a jerk.

Be a man and dump your girl at home, not in public. You're taking up space and making everyone around you uncomfortable. It's rude to others and you are

Everybody's an expert

Restaurant #2 is a fine-dining establishment. It's a nice change of pace from the crabhouse, fine dining is what I'm used to. I have to mind my manners at this place.

I was part of the opening team for this restaurant. We opened in late January after a little over two weeks of training. The restaurant is part of a pretty large group of restaurants based out of New York City, so they pretty much had all of their ducks in a row as far as how we would be trained. Some of my co-workers would disagree, but screw them, I've opened two other restaurants; I've seen worse.

When you're a new server at an established business, obviously there are people working there that have been there longer than you. Some of these people might have opened the place. At any rate, you'll probably be training with someone who has more experience at that restaurant than other servers. Every restaurant has rules in place about how things are done; how you approach a table, how you deliver drinks, how you ring orders in, where things go, and so on and so on. You learn all these things while you're training and if you don't always agree, oh well. We all have opinions, but it's not YOUR restaurant, you still have to follow the basic guidelines.

Now imagine you are walking in to train at a restaurant where everybody is new. There are no older servers, just your trainers from New York that work in other restaurants. It's pretty chaotic. We had five trainers to about forty-some servers, food runners and bartenders. And these poor people are training "experienced" servers.

The problem with "experienced" servers is that everybody is an expert. "Experienced" runs the gamut from the chick who has had only one other restaurant job a LONG time ago to the guy who used to manage a couple of places before landing this job. In between you have the girls who MIGHT have worked at one other fine-dining establishment for about a year, the guys who HAVE worked at plenty of nice restaurants, ( the key word here is plenty, they'd bounced around the city quite a bit ), and the female that ran her mouth about working in the best restaurant across the river but somehow ended up with us. Lucky us. All these people have "experience" and all these people know everything.

It was a nightmare. There were quite a few people who were quite vociferous in letting everyone know that they knew everything. It was like that nerdy kid in school who shoots his hand up in the air before the question is even halfway out of the teacher's mouth. Except it was adults finishing sentences for trainers. Loud. So everyone could hear and benefit from their knowledge. I was so glad they were there.

It was about everything; the food, points of service, wine. One guy in particular would flat out argue with the trainers. If a trainer was telling us where a particular cheese was from, someone would interrupt to elaborate on the subject. The best was the wine tastings, people would say the DUMBEST shit. There is nothing worse than someone who doesn't know anything about wine trying to sound like they do. Wine is an area where you can be soooooo wrong! I used to be a wine steward, I know what I'm talking about.

This happened every day and all day during training. Someone would interrupt, or King Know-It-All would tell everyone they were wrong, and you could see the trainers jaws tighten. I know mine did. It was rude and it really sucked for the people that maybe actually wanted to learn something. I am a big fan of shut your mouth and listen. We would have moved along alot faster if everyone would have just shut up.

But, everyone was an expert, and we all needed to know it. Training was fun with these people, but the actual opening was pure joy. That's another post, my jaw is tight : ) Stay tuned...

The phone: Part One

I enjoy the crabhouse, but there are some things that simply annoy the crap out of me. The biggest annoyance is......the Phone.

Some mornings I am completely by myself. Things can get a little hectic. It usually happens like this:

Table one orders crabs. Put them in and go get table two's drink order, (table one is inside, table two is outside; opposite ends of the restaurant). The ladies at table two order a Bloody Mary and a dramarific frozen drink. Of course it takes the lady awhile to CHOOSE her dramarific frozen drink; that's another story for another day. No problem. Go behind the bar to make the labour-intensive Bloody Mary, (we don't have Bloody Mary mix), and, of course, the frozen drink.

In the middle of trying to whip these up, the kitchen guy calls that the crabs are ready for table one. No problem. Then the Phone rings.

Phone calls at this place are never easy. Maybe it's a language barrier: proper English versus Southern Maryland English. Maybe comprehension time is slower here. Either way, no matter what, they are NEVER quick phone calls.

Me: " Blah, blah, blah"

Them: " Do ya'll have crabs?"

Me: " Right now we have all you can eats for $20 a person, a dozen mediums for $30, a dozen larges for $40 and jumbos are $60 a dozen, all while quantities last."

Them: "While.....what lasts?"

Me: While quantities last."

Them: "While what?"

Me: "While we have them available."

Them: "Oh. Do you think you'll run out?"

Me: " It depends on how busy we get and how many people order them."

Them: "Are ya'll gonna get busy?"

Me: "We should get busy but I can't say how it'll go with the crabs."

Them: " What about around 7, will ya'll have crabs then?"

[ Remember, a labour-intensive Bloody Mary and a dramarific frozen drink are waiting to be finished. And don't forget the crabs..]

Me: "We should."

Them: " So if we come in around 7, we can get crabs?"

Me: " I honestly can't guarantee that, I don't know how busy we'll be, how fast the crabs will go out, or if we'll be getting anymore in today. Call before you come down here."

Them: "Ok. Will ya'll have crabs tomorrow?"

Me: " Call tomorrow."

Click.

That's no lie.

It's certainly not a classy joint, so me barking answers into the phone while I deliver food to a table is somewhat acceptable. I don't like to do it, but sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do

That is probably the most common phone call. And it pretty much always goes the same way. There are variations:

Them: " If I come in two weeks from Saturday, will ya'll have crabs?"

Me: "Call then."

Them: "Do ya'll have jumbos today?"

Me: "Yes."

Them: "If I come in two weeks from Saturday can I reserve 2 dozen jumbos?"

Me: "I don't know if we'll have them then."

Them: " I can't reserve 2 dozen jumbos for two weeks from Saturday??"

Me: "No"

Them: "It's a birthday party."

Let me get Neptune on that, buddy. Birthday party changes EVERYTHING.

Believe me, there's plenty more where this came from. At least the ladies liked their drinks : )

I work in restaurants. It started as a way to get through school and ended up as a career. As far as jobs go, it certainly isn't boring. Right now I work at two restaurants, and they could not be any more different. One is fine-dining just outside of the city and the other is.....a crabhouse. The stories I tell will make you cringe, and they might make you cry,( in a good way ). Every day is an adventure, especially if you're a server!