shit like macaroni and cheese with no cheese or a hot dog without a bun. And like I said before, these kids love their chocolate milk. No one understands what we had to go through to make this stuff. Every drink in the restaurant is prepped and ready for the server for purposes of speed and convenience. The pop comes out of the fountains and all of the alcoholic beverages are made by the bar tenders. We literally didn’t have to do anything, unless someone ordered, you guessed it, chocolate milk. For this task we had to first locate the children’s sized cups which we had to basically child proof by putting a sealed lid on. Then we had to get in everyone’s way and get the milk out of the cooler, which just so happened to be by the exit of the kitchen. Then we had to search for the chocolate syrup, which was never in the same place. One time I actually found it by the sink where people washed their hands because that makes total sense. Not even joking. Then we mixed it together, and being that the syrup was sot hick this took a solid 20 seconds, which is an eternity in a server’s world. Insanity, that’s what that is.

            Speaking of free things, I hated birthdays. And to tell you the truth, doing the “happy happy” song for every fucking birthday that came into that place sort of made me numb to the whole birthday experience for the rest of my life. I hated doing the birthday song so much, I had this plan worked out with the hostesses that when they had any sort of inkling that there was a birthday in the party, that they would skip me in the seating rotation. Cruel? Yes, but basically needed if I wanted to keep my sanity. The premise of the free dessert for any birthday is sort of a good idea, but I know for a fact that people scam that whole process. Like I said before, people are cheap, so any way they can get an extra 500 calories for free is a God send to some of these people. I think we should have to card these people. In a business sense, I know these desserts are $3 that the company is losing but there has to be some sort of skepticism that every other child that comes in to eat just so happens to have a birthday. The birthday festivities consisted of having all of the servers get together to walk out and sing to these people while we clap our hands and act like we gave a damn. Well I never did. Truth be told, I made a conscious effort to not smile and star daggers at these people. I mean not only are they wasting their own time by hearing this awful song, they are wasting our time and energy on something we actually care about, making money.

 I remember one specific family that came in. They weren’t in my section mind you, being that my system worked, but none the less we had to do the birthday process for them. This wasn’t just any birthday song though; we were singing it for a dead woman. It was a family of four, well I guess three, who were celebrating their mothers death birthday. What the hell is a death birthday? Anyway, they had a balloon and a picture of the woman who had died and they wanted the dessert because it was the woman’s death birthday. Of course there were no rules against people celebrating this ridiculous event and they gave them the free dessert. There was no rule against this because, naturally, no one knew what the hell a death birthday was. Fucked up let me tell you and by far one of the weirdest things that ever happened to me in my time as a server.

Management in this place was also a waste of time. For some odd reason there had to be five different managers, none of which seemed like they knew what they were doing. I guess there were five managers for motivational purposes? That would be my guess. I’m not going to describe any of these people for obvious reasons, but trust me in saying that they were most likely the worst leaders ever. They were a rag tag group of misfits thrown together for one purpose, running the worst possible establishment in the history of food.

Let’s start with the leader of all of the managers. For our purposes we will refer to him as the main man. The main man was generally a good person and was probably the only one who actually knew what they were doing in terms of management. He did something that I think is important in the leading process, lead by example. He would do things such as bus tables and roll silverware when no one had the time. Actually, my co-servers used to make fun of the fact that he would roll silverware so much that his degree was in that subject. But even though he was probably the best manager there, he had one thing that was his downfall. He loved women. Ill let your mind wonder on that subject for a little while… He loved women so much that apparently he was fired after I left for that very reason. He was actually the one who did my interview and it actually made me wonder why he hired me. Must have been my rack.

I am going to fit three of the other managers together because they were basically useless. The one was a manager for no reason at all and mainly worked behind the bar. She was a nice woman who knew the art of making a drink, but that’s about all. The manager of the kitchen staff had a very important job. He was basically the heart of the kitchen and yet he worried more about cracking a joke than making a well done steak correctly. I can actually count on one hand how many times I laughed at one of his jokes and yet lost count how many times I had to bring back a steak for not being done well enough. The guy was an ass. Then there was the prep manager. She mainly stayed in the back of the building and did nothing. I lie; she made the mixed vegetables and salted the tortilla chips. That’s about it though. The main purpose of these three people was not actually to manage anything but yet to come out during our staff meetings and yell at us. It could be for anything really. Wasting food, using to much ice, the weather, or even the music that was playing from the droning radio station. They were all pieces of work. Glad I probably wont see them ever again in my life.

Then last but not least there was the second in command. She knew more about 80’s hairstyles than the production of food. She used to come in sort of looking like Dee Snyder. I like Twisted Sister, and I hated this woman. So you could see what kind of predicament this put me in. When I say I hate this woman, I actually loathed her. She was the epitome of evil. Like legitimately, she is one of the only people in this world I have thought about hitting before. This is really bad because I think one of the worst things a man can do in this world is hitting a woman. But she did look like Dee Snyder so the thought crossed my mind. The reason I hated her so much was for one reason and one reason alone… She was the bitchiest bitch of all time. Even the bitchy girls thought she was a bitch. The one thing that sticks out in my mind more than any other situation was one of the many times she wrote me up for stupid reasons.

Once upon a time I was doing my job. Then a magical fairy tickled my nose while I was taking an order. Right next to the table I was taking the order from was a stack of small 5inch by 5inch beverage napkins were sitting there for the servers to grab on their way to the tables. God forbid I grabbed a beverage napkin and covered my nose with it while I sneezed because apparently this was the wrong thing to do. Unfortunately for me the second in command was looking right at me when it happened. As you could imagine, the family that I was taking the order from took it in stride and really didn’t care. Would you like to know why? Because sneezing is a natural human reaction, that’s why. According to the eyes of the manager it wasn’t though and actually saw fit to write me up for this outrageous misunderstanding. According to this woman, anyone in this situation should have sneezed in their arm, not their hand. Because the laws of physics state that your brain has enough time from when you realize you have to sneeze to figuring out where and when you are going to sneeze on your body. It’s literally a natural reaction to raise your hand and cover your mouth with it. That’s why I was so dumbfounded when I found out she was actually reprimanding me for this natural reaction. I honestly asked her if I was going to get written up for walking at a brisk pace next. How do people like this have a job? I did all I could do in the situation to cover my ass. I even went straight back and washed my hands right after it happened. But whatever, that’s how the bitch worked. She got off on other peoples misfortunes.   

            A lot of people get in the serving trade for a little extra cash in their pocket. And trust me, if you are good at it you can make a good bit. I remember some nights when I was on my game I would leave with over $100, which was really good night. I knew some people that would bring in 2 bills on a double. Hell, if you work at an actual nice establishment in the city, I knew some people who would bring in almost $1000 on a weekend. That’s ludicrous. I think there should be an actual law on how much a person has to tip because most people don’t know how. Being that I worked in the industry and I know how hard it is, I tend to tip a weird way. I usually tip 25% of the total bill where most people tip anywhere from 10%-15%.I tend to be very generous with the tip especially if they are good at what they do. People don’t tend to realize that servers, no matter where they work, only make $2.13 an hour. Tips are where they make their money.

            There are actually different kinds of tippers and I have classified them in four groups. Let’s start from the top shall we? A server’s best friend is not just a person who tips, but tips well. They are the people who may over tip, but are much appreciated among the restaurant community. These people usually consist of the upper class or even business men who don’t care what they spend since it’s on a business account. Then there is a step down to the people who tip a little above average. Usually they have a family and tend to tip more especially if they have small ones in their group. Children just throw shit all over the place, literally and figurtivly, so they usually leave a little more for our troubles. Next are the normal tippers. They don’t go a penny over 10%-15%. You can point these people out because they usually are doing math on their cell phones once the bill is given. Then last but not least are the little to no tippers. This is mainly four groups of people… high school kids, jack ass hillbilly trailer trash, church goers, and old people. The worst of those four groups are the old people, by far. I know I already complained about these people before but it needs said again. The elderly tend to still think its 1950 and tip accordingly. The church goers are also pretty bad because they do leave a monetary tip, but usually cut it in half and include a trinket about religion which is absolutely silly. It may seem as though these groups of people have absolutely nothing in common, but they really do. They don’t make any money. Stay away from those people if you can. In all honesty try and establish some sort of relationship with your hostesses and try and work something out like I did with the birthdays. It’s the best possible thing you could if you actually want to make some dough.  While I am on the subject of old people in restaurants, I can genuinely say that they pissed me off the most in my short time as a server.

            Later on in the job process of life I took a second job as a pizza delivery guy. Generally, pizza delivery dudes make some good money. I mean not like really good money as if I were working a desk job for some high end company, but they make some cash. My uncle Scott was actually the one who talked me into getting this job. He delivers pizzas on the weekend and makes so much money that he pays for his hockey season tickets, and then some. That sounded absolutely amazing to me. It just so happened at that time a good friend of mine by the name of Sterling got a job at a pizza joint by his house in Greensburg and told me they were looking for drivers. I was all in at this point.

            Now don’t even think about the fact that at this point gasoline is well over $3 a gallon and let’s not even mention the fact that this place doesn’t have a company car to lend to their drivers. All I was seeing ahead of me was that cash money. So needless to say I get the job. On my first day all hell breaks loose already, like I should expect anything else. First of all, the computers in this fucking place are as big as a damn coffee table and are run on like MS Dos. I mean, it’s a green and black screen. Freaking ridiculous. Trying to figure out this thing was like going back in time. So when I finally figured out how to actually punch in to work, which took nearly 15 minutes, I then got to the actual work itself. The first day on any job has its stresses. I don’t care if you’re doing something as simple as delivering pizzas or something hard like computer engineering or something, there are always going to be things in the first day that throw you in a loop.

            I knew how to cut a pizza, so that was good. I didn’t have to figure that one out. I knew how to answer a phone, so check that one. And I knew how to drive a car. I guess all I needed to do now was actually deliver a damn pie. Of course, my first day was a really slow day. A great way of boosting my confidence for thinking I was actually there to make money. About an hour of standing around passes and I get my first delivery, oh joy. At this point I wasn’t privy to that fact that literally about 85% of the town is apartments. Not apartment buildings, which there are quite a few of those, but actual houses that are divided into multiple apartments that are rented out to either dead beats, college students, and old or disabled people. By the way, all of those people don’t tip. So my first delivery is of course to one of these general classes, the old and disabled person. It’s to an apartment building that I swear to God is secured like Fort freaking Knox because I can’t figure it out. So I call the lady. She doesn’t answer. I call again. No answer. So I leave on another delivery. About two minutes after I leave the building this lady calls me and sounds like she’s on her death bed. She has the lowest voice I have ever heard come out of a woman, her voice is sort of gargled, and she is speaking the worst grammatical sentence I have ever heard come out of a human mouth. So I go back. I give her a call again when I get there to let me in, and she doesn’t answer the fucking phone again. Needless to say at this point I was pissed. I was ready to quit the job already if it was always going to be like this. But eventually I got a hold of her and got the pizza to her. The little old lady was a little slow, so I figured I would be able to get some money out of her. As bad as that sounds, a mans gotta do what a mans gotta do. But my plan failed, miserably.

            This is when I realized that this job was not going to be any different from my job at the restaurant. People are still going to stiff you and people don’t give a shit if gas is $1 or $6. They are still going to make you drive three miles down and three miles back and give you a $1.50 tip or less. I kept thinking to myself, how can people be so thoughtless? And then I thought, “well, people are assholes.” Which brings me to another point, why the hell don’t these places pay mileage? The job would defiantly be worth it if the mileage was paid because then all of your tip money, or lack thereof, would not be going toward your car. I have a very simple solution. I don’t know about other places, but the place I work for charges $1.50 delivery fee for absolutely no reason. That is $1.50 that they are charging that goes straight into their pockets. I would estimate there being at least 250-300 deliveries made out of that one store alone per week. That would be anywhere from $350- $450 in pure profit per week. And that’s on a normal week. So that means on a normal pay period of two weeks, potentially the store could make upwards to over $1000 of pure freaking profit without giving their drivers a bit of it for gasoline. In my opinion that’s absolutely ridiculous. You ask me why you can’t hold onto drivers in a couple of months when gas is over $4 a gallon. Honestly, how greedy do you have to be?  

Don’t get me wrong, I actually liked both of those jobs for a lot of reasons. Everyone I worked with usually thought the same things I did about mostly everything I have talked about. I made a lot of friends at these jobs and I actually still keep in touch with everyone. It’s just there was bad management and that basically brought everything down not to mention that people don’t give a shit about service. Those weren’t the only factors though.  

Coming tomorrow... Chapter 2: (most) Women/ Relationships. Enjoy!